Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Science, Culture, & Humanities => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on January 23, 2007, 05:08:35 AM
-
The dilemma of a deadly disease: patients may be forcibly detained
Doctors fear TB strain could cause a global pandemic if it is not controlled
Chris McGreal in Johannesburg and Sarah Boseley, health editor
Tuesday January 23, 2007
Guardian
South Africa is considering forcibly detaining people who carry a deadly
strain of tuberculosis that has already claimed hundreds of lives. The
strain threatens to cause a global pandemic, but the planned move pits
public protection against human rights.
The country's health department says it has discussed with the World Health
Organisation and South Africa's leading medical organisations the
possibility of placing carriers of extreme drug resistant TB or XDR-TB under
guard in isolation wards until they die, but has yet to reach a decision.
Pressure to take action has been growing since a woman diagnosed with the
disease discharged herself from a hospital last September and probably
spread the infection before she was finally coaxed back when she was
threatened with a court order.
More than 300 cases of the highly infectious disease, which is spread by
airborne droplets and kills 98% of those infected within about two weeks,
have been identified in South Africa.
But doctors believe there have been hundreds, possibly thousands, more and
the numbers are growing among the millions of people with HIV, who are
particularly vulnerable to the disease. Their fear is that patients with
XDR-TB, told that there is little that can be done for them, will leave the
isolation wards and go home to die. But while they are still walking around
they risk spreading the infection.
Now a group of doctors has warned in a medical journal that if enforced
isolation is not introduced XDR-TB could swamp South Africa and spread far
beyond its borders. Regular TB is already the single largest killer of
people with Aids in South Africa.
Pandemic
Jerome Amir Singh of the Centre for Aids Programme of Research in South
Africa and two colleagues wrote in the peer-reviewed journal Public Library
of Science Medicine that the government must overcome its understandable
qualms over human rights in the interests of the majority. Without
exceptional control measures, including enforced isolation, XDR-TB "could
become a lethal global pandemic", they say.
"The containment of infectious patients with XDR-TB may arguably take
precedence over any other patients not infected with highly infectious and
deadly airborne diseases, including those with full-blown Aids. This is an
issue requiring urgent attention from the global community," they wrote.
"The South African government's initial lethargic response to the crisis and
uncertainty amongst South African health professionals concerning the
ethical, social and human rights implications of effectively tackling this
outbreak highlight the urgent need to address these issues lest doubt and
inaction spawn a full-blown XDR-TB epidemic in South Africa and beyond."
Mary Edginton of the Witwatersrand university's medical school endorses
enforced quarantining.
"You can look at it from two points of view. From the patient's point of
view, you are expected to stay in some awful place, you can't work and you
can't see your family. You will probably die there. From the community's
point of view such a person is infectious. If they go to the shops or wander
around their friends they can spread it, potentially to a large group of
people," she said.
Karin Weyer of the Medical Research Council has called for enforced
hospitalisation of high-risk TB patients on the grounds that the risks to
society outweigh individual rights. But she opposes forcible treatment
because of the dangers associated with the drugs.
Professor Edginton said that medical authorities in the US and other
countries can obtain a court order to detain a person with infectious TB or
someone who is non-infectious but has failed to adhere to treatment. "The
Americans are much better at enforcing their laws on this," she said.
South African law also permits enforced isolation but some lawyers say it
comes into conflict with the constitutional guarantees on individual rights.
However, the constitution also guarantees communal rights, including
protection from infection and the right to a safe environment.
South Africa's health department yesterday said it has discussed the
possibility of enforced isolation with the country's Medical Research
Council and the World Health Organisation but has not reached a conclusion.
Poor housing
Ronnie Green-Thompson, a special adviser to the health department, said the
issue at stake is the human rights of the individual weighed against the
rights of the wider public. "The issue of holding the patient against their
will is not ideal but may have to be considered in the interest of the
public. Legal opinion and comment as well as sourcing the opinion of human
rights groups is important," he said.
"Also of importance is preventing those factors that lead to infectious TB
and these are poverty, poor housing, overcrowding and poor nutrition and any
other factors that weakens patients' resistance to acquiring infections."
Umesh Lalloo, of Durban's Nelson Mandela School of Medicine and head of the
research team into the first XDR-TB outbreak, said he is not persuaded that
detention is necessary.
"It's a very difficult call. Given our recent past with human rights
violations we need to be careful. I'm not dismissing such a move but it's a
very radical step. What we should be pushing for is a reinforcement of the
TB control programme which would contain the spread," he said. Professor
Lalloo said one consideration is that almost all infections appear to have
spread to patients in hospital.
The doctors and co-authors said that it is essential that patients were
detained in "humane and decent living conditions" and they urged the
government to change the rules so that those in hospital with TB continue to
receive welfare payments which are cut off if they are treated at the
state's expense.
Although cases of XDR-TB were discovered in South Africa a decade ago, the
disease started claiming dozens of lives at the small Tugela Ferry hospital
in rural KwaZulu-Natal two years ago. XDR-TB's origins are uncertain but the
WHO says the misuse of anti-tuberculosis drugs is the most likely cause.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
-
INDONESIA: Two pigs in Bali, Indonesia, have become infected with the bird flu virus, Chinese medical expert Zhong Nanshan said. The virus' detection in pigs raises concerns that the virus could be transmitted to people.
stratfor.com
-
Today's NY Times:
Virulent TB in South Africa May Imperil Millions
By MICHAEL WINES
Published: January 28, 2007
JOHANNESBURG, Jan. 27 — More than a year after a virulent strain of tuberculosis killed 52 of 53 infected patients in a rural South African hospital, experts here and abroad say the disease has most likely spread to neighboring countries, and some say urgent action is essential to halt its advance.
Several expressed concern at what they called South Africa’s sluggish response to a health emergency that, left unchecked, could prove hugely expensive to contain and could threaten millions across sub-Saharan Africa.
The director of the government’s tuberculosis programs called those concerns unfounded and said officials were doing everything reasonable to combat the outbreak.
The form of TB, known as XDR for extensively drug-resistant, cannot be effectively treated with most first- and second-line tuberculosis drugs, and some doctors consider it incurable.
Since it was first detected last year in KwaZulu-Natal Province, bordering the Indian Ocean, additional cases have been found at 39 hospitals in South Africa’s other eight provinces. In interviews on Friday, several epidemiologists and TB experts said the disease had probably moved into Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique — countries that share borders and migrant work forces with South Africa — and perhaps to Zimbabwe, which sends hundreds of thousands of destitute refugees to and from South Africa each year.
But no one can say with certainty, because none of those countries have the laboratories and clinical experts necessary to diagnose and track the disease. Ominously, none have the money and skills that would be needed to contain it should it begin to spread.
Even in South Africa, where nearly 330 cases have been officially documented, evidence of the disease’s spread is mostly anecdotal, and epidemiological work needed to trace its progress is only now beginning.
“We don’t understand the extent of it, and whether it’s more widespread than anyone thinks,” Mario C. Raviglione, the director of the Stop TB Department of the World Health Organization in Geneva, said in a telephone interview. “And if we don’t know what has caused it, then we don’t know how to stop it.”
Cases of XDR TB exist elsewhere, in countries like Russia and China where inadequate treatment programs have allowed drug-resistant strains of the disease to emerge. The South African outbreak is considered far more alarming than those elsewhere, however, because it is not only far larger, but has surfaced at the center of the world’s H.I.V. pandemic.
Although one third of the world’s people, by W.H.O. estimates, are infected with dormant tuberculosis germs, the disease thrives when immune systems are weakened by H.I.V. At least two in three South African TB sufferers are H.I.V. positive. Should XDR TB gain a foothold in the H.I.V.-positive population, it could wreak havoc not only among the five million South Africans who carry the virus, but the tens of millions more throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
People without H.I.V. have a far smaller chance of contracting tuberculosis, even if they are infected with the bacillus that causes TB. But because tuberculosis is spread through the air, anyone in close contact with an active TB sufferer is at some risk of falling ill.
Most if not all of the 52 people who died in the initial outbreak of XDR TB, at the Church of Scotland Hospital in a KwaZulu-Natal hamlet called Tugela Ferry in 2005 and early 2006, had AIDS. Most died within weeks of being tested for drug-resistant tuberculosis, a mortality rate scientists called unprecedented.
Since then, South African health officials say, they have confirmed a total of 328 cases of XDR TB, all but 43 in KwaZulu-Natal. Slightly more than half the patients have died.
Those numbers are deceptive, however. The Tugela Ferry outbreak was reported in part because the hospital there was part of a Yale University research project involving H.I.V.-positive patients with tuberculosis. Because South Africa’s treatment and reporting programs for tuberculosis are notoriously poor — barely half of TB patients are cured — virtually all experts contend the true rate of infection is greater.
“We’re really concerned that there may be similar outbreaks to the one in Tugela Ferry that are currently going undetected because the patients die very quickly,” said Dr. Karin Weyer, who directs tuberculosis programs for South Africa’s Medical Research Council, a semiofficial research arm of the government.
Some other researchers and experts say they share Dr. Weyer’s concern. They say South African health officials have lagged badly in assembling the epidemiological studies, treatment programs and skilled clinicians needed to combat the outbreak, and say the government has responded slowly to international offers of help.
=========
Virulent TB in South Africa May Imperil Millions
Published: January 28, 2007
(Page 2 of 2)
Dr. Weyer said the council “shares the concern that not enough is being done, quickly enough, to get on top of the problem.” In particular, she said, officials have yet to carry out epidemiological studies or address a “shocking” lack of infection controls in hospitals that could allow TB and other infections to spread freely among H.I.V.-positive patients
“It’s an emergency, and we’re not reacting as if it were an emergency,” said Dr. Nesri Padayatchi, an epidemiologist and expert on drug-resistant TB for Caprisa, a Durban-based consortium of South African and American AIDS researchers. “I think we have the financial resources to address the issue, and we’ve been told the Department of Health has allocated these resources.”
Although the government was first told of the outbreak 20 months ago, in May 2005, “to date, on the ground in clinics and hospitals, we are not seeing the effect,” she said.
In KwaZulu-Natal’s major city, Durban, the sole hospital capable of treating XDR TB patients has a waiting list of 70 such cases, she said.
Dr. Weyer said the waiting list indicates that “capacity is becoming a problem” in KwaZulu-Natal, the outbreak’s center. “I’m quite sure we may find a similar situation in other provinces,” she added.
A spokesman at the hospital said it could not easily determine how many patients were awaiting treatment.
But the manager of South Africa’s national tuberculosis program, Dr. Lindiwe Mvusi, said such complaints were misplaced. The Durban hospital in question, she said, is under renovation, and officials are “looking for accommodations in other hospitals” while construction proceeds.
Hospitals in other provinces have enough beds now for XDR TB patients, and some are expanding isolation wards to handle any spread of the disease, she said.
She said other responses to the outbreak were under way, including a rough assessment of TB cases in hospitals nationwide. A more comprehensive national survey of TB cases may be conducted late this year, she added, and health officials in KwaZulu-Natal have begun surveillance programs to detect new cases of drug-resistant TB in the province.
Dr. Mvusi also rejected the notion that the tuberculosis had moved beyond South Africa’s borders. But in interviews, a number of TB experts and epidemiologists raised that concern, including Mr. Raviglione at the world health organization, Dr. Padayatchi, Dr. Weyer and Dr. Gerald Friedland, director of the AIDS program at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Dr. Raviglione of W.H.O. said that South African health officials were cooperating on responses to the outbreak, and that an official of his organization would arrive in Pretoria within days to discuss placing a team of global TB experts in the country.
“W.H.O. is ready to come to South Africa and to help in any place, for anything, whether surveillance, or detection, or infection control,” he said. However, those arrangements have not been completed.
Dr. Mvusi, the government’s TB program head, said global health experts were welcome, but “in an advisory role, because we want the capacity locally.”
-
Closings and Cancellations Top Advice on Flu Outbreak
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: February 2, 2007
ATLANTA, Feb. 1 — In the event of a severe flu outbreak, schools should close for up to three months, ballgames and movies should be canceled, and working hours should be staggered so subways and buses are less crowded, the federal government said Thursday in issuing new pandemic flu guidelines to states and cities.
This Is Only a Drill Health officials acknowledged that such measures would greatly disrupt public life, but argued that they would provide the time needed to produce vaccines and would save lives because flu viruses attack in waves lasting about two months.
“We have to be prepared for a Category 5 pandemic,” said Dr. Martin S. Cetron, director of global migration and quarantine for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in releasing the guidelines. “It’s not easy. The only thing that’s harder is facing the consequences. That will be intolerable.”
Officials are, for the first time, modeling the new guidelines on the five levels of hurricanes.
Category 1 assumes that 90,000 Americans would die, Glen J. Nowak, a spokesman for the disease centers, said. (About 36,000 Americans die of flu in an average year.) Category 5, which assumes 1.8 million dead, is the equivalent of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. That flu killed about 2 percent of those infected; the H5N1 flu now circulating in Asia has killed more than 50 percent of those infected but is not easily transmitted.
The new guidelines advocate having sick people and their families — even apparently healthy members — stay home for 7 to 10 days. They advise against closing state borders or airports because crucial deliveries, including food, would stop.
The report urges communities to think about ways to continue services like transportation and meal service to particularly vulnerable groups like the elderly and those who live alone.
The guidelines are only advisory, since the authority for measures like school closings rests with state and city officials, but many local officials have asked for guidance, Dr. Cetron said. The federal government has taken primary responsibility for developing and stockpiling vaccines and antiviral drugs, as well as masks and some other supplies.
The new guidelines are partly based on a recent study of how 44 cities fared in the 1918 epidemic conducted jointly by the disease centers and the University of Michigan’s medical school. Historians and epidemiologists pored over hospital records and newspaper clippings, trying to determine what factors contributed to the varying impact.
A few small towns escaped the epidemic entirely by cutting off all contact with the outside, but most cities took less drastic measures. Those included isolating the sick and quarantining homes and rooming houses; closing schools, churches, bars and other gathering places; canceling parades, ballgames and other public events; staggering factory hours; discouraging use of public transport; and encouraging use of face masks.
The most effective approach seemed to be moving early and quickly. “No matter how you set up the model,” Dr. Howard Markel, a leader of the study, said, “the cities that acted earlier and with more layered protective measures fared better.”
Any pandemic is expected to move faster than a new vaccine can be produced; current experimental H5N1 vaccines are in short supply and are based on strains isolated in 2004 or 2005. Although the government is creating a $4 billion stockpile of the vaccine Tamiflu, it is useful only when taken within the first 48 hours, and Tamiflu-resistant strains of the flu have already been found in Vietnam and in Egypt.
“No one’s arguing that by closing all the schools you’re going to prevent the spread,” Dr. Markel added. “But if you can cut cases by 10 or 20 or 30 percent and it’s your family that’s spared, that’s a big deal.”
School closings can be controversial, and picking the right moment is hard because it must be done before cases soar.
Several public health experts praised the guidelines, though there were objections to some aspects.
Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said he saw no point in worrying about exactly when to close schools, because his experience in meningitis outbreaks convinced him that anxious parents would keep children at home anyway.
“I don’t think we’ll have to pull that trigger,” Dr. Osterholm said. “The hard part is going to be unpulling it. How do the principals know when schools should open again?”
Other experts said that children out of school often behaved in ways that still put them at risk. Youngsters are sent to day care centers, and teenagers gather in malls or at one another’s houses.
“We’ll be facing the same problem, but without the teaching,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. “They might as well be in class.”
Dr. Cetron said that caring for children in groups of six or fewer would cut the risks of transmission. He also said that parents would keep many children from gathering.
“My kids aren’t going to be going to the mall,” he said.
The historian John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza” (Viking Adult, 2004), questioned an idea underpinning the study’s conclusions. There is evidence, Mr. Barry said, that some cities with low rates of sickness and death in 1918, including St. Louis and Cincinnati, were first hit by a milder spring wave of the virus. That would have, in effect, inoculated their citizens against the more severe fall wave, and might have been more important than their public health measures.
-
From Bird to Person
By PETER D. ZIMMERMAN
February 7, 2007; Page A15
LONDON -- The "deadly" H5N1 avian flu is back on the front pages of newspapers and TV news shows. The British environment minister has pledged quick action to "eradicate" the disease from the U.K., and over 150,000 turkeys on one farm have been culled. "This is," someone said on the BBC's "Breakfast" show Monday, "a disease of birds, not humans." And so it is.
The H5N1 virus has still not made the critical interspecies leap which would make it easy for an infected person to give the disease to another person. That may happen, or it may not; and nobody can predict the outcome or its timing with any degree of confidence. Meanwhile, as of the World Health Organization's compilation on Feb. 3, there had been a total of 271 laboratory-confirmed cases of the virus in humans, and of that number a staggering 165, or 61%, died, making it one of the most lethal pathogens in history, even if not one of the most infectious.
Still, just 18 months ago many experts were predicting a global pandemic in a matter of months, perhaps one that would kill millions. There is historical precedent: The 1918-1919 "Spanish Flu" swept around the world in a matter of weeks, and before the disease burned out, more than 50 million people had died. Today H5N1 is reminiscent only of the Asian "Swine flu," which threatened the U.S. in 1976 but never turned into a serious threat to human life (although the media hype surrounding it helped undermine Gerald Ford's presidency). In 2004, worried people rapidly bought up much of the world's supply of Tamiflu and Relenza, the only two drugs that seemed to have a chance of beating H5N1. Now most of us have forgotten the names of these drugs.
Influenza viruses have eight genes and these mutate rapidly. Two sites on the viral genome, called H and N, are well catalogued, and each of those genes can come in many forms. Those are the markers that trigger the human immune system. If your body has seen a whiff of a particular virus, it will produce large numbers of antibodies if you later become infected with a strain having the same markers. If you have never been exposed to a particular strain, there are no antibodies in your bloodstream, and your body will fight an uphill battle for survival. The more virulent the virus, the less chance you have.
So far as is known, no H5N1 virus has ever circulated on the planet. That means nobody has any natural immunity. Our good fortune last flu season was that the bird flu virus had not yet learned the trick of passing easily from human to human. The few confirmed victims were almost all people who'd worked very closely with infected fowl in extremely unsanitary conditions. One can suppose that they were massively exposed, allowing this "disease of birds, not humans" to develop in their bodies.
Almost all influenza viruses originate in migrating water fowl in South-East Asia, and by and large the birds don't get sick. However, those birds can pass their viruses to domesticated birds. In the great viral mixing pot of China, where people live in close contact with both their birds and their pigs, influenza viruses can readily pass from one species to another, and sometimes to an animal or person already infected with another flu bug.
In this environment, mutations are guaranteed to occur, and from time to time a new pathogen with the ability to pass between people develops. If it carries the same marker combination as one or another previous flu virus, much of the world's population will have a basic immunity. If it does not have familiar markers, much of humanity is at risk once that virus learns to jump from person to person. Each year a panel of experts tries to guess which strains of flu will pose the highest risk in the coming influenza season, and orders up vaccines to give the vulnerable some protection. H5N1 has not been selected, because it still hasn't become contagious in our species. But it could make the jump at any time.
The last year has brought the world a major advantage, should H5N1 become a "disease of humans." The pharmaceutical industry has learned the difficult trick of making and producing a vaccine against a hitherto unknown disease. GlaxoSmithKline recently claimed that it had succeeded in developing a "second generation" bird flu vaccine that could be given in advance, even before knowing the detailed gene structure that would allow this bird flu to infect people. The vaccine could be given before the bug even learns that deadly trick. Other companies have also developed vaccines which appear to produce broad-spectrum antibodies against many strains of the virus, and many governments have ordered large stocks from various producers.
It is probably worth stockpiling many millions of doses before H5N1 escapes into the human population. Because none of us has any useful immunity, the virus could migrate around the world with the speed of commercial air travel, not the steamships that powered the Spanish Flu. If H5N1 escapes, and if it becomes as virulent as the Spanish Flu (which killed 1% of those who developed the disease), the pessimistic predictions of millions of people dead within months could come true. Only if vaccine bottles were already on the shelf, ready for instant use, could the virus be contained.
However, deadly as it could be, and as harmless as it has so far been, the H5N1 avian flu will not be the last new influenza virus to develop. The process that produced H5N1 is at work every year, and the more intense the agribusiness of raising chickens in China becomes, the more rapidly new viruses can spread and mutate. Even if we may have dodged the H5N1 bullet, another pandemic like the Spanish Flu is inevitable and could break out into the human population so quickly that vaccines cannot be produced in time.
New types of influenza virus must be detected and combated while they are still diseases of birds, not humans. Detection of new viruses will happen where they originate. A global pathogen surveillance system -- as Sen. Joseph Biden suggested almost five years ago -- is necessary because the global first line of defense against influenza is not the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but the public health agencies of China, Vietnam and other nations in that region. Those agencies need multilateral support and encouragement, and the United States must take the lead. And countries where flu viruses originate need the courage to recognize that reporting a new disease does not reveal weakness, but rather demonstrates the strength of their health systems.
Mr. Zimmerman is professor of science and security at King's College London. He was chief scientist of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff and science adviser for arms control at the U.S. State Department.
-
1241 GMT -- RUSSIA -- A bird flu outbreak near Moscow involves the dangerous H5N1 strain that can infect humans, Russian health officials confirmed Feb. 19. Nikolai Vlasov, a senior official at Russia's health watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor, said the strain is probably related to the Asian type of the virus and might have been carried by wild birds migrating from the Caucasus, Balkans or Asian regions. The outbreak, Russia's second of 2007, is the first to be recorded near the capital.
stratfor.com
-
The Survivalist Returns
What's wrong with the CDC's new pandemic planning guide.
By David Shenk
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007, at 1:25 PM ET
"Cascading consequences" is one of those elegant phrases that disaster planners use to refer to very bad stuff happening later on—hypothetical events that only occur as a result of other events and are therefore very difficult to predict and even more difficult to plan for. It's not the initial head-on collision, but the divorce resulting from the affair precipitated by the sense of worthlessness fueled by the lost job clinched by the rude insubordination fed by the frustration from the lateness from the traffic jam caused by the head-on collision.
If you're Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and you're trying to figure out precisely how to react to a hypothetical human-transmissible form of the H5N1 "bird flu" virus, cascading consequences are what you live and breathe. Should you quarantine cities? Close schools? Restrict public transportation? What happens to a complex urban civilization when people, supplies, and services get arbitrarily derailed?
Last week, the CDC issued a comprehensive new "pre-pandemic planning" guide (PDF here) for communities that includes contingencies for five category levels of pandemic. In the mildest scenario, Category 1, communities would not be urged to do much beyond voluntary isolation of ill patients in their homes. In Category 5, the most severe, schools might be cancelled for months at a time, work schedules could be staggered, and public events banned.
The CDC guide is well-intentioned and clear, but it suffers from three profound problems. The first is a hindsight/foresight problem. Pandemics can't be tracked in advance with satellites and don't give off measurable wind speeds. In practical terms, as Gerberding has already acknowledged, we're going to have to assume the worst right away and make category distinctions months later. Sending the message now that we can nuance a pandemic—that we're going to be able to respond with anything less than a massive and coordinated effort—could end up spawning dangerous confusion.
The second, and larger, problem is that we simply do not know at this point which social measures will make things better and which will make them worse. School closures sound like a good idea, but they didn't protect any community during the last pandemic in 1918, and they don't work for seasonal flu. Furthermore, there are cascading consequences: What about the millions of kids who depend on schools for meals? What about the economic and infrastructure disruption from adults having to stay home from work? And if the virus seems to be hitting cities in waves and rolling around the country several times, when—exactly—do you re-open the schools?
The third and most important problem is what's missing from this CDC document: a vaccine endgame. The report is candid about vaccine being the best "countermeasure" and explicitly states that its strategy is to delay the epidemic "in order to 'buy time' for production and distribution of a well-matched pandemic strain vaccine." What it doesn't explain is why the federal government can't accelerate a vaccine program given the very real prospect that this could become the worst public-health crisis in nearly a century. "The government is moving way too slowly on the vaccine," says one pandemic expert involved in U.S. policy discussions. "We're on a five-year timeline and we need to be much more ambitious and aggressive. That's the one thing that could change this whole equation."
Where does this leave citizens? The Survivalist sees three separate courses of action.
1. Be a constituent.
We all need to pressure policy-makers to start a crash vaccine program.
2. Be a community citizen.
The CDC plan is a decent start and a vast improvement on past government efforts. But effective pandemic response will require extensive what-if conversations at every level of society—in the workplace, at the PTA, at the water-filtration plant. Do your part by imagining what your practical role would be and discussing it with colleagues and neighbors.
3. Be a survivalist.
If you're as worried about a pandemic as I am (and as Julie Gerberding is), take nothing for granted. Carefully game out your own family response: Could you manage to telecommute for several months? To the extent possible, every family should be prepared for some level of isolation, with necessary food, health, and entertainment supplies. In a pandemic scenario, social distance can slow down the spread of the disease and buy valuable time for a vaccine.
-
From: David Shenk
Subject: How To Survive the Avian Flu, Smallpox, or Plague
In a matter of months, bird flu will probably show up somewhere the United States. A few wild geese will test positive for the H5N1 strain, along with a farm cat or two. Grave precautions will be issued, followed by a flurry of safety assurances from the White House and Tyson farms. CNN and Leno will make a great day of it. Poultry sales will fall off for a few months. It won't mean much.
The real disaster, if it happens, will unfold more quietly at first. A sick farmer in China's Guangdong province will sneeze at dinner. He'll turn out to have been simultaneously infected with the new strain and the more conventional flu bug. Out of his nose a nasty new viral hybrid will hurtle through the air and get unluckily sucked into the lungs of his niece, who will breed it for a day or two and hand it off to the postman, who will hand it off to a truck driver, who will deliver it to a big city saloon. From there, a small army of sneezable new H5N1 bugs will hitch on a few plane passengers to Europe and the United States, and the nightmare will begin.
This is the great fear of world health officials, stoked by the fact that H5N1 is an entirely new strain of flu; no one has any immunity against it, and no traditional vaccine can be prepared in advance. Further, this flu is already eerily reminiscent of the devastating "Spanish Flu" pandemic of 1918 in that most of its human fatalities are, surprisingly, adolescents and young adults. Both viruses seem to trick the healthiest immune systems into a response so strong that it kills the patient. A disease that kills the strongest among us. An estimated 20 million to 50 million people died in the 1918 pandemic (compared with the 9 million soldiers who died around the same time in World War I), and there is every expectation that an H5N1 pandemic could be just as devastating—if it mutates to a more transmissible form.
If that key mutation takes place, public-health officials will have a one-in-a-million shot of spotting and containing the initial human cluster at its source. If they can't pull off that minor miracle, there'll be no way to prevent its worldwide spread. Once it's out, it's out, and we will just have to brace ourselves for it. Big cities won't have to wait long—chances are that the bug will already be in New York, London, and elsewhere before it is even noticed. Within weeks, it would be virtually everywhere.
Of course, it may not happen at all. No one can predict whether or when a pandemic flu will actually occur. We can't even put reliable odds on it. All health officials can say with certainty is that, historically, pandemics do happen, and that conditions are now in place for another one to unfold. The gun is loaded and cocked. It might not fire this year or next, or even in the next 25 years, but everything we know says it is bound to happen sooner or later. "The general consensus among scientists who are studying this is that it is not a matter of if a pandemic will happen, but when," Stanford immunology professor Lucy Tompkins has said, echoing many other similar comments. Considering the horrific potential—tens, or even hundreds, of millions dead before effective vaccines can be manufactured and distributed—we'd have to be nuts not to get ready now.
According to Michael Osterholm, director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy:
We can predict now 12 to 18 months of stress, of watching loved ones die, of potentially not going to work, of wondering if you're going to have food on the table the next day. Those are all things that are going to mean that we're going to have to plan unlike any other kind of crisis that we've had literally in the last 80-some years in this country.
Avian flu is not, of course, the only looming biological threat. There is also the very real possibility of terrorist attack with agents that cause smallpox, plague, tularemia, or viral hemorrhagic fever. Once introduced, any of these agents could spread widely and cause mass casualties and social disruption. What can we as individuals do to prepare? First, take a minute to imagine the potentially drastic change in the human landscape: Hospitals everywhere are filled beyond capacity. Streets, subways, schools, theaters, and cafes are more or less deserted. The only way to protect yourself and your family is to avoid contact with people, so that's just what you do. You work from home if you can, and you and your family do not socialize at all—no play dates, no dinner parties, no movies or restaurants. You eat at home, play at home, teach your kids at home, even administer medical care at home. (A hospital visit is a surefire way to pick up an infectious agent.) If you don't have an expansive yard, maybe you occasionally take your kids to a big park—but they stick close as a rule and do not bound off with other kids. When you go food shopping, you wear a mask and don't stop to talk to anyone. Every day, you wipe the newspaper and the mail down with bleach. Or better yet, you cancel both. For a large segment of the population, all contact becomes electronic, all interaction virtual. In the case of avian flu, this would go on week after week, month after month, until the vaccine comes. (Due to drugs already available, smallpox and other agents might be contained sooner.)
It sounds absurd, and it is, but this kind of surreal shift is what happens when something comes along that fundamentally changes the social paradigm. Avian flu and bioweapons could be that powerful.
Now that you've swallowed that idea, consider the next, even weirder, level. In the most severe pandemic, social isolation could be the least of our problems. If the infection and death rate get high enough, services and supplies could become dangerously interrupted. With key people absent from filtration plants, city water systems might go in and out of reliability. Same with fire, police, and of course emergency rooms. Electrical grids could fail without sufficient expertise at key moments. Food shortages are a serious possibility if production or transportation stop. The stock market, needless to say, won't enjoy the supply shortages and dearth of shopping. It's not hard to imagine a grave pandemic sparking a worldwide depression, and even an environment of desperation and lawlessness.
Or maybe not. It's also possible that H5N1 will mutate into a much milder human-to-human virus, and that the subsequent pandemic will feel like a nasty but conventional flu season. It's possible that bioweapons will never emerge as anything more than a public-health exercise. The point is, no one knows, and so it pays to prepare for the worst.
Here's how to survive a severe pandemic: Prepare to become self-sufficient for several months; stockpile nonperishable food, water, disinfectants, prescription medication, office supplies, batteries and generators, air-filter masks, cash (small bills), portable gas cookware, entertainment for the kids, and so on. If you happen to be shopping for an air purifier anyway, make sure it has a UV component like these—that's the only type that will actually kill a virus. Consider having to take care of a sick family member if a hospital is out of the question; this would require the antivirals Tamiflu or Relenza (Relenza is likely to be more effective, since Tamiflu more quickly provokes resistance), as well as drugs for nausea, fever, pain, and muscle aches; basic medical supplies like gloves, masks, and a blood pressure monitor would also be prudent. There are a number of extremely thorough preparedness guides here. More generally, you can learn everything you need to know about the causes and consequences of a pandemic here.
If you have a rural retreat, consider using it. Also, consider that in a worst-case scenario, you might have to defend the security of your well-supplied home from desperate outsiders. Finally, consider that everyone has to die sometime, and unless you have no survivors at all, it is reckless not to have your affairs in order.
Aside from whatever personal planning you're comfortable with, be sure to follow this issue closely. There's a reasonable chance that attentive readers will have a few weeks' warning before people start emptying grocery-store shelves. Look for phrases like:
" … a quarantine has been placed around the village of ____"
" … emergency doses of Tamiflu have been rushed to the scene . . ."
" …'this could be what we've been fearing,' said one WHO official."
A little citizen activism wouldn't hurt either. Make sure your state is stockpiling antivirals to the greatest extent possible. USA Today recently reported that many states are not taking advantage of a federal program to acquire large reserves. In addition, contact your local health department and inquire about the particular plans of your city and state. A coherent government plan in advance of any pandemic is vital. If it ever does hit, there will be no time to create one, and laissez-faire health commissioners will have a lot of blood on their hands.
Emergency planning list: http://www.slate.com/id/2148772/sidebar/2149226/ent/2148778/
-
By L. MASAE KAWAMURA
Published: June 2, 2007
San Francisco
NY Times
IF it turns out that none of his fellow passengers were actually infected with the dangerous form of tuberculosis he carries, then Andrew Speaker, the young honeymooner who recently eluded government efforts to keep him off commercial flights, may actually have done a favor to public health. His case has brought to light the neglected but growing problem of super drug-resistant tuberculosis, and the ease with which this deadly airborne disease can travel around the world.
Federal health officials have recently warned state and city TB treatment programs to expect budget cuts of as much as 25 percent over the next five years. But Mr. Speaker is not the first world traveler to carry the most drug-resistant TB, and he will surely not be the last. Instead of cutting back on TB research and treatment, we should be intensifying our efforts to fight the disease.
We urgently need tests capable of diagnosing drug resistance overnight, so that we can know which patients present the most danger to the public. We need new drugs to outwit the disease. And we need to support a worldwide effort to prevent TB bacteria from developing further drug-resistance.
Tuberculosis is an illness that was once thought to be under control. A century ago, it was responsible for one in five deaths in the United States. But then antibiotics came along, and a national effort to develop new drugs and diagnostic tools and to institute TB-control public health programs drove down the rates of tuberculosis in the United States to the point where people assumed it was eradicated.
Twenty years ago, complacency about TB control combined with the H.I.V. epidemic and a growing immigrant population to bring about a resurgence. As a result, in the early 1990s, TB programs in the United States were rebuilt to provide better patient care and case investigation and to improve adherence to treatment.
These programs have become models for TB treatment around the world. But unfortunately, in many countries, public health standards still fall short. Patients infected with tuberculosis are given inadequate courses of antibiotics, or they fail to adhere to the course of treatment they are given. In such cases, the most drug-resistant strains of the bacteria are allowed to multiply.
It’s easy to see how drug resistance in any one country grows into a global problem. One-third of the world’s population carries the TB bacillus in their bodies, and in the stream of people traveling around the world the bacteria are constantly on the move.
The World Health Organization estimates that each person with TB infects 10 to 15 other people, usually by coughing the germs into the air. And once the bacteria reach a new host, they can either progress to disease, keeping the cycle going, or be carried around for years or decades, only to cause illness later on in a chosen few. A robust immune system is needed to contain the infection, but even in healthy people, 5 percent to 10 percent of those exposed go on to develop TB.
The most extremely resistant form of the illness — the kind that Mr. Speaker has, known as XDR-TB, which is impervious to even our most powerful antibiotics — is now found all over the world. It is thought to be rare, though the exact numbers are unknown. But we know that the numbers are rising, because strains of TB that are resistant to multiple drugs — the precursors to XDR-TB — are proliferating. In 2004, almost half a million of the more than 8 million cases of tuberculosis worldwide were resistant to the most potent TB drugs. And drug resistance feeds further drug resistance.
Adding to the problem is the long time, often a period of months, that it takes to detect drug resistance. Doctors are forced to treat in the dark, not knowing whether their drugs are actually working.
What is needed are tests capable of diagnosing drug resistance within 24 hours — tests that do not require letting the bacteria grow in culture for days but rather identify gene mutations that confer drug resistance.
Such genetic tests to detect resistance to first-line TB drugs already exist, though they are in limited use, mainly in New York and California. We need to put in the effort to develop them for the second-line antibiotics, and make the investment to ensure that the quick tests are put into widespread use.
Perhaps if Mr. Speaker’s doctors had known before he left for Paris that his tuberculosis was the drug-resistant kind, they might have taken even stronger action to keep him from flying to Europe in the first place. State and federal laws give public health officials the authority they need to keep contagious patients away from the public, but in exercising that authority, it helps to know the danger that a patient poses.
In addition, we need more drugs to treat TB. No new drug class has been approved for TB since the antibiotic rifampin, 35 years ago. Without effective drugs to treat the new superbugs, patients often suffer longer periods of contagion, and that makes their treatment extremely costly (from about $90,000 to more than $700,000 per patient).
Last fall, the World Health Organization proclaimed XDR-TB to be a public health emergency and called on governments to provide $95 million in 2007 to deal with the problem. Three bills now before Congress would increase domestic and international spending for TB treatment and research.
As global travel continues to increase and the rate of drug-resistant TB rises, the number of cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis inevitably will grow. It is essential that we redouble our efforts to halt the epidemic of drug resistance and the global spread of all forms of TB.
L. Masae Kawamura is the director of the tuberculosis control section of the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
-
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071005/...mutations_dc_2
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The H5N1 bird flu virus has mutated to infect people more easily, although it still has not transformed into a pandemic strain, researchers said on Thursday.
The changes are worrying, said Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"We have identified a specific change that could make bird flu grow in the upper respiratory tract of humans," said Kawaoka, who led the study.
"The viruses that are circulating in Africa and Europe are the ones closest to becoming a human virus," Kawaoka said.
Recent samples of virus taken from birds in Africa and Europe all carry the mutation, Kawaoka and colleagues report in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens.
"I don't like to scare the public, because they cannot do very much. But at the same time it is important to the scientific community to understand what is happening," Kawaoka said in a telephone interview.
The H5N1 avian flu virus, which mostly infects birds, has since 2003 infected 329 people in 12 countries, killing 201 of them. It very rarely passes from one person to another, but if it acquires the ability to do so easily, it likely will cause a global epidemic.
All flu viruses evolve constantly and scientists have some ideas about what mutations are needed to change a virus from one that infects birds easily to one more comfortable in humans.
Birds usually have a body temperature of 106 degrees F, and humans are 98.6 degrees F usually. The human nose and throat, where flu viruses usually enter, is usually around 91.4 degrees F.
"So usually the bird flu doesn't grow well in the nose or throat of humans," Kawaoka said. This particular mutation allows H5N1 to live well in the cooler temperatures of the human upper respiratory tract.
H5N1 caused its first mass die-off among wild waterfowl in 2005 at Qinghai Lake in central China, where hundreds of thousands of migratory birds congregate.
That strain of the virus was carried across Asia to Africa and Europe by migrating birds. Its descendants carry the mutation, Kawaoka said.
"So the viruses circulating in Europe and Africa, they all have this mutation. So they are the ones that are closer to human-like flu," Kawaoka said.
Luckily, they do not carry other mutations, he said.
"Clearly there are more mutations that are needed. We don't know how many mutations are needed for them to become pandemic strains."
-----------------------------------------------------
-
Antibiotic-resistant bacterium that causes severe infections has migrated from hospitals and now kills more Americans than AIDS.
By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 17, 2007
The number of severe infections by a "superbug," known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, isat least twice as high as researchers previously believed, and the bacterium now kills more Americans than AIDS, researchers reported today.
The antibiotic-resistant infections, commonly called MRSA, were once confined to a few hospitals, but a new study by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2005 they made an estimated 94,000 Americans seriously ill and killed almost 19,000, compared with 17,000 who died of AIDS.
"Certainly, MRSA now has to be viewed as a very important target for prevention and control," said Dr. David A. Talan, an infectious diseases specialist at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar who was not involved in the study.
The infections have been a growing concern, particularly over the last decade, as they have spread outside hospitals, popping up in prisons, athletic fields and locker rooms.
The study reported that nearly 14% of new antibiotic-resistant staph infections are not linked to hospitals or other medical facilities, indicating that the disease has become ingrained in parts of the wider community.
The finding, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., is the latest evidence of a widespread pattern of increasing drug resistance among a variety of infectious agents, including multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, antibiotic-resistant Clostridium difficile and other once-innocuous organisms.
Some hospitals, gyms and other public facilities have begun to implement more stringent infection controls to prevent the spread of the bacterium, such as more thorough scrubbing of equipment, using hotter water for laundry, banning towel sharing and increasing the use of disinfectants.
The bacterium also remains susceptible to some powerful and expensive antibiotics, such as vancomycin. But experts fear that the ability of the bacterium to mutate will outpace the ability of scientists to create new drugs.
The spread of resistant organisms is "astounding," Dr. Elizabeth A. Bancroft, an epidemiologist with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, wrote in an editorial accompanying the report.
Bancroft said the reported incidence of resistant staph infections is just "the tip of the iceberg" because the CDC researchers studied only blood-borne infections that find their way into internal organisms.
Several studies have found that such infections represent only 6% to 9% of all MRSA infections, which can also thrive on the skin in a more innocuous form, waiting for the opportunity to enter the body.
"It appears that the total burden of MRSA is much greater than what was estimated in this study," she said.
Most forms of the staph bacterium are easily killed with common antibiotics, such as amoxicillin. But beginning in 1968, researchers began to see variants that required treatment with stronger antibiotics.
Experts attribute the emergence of the superbugs to indiscriminate use of antibiotics, the failure of patients to complete their antibiotic regimens and the use of antibiotics in animal feed. In each case, incomplete eradication of the bacteria leads to mutations that have increased resistance to the drugs.
Confined to the surface of the skin, the bacteria do minimal damage. But in hospitals, nursing homes and dialysis centers, they can hitch a ride inside the body on needles and other invasive devices, spreading through the bloodstream and causing severe illness.
In the same fashion, they can be spread by tattooing and drug use in prisons and by cuts and abrasions on the athletic field. In 2003, four members of the USC football team were hospitalized and three more infected by MRSA.
Doctors have been aware of the growing staph problem, but there were no hard data to document it.
The new results were obtained by Dr. R. Monina Klevens of the CDC and her colleagues as part of the agency's ongoing Active Bacterial Core surveillance program, which monitors infections in nine regions of the U.S., including San Francisco, Baltimore, Atlanta and Denver. All infections were laboratory confirmed.
The group observed 8,987 cases of blood-borne MRSA infections in the survey area, which was extrapolated to come up with a nationwide estimate of 94,360 cases. There were 1,598 deaths in the area, corresponding to 18,650 deaths nationwide.
Only 26.6% of the cases were infections that occurred in hospitals. An additional 58.4% were infections that occurred in the community but were linked to hospitalization or medical procedures. Infections unrelated to medical procedures accounted for 13.7% of cases.
Infection rates were highest among those older than 65, and African Americans were twice as likely as whites to suffer an infection. In both groups, Klevens said, the higher rates were most likely due to a higher incidence of chronic diseases, which both weaken patients and send them more often to the hospital, where they come in contact with the bacterium.
For infants younger than 1, the rate was four times as high in blacks as in whites.
Healthcare advocates argue that hospitals need to improve hygiene. Some studies, for example, show that hospital workers wash their hands only about half as often as guidelines recommend.
Other critics say hospitals should screen all newly admitted patients for MRSAs and isolate those found to be positive. Hospitals, however, say such isolated patients are likely to receive less care because of the inconvenience associated with entering their rooms.
Despite the best efforts of scientists, the rapid evolution of bacteria gives them a major advantage, as illustrated by another report in the journal detailing the appearance of an ear infection resistant to all antibiotics approved for use in children.
Dr. Michael E. Pichichero and Dr. Janet R. Casey of the University of Rochester reported on nine ear infections caused by a multi-drug resistant strain of Streptococcus pneumoniae that succumbed only to a powerful antibiotic known as Levaquin, whose label carries a warning against using it in children.
The first four children were successfully treated by inserting tubes in their ears, which allowed the infections to resolve naturally. The last five were given a ground-up Levaquin pill, which ended the infection with no adverse effects.
Physicians agreed that Levaquin should be used in children only as a last resort, and only if the bacterium in question has been grown in culture and shown to be susceptible.
thomas.maugh@latimes.com
-
S.F. General researchers follow strain of drug-resistant bacteria
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
San Francisco General Hospital researchers have been chasing the rogue strain of drug-resistant staph called USA300 since they first isolated it from a patient specimen seven years ago.
With every turn, the aggressive and persistent bug keeps getting worse.
Now, a new variant of that strain, resistant to six major kinds of antibiotics, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles.
City doctors first spotted the original USA300 during tests for patients treated at a walk-in clinic for skin infections in 2001. Since then, they have watched it morph from laboratory curiosity into the dominant form of staph infection in much of the United States.
"It stormed into town and just took over, displacing everything else," said Dr. Chip Chambers, infectious disease chief for the renowned hospital.
At first, USA300 hit the down-and-out: injection-drug users, jail inmates, homeless men and women. Today it is also infecting suburban moms, executives, doctors, athletes and children. It has turned up in tattoo parlors and newborn nurseries. People with HIV infection seem especially prone to it, but it also strikes patients, gay and straight, who have no previous health problems.
Staph infections are usually treatable but can be lethal. USA300 is as dangerous as they come - it can attack organs throughout the body, forcing doctors to amputate fingers, toes and limbs. Its most disturbing trait, however, is just how easily it gets around.
"USA300 has a tremendous ability to spread," said Francoise Perdreau-Remington, director of the molecular epidemiology lab at San Francisco General, where the strain was first identified. "It has been described in at least 44 states and is now spreading in European countries."
USA300 is one of a dozen distinct varieties of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, now circulating. The first MRSA strain, resistant to the penicillin substitute methicillin, was discovered in 1961. It continues to evolve. More than 200 families of the strain have come and gone since. USA300 is shaping up as the worst of the lot.
The various MRSA families have been gaining strength as a public health menace for years.
MRSA infections used to be confined to hospitalized patients. But in the late 1990s, people began contracting them in community settings - in gyms, jails, schools and even at home. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculated last fall that drug-resistant staph was killing 19,000 Americans a year - more than are dying of AIDS.
Tracking down new disease threats is Perdreau-Remington's specialty. The French-born microbiologist was recruited to San Francisco General in 1995 to create the lab because of her expertise in disease detective work at the University of Cologne in Germany. A key to her microbe hunting is the ability to compare new strains to old ones. Her lab at the San Francisco hospital stores a frozen cache of 16,000 germs taken from patients in the hospital and health clinics.
In 2000, San Francisco General had set up a special walk-in clinic catering to drug users and street people to handle the growing volume of skin and soft-tissue infections that were driving up costs in its emergency room.
Perdreau-Remington began running tests to find out what was causing so many infections. Her lab analyzed bacterial specimens to produce genetic fingerprints that look like strips of bar code. It was during that screening program, using samples from the clinic, that she found the genetic fingerprint of what would be called USA300.
The unique signature showed up on March 1, 2001. At first, it represented just one of 15 specimens on a standard computer readout, known as a "gel." When the same new fingerprint showed up in three of 15 specimens three months later, Perdreau-Remington remembers thinking: "Uh-oh, we have a problem."
She labeled the new strain the "S-clone."
By February 2002, six of 15 samples displayed the S-clone's signature. Among patients at the clinic, the new bug shortly thereafter outnumbered all others by a 2-to-1 ratio.
Perdreau-Remington soon learned that the bug had been lurking elsewhere. She began collaborating with her counterparts in Los Angeles County, where inmates of the largest jail system in the United States had been complaining of "spider bites." Samples of the skin sores yielded the same S-clone fingerprints.
Throughout the United States, other researchers were independently finding the same bug.
Fred Tenover, director of laboratory science at the CDC, remembers running a test that pooled drug-resistant staph samples from 12 states, including ones from prisons in Georgia, Texas and California and from a football team in Pennsylvania. "The patterns were indistinguishable," he said. "I looked at the gel and said, 'This can't be.' So we went back and retested them. It was amazing."
__________________
The fingerprints were identical to those of Perdreau-Remington's S-clone.
Tenover, who was developing for the CDC a uniform system for describing a dozen distinctive types of drug-resistant staph, named the emerging bug USA300.
Perdreau-Remington's early isolation of USA300 has made her lab at San Francisco General a world leader for the study of it. Once it became clear that a new strain of drug-resistant staph was loose, she set out to discover where it came from. She went back to her freezers and screened hundreds of samples of staph taken since 1996.
Her survey unearthed the earliest known sample of USA300. Its fingerprints were spotted in a frozen specimen taken from a man who visited the newly opened walk-in clinic at San Francisco General on Sept. 25, 2000.
Ominously, the strain that first appeared outside the hospital began to infect vulnerable patients inside as well. By 2002, USA300 accounted for 14 percent of staph infections acquired at San Francisco General, and the numbers keep rising.
"Now, more than 80 percent of MRSA infections in this hospital are caused by USA300," Perdreau-Remington said.
Under a powerful microscope, USA300 resembles a cluster of faintly yellow BBs - indistinguishable from other strains of drug-resistant staph. Like a fancier brand of automobile, however, this one is packed with options that make it potentially more deadly and easier to spread.
Toxic proteins carried by USA300 have been implicated in infections that destroy fingers and toes or cause the rare but frighteningly fast skin- and muscle-tissue destruction attributed popularly to "flesh-eating bacteria" - a condition known as necrotizing fasciitis.
Until recently, flesh-eating infections were thought to be caused by other bugs, such as Streptococcus. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005 changed all that. Doctors at UCLA-Harbor Medical Center reviewed 14 cases of the frightening skin disease. All 14 had drug-resistant staph cultured from their wounds. Five samples were tested at Perdreau-Remington's San Francisco lab for strain type. They all turned up USA300.
When drug-resistant staph invades the lungs, it can cause a pneumonia that destroys lung tissue and kills a patient within hours. Last winter, the CDC implicated USA300 in outbreaks of severe pneumonia such as the one that killed six of 10 flu patients in Louisiana and Georgia last winter. Four of the dead were children.
Concern over USA300 is so great that Perdreau-Remington won funding to map the complete genome of the germ, identifying the entire coded sequence of genetic instructions that tell this particular strain of staph bacteria how to make copies of itself.
She chose a sample taken in 2003 from a wrist abscess on a 36-year-old patient who was also being treated for AIDS at San Francisco General. She picked that specimen because it seemed unusually resistant to treatment. It was labeled USA300 FPR3757 - using Perdreau-Remington's initials.
The gene map, published in the British medical journal the Lancet in February 2006, has yielded clues to why this strain spreads so quickly. The bug appears to have swapped genes from Staphylococcus epidermidis, a usually harmless staph species that is commonly found on human skin. Researchers theorize that, by stealing a trick from the milder staph bug, the malevolent USA300 may colonize on human skin more easily than other varieties of MRSA.
Further along the gene map are sections that produce resistance to the antibiotics tetracycline, erythromycin, clindamycin, Cipro and mupirocin, a topical ointment often used to kill MRSA colonies living in people's noses.
Perdreau-Remington did not know it at the time, but the sample she took - FPR3757 - was among the very first isolates found of the highly drug-resistant USA300 variant now spreading readily through San Francisco's gay community. The new bug virtually has her name on it.
USA300 - even the new variant - is treatable with some antibiotics. Perhaps the most important of these is vancomycin, an antibiotic reserved for the most serious staph infections. But FPR3757 is just a short step away from acquiring resistance to that drug as well.
Dangerous intestinal bacteria have already evolved resistance to vancomycin. Known as vancomycin-resistant enterococcus, or VRE, the bugs carry a "cassette" of genes containing all the instructions needed for bacteria to sidestep the antibiotic.
Perdreau-Remington's team has spotted on the USA300 genome a region that is primed to accept this vancomycin-resistance cassette. It could snap into place like a Lego block.
Drug-resistant bacterial strains have been labeled "superbugs," but most infectious disease specialists recognize that these bacteria are not doing anything remarkable. They are performing as they have for millions of years, using their enormous capacity to mutate and multiply to outmaneuver whatever biological or environmental threats they face.
Because both VRE and USA300 are circulating in hospital environments, some patients are probably battling both bugs at the same time. Given the propensity of staph germs to swap genes, these patients provide fertile ground for the evolution of an even more dangerous bug.
If USA300 were to acquire vancomycin resistance from VRE, the result would be a virulent new form of staph, which would spread readily outside the medical setting and be nearly impossible to treat.
Perdreau-Remington believes there's an urgent need for new drugs to combat such a monster.
"This is the horror scenario," she said. "We have very little time left."
E-mail Sabin Russell at srussell@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg.../MNUKUDB6D.DTL
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
-
Here is one interpretation of the meaning underlying the preceding article. Comments?
=======
(CNSNews.com) - A drug-resistant strain of a deadly staph infection found in some U.S. hospitals is now spreading among homosexual men, researchers said. A conservative group has characterized the problem as the result of "unnatural behaviors."
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, killed about 19,000 Americans in 2005 -- most of them in hospitals, according a report published in October in the Journal of the American Medical Association. But now the infection is popping up outside hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, according to Reuters.
"The medical community has known for years that homosexual conduct, especially among males, creates a breeding ground for often deadly disease. In recent years we have seen a profound resurgence in cases of HIV/AIDS, syphilis, rectal gonorrhea and many other STDs among those who call themselves 'gay,' said Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues with Concerned Women for America (CWA).
Active homosexual men in San Francisco are considered 13 times more likely to be infected with MRSA than heterosexuals, researchers reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
"Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable," Reuters quoted Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco who led the study, as saying. "That's why we're trying to spread the message of prevention," he added.
"The human body is quite callous in how it handles mistreatment and the perversion of its natural functions," said Barber. "When two men mimic the act of heterosexual intercourse with one another, they create an environment, a biological counterfeit, wherein disease can thrive. Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences."
He blamed television shows like "Will and Grace," which "glorify the homosexual lifestyle," and homosexual indoctrination in schools for the "laissez-faire attitude toward sexual deviancy."
"'Stay out of our bedrooms!' we're often commanded by militant 'gay' activists," Barber said. "Well, now the dangerous and possibly deadly consequence of what occurs in those bedrooms is spilling over into the general population. It's not only frightening, it's infuriating."
Barber called for parents to speak out against "politically correct cultural elites" who "endanger our children and larger communities through propagandist promotion of this demonstrably deadly lifestyle."
"Why does it take a potentially deadly staph epidemic for people to acknowledge reality? Will that even do it? Enough is enough!" Barber added.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.a...20080115c.html
-
KOLKATA, India : India's worst ever outbreak of bird flu could turn into a disaster, an official warned Tuesday, as five people were reportedly quarantined with symptoms of the virus.
Eight districts in the eastern state of West Bengal have been hit by the virus, and dead birds are being sold and locals said to be "feasting" on cheap chicken.
The state's animal resources minister, Anisur Rahaman, said authorities were "determined to cull all poultry in the districts in three or four days, otherwise the state will face a disaster."
More than 100,000 bird deaths have been reported, and teams are racing to cull two million chickens and ducks.
The Times of India reported five people in West Bengal have been quarantined with "clinical symptoms" of avian flu -- including fever, coughing, sore throat and muscle ache -- after handling affected poultry.
If the tests are positive, this will be the first case of human infection in India, home to 1.1 billion people and hit by bird flu among poultry three times since 2006.
Health officials in New Delhi said they were currently analysing blood samples from close to 150 people who have complained of fever.
On the ground, culling teams have been facing an uphill battle with villagers smuggling birds out of flu affected areas and selling them in open markets.
Thirty-year-old Sheikh Ali, a vendor in Birbhum's Gharisa market, 340 kilometres (192 miles) from the state capital Kolkata, said the sale of poultry had doubled in the past week.
"The prices of chicken have come down from 60 rupees to 20 rupees (1.5 dollars to 50 cents) per kilogramme (2.2 pounds).
"Poor villagers are feasting on chicken. At normal times, they cannot afford to buy as prices are so high. Now they are enjoying the meat," Ali said.
People typically catch the disease by coming into direct contact with infected poultry, but experts fear a flu pandemic if the H5N1 mutates into a form easily transmissible between humans.
Migratory birds have been largely blamed for the global spread of the disease, which has killed more than 200 people worldwide since 2003.
In Birbhum, police seized two trucks of smuggled poultry early Tuesday but culling teams were yet to arrive at the spot, an AFP correspondent said.
"Poultry owners are smuggling their birds out at night and transporting it to different places for fear of culling," said Shubhendu Mahato, a security guard at Arambagh Hatchery, one of the biggest in West Bengal.
Chicken shops had also sprung up along the main highways overnight with people crowding them, the AFP correspondent said.
Neighbouring Nepal, which has banned poultry imports from India since 2006, said its border posts were on high alert.
Bangladesh, which also borders West Bengal, was meanwhile battling its own serious outbreak -- with experts warning the situation was far worse than the government was letting on.
"Bird flu is now everywhere. Every day we have reports of birds dying in farms," said leading poultry expert and the treasurer of Bangladesh Poultry Association M.M Khan.
"Things are now very, very serious and public health is under danger. The government is trying to suppress the whole scenario," Khan said, adding that farmers were also holding back from reporting cases.
-----------------
In a closely related vein http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/individual/index.html
-
Will the first casualty of a pandemic be "the plan"?
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic/cdcplan.htm
-
(NaturalNews) The avian flu has undergone a critical mutation making it easier for the virus to infect humans, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and published in the journal PLoS Pathogens.
"We have identified a specific change that could make bird flu grow in the upper respiratory tract of humans," lead researcher Yoshihiro Kawaoka said.
The H5N1 strain of influenza, also known as "bird flu," has decimated wild and domestic bird populations across the world since it emerged between 1999 and 2002. This highly virulent variety of the flu has been identified as a public health concern because in the past, varieties of influenza have mutated and crossed the species barrier to humans.
Since 2003, 329 humans have been confirmed infected with H5N1, with 201 fatalities. The vast majority of these worked closely with infected birds, such as in the poultry industry.
One of the primary things that keeps bird flu from infecting humans is that the virus has evolved to reproduce most effectively in the bodies of birds, which have an average body temperature of 106 degrees Fahrenheit. Humans, in contrast, have an average body temperature of 98.6 degrees, with temperatures in the nose and throat even lower (91.4 degrees). This vast temperature difference makes it very difficult for the bird flu virus to survive and grow in the human body.
In the current study, researchers found that a strain of H5N1 has developed a mutation that allows it to thrive in these lower temperatures.
"The viruses that are circulating in Africa and Europe are the ones closest to becoming a human virus," Kawaoka said. But he pointed out that one mutation is not sufficient to turn H5N1 into a major threat to humans.
"Clearly there are more mutations that are needed. We don't know how many mutations are needed for them to become pandemic strains."
"We are rolling the dice with modern poultry farming practices," warned consumer health advocate Mike Adams, author of the book How to Beat the Bird Flu. "By raising chickens in enclosed spaces, treating them with antibiotics, and denying them access to fresh air, clean water and natural sunlight, we are creating optimal conditions for the breeding of highly infectious diseases that can quickly mutate into human pandemics," Adams said. "Given current poultry farming practices, it is only a matter of time before a highly virulent strain crosses the species barrier."
http://www.naturalnews.com/022787.html
-
The subject of masks came up on WT forum. I haven't checked these for myself, but post them here to have the URLs for reference:
-------------
Most of the information I've read suggests than N95 masks are adequate for bird flu.
There's a lot of information on the subject available here;
http://infectiousdiseases.about.com/.../p/maskhub.htm
http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/ppe/masksrespirators.html
http://www.fluwikie.com/
I'd suggest spending some time studying the available information to determine what level of protection you're comfortable with.
--------------
There is a single study that has cast some doubt on the efficacy of N-95 masks in a pandemic influenza situation.
This link is from the IAFF, whose leadership I personally feel are no-talent @ssclowns, but worth reading: http://www.iaff.org/08News/011108Respirators.htm
Having masks are a valid tactic for pandemic influenza, but betting your life on them is foolhardy at best. During the SARS outbreak, there is strong circumstantial evidence that universal precautions failed in more than one case of direct transmission to healthcare workers.
A surgical mask will beat nothing, a N-95 is better than a surgical mask and not being exposed to airborne particulate is the best solution.
With N-95's, be aware that moisture will likely degrade their effectiveness, so sweating, heavy breathing and high humidity will burn through.
-
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-3-13/67503.html
The War on Superbugs
Lots of bad news—so little good news
By G.W. (Bill) Riedel, Ph.D.
Special to the Epoch Times Mar 13, 2008
Bacteriophages are one answer to the superbug crisis. (Ada Fitzgerald-Cherry/The Epoch Times)
A report entitled: "The Epidemic of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections" published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2008:46, Jan. 15, page 155 starts as follows: "We are in the midst of an emerging crisis of antibiotic resistance for microbial pathogens in the United States and throughout the world."
As of the year 2000 an estimated 70,000 deaths due to nosocomially acquired [hospital acquired], drug-resistant infections occurred per year in hospitals throughout the United States. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus seriously sickened more than 94,000 Americans in 2005 and almost 19,000 died, more than the 17,000 Americans who died of AIDS-related causes. As more bacteria become resistant to the old antibiotics there are few new antibiotics being developed because most pharmaceutical companies have withdrawn from research for new antibiotics, in part because developing new antibiotics is a slow and costly process.
In Canada the official body counters tell us that "an estimated 220,000 patients who walk through the doors of hospitals each year suffer the unintended and often devastating consequences of an infection," and they estimate that 8,000 to 12,000 Canadian patients die annually from such infections. That would mean that from January 1, 2000 to April 30, 2008 there will have been 100,000 Canadian victims of superbug infections.
Against so much bad news it would be logical that the news media would jump on any opportunity to publish any good news. So when the Bacteriophage 2008 meeting in Herefordshire was chosen for the release of initial Phase II clinical trail data of the first fully-regulated clinical trail to test whether phage therapy really works as a treatment option for superbug infections, one would have expected a media flurry, especially since the trail reported positive results.
To date only two such reports can be found when using Google-News with the string "phage therapy." The first report, which this author found was entitled: "Technology to defeat bacterial infections shows positive results" and was published by Disease/Infection News, 25-Feb-2008 at http://www.news-medical.net/print_article.asp?id=35541
In this trail the U.K. company Biocontrol Ltd. used bacteriophages against Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria, which are often resistant to traditional antibiotics. Over a 17-month period a double-blind Phase II trail took place at a specialist London hospital involving 24 patients with chronic ear infections that were not responding to antibiotic treatments. Significant improvements amounting to a mean 50 percent reduction in symptoms were noted as compared to a mean of only 20 percent in the control group who did not receive phages. The company now plans to perform Phase III trails for the ear treatment as soon as possible and is looking at the future possibility of treating patients with cystic fibrosis where lung infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa are common and dangerous.
Dr. Riedel, briedel@magma.ca, has a Ph.D. in Microbiology/Food Science. He has held various positions in research, industrial food science, and consumer product regulatory affairs in Canada.
-
First case of human-to-human transmission of bird flu confirmed in Pakistan
April 6 : A report by BBC News has confirmed the first case of human-to-human transmission of bird flu in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s north-west and southern regions were hit by bird flu last year. Thousands of birds were culled to control the spread of the disease.
Tests carried out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) have now shown that bird flu killed some members of a family in north-west Pakistan late last year.
This is the first confirmation of people dying from bird flu in the country, with the samples collected from the family in Peshawar testing positive.
According to Dr Mukhtiar Zaman Afridi, head of the isolation ward for avian flu patients at Khyber Teaching Hospital in Peshawar, a poultry worker in Peshawar apparently passed the disease on to members of his family.
“The worker, whose name is being withheld on the request of the WHO, was brought to the hospital with avian flu symptoms on 29 October 2007,” he said.
Though this worker has fully recovered since then, on 12 November, his elder brother was brought in with similar symptoms. He died a week later.
On 21 November, two more brothers of the same worker came down with bird flu.
“One of them died on 28 November, while the other has recovered,” said Dr Afridi.
Apart from the poultry worker, none of the others was found to have had any direct contact with sick or dead poultry.
Genetic sequencing tests performed by WHO laboratories in Egypt and the US on samples collected from three of the four brothers established human-to-human transmission.
Serum taken from all three was found to have been infected by the H5N1 avian influenza virus.
Though a WHO report said that the tests suggest “limited human-to-human transmission,” it adds, however, that this “outbreak did not extend into the community, and appropriate steps were taken to reduce future risks of human infections.” (ANI)
http://www.ebiologynews.com/4229.html
-
Recipe for a Pandemic
April 18, 2008
Over nearly 60 years, the World Health Organization has developed sophisticated systems for monitoring the emergence of seasonal influenza and possible pandemics as well as arming scientists with the tools to develop vaccines. Now, one country is jeopardizing all that, putting itself and the rest of the world at risk.
The culprit: Indonesia. Its Health Ministry refuses to give the WHO avian flu virus samples taken from Indonesian victims. This matters because sample sharing allows experts around the world to track mutations of the virus and spot dangerous mutations. Even more important, sharing allows researchers to develop vaccines.
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari asserts that Indonesian bird flu is a form of intellectual property, from which the country should benefit. Whether that means Indonesia simply wants to ensure affordable access to any vaccine developed from its samples – or whether Jakarta will demand a share in the profits – is unclear. Ms. Supari has complained in the past of labs using Indonesian samples for "commercial" reasons, raising the question of where she thinks vaccines come from, if not from private companies with a profit motive. Of almost 60 bird flu cases in the past year, Indonesia has given WHO all of two samples – but only for surveillance, not vaccine research. They were from high-profile cases in Bali, and Jakarta worried that tourists would stay away.
The dispute may partly be due to domestic politics. Ms. Supari evidently thinks this viral nationalism plays well in public opinion. She published a book earlier this year titled "It's Time To Change: Divine Hands Behind Bird Flu," in which she speculates the U.S. uses virus samples to conduct research on biological weapons. Next year is an election, and Ms. Supari is becoming a favorite of various Islamic groups, on which President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono could end up depending.
Whatever Jakarta's motivation, without the samples it's much harder for researchers to develop any vaccine. Viruses mutate constantly. That's especially true in Indonesia, which has the highest number of cumulative bird flu infections – 132 since 2003, compared with 106 in Vietnam. Without samples from those cases, researchers can't tackle the most up-to-date form.
The worst-case scenario would be for a virulent strain to evolve in Indonesia and catch researchers by surprise, because they have no experience working with its predecessors. Even if scientists do develop a vaccine based on samples from, say, Vietnam, they have no way of testing its efficacy against the Indonesian variety. All together, it's a recipe for a pandemic, particularly if other countries start following Jakarta's lead.
Indonesia's leaders now say they want a speedy resolution to the sample-sharing dispute. In a meeting this week with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt, the Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare, Aburizal Bakrie, promised to finalize an agreement within two months.
There's no time to waste. Of the 240 human bird flu deaths reported in 12 countries since 2003, 107 have been in Indonesia – 12 already this year. The next highest cumulative death toll is 52 in Vietnam. Better to share samples now and allow scientists to develop a vaccine than scramble to do so when a pandemic hits.
But the world will have vaccines to protect against the avian flu virus only if scientists are able to carry out research. By hoarding samples and trying to tinker with the financial incentives that drive pharmaceutical innovation, Indonesia is endangering everyone.
WSJ
-
Novavax Moves Closer to Licensing Bird Flu Vaccine
By Kendra Marr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 27, 2008; D04
Novavax said yesterday that its bird flu vaccine elicited a robust immune response in humans, moving the biotech a step closer to licensing its pandemic vaccine production system.
In the trial, 160 patients received two vaccine injections, of 15 to 90 micrograms, one month apart. Of the patients who received the highest dosage, 94 percent produced antibodies to neutralize H5N1, an Indonesian strain of bird flu that emerged in 2005 and has been linked to 110 deaths.
"These results are strong and very competitive," said Rahul Singhvi, Novavax's chief executive.
Shares of Novavax fell 6 cents, or 2 percent, to $2.91.
Novavax has had a demo of the vaccine manufacturing process set up at its Rockville headquarters since May 1 but does not have a buyer.
There were 385 cases of bird flu in humans, leading to 243 deaths, from 2003 to June 19, according to the World Health Organization's most recent data. Outbreaks have mostly centered on Asia.
Many large multinational biotechs -- GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis -- are working on bird flu vaccines in the United States and Western Europe under government contract, said Ken Trbovich, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.
Novavax has partnered with GE Healthcare to reach the rest of the world by providing other countries a system to quickly mass-produce vaccines.
"If you truly believe a pandemic outbreak is likely, there is reason to believe foreign governments and the U.S. will clamp down and control the supply," Trbovich said. He added, "Other places in the world may have a lot of money, but no amount of money will get you vaccines in the case of a pandemic."
Traditionally, to create flu vaccines, drugmakers grow live virus strains in chicken eggs, which act as incubators. The virus is later killed and bottled into a vaccine. But eggs are a volatile medium, and a scarce supply essentially stops production.
Novavax's bird flu vaccine uses particles that mimic the size and shape of the virus, which trigger an immune response but lack the genetic material to replicate.
Because the particles are produced in more stable insect-cell cultures, yields are seven to 10 times higher than egg-based manufacturing, Novavax said. The vaccine can also be created within 10 to 12 weeks of identifying a pandemic strain -- half the time it takes to make egg-based vaccines.
GE is developing the production equipment, which is cheap to set up and run in case of a pandemic.
In December, Novavax studied low doses of its bird flu vaccine in a much smaller patient population. After tweaking the production process, the biotech was able to elicit a stronger immune response in this recent trial.
Novavax is seeking a governmental or pharmaceutical partner to finance the next set of human trials.
"We see no reason to invest additional money of our own into the pandemic vaccine when we can wait for a foreign government that needs this vaccine to put money in," Singhvi said.
Meanwhile, Novavax will be begin human tests of its seasonal influenza vaccine, using virus-like particles, in the fall. Currently all U.S. flu vaccines are egg-based.
"The pandemic area is difficult to monetize even if you successfully generate a contract," Trbovich said. "There are no reoccurring revenues. Moving a seasonal flu vaccine into clinical trials is their first real commercial opportunity."
-
Amazing that the stock actually fell a bit on this news , , , :?
-
A friend forwarded the following to me. The site's reliability is unknown to me
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/health/news/article_1457257.php/Hong_Kong_expert_warns_of_%26quotterrible%26quot_China_bird-flu_outbreak__Roundup__
-
Confirmation
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-02-04-voa79.cfm?rss=asia
-
Published online 11 February 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.93
News: Briefing
Stem-cell transplant wipes out HIV
But the treatment is too risky to help most who are infected with the virus.
Heidi Ledford
Bone marrow stem-cells may have cured one man of HIV.Getty
A man may have been cured of both HIV and leukaemia after receiving a stem-cell transplant from a donor who is genetically resistant to HIV.
About two years after the procedure, there is still no sign of the virus, even though the patient no longer takes antiretroviral drugs. Nature News takes a look at the promises and limitations of the experimental treatment.
Haven't we heard about this before?
The German physicians announced their finding in November 2008. Since then, the results have been peer reviewed and are now published in the New England Journal of Medicine1.
What did the physicians actually do?
They essentially did what they would do for any leukaemia patient who was not responding adequately to chemotherapy: they searched donor registries for bone-marrow donors who were a match for their patient, and prepared to perform a transplant.
But haematologist Gero Hütter of the Charité Universitätsmedizin in Berlin took the search for a donor one step further. Hütter does not specialize in HIV cases but when he realized that his patient would need a transplant, he remembered a paper he had read more than a decade earlier about HIV resistance in people who carry a specific genetic mutation.
The mutation is a short deletion in the CCR5 gene. The gene encodes a receptor that HIV uses to enter immune cells called CD4+ T cells. About 1% of the European population carries the CCR5 mutation in both copies of the CCR5 gene, making such people much less likely to contract the virus. If Hütter could replace his patient's immune cells with cells that lacked the CCR5 receptor, his patient might be less susceptible to HIV infection.
The patient had 80 matches in the bone-marrow registries of the German Bone Marrow Donor Center, and Hütter reasoned that one of those matches might also carry CCR5 mutations. Donor number 61 turned out to be the one, and in February 2007, the transplant was performed.
Can we really learn anything from an experiment performed in only one patient?
Even though the technique has only been applied in one patient, the results are valuable, says James Riley, an HIV researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. "Of all the 'n=1' experiments out there, this is a good one," he says. "It's a tremendous proof of principle that if you can make the majority of your cells resistant to infection, you can really stop the virus."
Meanwhile, Hütter says that a different team of physicians intends to perform the same procedure in another HIV-positive patient with leukaemia. So in a few years, the experiment may reach n=2.
Was the patient cured?
That remains unclear. Although the patient has gone about two years without a relapse, it is still possible that the virus will make a comeback. The virus could be lurking in cells that doctors have not been able to test — such as cells in the brain or heart.
In addition, there is another strain of HIV that does not use CCR5 receptors to invade cells. This strain does not typically show up in patients with functioning immune systems, but it is still possible that this form of HIV could eventually proliferate in this patient.
What is clear is that this is not a treatment most HIV-positive people would want to receive. The risks involved with a bone-marrow transplant far outweigh those that come with years of antiretroviral drug therapy, even considering the troublesome side effects of these drugs. Before receiving the transplant, recipients are "conditioned" with drugs and radiation to destroy their own blood-producing stem cells. The procedure leaves them vulnerable to infection, and there is also the possibility that their bodies will eventually reject the transplant.
Instead of risking a transplant, couldn't you just use a drug to block CCR5?
You could. One CCR5 inhibitor, called maraviroc, is made by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer and is approved for use in the United States and Europe. Other companies are busy developing additional CCR5-targeting drugs.
ADVERTISEMENT
Unfortunately, maraviroc does not completely prevent the virus from binding to CCR5, and it can only be used in combination with other antiretrovirals. "Basically HIV can find its way around the drug and still use CCR5," says Riley, who adds that the virus might outcompete the inhibitor, or may be able to bind to a different region of CCR5 than the drug.
Others are trying gene-therapy approaches to prevent CCR5 from being made at all. For example, Riley has been collaborating with Sangamo BioSciences, a biotechnology company based in Richmond, California, to determine whether the company's technique for snipping out targeted genes could be used to delete the CCR5 gene. Sangamo announced last week that it has launched a Phase I clinical trial that will involve removing a sample of the participant's T cells, deleting the CCR5 gene, and then infusing the cells back into the patient. The trial is a first step towards ascertaining the safety of the technique — not its efficacy — and participants will not be conditioned to destroy their unmodified T cells.
References
Hütter, G. et al. N. Engl. J. Med. 360, 692–698 (2009).
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090211/full/news.2009.93.html
-
That is fascinating!
I wonder if this sort of thing will meet the approval of the O-bot bureaucrats? :-P
-
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N23355101.htm
Seven people in U.S. hit by strange new swine flu 23 Apr 2009 20:54:48 GMT
Source: Reuters
*Five new cases found in addition to two people on Tuesday
*CDC says no reason for concern yet
*Flu is unusual mixture but no deaths seen
(Updates throughout with quotes, details)
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - Seven people have been diagnosed with a strange and unusual new kind of swine flu in California and Texas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.
All seven people have recovered but the virus itself is a never-before-seen mixture of viruses typical among pigs, birds and humans, the CDC said.
"We are likely to find more cases," the CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat told a telephone briefing. "We don't think this is time for major concern around the country."
The CDC reported the new strain of swine flu on Tuesday in two boys from California's two southernmost counties.
Now, five more cases have been seen -- all found via normal surveillance for seasonal influenza. None of the patients, whose symptoms closely resembled seasonal flu, had any direct contact with pigs.
"We believe at this point that human-to-human spread is occurring," Schuchat said. "That's unusual. We don't know yet how widely it is spreading ... We are also working with international partners to understand what is occurring in other parts of the world."
Two of the new cases were among 16-year-olds at the same school in San Antonio "and there's a father-daughter pair in California," Schuchat said. One of the boys whose cases was reported on Tuesday had flown to Dallas but the CDC has found no links to the other Texas cases.
STRANGE MIXTURE
Unusually, said the CDC's Nancy Cox, the viruses all appear to carry genes from swine flu, avian flu and human flu viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.
"We haven't seen this strain before, but we hadn't been looking as intensively as we have," Schuchat said. "It's very possible that this is something new that hasn't been happening before."
Surveillance for and scrutiny of influenza has been stepped up since 2003, when highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza reappeared in Asia. Experts fear this strain, or another strain, could spark a pandemic that could kill millions.
H5N1 currently only rarely infects people but has killed 257 out of 421 infected in 15 countries since 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
The influenza strain is an H1N1, the same family as one of the seasonal flu viruses now circulating. Now that the normal influenza season is waning, it may be easier to spot cases of the new swine flu, Schuchat said.
Only one of the seven cases was sick enough to be hospitalized and all have recovered, Schuchat said.
"This isn't something that a person could detect at home," she said. The new cases appear to have somewhat more vomiting and diarrhea than is usually seen in flu, which mostly causes coughing, fever, sore throat and muscle aches.
The CDC is asking doctors to think about the possibility of swine flu when patients appear with these symptoms, to take a sample and send it to state health officials or the CDC for testing.
Cox said the CDC is already preparing a vaccine against the new strain, just in case. "This is standard operating procedure," Cox said. The agency will issue daily updates at http://www.cdc.gov/flu/swine/investigation.htm.
Seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people globally in an average year. And every few decades, a completely new strain pops up and it can cause a pandemic, a global epidemic that kills many more than usual. (Editing by Eric Walsh)
-
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090424/.../med_swine_flu
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/swine/investigation.htm the mexican counts are
different than what we are seeing in the news but it has other good info.
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12...Malda_HCW.html
-
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/24443479.htm
-
Pasting this from the Health thread here too:
===============================
WHO ready with antivirals to combat swine flu
Fri Apr 24, 2009 5:11pm EDT Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page[-] Text
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that it was prepared with rapid containment measures including antivirals if needed to combat the swine flu outbreaks in Mexico and the United States.
The Geneva-based agency has been stockpiling doses of Roche Holding's Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, a pill that can both treat flu and prevent infection.
The new virus, not previously detected in pigs or humans, has proved sensitive to the drug, the WHO said in a statement.
The WHO and its regional office in Washington, D.C., are also sending experts to Mexico to help health authorities with disease surveillance, laboratory diagnosis and clinical management of cases.
Mexican health officials have reported more than 850 cases of pneumonia in the capital, Mexico City, including 59 who died. In San Luis Potosi, in central Mexico, 24 cases including 3 deaths have been detected.
They have also informed the WHO about a third suspected outbreak of swine flu in Mexicali, near the U.S. border, with four suspect cases and no deaths so far.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control have said there were 8 cases of swine influenza in California and Texas and no deaths.
Health authorities in the two North American countries have the resources required already in place, including Tamiflu, and are "well equipped," according to the WHO.
"WHO is prepared with rapid containment measures should it be necessary to be deployed," WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi told Reuters.
The United Nations agency saw no need at this point to issue travel advisories warning travelers not to go to parts of Mexico or the United States. "However, the situation may change depending on what the situation in the field is," she said.
The WHO will convene a meeting of its Emergency Committee on international health regulations, probably on Saturday afternoon, she added.
WHO director-general Margaret Chan was flying back to Geneva overnight from Washington, D.C., for the emergency discussions which would link public health authorities and experts in various parts of world in a virtual meeting, she said.
The emergency committee could make recommendations including whether to change the pandemic alert level, she added.
"Because there are human cases associated with an animal influenza virus, and because of the geographical spread of multiple community outbreaks, plus the somewhat unusual age groups affected, these events are of high concern," the WHO said in a statement.
-
XICO CITY — This sprawling capital was on edge Saturday as jittery residents ventured out wearing surgical masks and President Felipe Calderón published an order that would give his government emergency powers to address a deadly flu outbreak, including isolating those who have contracted the virus, inspecting the homes of affected people and ordering the cancellation of public events.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Students Fall Ill in New York, and Swine Flu Is Likely Cause (April 26, 2009)
Worrying About Every Cough at a Queens School (April 26, 2009)
Dot Earth: Contagion on a Small Planet (April 26, 2009) White-coated health care workers fanned out across the international airport here to look for ailing passengers, and thousands of callers fearful they might have contracted the rare swine flu flooded government health hot lines. Health officials also began notifying restaurants, bars and nightclubs throughout the city that they should close.
Of those Mexicans who did go out in public, many took the advice of the authorities and donned the masks, which are known here as tapabocas, or cover-your-mouths, and were being handed out by soldiers and health workers at subway stops and on street corners.
“My government will not delay one minute to take all the necessary measures to deal with this epidemic,” Mr. Calderón said in Oaxaca State during the opening of a new hospital, which he said would set aside an area for anyone who might be affected by the new swine flu strain that has already killed as many as 81 people in Mexico and sickened more than 1,300 others.
Mr. Calderón pointed out that he and the other officials who attended the ceremony intentionally did not greet each other with handshakes or kisses on the cheek, which health officials have urged Mexicans to avoid.
At a news conference Saturday night to address the crisis, Mexico’s health minister, José Ángel Córdova, said 20 of the 81 reported deaths were confirmed to have been caused by swine flu, while the rest are being studied. Most of the cases of illness were reported in the center of the country, but there were other cases in pockets to the north and south.
The government also announced at the news conference that schools in and around the capital that serve millions of students would remain closed until May 6.
With 20 million people packed together tight, Mexico City typically bursts forth on the weekends into parks, playgrounds, cultural centers and sidewalk cafes. But things were quieter than usual on Saturday.
The government encouraged people to stay home by canceling concerts, closing museums and banning spectators from two big soccer matches on Sunday that will be played in front of television cameras, but no live crowd.
At street corners on Saturday, even many of the jugglers, dancers and musicians who eke out a living collecting spare change when the traffic lights turn red were wearing bright blue surgical masks.
The newspaper Reforma reported that President Obama, who recently visited Mexico, was escorted around Mexico City’s national anthropology museum on April 16 by Felipe Solis, an archaeologist who died the next day from flu-like symptoms. But Dr. Córdova said that it does not appear that Mr. Solis died of influenza.
White House officials said Saturday that they were aware of the news reports in Mexico but that there was no reason to be concerned about Mr. Obama’s health, that he had no symptoms and that his medical staff had recommended he not be tested.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said Saturday that it had sent a team of experts to Mexico to assist with the investigation of the outbreak, which has already been reported in Texas and California and possibly in New York, raising fears that it could spread into a global pandemic.
The possible New York cases were reported at a Queens high school, where eight students tested positive for a type of influenza that health officials suspect could be the new swine flu. Some of the school’s students had traveled to Mexico recently.
Still, the World Health Organization, which held a meeting on Saturday to discuss the outbreak, chose not to raise the level of global pandemic flu alert, which has been at a Level 3 because of the avian flu.
Epidemiologists want to know exactly when the first cases occurred in Mexico. Mexican health officials said they first noticed a huge spike in flu cases in late March. In mid-April, they began noticing that otherwise healthy people were dying from the virus. But it was only on Thursday night that officials first sounded an alarm to the population by closing schools, after United States health officials announced a possible swine flu outbreak.
By issuing the emergency decree Saturday, Mr. Calderón may have been trying to head off criticism that his government had been too slow to act. He had earlier called in the army to distribute four million masks throughout the capital and its suburbs.
Lt. Raymundo Morales Merla, who stood outside a military transport truck parked outside a downtown subway station on Saturday, led a group of 27 soldiers who had arrived at 7 a.m. to hand out as many masks as they could.
The scene at the airport was alarming, with doctors stationed at the entrances to answer questions and to keep an eye out for obviously sick people. Regular public address announcements in English and Spanish warned travelers that anyone exhibiting any symptoms should cancel their flight and immediately seek medical attention.
Even Sunday Mass will probably be affected. The Roman Catholic Church gave worshipers the option to listen to Masses on the radio and told priests who decided to hold services to be brief and put Communion wafers in worshipers’ hands instead of their mouths.
Axel de la Macorra, 46, a physics professor at National Autonomous University of Mexico, said he became worried when he learned recently that a 31-year-man who played at a tennis club he once belonged to had suddenly died. “He got sick at the beginning of April and two weeks later, he was dead,” said Mr. de la Macorra, who was weighing whether to attend a First Communion with 200 guests on Saturday.
“My mother told me to wear it so I did,” said Noel Ledezma, 29, who had his mask pulled down so he could sip a coffee and eat a muffin as he walked to work. “Who knows who will be next.”
Sarahe Gomez, who was selling jewelry at a mall in the upscale Polanco neighborhood, spoke through a mask to the few customers who visited her kiosk. “I’m in the middle of all these people and one of them could have it,” she said. “The virus could be anywhere. It could be right here.”
She then took a half step back.
“This is no joke,” said Servando Peneda, 42, a lawyer who ventured out to pay a bill, but left his two sons home. “There’s 20 million of us in this city and I’d say half of us have these masks on today. I know all of us will die one day, but I want to last out the week.”
Antonio Betancourt contributed reporting from Mexico City, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington.
-
More:
The CDC
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/swineflu_you.htm
-
Intelligence Guidance (Special Edition): April 27, 2009 - Swine Flu Outbreak
April 27, 2009 | 1500 GMT
ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images
A member of the Mexican Navy stands guard at Pantitlan subway station in Mexico City on April 26Editor’s Note: The following is an internal STRATFOR document produced to provide high-level guidance to our analysts. This document is not a forecast, but rather a series of guidelines for understanding and evaluating events, as well as suggestions on areas for focus.
Related Special Topic Page
Weekly Updates
We need to ramp up on a number of issues related to the H1N1 swine flu outbreaks. So far there are 1,663 suspected infections and 103 reported deaths. Nearly all of the infections and all of the deaths are in Mexico (98 percent of both have been in Mexico City itself). The high population density of Mexico City has allowed the new strain to spread very quickly and provided ample opportunities for it to be carried abroad. There are now suspected cases in Canada, New Zealand, Spain, France, Israel, Brazil and the United States.
But before we delve deeper into this topic, we must clarify what this is not. It is obvious that we’re not dealing with a 1918 style pandemic. The current H1N1 strain � “H1” and “N1” indicate certain proteins on the surface of the flu virus � was first detected in March. While there obviously have been deaths, we are not seeing numbers that indicate this is particularly horrible disease. Something like the 1918 avian virus would already be killing people in significant numbers in places as scattered as Singapore, Buenos Aires and Moscow. It appears that this H1N1 strain is simply a new strain of the common flu that is somewhat more virulent. All evidence thus far indicates that a simple paper mask is effective at limiting transmission, and that common anti-viral medications such as Tamiflu and Relenza work well against the new strain.
That does not mean there will not be disruptions. Several governments already are banning the import of North American pork products. Considering that the human-communicable strain has already traveled to every continent, this is a touch silly, but governments must appear to do something — and there is nothing seriously that can be done to quarantine a continent from something as communicable as a flu bug. We expect limited travel restrictions to pop up sooner rather than later. EU Health Commissioner Andorra Vassiliou has already recommended that Europeans rethink any plans to travel to North America. This is not yet a ban or even a travel warning, but those are logical next steps for spooked governments. Several states have been using thermal scanners at airports to check passengers for fevers, and so isolate potential carriers (this measure is of limited use — once a carrier is in the airport, he has probably already spread the virus).
Tasking:
The busy folks at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) need to become our new best friends. The CDC is not like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — it is not tasked to provide any hands-on, local support. Instead, they are a sort of brain trust of researchers that decode the virus, and based on their findings, produce recommendations as to how to limit the virus’ spread and mitigate the virus’ effects. At present the CDC has not yet decoded the virus.
We also need to touch base with various national health authorities the world over who were stressed about a possible H5N1 outbreak in 2007. Many of the procedures that were put into place to deal with a potential H5N1 catastrophe (information dissemination, vaccine dissemination, antiviral stockpiles, etc) remain applicable for combating this new H1N1 strain. We need to familiarize ourselves with what the thresholds are for the major health authorities. Some question to ask: At what point would you consider quarantines? At what point would you release antiviral stockpiles? How big are those stockpiles? What steps are you taking to detect new cases? Are there any travel or trade restrictions that you are considering or implementing?
Are there any places in the world where H1 flu strains are not prevalent? Once you have the flu, you develop a natural resistance to not just that specific strain, but any strain that is somewhat similar. H1 has been present in the United States for years and H1 strains regularly make it into American flu vaccines. Since it is believed that it is the H1 portion of this new virus that has been tweaked, in theory this will provide Americans with some limited protection. Are there any national populations that lack this protection?
We need to look at trade as well. Already Russia, China and the Philippines have barred pork imports of North American origin. (Incidentally, you are never at risk of contracting flu viruses from meat products unless you fail to cook it thoroughly.) We need to look at the trade question from two points of view. First, what trade flows (primarily pork) could be directly affected. Second, the global economy really does not need a major confidence hit right now. We need to be extremely vigilant of any indirect impacts this will have on capital availability, travel and consumer spending in the current fragile economic climate. Asian and European stock markets had a bad day today, but not inordinately so (Japan’s Nikkei — one of the world’s largest exchanges by value — actually rose a bit).
But the biggest question is why have there been deaths in Mexico City and not anywhere else? The idea that the Mexican health system is subpar does not hold: most people do not seek medical treatment for flu symptoms, so medical quality does not yet seriously enter into the picture. The explanation could be nothing more complicated than the fact that the strain first broke out in Mexico City and has not yet advanced far enough elsewhere to produce deaths (and if that is the case we should be seeing some terminal cases in the United States in the next few days).
So far the CDC does not have an opinion on this topic, but we need to discover if there is something fundamentally different about the situation — or the virus — in Mexico vis-a-vis the rest of the world.
-
I would not yet jump to the conclusion this article suggests that this virus is not as dangerous as say the one in 1918 - at least not yet.
It is true the one then was an avian virus and this one from pigs. Yet I read the people who are dying are not the typical young and old as in most influenza seasons but the young and healthy which is eerily like the one in 1918. H1 or H5 this applies:
The scientists suspect that with the 1918 flu, changes in just 25 to 30 out of about 4,400 amino acids in the viral proteins turned the virus into a killer. The new work also reveals that 1918 virus acts much differently from ordinary human flu viruses. It infects cells deep in the lungs of mice and infects lung cells, like the cells lining air sacs, that would normally be impervious to flu. And while other human flu viruses do not kill mice, this one, like today's bird flus, does.
-
"Swine flu fears prompt global quarantine plans"
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard, Ap Medical Writer –
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Monday the threat of spreading swine flu infections was a concern but "not a cause for alarm," while customs agents began checking people coming into the United States by land and air. The World Health Organization said there were 40 confirmed cases in the U.S. but no deaths.
Countries across the globe increased their vigilance amid increasing worries about a worldwide pandemic, Obama told a gathering of scientists that his administration's Department of Health and Human Services "has declared a public health emergency as a precautionary tool to ensure that we have the resources we need at our disposal to respond quickly and effectively."
The acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Richard Besser, said that Americans should be prepared for the problem to become more severe, and that it could involve "possibly deaths."
The quickening pace of developments in the United States in response to some 1,600 swine flu infections in neighboring Mexico — and reports of over 100 deaths — was accompanied by a host of varying responses around the world. The European Union advised against nonessential travel to the U.S. and Mexico, while China, Taiwan and Russia considered quarantines and several Asian countries scrutinized visitors arriving at their airports.
U.S. customs officials began checking people entering U.S. territory. Officers at airports, seaports and border crossings were watching for signs of illness, said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling.
If a traveler says something about not feeling well, the person will be questioned about symptoms and, if necessary, referred to a CDC official for additional screening, Easterling said. The customs officials were wearing personal protective gear, such as gloves and masks, he said.
Multiple airlines, including American, United, Continental, US Airways, Mexicana and Air Canada, said they were waiving usual penalties for changing reservations for anyone traveling to, from, or through Mexico, but had not canceled flights.
The CDC's Besser said that while the U.S. hasn't advised against travel to Mexico, it has urged people to take precautions, such as frequent hand-washing while there.
A private school in South Carolina was closed Monday because of fears that young people who recently returned from Mexico might have been infected.
"We are closely monitoring the emerging cases of swine flu in the United States," Obama said. "I'm getting regular updates on the situation from the responsible agencies, and the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Centers for Disease Control will be offering regular updates to the American people so that they know what steps are being taken and what steps they may need to take."
"But one thing is clear: Our capacity to deal with a public health challenge of this sort rests heavily on the work of our scientific and medical community," the president said. "And this is one more example of why we cannot allow our nation to fall behind."
Besser, the CDC official, described the new U.S. border initiative as "passive screening." He said authorities were "asking people about fever and illness, looking for people who are ill."
The U.S. declared a national health emergency in the midst of uncertainty about whether the mounting sick count meant new infections were increasing or health officials had simply missed something that had been simmering for weeks or months. The declaration allowed Washington to ship roughly 12 million doses of flu-fighting medications from a federal stockpile to states in case they are needed.
Besser traveled the morning news-show circuit Monday, telling interviewers the U.S. government was being "extremely aggressive" and saying he wouldn't personally recommend traveling to parts of Mexico where the new virus had taken hold.
Besser said he was not reassured by the fact that so far in the U.S., no one had died from the disease.
"From what we understand in Mexico, I think people need to be ready for the idea that we could see more severe cases in this country and possibly deaths," he said. "That's something people have to be ready for and we're looking for that. So far, thankfully, we haven't seen that. But we're very concerned and that's why we're taking very aggressive measures."
Meanwhile, officials of Newberry Academy in South Carolina said Monday that seniors from the school were in Mexico earlier this month and some had flu-like symptoms when they returned.
State Department of Health and Environmental Control spokesman Jim Beasley said test results on the students could come back as early as Monday afternoon. The agency has stepped up efforts to investigate all flu cases in South Carolina. There have been no confirmed swine flu cases in the state.
A New York City school where eight cases were confirmed will be closed Monday and Tuesday, and 14 schools in Texas, including a high school where two cases were confirmed, will be closed for at least the next week. Some schools in California and Ohio also were closing after students were found or suspected to have the flu.
In Mexico, the outbreak's center, soldiers handed out 6 million face masks to help stop the spread of the virus that is suspected in up to 103 deaths. Most other countries are reporting only mild cases so far, with most of the sick already recovering.
Spain reported its first confirmed swine flu case on Monday and said another 17 people were suspected of having the disease. The European Union health commissioner advised Europeans to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico and the United States. Also, three New Zealanders recently returned from Mexico are suspected of having it.
"These are the early days," said World Health Organization spokesman Peter Cordingley. "It's quite clear that there is a potential for this virus to become a pandemic and threaten globally." He said it was spreading rapidly in Mexico and the southern United States.
Worldwide, attention focused on travelers.
"It was acquired in Mexico, brought home and spread," Nova Scotia's chief public health officer, Dr. Robert Strang, said of Canada's first confirmed cases.
___
Associated Press writers Mark Stevenson and Olga R. Rodriguez in Mexico City; Frank Jordans in Geneva; Mike Stobbe in Atlanta; Maria Cheng in London and Eileen Sullivan in Washington contributed to this report.
-
TORONTO, April 27 -- The World Health Organization has raised its pandemic alert system to level four -- sustained human-to-human transmission -- in response to the swine flu outbreak in the U.S., Mexico, and at least two other countries.
The Geneva-based WHO made the change from level three -- some human-to-human transmission -- on the advice of an expert panel meeting today.
Earlier today, acting CDC director Richard Besser, M.D., said the change won't affect the U.S. response to the outbreak.
"It really doesn't matter from our perspective what you call this," he said in a press conference. "Our actions are based on what's happening in our country and our communities."
Stepping up one phase, Dr. Besser said, "would not change anything that we are currently doing."
The pandemic threat level has six major levels. Phases one through three increase from strictly animal-to-animal transmission to some human-to-human transmission, sufficient to create small clusters of disease.
Level four requires sustained human-to-human transmission able to cause what the WHO calls "community-level outbreaks."
Levels five and six are the pandemic levels.
Phase five is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in a region, although most countries are not affected.
In phase six, there are community-level outbreaks in at least one other country in a different region. This level is regarded as a signal that a global pandemic is truly under way.
-
By HENRY I. MILLER
The extent and impact of the swine flu epidemic, which appears to have originated in Mexico and spread rapidly to a dozen countries and parts of the U.S., is still unknown. The epidemiology of such disease outbreaks is rather like a jigsaw puzzle, and we are now at the stage where the picture is intriguing even if we're not sure what we're seeing.
Chad Crowe
We do know the number of cases in Mexico exceeds 1,995, there have been at least 149 deaths, and there have been 20 cases in five U.S. states (with no fatalities as yet). And that the outbreak causes us to confront complex issues that encompass medicine, epidemiology, virology and even politics and ethics.
These events demonstrate that good surveillance is needed in order to detect early on that a new infectious agent, transmissible between humans, has emerged. Unfortunately, conditions in many countries are conducive to the emergence of such new infectious agents, especially flu viruses, which mutate rapidly and inventively. Intensive animal husbandry procedures that place poultry and swine in close proximity to humans, combined with unsanitary conditions, poverty and grossly inadequate public-health infrastructure of all kinds -- all of which exist in Mexico, as well as much of Asia and Africa -- make it unlikely that a pandemic can be prevented or contained at the source.
In theory, a flu pandemic might be contained in its early stages by performing "ring prophylaxis" -- aggressively using antiflu drugs, vaccines and quarantines to isolate relatively small outbreaks of the new infectious agent. Addressing H5N1 avian flu in 2005, Johns Hopkins University virologist Donald S. Burke said, "it may be possible to identify a human outbreak at the earliest stage, while there are fewer than 100 cases, and deploy international resources -- such as a WHO [World Health Organization] stockpile of antiviral drugs -- to rapidly quench it. This 'tipping point' strategy is highly cost-effective."
But a strategy can be "cost-effective" only if it is feasible. Early ring prophylaxis might work in Minneapolis, Toronto, Singapore or Zurich. In places such as Indonesia, China and Mexico, however, the expertise, coordination, discipline and infrastructure are lacking. Moreover, there is no vaccine available to prevent infection of humans by the new H1N1 swine flu (or by H5N1 avian flu, for that matter).
The rapid and constant movement of goods and people around the world makes early containment virtually impossible. We saw this with the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic in 2003: Within a matter of weeks, the disease spread rapidly from southern China to infect individuals in some 37 countries, killing about 800.
In the current swine flu outbreak, New York City high-school students apparently brought the virus back from Mexico and infected their classmates. All six cases so far reported in Canada were connected directly or indirectly with travel to Mexico.
Flu viruses can be directly transmitted (via droplets from sneezing or coughing) from pigs to people, and vice versa. These cross-species infections occur most commonly when people are in close proximity to large numbers of pigs, such as in barns, livestock exhibits at fairs, and slaughterhouses. And, of course, flu is transmissible from human to human, either directly or via contaminated surfaces.
Pigs are uniquely susceptible to infection with flu viruses of mammalian and avian origin. This is of concern for a couple of reasons. First, pigs can serve as intermediaries in the transmission of flu viruses from birds to people. And when avian viruses infect pigs, they adapt and become more efficient at infecting mammals -- which makes them more easily transmitted and dangerous to humans.
Second, pigs can serve as hosts in which two (or more) influenza viruses infecting an animal simultaneously can undergo "genetic reassortment," a process in which pieces of viral RNA (the virus's genetic material, similar to DNA) are shuffled and exchanged, creating a new organism. The influenza viruses responsible for the world-wide 1957 and 1968 flu pandemics -- which killed about 70,000 and 34,000, respectively, in the U.S. -- were such viruses, containing genes from both human and avian viruses.
Experience shows that attempts to stem the spread of an outbreak may actually exacerbate it. In 2006, China's chaotic effort to vaccinate 14 billion chickens to control avian flu was compromised by counterfeit vaccines and the absence of protective gear for vaccination teams. This likely spread contagion by vaccinators who carried infected fecal material on their shoes from one farm to another.
The situation in Mexico resembles the scenario we might expect for an outbreak of a major human-to-human pandemic in its earliest stages: a large number of illnesses among social and family contacts of victims; infection of health-care workers and patients in hospitals where the victims are treated; and the rapid spread of confirmed cases from an initial region to other countries as people infected by the virus travel while it is incubating, but before they become seriously ill.
Because they have been stockpiled for use in the event of an avian flu pandemic, large amounts of the antiflu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza are available. However, they must be administered during the first couple of days after symptoms begin to be an effective treatment. They can also prevent the onset of the disease if administered in adequate doses prior to exposure. The danger of using antiflu drugs in poor countries with inadequate public-health facilities such as Mexico is that they may be administered improperly and in suboptimal doses, which would promote viral resistance and intensify an outbreak.
If the swine flu outbreak becomes a pandemic with a high rate of severe complications (such as pneumonia) and death, we will need to be smart, nimble and flexible. That will involve triage on many levels -- including decisions about which patients are likely to benefit from scarce commodities such as drugs and ventilators -- as well as "social engineering" determinations about issues such as mandatory quarantine, the canceling of public events, shutting airports and closing our southern border. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
Dr. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He is a former flu researcher and was an official at the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration from 1977 to 1994.
-
Where Will the Swine Flu Go Next?
AS the swine flu threatens to become the next pandemic, the biggest questions are whether its transmission from human to human will be sustained and, if so, how virulent it might become. But even if this virus were to peter out soon, there is a strong possibility it would only go underground, quietly continuing to infect some people while becoming better adapted to humans, and then explode around the world.
What happens next is chiefly up to the virus. But it is up to us to create a vaccine as quickly as possible.
Influenza viruses are unpredictable because they are able to mutate so rapidly. That capacity enables them to jump easily from species to species, infecting not only pigs and people but also horses, seals, cats, dogs, tigers and so on. An avian virus responsible for the 1918 pandemic jumped first from birds to humans, then from humans to swine (as well as other animals). Now, and not for the first time, pigs have given a virus back to humans.
Mutability makes even existing, well-known flu viruses unpredictable. A new virus, formed by a combination of several existing ones as this virus is, is even less predictable. After jumping to a new host, influenza can become more or less virulent — in fact, different offshoots could go in opposite directions — before a relatively stable new virus emerges.
Influenza pandemics have occurred as far back in history as we can look, but the four we know about in detail happened in 1889, 1918, 1957 and 1968. The mildest of these, the so-called Hong Kong flu in 1968, killed about 35,000 people in the United States and 700,000 worldwide. Ordinary seasonal influenza, in comparison, now kills 36,000 Americans a year, because the population has a higher proportion of elderly people and others with weak immune systems. (If a virus like the Hong Kong flu hit today, it would probably kill more people for the same reason.)
The worst influenza pandemic, in 1918, killed 675,000 in the United States. And although no one has a reliable worldwide death toll, the lowest reasonable number is about 35 million, and some scientists believe it killed as many as 100 million — at a time when the world’s population was only a quarter of what it is today. The dead included not only the elderly and infants but also robust young adults.
What’s important to keep in mind in assessing the threat of the current outbreak is that all four of the well-known pandemics seem to have come in waves. The 1918 virus surfaced by March and set in motion a spring and summer wave that hit some communities and skipped others. This first wave was extremely mild, more so even than ordinary influenza: of the 10,313 sailors in the British Grand Fleet who became ill, for example, only four died. But autumn brought a second, more lethal wave, which was followed by a less severe third wave in early 1919.
The first wave in 1918 was relatively mild, many experts speculate, because the virus had not fully adapted to humans. And as it did adapt, it also became more lethal. However, there is very good evidence that people who were exposed during the first wave developed immunity — much as people get protection from a modern vaccine.
A similar kind of immune-building process is the most likely explanation for why, in 1918, only 2 percent of those who contracted the flu died. Having been exposed to other influenza viruses, most people had built up some protection. People in isolated regions, including American Indian reservations and Alaskan Inuit villages, had much higher case mortality — presumably because they had less exposure to influenza viruses.
The 1889 pandemic also had a well-defined first wave that was milder than succeeding waves. The 1957 and 1968 pandemics had waves, too, though they were less well defined.
In all four instances, the gap between the time the virus was first recognized and a second, more dangerous wave swelled was about six months. It will take a minimum of four months to produce vaccine in any volume, possibly longer, and much longer than that to produce enough vaccine to protect most Americans. The race has begun.
John M. Barry, a visiting scholar at the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research, is the author of “The Great Influenza.”
-
Guess Joe didn't get the memo that we are supposed to keep going about our business where the swine flu is concerned. Instead, people shouldn't be riding the subway or flying in aircraft:
http://www.politico.com/singletitlevideo.html?bcpid=1155201977&bctid=21663931001
-
This is an excellent book on the 1918-19 pandemic:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0521541751/washingtonbiotecA/
I wrote an article for a local newspaper on the 1918 pandemic when it was the 75th anniversary of it in 1993.
One thing I have not heard mentioned has to do with the fact that most people who died back then did not die of viral neumonia but of secondary bacterial pneumonia.
Indeed the reason it was even named the influenza epidemic was because pathologists early into it identified on smears the heamophilus influenza BACTERIA. So influenza got it's name by mistake. Of course in those days they could not see or had no way to even know what a virus was.
So most of those people similarly sick today would not have died because we now have antibiotics to cure them.
So the threat with that kind of virus is much less serious for those of us in the US then it was. Maybe in the thousands but definitely not in the hundreds of thousands or millions in the US.
That said for other countries, in sub Sahara Africa, remote places in Asia, S. America where access to care is less robust the death rate for such a virus could be very high.
Additionally, the virus could mutate into something nver seen before with death rates much higher than say the estimated 5% in 1918 more akin to Ebola or Hanta viruses.
So I don't take the potential threat lightly.
Should we quarentine those coming from Mexico or prevent those from going?
Of course I am not a world expert but my feeling is that even trying to prevent the spread of influenza is just a fantasy.
It can't be done.
Even in 1918-19 before the advent of mass travel and migration the virus made its way to EVERY single corner of the world where there was humanity.
All the South sea Islands, Eskimos etc. There was no place to hide. There was no palce that was not hit. None!
This is not trying to prevent a few cased of drug resistent TB. You put armed military on the border with Mexico. Forget it.
Influenza will get here if it is destined to.
Of course the politicians will always try to put blame on the other side.
-
Just a thought. I wonder if I should believe the new and reduced number of flu deaths in Mexico.
It seems reasonable to question the motives and thus the validity of the *new* estimates of the the death toll from flu.
Mexico's economy is being hurt by this whole thing. We hear corruption is rampant. So now I hear that oh, its not nearly as bad as we thought. Well is it or not? I don't know what to believe.
****Lower Mexico flu death toll heartens nervous world 02 May 2009 12:46:21 GMT
Source: Reuters
(For full coverage of the flu outbreak, click [nFLU])
* Mexico cuts suspected flu death toll to up to 101
* WHO says flu spans 15 countries, 615 people infected
* U.S. responding aggressively to flu outbreak-Obama
* China cancels Mexico flights, Hong Kong seals off hotel
(Adds Obama comments)
By Catherine Bremer
MEXICO CITY, May 2 (Reuters) - New laboratory data showed fewer people have died in Mexico than first thought from a new influenza strain, a glint of good news for a world rattled by the threat of a flu pandemic.
Mexico cut its suspected death toll from the H1N1 flu to up to 101 from as many as 176, as dozens of test samples came back negative. Fewer patients with severe flu symptoms were also checking into hospitals, suggesting the infection rate of a flu that has spread to Europe and Asia was declining.
The World Health Organisation said on Saturday 15 countries have reported 615 infections with the new flu virus A-H1N1, widely known as swine flu [nL2430119].
Italy later confirmed its first case, a man in the Tuscany region who returned from Mexico on April 24. He has recovered.
Almost all infections outside Mexico have been mild. The only death in another country has been a Mexican toddler who was taken to the United States before he fell sick.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agreed the outbreak may not be as severe as it looked a few days ago, citing many mild cases that were not immediately noticed. [ID:nN01346626]
President Barack Obama said the United States was responding aggressively to the new flu strain [nN01348184].
He outlined steps his administration was taking to address the virus, including school closures, and said antivirals were being distributed to states where they may be needed and new stockpiles had been ordered.
For Mexicans -- spending a second weekend stuck indoors with stores and businesses shuttered across the country and the capital, Mexico City, devoid of its lively restaurants, bars, cinemas and museums -- the data is cheering.
Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova acknowledged the numbers were encouraging but cautioned it was too early to say Mexico had control of the flu.
"For now it's unpredictable," Cordova said late on Friday. "We need more days to see how it behaves and whether there is really a sustained decline."
The new virus is only the third infectious disease experts regard as having pandemic potential in the past 10 years.
It has world health experts racing to find a vaccine and is wreaking havoc with a travel industry that flies hundreds of thousands of people to and from Mexico each week. [ID:nNN0129623]
China suspended flights to Mexico after Hong Kong authorities on Friday confirmed a Mexican man who flew via the Chinese mainland was infected with the flu strain.
HOTEL GUESTS QUARANTINED
Police in surgical masks quarantined 200 guests and 100 staff inside a Hong Kong hotel where the Mexican, 25, had been staying, saying they would be confined for a week. [ID:nT31820]
"They said everybody needed to go back to their rooms. I don't want to go to my room because I want to be out," an Australian man at the hotel told a TV reporter by telephone.
Hong Kong was badly hit by the SARS virus in 2003 and has had many episodes of H5N1 bird flu for more than a decade.
The Asian Development Bank said it was prepared to provide assistance to countries in the region to cope with the possible spread of flu, as it did during the SARS outbreak. [nJAK469756]
Several European countries have confirmed cases of the virus. The United States has been hit with 145 cases in 22 states. [ID:nN01348184]
Mexico has released a confusing batch of flu data in recent days but public hospitals have noted a steady drop in patients turning up with fevers, suggesting the infection rate may be declining as the nation dons face masks and hand gel.
"There are very few deaths worldwide," said Marcelo Musi, a salesman shopping for vegetables in Mexico City, where residents weary of masks, hand sanitizers and frightening headlines clutched at signs of an end to the crisis. "If there are no more cases, they say things will get better."
President Felipe Calderon ordered non-essential businesses to close for five days from Friday, extending a three-day holiday weekend over Monday and Tuesday. [ID:nN01340553]
Analysts say the move will further dent negative economic growth this year.
Countless families were devastated at having their long weekend ruined as restaurants, bars, playgrounds and parks that hold outdoor "cumbia" dances all stayed closed.
Cordova said of 159 files on suspected flu deaths, tests showed 58 died of other causes. He said 16 deaths are confirmed as caused by the H1N1 flu and 85 are being tested. (Additional reporting by Louise Egan and Anahi Rama and Tan Ee Lyn in Hong Kong, Laura MacInnis in Geneva, Silvia Aloisi in Rome; Editing by Janet Lawrence)****
-
May 4, 2009
By George Friedman
Related Special Topic Page
Swine Flu Outbreak 2009
Word began to flow out of Mexico the weekend before last of well over 150 deaths suspected to have been caused by a new strain of influenza commonly referred to as swine flu. Scientists who examined the flu announced that this was a new strain of Influenza A (H1N1) derived partly from swine flu, partly from human flu and partly from avian flu strains (although there is some question as to whether this remains true). The two bits of information released in succession created a global panic.
This panic had three elements. The first related to the global nature of this disease, given that flus spread easily and modern transportation flows mean containment is impossible. Second, there were concerns (including our own) that this flu would have a high mortality rate. And third, the panic centered on the mere fact that this disease was the flu.
News of this new strain triggered memories of the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, sparking fears that the “Spanish flu” that struck at the end of World War I would be repeated. In addition, the scare over avian flu created a sense of foreboding about influenza — a sense that a catastrophic outbreak was imminent.
By midweek, the disease was being reported around the world. It became clear that the disease was spreading, and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Phase 5 pandemic alert. A Phase 5 alert (the last step before a pandemic is actually, officially declared, a step that may be taken within the next couple of days) means that a global pandemic is imminent, and that the virus has proved capable of sustained human-to-human transmission and infecting geographically disparate populations. But this is not a measure of lethality, only communicability, and pandemics are not limited to the deadliest diseases.
‘Pandemic,’ not ‘Duck and Cover’
To the medical mind, the word “pandemic” denotes a disease occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population. The term in no way addresses the underlying seriousness of the disease in the sense of its wider impact on society. The problem is that most people are not physicians. When the WHO convenes a press conference carried by every network in the world, the declaration of a level 5 pandemic connotes global calamity, even as statements from experts — and governments around the world — attempt to walk the line between calming public fears and preparing for the worst.
The reason to prepare for the worst was because this was a pandemic with an extremely unclear prognosis, and about which reliable information was in short supply. Indeed, the new strain could mutate into a more lethal form and re-emerge in the fall for the 2009-2010 flu season. There are also concerns about how its victims disproportionately are healthy young adults under 45 years of age — which was reported in the initial information out of Mexico, and has been reported as an observed factor in the cases that have popped up in the United States. This was part of the 1918 flu pandemic pattern as well. (In contrast, seasonal influenza is most deadly among the elderly and young children with weaker immune systems.)
But as the days wore on last week, the swine flu began to look like little more than ordinary flu. Toward the end of the week, a startling fact began to emerge: While there were more than a hundred deaths in Mexico suspected of being caused by the new strain, only about 20 (a number that has increased slightly after being revised downward earlier last week) have been confirmed as being linked to the new virus. And there has not been a single death from the disease reported anywhere else in the world, save that of a Mexican child transported to the United States for better care. Indeed, even in Mexico, the country’s health minister declared the disease to be past its peak May 3. STRATFOR sources involved in examining the strain have also suggested that the initial analysis of the swine flu was in fact in error, and that the swine flu may have originated during a 1998 outbreak in a pig farm in North Carolina. This information reopens the question of what killed the individuals whose deaths were attributed to swine flu.
While little is understood about the specifics of this new strain, influenza in general has a definitive pattern. It is a virus that affects the respiratory system, and particularly the lungs. At its deadliest it can cause secondary infections — typically bacterial rather than viral — leading to pneumonia. In the most virulent forms of influenza, it is the speed with which complications strike that drives death rates higher. Additionally, substantively new strains (as swine flu is suspected of being) can be distinct enough from other strains of flu that pre-existing immunity gained from flus of years past does not help fend off the latest variation.
Influenza is not a disease that lingers and then kills people — save the sick, old and very young, whose immune systems are more easily compromised. Roughly half a million people (largely from these groups) die annually worldwide from more common strains of influenza, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pegging average American deaths at roughly 36,000 per year.
Swine flu deaths have not risen as would be expected at this point for a highly contagious and lethal new strain of influenza. In most cases, victims have experienced little more than a bad cold, from which they are recovering. And infections outside Mexico so far have not been severe. This distinction of clear cases of death in Mexico and none elsewhere (again, save the one U.S. case) is stark.
Much of what has occurred in the last week regarding the new virus reminds us of the bird flu scare of 2005. Then as now, the commonly held belief was that a deadly strain was about to be let loose on humanity. Then as now, many governments were heightening concerns rather than quelling them. Then as now, STRATFOR saw only a very small chance of the situation becoming problematic.
Ultimately, by the end of last week it had become clear to the global public that “pandemic” could refer to bad colds as well as to plagues wiping out millions.
A Real Crisis
The recent swine flu experience raises the question of how one would attempt to grapple with a genuine high-mortality pandemic with major consequences. The answer divides into two parts: how to control the spread, and how to deploy treatments.
Communicability
The flu virus is widely present in two species other than humans, namely, birds and pigs. The history of the disease is the history of its transmission within and across these three species. It is comparatively easy for the disease to transmit from swine to birds and from swine to humans; the bird-to-human barrier is the most difficult to cross.
Cross-species influenza is of particular concern. In the simplest terms, viruses are able to recombine (e.g., human flu and avian flu can merge into a hybrid flu strain). What comes out can be a flu transmissible to humans, but with a physical form that is distinctly avian — meaning it fails to alert human immune systems to the intrusion. This can rob the human immune system of the ability to quickly recognize the disease and put up a fight.
New humanly transmissible influenza strains often have been found to originate in places where humans, pigs and/or fowl live in close proximity to each other — particularly in agricultural areas where animal and human habitation is shared or in which constant, close physical contact takes place.
Agricultural areas of Asia with dense populations, relatively small farms and therefore frequent and prolonged contact between species traditionally have been the areas in which influenza strains have transferred from animals to humans and then mutated into diseases transmissible by casual human contact. Indeed, these areas have been the focus of concern over a potential outbreak of bird flu. This time around, the outbreak began in Mexico (though it is not yet clear where the virus itself originated).
And this is key to understanding this flu. Because it appears relatively mild, it might well have been around for quite awhile — giving people mild influenza, but not standing out as a new variety until it hit Mexico. The simultaneous discovery of the strain amid a series of deaths (and what may now be in hindsight inflated concerns about its lethality) led to the recent crisis footing.
Any time such threats are recognized, they already are beyond containment. Given travel patterns in the world today, viruses move easily to new locations well before they are identified in the first place they strike. The current virus is a case in point. It appears, although it is far from certain, that it originated in the Veracruz area of Mexico. Within two days of the Mexican government having issued a health alert, it already had spread as far afield as New Zealand. One week on, cases completely unrelated to Mexico have already been confirmed on five continents.
In all probability, this “spread” was less the discovery of new areas of infection than the random discovery of areas that might have been infected for weeks or even months (though the obvious first people to test were those who had recently returned from Mexico with flu symptoms). Given the apparent mildness of the infection, most people would not go to the doctor. And if they did, the doctor would call it generic flu and not even concern himself with its type. What happened last week appears to have been less the spread of a new influenza virus than the “discovery” of places to which it had spread awhile ago.
The problem with the new variety was not that it was so deadly; had it actually been as uniquely deadly as it first appeared to be, there would have been no mistaking its arrival, because hospitals would be overflowing. It was precisely its mildness that sparked the search. But because of expectations established in the wake of the Mexico deaths, the discovery of new cases was disassociated from its impact. Its presence alone caused panic, with schools closing and border closings discussed.
The virus traveled faster than news of the virus. When the news of the virus finally caught up with the virus, the global perception was shaped by a series of deaths suddenly recognized in Mexico (as mentioned, deaths so far not seen elsewhere). But even as the Mexican Health Ministry begins to consider the virus beyond its peak, the potential for mutation and a more virulent strain in the next flu season looms.
Mortality
As mentioned, viruses that spread through casual human contact can be globally established before anyone knows of it. The first sign of a really significant influenza pandemic will not come from the medical community or the WHO; it will come from the fact that people are catching influenza and dying, and are doing so all over the world at the same time. The system established for detecting spreading diseases is hardwired to be behind the curve. This is not because it is inefficient, but because no matter how efficient, it cannot block casual contact — which, given modern air transportation, spreads diseases globally in a matter of days or even hours.
Therefore, the problem is not the detection of deadly pandemics, simply because they cannot be missed. Rather, the problem is reacting medically to deadly pandemics. One danger is overreacting to every pandemic and thereby breaking the system. (As of this writing, the CDC remained deeply concerned about swine flu, though calm seems to be returning.)
The other danger is not reacting rapidly enough. In the case of influenza, medical steps can be taken. First, there are anti-viral medicines found to be effective against the new strain, and if sufficient stockpiles exist — which is hardly universally the case, especially in the developing world — and those stockpiles can be administered early enough, the course of the disease can be mitigated. Second, since most people die from secondary infection in the lungs, antibiotics can be administered. Unlike with the 1918 pandemic, the mortality rate can be dramatically reduced.
The problem here is logistical: The distribution and effective administration of medications is a challenge. Producing enough of the medication is one problem; it takes months to craft, grow and produce a new vaccine, and the flu vaccine is tailored every year to deal with the three most dangerous strains of flu. Another problem is moving the medication to areas where it is needed in an environment that maintains its effectiveness. Equally important is the existence of infrastructure and medical staff capable of diagnosing, administering and supporting patients — and doing so on a scale never before attempted.
These things will not be done effectively on a global basis. That is inevitable. But influenza, even at the highest death rates ever recorded for the disease, does not threaten human existence as we know it. At its worst, flu will kill a lot of people, but the human race and the international order will survive.
The true threat to humanity, if it ever comes, will not come from influenza. Rather, it will come from a disease spread through casual human contact, but with a higher mortality rate than flu and no clear treatment. While HIV/AIDS boasts an extraordinarily high mortality rate and no cure exists, it at least does not spread through casual contact as influenza does, and so the pace at which it can spread is limited.
Humanity will survive the worst that influenza can throw at it even without intervention. With modern intervention, its effect declines dramatically. But the key problem of pandemics was revealed in this case: The virus spread well before information on it spread. Detection and communication lagged. That did not matter in this case, and it did not matter in the case of HIV/AIDS, because the latter was a disease that did not spread through casual contact. However, should a disease arise that is as deadly as HIV, that spreads through casual contact, about which there is little knowledge and for which there is no cure, the medical capabilities of humanity would be virtually useless.
There are problems to which there are no solutions. Fortunately, these problems may not arise. But if they do, no amount of helpful public service announcements from the CDC and the WHO will make the slightest bit of difference.
-
WHO warns of severe form of swine flu
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Maggie Fox, Health And Science Editor – Fri Aug 28, 1:36 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Doctors are reporting a severe form of swine flu that goes straight to the lungs, causing severe illness in otherwise healthy young people and requiring expensive hospital treatment, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Some countries are reporting that as many as 15 percent of patients infected with the new H1N1 pandemic virus need hospital care, further straining already overburdened healthcare systems, WHO said in an update on the pandemic.
"During the winter season in the southern hemisphere, several countries have viewed the need for intensive care as the greatest burden on health services. Preparedness measures need to anticipate this increased demand on intensive care units, which could be overwhelmed by a sudden surge in the number of severe cases."
Earlier, WHO reported that H1N1 had reached epidemic levels in Japan, signaling an early start to what may be a long influenza season this year, and that it was also worsening in tropical regions.
"Perhaps most significantly, clinicians from around the world are reporting a very severe form of disease, also in young and otherwise healthy people, which is rarely seen during seasonal influenza infections. In these patients, the virus directly infects the lung, causing severe respiratory failure. Saving these lives depends on highly specialized and demanding care in intensive care units, usually with long and costly stays."
MINORITIES AT RISK
Minority groups and indigenous populations may also have a higher risk of being severely ill with H1N1.
"In some studies, the risk in these groups is four to five times higher than in the general population. Although the reasons are not fully understood, possible explanations include lower standards of living and poor overall health status, including a high prevalence of conditions such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension."
WHO said it was advising countries in the Northern Hemisphere to prepare for a second wave of pandemic spread. "Countries with tropical climates, where the pandemic virus arrived later than elsewhere, also need to prepare for an increasing number of cases," it said.
Every year, seasonal flu infects between 5 percent and 20 percent of a given population and kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people globally. Because hardly anyone has immunity to the new H1N1 virus, experts believe it will infect far more people than usual, as much as a third of the population. It also disproportionately affects younger people, unlike seasonal flu which mainly burdens the elderly, and thus may cause more severe illness and deaths among young adults and children than seasonal flu does.
"Data continue to show that certain medical conditions increase the risk of severe and fatal illness. These include respiratory disease, notably asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and immunosuppression. When anticipating the impact of the pandemic as more people become infected, health officials need to be aware that many of these predisposing conditions have become much more widespread in recent decades, thus increasing the pool of vulnerable people."
WHO estimates that more than 230 million people globally have asthma, and more than 220 million have diabetes. Obesity may also worsen the risk of severe infection, WHO said.
The good news -- people infected with AIDS virus do not seem to be at special risk from H1N1, WHO said.
(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
-
‘Behind the Headlines’? Despite the Headlines!
Posted by Jim Harper
STRATFOR—a group I hadn’t heard of before—provides, in their words, “geopolitical intelligence – independent, non-ideological and non-partisan analysis and perspective that is unavailable anywhere else in the world.” They also say they provide the “intelligence behind the headlines.”
Well, I was struck—delighted, really—to see them outright contradict the headlines in a report of theirs that mercilessly skewers H1N1 (swine) flu fears:
It has been five months since the A(H1N1) influenza virus — aka the swine flu — climbed to the top of the global media heap, and with the start of the Northern Hemisphere’s annual flu season just around the corner, the topic is worth revisiting.
If you take only one fact away from this analysis, take this: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) believes that hospitalization rates and mortality rates for A(H1N1) are similar to or lower than they are for more traditional influenza strains. And if you take two facts away, consider this as well: Influenza data are incomplete at best and rarely cross-comparable, so any assertions of the likelihood of mass deaths are little more than scaremongering bereft of any real analysis or, more important, any actual evidence.
One would expect “intelligence” reporting firms to have the same incentives as politicians and other media: drum up fear to drum up business. But there is value in providing actual facts and sound strategies for responding to world events. As a non-expert, I’m not able to evaluate the substance of the STRATFOR report or its conclusions, but I give it credibility as a statement against interest.
After the early ineptitude shown by the Obama Administration, I was beginning to think that the steady drumbeat of news about preparation for flu season was appropriate societal girding for what could be a notable disease outbreak. I am more inclined now to believe that we are flushing more money down the drain because of fears the administration generated.
Overreaction harms the country, and it is the responsibility of governments—if they take a role—to quell impulses toward overreaction when incidents of national significance occur.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/17/behind-the-headlines-despite-the-headlines/
-
Never heard of Stratfor before? Hah! He needs to spend more time around here :lol:
-
Whether this season’s swine flu turns out to be deadly or mild, most experts agree that it’s only a matter of time before we’re hit by a truly devastating flu pandemic—one that might kill more people worldwide than have died of the plague and AIDS combined. In the U.S., the main lines of defense are pharmaceutical—vaccines and antiviral drugs to limit the spread of flu and prevent people from dying from it. Yet now some flu experts are challenging the medical orthodoxy and arguing that for those most in need of protection, flu shots and antiviral drugs may provide little to none. So where does that leave us if a bad pandemic strikes?
by Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer
Does the Vaccine Matter?
IMAGE CREDIT: JASON REED/REUTERS/CORBIS
DRIVE TOO FAST along Red Lion Road, beside Philadelphia’s Northeast Airport, and you will miss the low-rise cement building where the biotech company MedImmune has been quietly pumping out swine flu vaccine at about a million doses a week. Through the summer and fall, workers wearing protective gear that covered them from head to toe brewed up batches of live, genetically modified flu virus. Robots then injected tiny doses of virus-laden fluid into glass vials, which were mounted into nasal spritzers, labeled, and readied for shipment at the direction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, which is helping to coordinate the nation’s pandemic-preparedness plan. In the most ambitious vaccination program the nation has mounted since the anti-polio campaign in the 1950s, the federal government has commissioned MedImmune and four other companies to produce enough vaccine to cover the entire U.S. population.
Vaccination is central to the government’s plan for preventing deaths from swine flu. The CDC has recommended that some 159 million adults and children receive either a swine flu shot or a dose of MedImmune’s nasal vaccine this year. Shots are offered in doctors’ offices, hospitals, airports, pharmacies, schools, polling places, shopping malls, and big-box stores like Wal-Mart. In August, New York state required all health-care workers to get both seasonal and swine flu shots. To further protect the populace, the federal government has spent upwards of $3billion stockpiling millions of doses of antiviral drugs like Tamiflu—which are being used both to prevent swine flu and to treat those who fall ill.
But what if everything we think we know about fighting influenza is wrong? What if flu vaccines do not protect people from dying—particularly the elderly, who account for 90 percent of deaths from seasonal flu? And what if the expensive antiviral drugs that the government has stockpiled over the past few years also have little, if any, power to reduce the number of people who die or are hospitalized? The U.S. government—with the support of leaders in the public-health and medical communities—has put its faith in the power of vaccines and antiviral drugs to limit the spread and lethality of swine flu. Other plans to contain the pandemic seem anemic by comparison. Yet some top flu researchers are deeply skeptical of both flu vaccines and antivirals. Like the engineers who warned for years about the levees of New Orleans, these experts caution that our defenses may be flawed, and quite possibly useless against a truly lethal flu. And that unless we are willing to ask fundamental questions about the science behind flu vaccines and antiviral drugs, we could find ourselves, in a bad epidemic, as helpless as the citizens of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
THE TERM INFLUENZA, which dates back to the Middle Ages, is taken from the Italian word for occult or astral influence. Then as now, flu seemed to appear out of nowhere each winter, debilitating or killing large numbers of people, only to vanish in the spring. Today, seasonal flu is estimated to kill about 36,000 people in the United States each year, and half a million worldwide.
Yet the flu, in many important respects, remains mysterious. Determining how many deaths it really causes, or even who has it, is no simple matter. We think we have the flu anytime we fall ill with an ailment that brings on headache, malaise, fever, coughing, sneezing, and that achy feeling as if we’ve been sleeping on a bed of rocks, but researchers have found that at most half, and perhaps as few as 7 or 8 percent, of such cases are actually caused by an influenza virus in any given year. More than 200 known viruses and other pathogens can cause the suite of symptoms known as “influenza-like illness”; respiratory syncytial virus, bocavirus, coronavirus, and rhinovirus are just a few of the bugs that can make a person feel rotten. And depending on the season, in up to two-thirds of the cases of flu-like illness, no cause at all can be found.
Nobody knows precisely why we are much more likely to catch the flu in the winter months than at other times of the year. Perhaps it’s because flu viruses flourish in cool temperatures and are killed by exposure to sunlight. Or maybe it’s because in winter, people spend more time indoors, where a sneeze or a cough can more easily spread a virus to others. What is certain is that influenza viruses mutate with amazing speed, so each flu season sees slightly different genetic versions of the viruses that infected people the year before. Every year, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collect data from 94 nations on the flu viruses that circulated the previous year, and then make an educated guess about which viruses are likely to circulate in the coming fall. Based on that information, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issues orders to manufacturers in February for a vaccine that includes the three most likely strains.
Every once in a while, however, a very different bug pops up and infects far more people than the normal seasonal flu variants do. It is these novel viruses that are responsible for pandemics, defined by the World Health Organization as events that occur when “a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity” and which can sweep around the world in a very short time. The worst flu pandemic in recorded history was the “Spanish flu” of 1918–19, at the end of World WarI. A third of the world’s population was infected, with at least 40million and perhaps as many as 100million people dying—more than were killed in World Wars I and II combined. (Some scholars suggest that one reason World WarI ended was that so many soldiers were sick or dying from flu.) Since then, two other flu pandemics have occurred, in 1957 and 1968, neither of which was particularly lethal.
In August, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology projected that this fall and winter, the swine flu, H1N1, could infect anywhere between one-third and one-half of the U.S. population and could kill as many as 90,000 Americans, two and a half times the number killed in a typical flu season. But precisely how deadly, or even how infectious, this year’s H1N1 pandemic will turn out to be won’t be known until it’s over. Most reports coming from the Southern Hemisphere in late August (the end of winter there) suggested that the swine flu is highly infectious, but not particularly lethal. For example, Australian officials estimated they would finish winter with under 1,000 swine flu deaths—fewer than the usual 1,500 to 3,000 from seasonal flu. Among those who have died in the U.S., about 70 percent were already suffering from congenital conditions like cerebral palsy or underlying illnesses such as cancer, asthma, or AIDS, which make people more vulnerable.
Public-health officials consider vaccine their most formidable defense against the pandemic—indeed, against any flu—and on the surface, their faith seems justified. Vaccines developed over the course of the 20th century slashed the death rates of nearly a dozen infectious diseases, such as smallpox and polio, and vaccination became one of medicine’s most potent weapons. Influenza virus was first identified in the 1930s, and by the mid-1940s, researchers had produced a vaccine that was given to soldiers in World WarII. The U.S. government got serious about promoting flu vaccine after the 1957 flu pandemic brought home influenza’s continuing potential to cause widespread illness and death. Today, flu vaccine is a staple of public-health policy; in a normal year, some 100 million Americans get vaccinated.
But while vaccines for, say, whooping cough and polio clearly and dramatically reduced death rates from those diseases, the impact of flu vaccine has been harder to determine. Flu comes and goes with the seasons, and often it does not kill people directly, but rather contributes to death by making the body more susceptible to secondary infections like pneumonia or bronchitis. For this reason, researchers studying the impact of flu vaccination typically look at deaths from all causes during flu season, and compare the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.
Such comparisons have shown a dramatic difference in mortality between these two groups: study after study has found that people who get a flu shot in the fall are about half as likely to die that winter—from any cause—as people who do not. Get your flu shot each year, the literature suggests, and you will dramatically reduce your chance of dying during flu season.
Yet in the view of several vaccine skeptics, this claim is suspicious on its face. Influenza causes only a small minority of all deaths in the U.S., even among senior citizens, and even after adding in the deaths to which flu might have contributed indirectly. When researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases included all deaths from illnesses that flu aggravates, like lung disease or chronic heart failure, they found that flu accounts for, at most, 10 percent of winter deaths among the elderly. So how could flu vaccine possibly reduce total deaths by half? Tom Jefferson, a physician based in Rome and the head of the Vaccines Field at the Cochrane Collaboration, a highly respected international network of researchers who appraise medical evidence, says: “For a vaccine to reduce mortality by 50 percent and up to 90 percent in some studies means it has to prevent deaths not just from influenza, but also from falls, fires, heart disease, strokes, and car accidents. That’s not a vaccine, that’s a miracle.”
The estimate of 50 percent mortality reduction is based on “cohort studies,” which compare death rates in large groups, or cohorts, of people who choose to be vaccinated, against death rates in groups who don’t. But people who choose to be vaccinated may differ in many important respects from people who go unvaccinated—and those differences can influence the chance of death during flu season. Education, lifestyle, income, and many other “confounding” factors can come into play, and as a result, cohort studies are notoriously prone to bias. When researchers crunch the numbers, they typically try to factor out variables that could bias the results, but, as Jefferson remarks, “you can adjust for the confounders you know about, not for the ones you don’t,” and researchers can’t always anticipate what factors are likely to be important to whether a patient dies from flu. There is always the chance that they might miss some critical confounder that renders their results entirely wrong.
When Lisa Jackson, a physician and senior investigator with the Group Health Research Center, in Seattle, began wondering aloud to colleagues if maybe something was amiss with the estimate of 50 percent mortality reduction for people who get flu vaccine, the response she got sounded more like doctrine than science. “People told me, ‘No good can come of [asking] this,’” she says. “‘Potentially a lot of bad could happen’ for me professionally by raising any criticism that might dissuade people from getting vaccinated, because of course, ‘We know that vaccine works.’ This was the prevailing wisdom.”
Nonetheless, in 2004, Jackson and three colleagues set out to determine whether the mortality difference between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated might be caused by a phenomenon known as the “healthy user effect.” They hypothesized that on average, people who get vaccinated are simply healthier than those who don’t, and thus less liable to die over the short term. People who don’t get vaccinated may be bedridden or otherwise too sick to go get a shot. They may also be more likely to succumb to flu or any other illness, because they are generally older and sicker. To test their thesis, Jackson and her colleagues combed through eight years of medical data on more than 72,000 people 65 and older. They looked at who got flu shots and who didn’t. Then they examined which group’s members were more likely to die of any cause when it was not flu season.
Jackson’s findings showed that outside of flu season, the baseline risk of death among people who did not get vaccinated was approximately 60 percent higher than among those who did, lending support to the hypothesis that on average, healthy people chose to get the vaccine, while the “frail elderly” didn’t or couldn’t. In fact, the healthy-user effect explained the entire benefit that other researchers were attributing to flu vaccine, suggesting that the vaccine itself might not reduce mortality at all. Jackson’s papers “are beautiful,” says Lone Simonsen, who is a professor of global health at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., and an internationally recognized expert in influenza and vaccine epidemiology. “They are classic studies in epidemiology, they are so carefully done.”
The results were also so unexpected that many experts simply refused to believe them. Jackson’s papers were turned down for publication in the top-ranked medical journals. One flu expert who reviewed her studies for the Journal of the American Medical Association wrote, “To accept these results would be to say that the earth is flat!” When the papers were finally published in 2006, in the less prominent International Journal of Epidemiology, they were largely ignored by doctors and public-health officials. “The answer I got,” says Jackson, “was not the right answer.”
THE HISTORY OF FLU VACCINATION suggests other reasons to doubt claims that it dramatically reduces mortality. In 2004, for example, vaccine production fell behind, causing a 40 percent drop in immunization rates. Yet mortality did not rise. In addition, vaccine “mismatches” occurred in 1968 and 1997: in both years, the vaccine that had been produced in the summer protected against one set of viruses, but come winter, a different set was circulating. In effect, nobody was vaccinated. Yet death rates from all causes, including flu and the various illnesses it can exacerbate, did not budge. Sumit Majumdar, a physician and researcher at the University of Alberta, in Canada, offers another historical observation: rising rates of vaccination of the elderly over the past two decades have not coincided with a lower overall mortality rate. In 1989, only 15 percent of people over age 65 in the U.S. and Canada were vaccinated against flu. Today, more than 65 percent are immunized. Yet death rates among the elderly during flu season have increased rather than decreased.
Vaccine proponents call Majumdar’s last observation an “ecological fallacy,” because he fails, in their view, to consider changes in the larger environment that could have boosted death rates over the years—even as rising vaccination rates were doing their part to keep mortality in check. The proponents suggest, for instance, that influenza viruses may have become more contagious over time, and thus are infecting greater numbers of elderly people, including some who have been vaccinated. Or maybe the viruses are becoming more lethal. Or maybe the elderly have less immunity to flu than they once did because, say, their diets have changed.
Or maybe vaccine just doesn’t prevent deaths in the elderly. Of course, that’s the one possibility that vaccine adherents won’t consider. Nancy Cox, the CDC’s influenza division chief, says flatly, “The flu vaccine is the best way to protect against flu.” Anthony Fauci, a physician and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH, where much of the basic science of flu vaccine has been worked out, says, “I have no doubt that it is effective in conferring some degree of protection. To say otherwise is a minority view.”
Majumdar says, “We keep coming up against the belief that we’ve reduced mortality by 50 percent,” and when researchers poke holes in the evidence, “people pound the pulpit.”
THE MOST vocal—and undoubtedly most vexing—critic of the gospel of flu vaccine is the Cochrane Collaboration’s Jefferson, who’s also an epidemiologist trained at the famed London School of Tropical Hygiene, and who, in Lisa Jackson’s view, makes other skeptics seem “moderate by comparison.” Among his fellow flu researchers, Jefferson’s outspokenness has made him something of a pariah. At a 2007 meeting on pandemic preparedness at a hotel in Bethesda, Maryland, Jefferson, who’d been invited to speak at the conference, was not greeted by any of the colleagues milling about the lobby. He ate his meals in the hotel restaurant alone, surrounded by scientists chatting amiably at other tables. He shrugs off such treatment. As a medical officer working for the United Nations in 1992, during the siege of Sarajevo, he and other peacekeepers were captured and held for more than a month by militiamen brandishing AK-47s and reeking of alcohol. Professional shunning seems trivial by comparison, he says.
“Tom Jefferson has taken a lot of heat just for saying, ‘Here’s the evidence: it’s not very good,’” says Majumdar. “The reaction has been so dogmatic and even hysterical that you’d think he was advocating stealing babies.” Yet while other flu researchers may not like what Jefferson has to say, they cannot ignore the fact that he knows the flu-vaccine literature better than anyone else on the planet. He leads an international team of researchers who have combed through hundreds of flu-vaccine studies. The vast majority of the studies were deeply flawed, says Jefferson. “Rubbish is not a scientific term, but I think it’s the term that applies.” Only four studies were properly designed to pin down the effectiveness of flu vaccine, he says, and two of those showed that it might be effective in certain groups of patients, such as school-age children with no underlying health issues like asthma. The other two showed equivocal results or no benefit.
Flu researchers have been fooled into thinking vaccine is more effective than the data suggest, in part, says Jefferson, by the imprecision of the statistics. The only way to know if someone has the flu—as opposed to influenza-like illness—is by putting a Q-tip into the patient’s throat or nose and running a test, which simply isn’t done that often. Likewise, nobody really has a handle on how many of the deaths that are blamed on flu were actually caused by a flu virus, because few are confirmed by a laboratory. “I used to be a family physician,” says Jefferson. “I’ve never seen a patient come to my office with H1N1 written on his forehead. When an old person dies of respiratory failure after an influenza-like illness, they nearly always get coded as influenza.”
-
There’s one other way flu researchers may be fooled into thinking flu vaccine is effective, Jefferson says. All vaccines work by delivering a dose of killed or weakened virus or bacteria, which provokes the immune system into producing antibodies. When the person is subsequently exposed to the real thing, the body is already prepared to repel the bug completely or to get rid of it after a mild illness. Flu researchers often use antibody response as a way of gauging the effectiveness of vaccine, on the assumption that levels of antibodies in the blood of people who have been vaccinated are a good predictor—although an imperfect one—of how well they can ward off the infection.
There’s some merit to this reasoning. Unfortunately, the very people who most need protection from the flu also have immune systems that are least likely to respond to vaccine. Studies show that young, healthy people mount a glorious immune response to seasonal flu vaccine, and their response reduces their chances of getting the flu and may lessen the severity of symptoms if they do get it. But they aren’t the people who die from seasonal flu. By contrast, the elderly, particularly those over age70, don’t have a good immune response to vaccine—and they’re the ones who account for most flu deaths. (Infants with severe disabilities, such as leukemia and congenital lung disease, and people who are immune-compromised—from AIDS, or diabetes, or cancer treatment—make up the rest. As of August8, only 36 deaths from swine flu had been confirmed among children in the U.S., and the overwhelming majority of those children had multiple, severe health disorders.)
In Jefferson’s view, this raises a troubling conundrum: Is vaccine necessary for those in whom it is effective, namely the young and healthy? Conversely, is it effective in those for whom it seems to be necessary, namely the old, the very young, and the infirm? These questions have led to the most controversial aspect of Jefferson’s work: his call for placebo-controlled trials, studies that would randomly give half the test subjects vaccine and the other half a dummy shot, or placebo. Only such large, well-constructed, randomized trials can show with any precision how effective vaccine really is, and for whom.
In the flu-vaccine world, Jefferson’s call for placebo-controlled studies is considered so radical that even some of his fellow skeptics oppose it. Majumdar, the Ottawa researcher, says he believes that evidence of a benefit among children is established and that public-health officials should try to protect seniors by immunizing children, health-care workers, and other people around them, and thus reduce the spread of the flu. Lone Simonsen explains the prevailing view: “It is considered unethical to do trials in populations that are recommended to have vaccine,” a stance that is shared by everybody from the CDC’s Nancy Cox to Anthony Fauci at the NIH. They feel strongly that vaccine has been shown to be effective and that a sham vaccine would put test subjects at unnecessary risk of getting a serious case of the flu. In a phone interview, Fauci at first voiced the opinion that a placebo trial in the elderly might be acceptable, but he called back later to retract his comment, saying that such a trial “would be unethical.” Jefferson finds this view almost exactly backward: “What do you do when you have uncertainty? You test,” he says. “We have built huge, population-based policies on the flimsiest of scientific evidence. The most unethical thing to do is to carry on business as usual.”
JUST AFTER 6 P.M. on a warm Friday evening in July, Dr. David Newman is only minutes into a 10-hour shift in the emergency room of New York City’s St. Luke’s Hospital, and already he has assumed responsibility for 11 patients. The young Italian tourist sitting on the bed in front of the doctor has meningitis, and through an interpreter, Newman tells him he almost certainly has the viral form of the disease, which will do nothing more than make him feel ill for a few days. There is a tiny chance, says Newman, that the illness is caused by a bacterium, which can be deadly, but he is almost positive that’s not what the tourist has. He says to his patient, “I can’t tell you with 100 percent certainty that you don’t have it, but if you do, you’ll begin to feel worse and you’ll need to come back.” The tourist, on learning that he might be infected with a potentially lethal disease, looks down at his feet and confesses that he is much more worried about another illness: swine flu. Newman smiles patiently. “It would be nice if you had swine flu,” he says. “Compared to bacterial meningitis, swine flu is safe.”
Late last spring, as headlines and airwaves warned of a possible pandemic, patients like Newman’s began clogging emergency rooms across the country, a sneezing, coughing, infectious tide of humanity more worried than truly sick, but whose mere presence in the emergency room has endangered the lives of others. “Studies show that when there is ER crowding, mortality goes up, because patients who need immediate attention don’t get it,” says Newman, the director of clinical research in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the hospital, which is affiliated with Columbia University. In an average year the ER at St. Luke’s, a sprawling 1,076-bed hospital on 113th Street, takes in 110,000 patients, some 300 a day. At the height of the summer swine flu outbreak, that number doubled. The vast majority of panicky patients who came in the door at St. Luke’s and other emergency departments didn’t actually have the virus, and of those who did, most were not sick enough to need hospitalization. Even so, says Newman, when patients with even mild flu symptoms show up in the hospital, they vastly increase the spread of the virus, simply because they inevitably sneeze and cough in rooms that are jammed with other people.
Many of the worried sick come to St. Luke’s and other hospitals in search of antiviral drugs. The CDC recommends the use of two drugs against H1N1: oseltamivir and zanamivir, better known by their brand names, Tamiflu and Relenza, which together form the second pillar of the government’s anti-pandemic-flu strategy. Public-health officials at the state and local levels are also recommending the drugs. Guidelines issued by the New York City Department of Health, says Newman, “encourage us to give a prescription to just about every patient with the sniffles,” a practice that some experts worry will quickly lead to resistant strains of the virus.
Indeed, that’s already happening. Daniel Janies, an associate professor of biomedical informatics at Ohio State University, tracks the genetic mutations that allow flu virus to develop resistance to drugs. Flu can become resistant to Tamiflu in a matter of days, he says. Handing out the drug early in the pandemic, when H1N1 poses only a minimal threat to the vast majority of patients, strikes him as “shortsighted.” Indeed, samples of resistant H1N1 were cropping up by midsummer, increasing the likelihood that come late fall, many people will be infected with a resistant strain of swine flu. Alarmed at that prospect, the World Health Organization issued an alert on August 21, recommending that Tamiflu and Relenza be used only in severe cases and in patients who are at high risk of serious complications. By mid-August, two U.S. swine flu patients had developed Tamiflu-resistant strains.
The U.S. first began stockpiling Tamiflu and Relenza back in 2005, in the wake of concern that an outbreak in Southeast Asia of bird flu, a far more deadly form of the disease, might go global. On November 1, 2005, President George W.Bush pronounced pandemic flu a “danger to our homeland,” and he asked Congress to approve legislation that included $1billion for the production and stockpiling of antivirals. This was after Congress had already approved $1.8billion to stockpile Tamiflu for the military, a decision that was made during the tenure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. (Before joining the Bush Cabinet, Rumsfeld was chairman for four years of Gilead Sciences, the company that holds the patent on Tamiflu, and he held millions of dollars’ worth of stock in the company. According to Roll Call, an online newspaper covering events on Capitol Hill, Rumsfeld says he recused himself from all government decisions involving Tamiflu. Gilead’s stock price rose more than 50 percent in 2005, when the government’s plan was announced.)
As with vaccines, the scientific evidence for Tamiflu and Relenza is thin at best. In its general-information section, the CDC’s Web site tells readers that antiviral drugs can “make you feel better faster.” True, but not by much. On average, Tamiflu (which accounts for 85 to 90 percent of the flu antiviral-drug market) cuts the duration of flu symptoms by 24hours in otherwise healthy people. In exchange for a slightly shorter bout of illness, as many as one in five people taking Tamiflu will experience nausea and vomiting. About one in five children will have neuropsychiatric side effects, possibly including anxiety and suicidal behavior. In Japan, where Tamiflu is liberally prescribed, the drug may have been responsible for 50 deaths from cardiopulmonary arrest, from 2001 to 2007, according to Rokuro Hama, the chair of the Japan Institute of Pharmacovigilance.
Such side effects might be worth risking if the antivirals prevented serious complications of flu, such as pneumonia, hospitalization, and death. Roche Laboratories, the company licensed to manufacture and market Tamiflu, says its drug does just that. In two September2006 press releases, the company announced, “Tamiflu significantly reduces the risk of death from influenza: New data shows treatment was associated with more than a two third reduction in deaths,” and “Children with influenza [are] 53 percent less likely to contract pneumonia when treated with Tamiflu.” Once again cohort studies (the same kind of potentially biased research that led to the conclusion that flu vaccine cuts mortality by 50 percent) are behind these claims. Tamiflu costs $10 a pill. It is possible that people who take it are more likely to be insured and affluent, or at least middle-class, than those who do not, and a large body of evidence shows that the well-off nearly always fare better than the poor when stricken with an infectious disease, including flu. In both 2003 and 2009, reviews of randomized placebo-controlled studies found that the study populations simply weren’t large enough to answer the question: Does Tamiflu prevent pneumonia?
As late as this August, the company’s own Web site contained the following statement, which was written under the direction of the FDA: “Tamiflu has not been proven to have a positive impact on the potential consequences (such as hospitalizations, mortality, or economic impact) of seasonal, avian, or pandemic influenza.” An FDA spokesperson said recently that the agency is unaware of any data submitted by Roche that would support the claims in the company’s September 2006 news release about the drug’s reducing flu deaths.
WHY, THEN, HAS the federal government stockpiled millions of doses of antivirals, at a cost of several billion dollars? And why are physicians being encouraged to hand out prescriptions to large numbers of people, without sound evidence that the drugs will help? The short answer may be that public-health officials feel they must offer something, and these drugs are the only possible remedies at hand. “I have to agree with the critics the antiviral question is not cut-and-dried,” says Fauci. “But [these drugs are] the best we have.” The CDC’s Nancy Cox also acknowledges that the science is not as sound as she might like, but the government still recommends their use. And as with vaccines, she considers additional randomized placebo-controlled trials of the antiviral drugs to be “unethical” and thus out of the question.
This is the curious state of debate about the government’s two main weapons in the fight against pandemic flu. At first, government officials declare that both vaccines and drugs are effective. When faced with contrary evidence, the adherents acknowledge that the science is not as crisp as they might wish. Then, in response to calls for placebo-controlled trials, which would provide clear results one way or the other, the proponents say such studies would deprive patients of vaccines and drugs that have already been deemed effective. “We can’t just let people die,” says Cox.
Students of U.S. medical history will find this circular logic familiar: it is a long-recurring theme in American medicine, and one that has, on occasion, had deadly consequences. In 1925, Sinclair Lewis caricatured a medical culture that allowed belief—and profits—to distort science in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, Arrowsmith. Based on the lives of the real-life microbiologists Paul de Kruif and Jacques Loeb, Lewis tells the story of Martin Arrowsmith, a physician who invents a new vaccine during a deadly outbreak of bubonic plague. But his efforts to test the vaccine’s efficacy are frustrated by an angry community that desperately wants to believe the vaccine works, and a profit-hungry institute that rushes the vaccine into use prematurely—forever preempting the proper studies that are needed.
The annals of medicine are littered with treatments and tests that became medical doctrine on the slimmest of evidence, and were then declared sacrosanct and beyond scientific investigation. In the 1980s and ’90s, for example, cancer specialists were convinced that high-dose chemotherapy followed by a bone-marrow transplant was the best hope for women with advanced breast cancer, and many refused to enroll their patients in randomized clinical trials that were designed to test transplants against the standard—and far less toxic—therapy. The trials, they said, were unethical, because they knew transplants worked. When the studies were concluded, in 1999 and 2000, it turned out that bone-marrow transplants were killing patients. Another recent example involves drugs related to the analgesic lidocaine. In the 1970s, doctors noticed that the drugs seemed to make the heart beat rhythmically, and they began prescribing them to patients suffering from irregular heartbeats, assuming that restoring a proper rhythm would reduce the patient’s risk of dying. Prominent cardiologists for years opposed clinical trials of the drugs, saying it would be medical malpractice to withhold them from patients in a control group. The drugs were widely used for two decades, until a government-sponsored study showed in 1989 that patients who were prescribed the medicine were three and a half times as likely to die as those given a placebo.
Demonstrating the efficacy (or lack thereof) of vaccine and antivirals during flu season would not be hard to do, given the proper resources. Take a group of people who are at risk of getting the flu, and randomly assign half to get vaccine and the other half a dummy shot. Then count the people in each group who come down with flu, suffer serious illness, or die. (A similarly designed trial would suffice for the antivirals.) It might sound coldhearted, but it is the only way to know for certain whether, and for whom, current remedies actually work. It would also be useful to know whether vaccinating healthy people—who can mount an immune response on their own—protects the more vulnerable people around them. For example, immunizing nursing-home staff and healthy children is thought to reduce the spread of flu to the elderly and the immune-compromised. Pinning down the effectiveness of this strategy would be a bit more complex, but not impossible.
IN THE ABSENCE of such evidence, we are left with two possibilities. One is that flu vaccine is in fact highly beneficial, or at least helpful. Solid evidence to that effect would encourage more citizens—and particularly more health professionals—to get their shots and prevent the flu’s spread. As it stands, more than 50 percent of health-care workers say they do not intend to get vaccinated for swine flu and don’t routinely get their shots for seasonal flu, in part because many of them doubt the vaccines’ efficacy. The other possibility, of course, is that we’re relying heavily on vaccines and antivirals that simply don’t work, or don’t work as well as we believe. And as a result, we may be neglecting other, proven measures that could minimize the death rate during pandemics.
“Vaccines give us a false sense of security,” says Sumit Majumdar. “When you have a strategy that [everybody thinks] reduces death by 50 percent, it’s pretty hard to invest resources to come up with better remedies.” For instance, health departments in every state are responsible for submitting plans to the CDC for educating the public, in the event of a serious pandemic, about hand-washing and “social distancing” (voluntary quarantines, school closings, and even enforcement of mandatory quarantines to keep infected people in their homes). Putting these plans into action will require considerable coordination among government officials, the media, and health-care workers—and widespread buy-in from the public. Yet little discussion has appeared in the press to help people understand the measures they can take to best protect themselves during a flu outbreak—other than vaccination and antivirals.
“Launched early enough and continued long enough, social distancing can blunt the impact of a pandemic,” says Howard Markel, a pediatrician and historian of medicine at the University of Michigan. Washing hands diligently, avoiding public places during an outbreak, and having a supply of canned goods and water on hand are sound defenses, he says. Such steps could be highly effective in helping to slow the spread of the virus. In Mexico, for instance, where the first swine flu cases were identified in March, the government launched an aggressive program to get people to wash their hands and exhorted those who were sick to stay home and effectively quarantine themselves. In the United Kingdom, the national health department is promoting a “buddy” program, encouraging citizens to find a friend or neighbor willing to deliver food and medicine so people who fall ill can stay home.
In the U.S., by contrast, our reliance on vaccination may have the opposite effect: breeding feelings of invulnerability, and leading some people to ignore simple measures like better-than-normal hygiene, staying away from those who are sick, and staying home when they feel ill. Likewise, our encouragement of early treatment with antiviral drugs will likely lead many people to show up at the hospital at first sniffle. “There’s no worse place to go than the hospital during flu season,” says Majumdar. Those who don’t have the flu are more likely to catch it there, and those who do will spread it around, he says. “But we don’t tell people this.”
All of which leaves open the question of what people should do when faced with a decision about whether to get themselves and their families vaccinated. There is little immediate danger from getting a seasonal flu shot, aside from a sore arm and mild flu-like symptoms. The safety of the swine flu vaccine remains to be seen. In the absence of better evidence, vaccines and antivirals must be viewed as only partial and uncertain defenses against the flu. And they may be mere talismans. By being afraid to do the proper studies now, we may be condemning ourselves to using treatments based on illusion and faith rather than sound science.
The URL for this page is http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1
-
Obama declares H1N1 national emergency
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Washington (CNN) -- President Obama has declared a national emergency to deal with the "rapid increase in illness" from the H1N1 influenza virus.
"The 2009 H1N1 pandemic continues to evolve. The rates of illness continue to rise rapidly within many communities across the nation, and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some localities," Obama said in a statement.
"Thus, in recognition of the continuing progression of the pandemic, and in further preparation as a nation, we are taking additional steps to facilitate our response."
The president signed the declaration late Friday and announced it Saturday.
Calling the emergency declaration "an important tool in our kit going forward," one administration official called Obama's action a "proactive measure that's not in response to any new development." Having trouble finding vaccine? Share your story
Another administration official said the move is "not tied to the current case count" and "gives the federal government more power to help states" by lifting bureaucratic requirements -- both in treating patients and moving equipment to where it's most needed.
The officials didn't want their names used because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Obama's action allows Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius "to temporarily waive or modify certain requirements" to help health care facilities enact emergency plans to deal with the pandemic.
Those requirements are contained in Medicare, Medicaid and state Children's Health Insurance programs, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule.
Since the H1N1 flu pandemic began in April, millions of people in the United States have been infected, at least 20,000 have been hospitalized and more than 1,000 have died, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Watch how to find out if you have H1N1
Frieden said that having 46 states reporting widespread flu transmission is traditionally the hallmark of the peak of flu season. To have the flu season peak at this time of the year is "extremely unusual."
The CDC said 16.1 million doses of H1N1, or swine flu, vaccine had been made by Friday -- 2 million more than two days earlier. About 11.3 million of those had been distributed throughout the United States, Frieden said.
"We are nowhere near where we thought we would be," Frieden said, acknowledging that manufacturing delays have contributed to less vaccine being available than expected. "As public health professionals, vaccination is our strongest tool. Not having enough is frustrating to all of us."
Frieden said that while the way vaccine is manufactured is "tried and true," it's not well-suited for ramping up production during a pandemic because it takes at least six months. The vaccine is produced by growing weakened virus in eggs.
----
What does this have to do with firearms politics you ask? well, many in the U.S(mostly conspiracy buffs) believe there are more sinister plans involved.
The first and biggest question being asked is what emergency?
The declaration of this national emergency seems suspicious from the start. Where’s the emergency? The number of people killed by swine flu in the United States is far smaller than the number of people killed each year from seasonal flu, according to CDC statistics. People obviously aren’t dropping dead by the millions from H1N1 influenza. Most people are just getting mild flu symptoms and a few days later they’re fine.
So what does this mean for Americans? The decleration of a national emergency means the government trumphs the bill of rights. They now, by decleration of this emergency, have the power to:
•The power to force mandatory swine flu vaccinations on the entire population.
• The power to arrest, quarantine or “involuntarily transport” anyone who refuses a swine flu vaccination.
• The power to quarantine an entire city and halt all travel in or out of that city.
• The power to enter any home or office without a search warrant and order the destruction of any belongings or structures deemed to be a threat to public health.
• The effective nullification of the Bill of Rights. Your right to due process, to being safe from government search and seizure, and to remain silent to avoid self-incrimination are all null and void under a Presidential declaration of a national emergency.
None of this means that federal agents are going to march door to door arresting people at gunpoint if they refuse the vaccine, but they could if they wanted to. Your rights are no longer recognized under this national emergency declaration.
-
The Pandemic Is Political
Michael Fumento, 10.16.09, 7:15 PM ET
As evidence continues to mount that swine flu is more of a piglet than a raging razorback, why isn't curiosity mounting as to why the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic? And definitions aside, why does the agency continue to insist we're going to get hammered? The answers have far less to do with world health than with redistribution of world wealth.
Medically, the pandemic moniker is unjustifiable. When the sacrosanct World Health Organization (WHO) made its official declaration in June, we were 11 weeks into the outbreak, and swine flu had only killed 144 people worldwide--the same number who die of seasonal flu worldwide every few hours. The mildest pandemics of the 20th century killed at least a million people worldwide. And even after six months, swine flu has killed about as many people as the seasonal flu does every six days.
So how could WHO make such an outrageous claim?
Simple. It rewrote the definition of "pandemic."
A previous official definition (and widely used unofficial one) required "simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness." Severity--that is, the number--is crucial, because seasonal flu always causes worldwide simultaneous epidemics. But one promulgated in April just days before the announcement of the swine flu outbreak simply eliminated severity as a factor.
That's also how we can have a "pandemic" when six months of epidemiological data show swine flu to be far milder than the seasonal variety. New York City statistics show it to be perhaps a 10th as lethal.
In Australia and New Zealand, flu season has ended, and almost all cases have been swine flu. Yet even without a vaccine, these countries are reporting fewer flu deaths than normal. (In New Zealand, that's just 18 confirmed deaths compared with 400 normally.) Swine flu is causing negative deaths! The best explanation is that infection with the milder strain (swine flu) is inoculating against the more severe strain (seasonal flu) it has displaced.
This all makes sense once you realize that swine flu isn't some sort of alien from outer space as we've been led to believe, but rather "the same subtype as seasonal A/H1N1 that has been circulating since 1977," as the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) observes. It's "something our immune systems have seen before," echoes Peter Palese of New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
The older you are, the more you've been exposed and the higher your immunity level--hence the need to give two swine flu vaccinations to those under age 10.
Nevertheless, because WHO dubbed this a "pandemic," vaccination plans, emergency response measures and frightening predictions have been based on comparisons with true pandemics that by definition were especially severe. That includes the August report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology with its "plausible scenario" of "30,000 - 90,000 deaths" peaking in "mid-October."
Check your calendar.
So, then, why did WHO do it?
In part, it was CYA for the WHO. It was losing credibility over the refusal of avian flu H5N1 to go pandemic and kill as many as 150 million people worldwide, as its "flu czar" had predicted in 2005. Around the world, nations stockpiled antiviral medicines and H5N1 vaccine.
So when pig flu conveniently appeared, the WHO essentially crossed out "avian," inserted "swine," and WHO Director-General Margaret Chan could boast: "The world can now reap the benefits of investments over the last five years in pandemic preparedness."
Yet this doesn't explain why the agency hyped avian flu in the first place, nor why it exaggerated HIV infections by more than 10 times, or why it spread hysteria over Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). That disease ultimately killed a day's worth of seasonal flu victims before vanishing.
But the SARS scare was enough, leading to a broad expansion of WHO powers, including a degree of direct authority over national health agencies. It's now using that to leverage more authority and a bigger budget. No shocker there.
What may be surprising is that it wants to use that power to help bring about a global economic and social revolution--and that Director-General Chan was so blunt about it in a speech in Copenhagen last month.
She said "ministers of health" should take advantage of the "devastating impact" swine flu will have on poorer nations to tell "heads of state and ministers of finance, tourism and trade" that:
--The belief that "living conditions and health status of the poor would somehow automatically improve as countries modernized, liberalized their trade and improved their economies" is false. Wealth doesn't equal health.
--"Changes in the functioning of the global economy" are needed to "distribute wealth on the basis of" values "like community, solidarity, equity and social justice."
--"The international policies and systems that govern financial markets, economies, commerce, trade and foreign affairs have not operated with fairness as an explicit policy objective."
Splendid! So let's put the WHO in charge of worldwide economic and social engineering.
Then let's form a new agency that sees disease as something to prevent and treat rather than something to exploit.
Michael Fumento is director of the nonprofit Independent Journalism Project, where he specializes in health and science issues, and author of The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS: How a Tragedy Has Been Distorted by the Media and Partisan Politics.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/16/swine-flu-world-health-organization-pandemic-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html
-
Almost started a new topic on this source, "Pathological Aid" perhaps. Be that as it may, came across an interesting source monitoring the effectiveness of various sorts of aid to poorer people/countries. Like how the folks here focus on the empiric rather than the feel good. There "about us" blurb states:
ABOUT AID WATCH
The Aid Watch blog is a project of New York University's Development Research Institute (DRI). This blog is principally written by William Easterly, author of "The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics" and "The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good," and Professor of Economics at NYU. It is co-written by Laura Freschi and by occasional guest bloggers. Our work is based on the idea that more aid will reach the poor the more people are watching aid.
“Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.” - H.L. Mencken
Article follows:
The Political Economy of Aid Optimism or Pessimism
By William Easterly and Laura Freschi | Published October 27, 2009
Bill and Melinda Gates are making a big media presentation today at 7pm of their Living Proof Project, in which they document aid successes in health. They call themselves “Impatient Optimists.” We can comment more after we hear their presentation. However, they invited comment already by posting progress reports on the Living Proof website.
Actually, we have also previously argued that aid has been more successful in health than in other areas. However, one petty and parochial concern we had about the progress reports is that Bill and Melinda Gates continue to make a case for malaria success stories based on bad or fake data that we have criticized on this blog already twice. The Gateses were aware of our blog because they responded to it at the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Yet they continue to use the WHO 2008 World Malaria Report as their main source for data on malaria prevalence and deaths from malaria in Africa. As we pointed out in the earlier post, the report establishes such low standards for data reliability that some of the numbers hardly seem worth quoting. From the WHO report: “reliable data on malaria are scarce. In these countries estimates were developed based on local climate conditions, which correlate with malaria risk, and the average rate at which people become ill with the disease in the area.” Where convincing estimates from real reported cases of malaria could not be made, figures were extrapolated “from an empirical relationship between measures of malaria transmission risk and case incidence.”
In Rwanda, which the Gateses say showed a dramatic 45 percent reduction in the number of deaths from 2001 to 2006, a closer look at the WHO data shows that there is an estimate of 3.3 million malaria cases in 2006, with an upper bound of 4.1 million and a lower bound of 2.5 million. And, according to which method is used to estimate cases, the trend can be made to show that malaria incidence is actually on the rise. The Gateses also highlight Zambia as a “remarkable success,” claiming that “overall malaria deaths decreased by 37 percent between 2001 and 2006.” While they provide no citation for this figure it appears to come from the very same WHO report, which concedes that compared to African countries with smaller populations, “nationwide effects of malaria control, as judged from surveillance data” in Zambia are “less clear.”
The downside of all this is that it appears we are having no effect whatsoever on the Gates’ use of fake or bad numbers and thus on the highest profile analysis of malaria in the world. The Gateses ignore our recommendation (and that of others) that they invest MUCH more in better data collection to know when GENUINE progress is happening. (Would Gates have put up with a Microsoft marketing executive who reported Windows sales were somewhere between 2.5 and 4.1 million, which may be either lower or higher than previous periods’ equally unreliable numbers?) Are we insanely pig-headed for insisting that African malaria data be something a little more reliable than if the Gateses had asked the pre-K class at the Microsoft Day Care Center to give their guess?
Well, this is the third time we are saying this on this blog, so maybe we should give up. When people like the Gateses are so tenacious in the face of well-documented errors, it’s time for us economists to shift from normative recommendations (don’t claim progress based on pseudo-data!) to positive theory (what are the incentives to use bad numbers?)
What is the political economy of “impatient optimism”? Here is a possible political economy story – there are two types of political actors: (1) those who care more about the poor and want to make more effort to help them relative to other public priorities, and (2) those who care less and want to make less effort relative to other priorities.
Empirical studies and data that show that aid programs are having very positive results are very helpful to (1) and not to (2), while of course the reverse is helpful to (2) and not to (1). So each type has an incentive to selectively choose studies and data. Knowing this and knowing the public knows this, the caring type (1) might want to signal they are indeed caring by emphasizing positive studies and data, and may have no incentive to actually evaluate whether the positive data are correct or not. So the Gateses might want to say (as they did): “The money the US spends in developing countries to prevent disease and fight poverty is effective, empowers people, and is appreciated.”
If this purely descriptive theory is true, it could explain why some political actors stubbornly stick to positive data even if some obscure academic argues it is false or unreliable.
It cuts both ways – the anti-aid political actors would also have no incentive to recheck their favorite data or studies. Then the debate over evidence will not really be an intellectual debate at all, but just a political contest between two different political types.
Of course, we HATE this political economy theory when it’s applied to US. We are VERY unhappy when people conclude that because we are skeptical about malaria data quality (and thus whether they show progress), therefore we really don’t care about how many Africans are dying from malaria and wish that all government money went to subsidize fine dining in New York. And, the Gateses would probably not be fond of this political economy explanation of their actions and beliefs either. Both of us would prefer the alternative “academic” theory of belief formation, in which it is all based on evidence and data, not political interests.
How to distinguish which theory explains the behavior of any one actor is determined by the response to evidence AGAINST one’s prior position – do you change your beliefs at all? The Gateses seem to fail this test on malaria numbers. We hope we do better when it comes our time to be tested, as we should be.
http://aidwatchers.com/2009/10/the-political-economy-of-aid-optimism-or-pessimism/
-
A minor-league pitcher in his younger days, Richard Armbruster kept playing
baseball recreationally into his 70s, until his right hip started bothering
him. Last February he went to a St. Louis hospital for what was to be a
routine hip replacement. By late March, Mr. Armbruster, then 78, was dead.
After a series of postsurgical complications, the final blow was a
bloodstream infection that sent him into shock and resisted treatment with
antibiotics.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think my dad would walk in for a hip
replacement and be dead two months later,” said Amy Fix, one of his
daughters.
Not until the day Mr. Armbruster died did a laboratory culture identify the
organism that had infected him: Acinetobacter baumannii. The germ is one of
a category of bacteria that by some estimates are already killing tens of
thousands of hospital patients each year. While the organisms do not receive
as much attention as the one known as MRSA — for methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus — some infectious-disease specialists say they could
emerge as a bigger threat. That is because there are several drugs,
including some approved in the last few years, that can treat MRSA. But for
a combination of business reasons and scientific challenges, the
pharmaceuticals industry is pursuing very few drugs for Acinetobacter and
other organisms of its type, known as Gram-negative bacteria. Meanwhile, the
germs are evolving and becoming ever more immune to existing antibiotics.
“In many respects it’s far worse than MRSA,” said Dr. Louis B. Rice, an
infectious-disease specialist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland V.A. Medical
Center and at Case Western Reserve University. “There are strains out there,
and they are becoming more and more common, that are resistant to virtually
every antibiotic we have.”
The bacteria, classified as Gram-negative because of their reaction to the
so-called Gram stain test, can cause severe pneumonia and infections of the
urinary tract, bloodstream and other parts of the body. Their cell structure
makes them more difficult to attack with antibiotics than Gram-positive
organisms like MRSA. Acinetobacter, which killed Mr. Armbruster, came to
wide attention a few years ago in infections of soldiers wounded in Iraq.
Meanwhile, New York City hospitals, perhaps because of the large numbers of
patients they treat, have become the global breeding ground for another
drug-resistant Gram-negative germ, Klebsiella pneumoniae. According to
researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, more than 20 percent of the
Klebsiella infections in Brooklyn hospitals are now resistant to virtually
all modern antibiotics. And those supergerms are now spreading worldwide.
Health authorities do not have good figures on how many infections and
deaths in the United States are caused by Gram-negative bacteria. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that roughly 1.7
million hospital-associated infections, from all types of bacteria combined,
cause or contribute to 99,000 deaths each year. But in Europe, where
hospital surveys have been conducted, Gram-negative infections are estimated
to account for two-thirds of the 25,000 deaths each year caused by some of
the most troublesome hospital-acquired infections, according to a report
released in September by health authorities there. To be sure, MRSA
remains the single most common source of hospital infections. And it is
especially feared because it can also infect people outside the hospital.
There have been serious, even deadly, infections of otherwise healthy
athletes and school children. !!!! By comparison, the drug-resistant
Gram-negative germs for the most part threaten only hospitalized patients
whose immune systems are weak. The germs can survive for a long time on
surfaces in the hospital and enter the body through wounds, catheters and
ventilators.
What is most worrisome about the Gram-negatives is not their frequency but
their drug resistance.
“For Gram-positives we need better drugs; for Gram-negatives we need any
drugs,” said Dr. Brad Spellberg, an infectious-disease specialist at
Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., and the author of
“Rising Plague,” a book about drug-resistant pathogens. Dr. Spellberg is a
consultant to some antibiotics companies and has co-founded two companies
working on other anti-infective approaches. Dr. Rice of Cleveland has also
been a consultant to some pharmaceutical companies.
Doctors treating resistant strains of Gram-negative bacteria are often
forced to rely on two similar antibiotics developed in the 1940s — colistin
and polymyxin B. These drugs were largely abandoned decades ago because they
can cause kidney and nerve damage, but because they have not been used much,
bacteria have not had much chance to evolve resistance to them yet.
“You don’t really have much choice,” said Dr. Azza Elemam, an
infectious-disease specialist in Louisville, Ky. “If a person has a
life-threatening infection, you have to take a risk of causing damage to the
kidney.”
Such a tradeoff confronted Kimberly Dozier, a CBS News correspondent who
developed an Acinetobacter infection after being injured by a car bomb in
2006 while on assignment in Iraq. After two weeks on colistin, Ms. Dozier’s
kidneys began to fail, she recounted in her book, “Breathing the Fire.”
Rejecting one doctor’s advice to go on dialysis and seek a kidney
transplant, Ms. Dozier stopped taking the antibiotic to save her kidneys.
She eventually recovered from the infection.
Even that dire tradeoff might not be available to some patients. Last year
doctors at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan published a paper describing
two cases of “pan-resistant” Klebsiella, untreatable by even the
kidney-damaging older antibiotics. One of the patients died and the other
eventually recovered on her own, after the antibiotics were stopped.
“It is a rarity for a physician in the developed world to have a patient die
of an overwhelming infection for which there are no therapeutic options,”
the authors wrote in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
In some cases, antibiotic resistance is spreading to Gram-negative bacteria
that can infect people outside the hospital. Sabiha Khan, 66, went to the
emergency room of a Chicago hospital on New Year’s Day suffering from a
urinary tract and kidney infection caused by E. coli resistant to the usual
oral antibiotics. Instead of being sent home to take pills, Ms. Khan had to
stay in the hospital 11 days to receive powerful intravenous antibiotics.
This month, the infection returned, sending her back to the hospital for an
additional two weeks.
Some patient advocacy groups say hospitals need to take better steps to
prevent such infections, like making sure that health care workers
frequently wash their hands and that surfaces and instruments are
disinfected. And antibiotics should not be overused, they say, because that
contributes to the evolution of resistance.
To encourage prevention, an Atlanta couple, Armando and Victoria Nahum,
started the Safe Care Campaign after their 27-year-old son, Joshua, died
from a hospital-acquired infection in October 2006. Joshua, a skydiving
instructor in Colorado, had fractured his skull and thigh bone on a hard
landing. During his treatment, he twice acquired MRSA and then was infected
by Enterobacter aerogenes, a Gram-negative bacterium.
“The MRSA they got rid of with antibiotics,” Mr. Nahum said. “But this one
they just couldn’t do anything about.”
-
Safe Care Campaign.
Yes hand hygiene could help. And yes more is and should be done towards this end.
Also of benefit may be to NOT sky dive for a living.
Kind of reminds me of the father of that young fellow in Iraq who had his head cut off on the internet blaming of course George Bush for it all. He failed to remember his was walking around a war zone trying to start a computer business after the Iraq invasion.
Kind of fits the concept that no one wants to take responsibility for anything they do. It is always some one else's fault. The victimhood mentality.
-
Researchers Turn Mosquitoes Into Flying Vaccinators
Science Magazine ^ | 3/18/10 | Martin Enserink
Here's a study to file under "unworkable but very cool." A group of Japanese researchers has developed a mosquito that spreads vaccine instead of disease. Even the researchers admit, however, that regulatory and ethical problems will prevent the critters from ever taking wing—at least for the delivery of human vaccines.
Scientists have dreamed up various ways to tinker with insects' DNA to fight disease. One option is to create strains of mosquitoes that are resistant to infections with parasites or viruses, or that are unable to pass the pathogens on to humans. These would somehow have to replace the natural, disease-bearing mosquitoes, which is a tall order. Another strategy closer to becoming reality is to release transgenic mosquitoes that, when they mate with wild-type counterparts, don't produce viable offspring. That would shrink the population over time.
The new study relies on a very different mechanism: Use mosquitoes to become what the scientists call "flying vaccinators." Normally, when mosquitoes bite, they inject a tiny drop of saliva that prevents the host's blood from clotting. The Japanese group decided to add an antigen-a compound that triggers an immune response-to the mix of proteins in the insect's saliva.
A group by led by molecular geneticist Shigeto Yoshida of Jichi Medical University in Tochigi, Japan, identified a region in the genome of Anopheles stephensi-a malaria mosquito-called a promoter that turns on genes only in the insects' saliva. To this promoter they attached SP15, a candidate vaccine against leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease spread by sand flies that can cause skin sores and organ damage. Sure enough, the mosquitoes produced SP15 in their saliva, the team reports in the current issue of Insect Molecular Biology. And when the insects were allowed to feast on mice, the mice developed antibodies against SP15.
Antibody levels weren't very high, and the team has yet to test whether they protect the rodents against the disease. (Only very few labs have the facilities for so-called challenge studies with that disease, says Yoshida.) In the experiment, mice were bitten some 1500 times on average; that may seem very high, but studies show that in places where malaria is rampant, people get bitten more than 100 times a night, Yoshida points out. In the meantime, the group has also made mosquitoes produce a candidate malaria vaccine.
Other researchers are wowed by the achievement. "The science is really beautiful," says Jesus Valenzuela of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, who developed the SP15 vaccine. David O'Brochta, an insect molecular geneticist at the University of Maryland, College Park, calls it "a fascinating proof of concept."
So why won't it fly? There's a huge variation in the number of mosquito bites one person received compared with the next, so people exposed to the transgenic mosquitoes would get vastly different doses of the vaccine; it would be a bit like giving some people one measles jab and others 500 of them. No regulatory agency would sign off on that, says molecular biologist Robert Sinden of Imperial College London. Releasing the mosquitoes would also mean vaccinating people without their informed consent, an ethical no-no. Yoshida concedes that the mosquito would be "unacceptable" as a human vaccine-delivery mechanism.
However, flying vaccinators-or "flying syringes" as some have dubbed them -may have potential in fighting animal disease, says O'Brochta. Animals don't need to give their consent, and the variable dosage would be less of a concern.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/03/researchers-turn-mosquitoes-into.html
-
I've posted before about how Western insecticide fetishes, particularly where DDT is concerned, leads to the deaths of millions of Africans, particularly children. This piece for the most part skirts around specifics, but brings home the scope of the situation.
Battling a Scourge
By Alex Perry / Apac
To reach the most malarial town on earth, head north from Kampala, cross the Victoria Nile and, just before you come to the refugee camps that mark the southern edge of Uganda's 20-year civil war, turn east to Lake Kwania. Africa's other Great Lakes are known for freshwater beaches and cool evenings, but Kwania is more of a giant swamp: shallow, full of crocodiles and choked with lily, papyrus and hyacinth. The malaria parasite loves it here.
Kwania's creeks, looking like a million silver fish bones from the air, are perfect for a deadly subspecies of mosquito, Anopheles funestus, which feeds almost exclusively on humans, with an appetite to shame a vampire. The nearby town of Apac is packed with a living blood bank of people. The average funestus bites human flesh 190 times a night. The average resident is bitten tens of thousands of times a year, including 1,586 bites — four a day — that carry malaria. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Most Malarial Town on Earth.")
Driving into Apac late on an August day last year, I saw a naked man lumbering toward me. Tall and thin, he was gray with dust, and his hair bristled with twigs and grass. He was talking to someone only he could see. Edging past, I was surprised by a second naked figure lurching out of a side street. He had the same cracked skin stretched over the same slender frame. Ahead, a third naked figure sat by the side of the road, his head in his hands. I felt as if I'd arrived in a town of zombies.
Apac's empty streets reinforced that impression. The town seemed to exist only for sickness and death: on one road I counted 12 medical centers, 10 drugstores and a crumbling, windowless nursing school. Soon I found a building that belonged to the Ministry of Health. I pulled in, entered and followed a dark corridor to a door marked "District Health Officer." I knocked. Behind two sets of fly screens and under a ceiling fan, Dr. Matthew Emer sat at his desk. I explained I was following a new campaign to rid the world of malaria and was in Apac to see what it was up against. Who were the naked men? I asked. "Brain damage," Dr. Matthew replied. "Severe malaria can do that to a baby. You never recover."
Dr. Matthew thought I should see some statistics. Apac is home to 515,500 people. Between July 2008 and June 2009, 124,538 of them were treated for malaria. That meant 2,000 to 3,000 patients a week for Dr. Matthew and his three fellow doctors, and the number rose to 5,000 in the rainy season. Of Apac's malaria patients, nearly half were under 5. (Read Dr. Mehmet Oz's explanation on why western diseases are spreading around the world.)
Signboards erected by the side of the road announced the presence of two foreign-assistance programs. One was a European-funded child-protection group, which had no malaria component to its program. The other was the National Wetlands Program (NWP), funded by Belgium. Partly because of NWP's influence, the draining of malarial swamps is banned — which amounts to preserving wetlands at the price of human life. Spraying houses with insecticide — which in 2008 cut malaria infections in half — is also forbidden. Why? Because of objections from Uganda's organic-cotton farmers, who supply Nike, H&M and Walmart's Baby George line. Chemical-free farming sounds like a great idea in the West, but the reality is that Baby Omara is dying so Baby George can wear organic.
The Problem with Helping
This, too often, is how aid goes: good intentions sidetracked by ignorance; a promising idea poorly executed; projects that are wasteful, self-regarding and sometimes corrupt. The people being helped often see things this way, as do the ones doing the helping, who ask why the hundreds of billions of dollars given to Africa since World War II have changed so little. It was in the face of such controversy that in 2007 the aid world unveiled one of its most ambitious goals: eradicating malaria.
The history of malaria is a long one. Originating in West Africa, it spread to half of humankind by the mid–19th century and has killed tens of millions and infected hundreds of millions more, including eight American Presidents. Malaria played a role in stopping Alexander the Great in India. It contributed to the fall of Rome, the relocation of the Vatican and the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. It still rages in the poverty-stricken world: it killed 863,000 people in 2008 — 89% of them African, and 88% of those people children under 5 — and infected 243 million more, says the World Health Organization (WHO). The lobbying group Malaria No More reckons that the disease costs Africa $12 billion a year — 1.3% of its economic growth. Fixing that would be the biggest boost to health and development in history. It would also be a stunning riposte to aid's critics.
It could happen. A previous campaign against malaria in the 1950s and '60s effectively eliminated the disease in Europe and the U.S. but made little progress in Africa and Asia, in part because health officials concluded that those places were simply too tough to fix. This time things are different. Now more than ever, it's unacceptable — indeed, immoral — to see Africa and Asia as beyond help. Today's funding is unprecedented, exceeding $10 billion. So is the leadership, from the U.S. President to the Sultan of Nigeria to soccer star David Beckham. Their goal is threefold: universal protection by the end of 2010 via the distribution of 700 million insecticide-treated bed nets; no more malaria deaths by the end of 2015; no malaria at all a decade or two after that. (See the latest on AIDS care, epidemic tracking and more.)
The logistics of such a plan are less complex than they seem, because while malaria affects half the world's countries, just seven — the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, southern Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda — account for two-thirds of all cases. So how might this malaria campaign succeed where so many others have come unstuck?
The Unlikely Leader
High above the Serengeti, Ray Chambers unclips his safety belt and beckons me to follow him to the back of the plane. At 67, Chambers, the U.N. special envoy for malaria, is graying and a little stiff, but with his square jaw, Clint Eastwood voice and the plane — his own — there is still something of the Master of the Universe about him. The son of a Newark, N.J., warehouse manager, Chambers was in his 20s when he came up with the idea of the leveraged buyout, a concept that made him fabulously rich — but not happy. In 1987 he found himself visiting a project for inner-city teenagers in Newark. He promised to pay the college tuition of 1,000 kids "if they stayed the path." That made him feel great. So in 1989 he closed his investment firm and became a philanthropist, giving away $50 million by 1993. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Most Malarial Town on Earth.")
In 2005, Chambers was looking at a photograph of sleeping Mozambican children taken by his friend the Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs. "Cute kids," he remarked. "You don't understand," replied Sachs. "They're in malarial comas. They all died." Chambers was mortified. "So I said to Jeff, 'I'd like to kind of come up with business concepts to see if we can't save 1.3 million children a year.'" The next year, he established Malaria No More — a group that raises money, implements programs and stands as a case study of how aid can change.
The ethos of Malaria No More is that aid should be seen not as a noble act of charity but as something that's in everyone's interest. Eradicating disease boosts productivity, creates markets, stabilizes governments — even gives celebrities a point. It's a route to prosperity. Official endorsement of Chambers' approach came in 2008 when U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed him special envoy. "You could see Ray was the guy to get this done," says WHO head Margaret Chan.
To be fair, he was not alone. Many companies are doing well by doing good, realizing that, say, an HIV program at a South African mine cuts absenteeism. A nuanced vision of a successful company is taking hold, one that elevates social responsibility to a core mission — and was backed with $14.5 billion in the U.S. in 2007, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Partly as a result of Chambers' prodding, that new way of giving aid has encouraged Western governments to open their wallets too. Funding for malaria has exploded from $50 million in 1997 to $6.6 billion for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and $5.5 billion for the President's Malaria Initiative, a U.S. program launched in 2005. A good example of how aid is creeping into our lives in subtler ways is Unitaid. Founded in 2006 to raise money for AIDS, TB and malaria through small taxes on air tickets and check boxes on e-tickets, it has so far raised $870 million. (See the latest on AIDS care, epidemic tracking and more.)
Religion has caught the bug too — as it were. Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., is training health workers in western Rwanda. The heads of the Muslim and Christian faiths in Nigeria are training hundreds of thousands of imams and priests in malaria care and net and drug distribution. Help also comes from retired politicians like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, who have both set up aid foundations. Blair, whose Faith Foundation is assisting the Muslim-Christian collaboration in Nigeria, told Time, "The nature of help is changing. The malaria campaign is about as good an example as you get of rebalancing the respectability of the aid case."
Real Results
The payoff can be spectacular. malaria has been at least halved in nine African countries since 2000. Ethiopia and southern Sudan should reach universal protection this year; Chambers predicts global bed-net coverage in the first quarter of 2011, just months past his target. A visit last August by Chambers and Chan to the children's ward of a Zanzibar hospital produced whoops of joy from Chan. It was empty.
That success is hardly universal — or permanent. Zanzibar has eradicated malaria twice before but each time reimported it from mainland Tanzania. Kenya, an early success story, has slipped. Congo has only just got going. What do these failures have in common? Bad government. When Chambers visited Tanzania in August 2009, he found an approved $111 million Global Fund grant lying unclaimed for want of a single signature. In Uganda, Global Fund grants totaling $367 million were suspended over allegations — now before the courts — of corruption involving three health ministers and several aid groups. "The house is on fire," Chambers told a meeting of ministers and aid groups in Kampala last August. Chan was blunter: "We will hold you to account on behalf of the 350 women and children who die every day here." That, too, is a face of aid. (Read Dr. Mehmet Oz's explanation on why western diseases are spreading around the world.)
In Apac I visited the town hospital the morning after I arrived to find 30 newly admitted babies. When I returned that night, there were another 10. Martin, 27, was the only nurse on duty, and he was equipped only with quinine — long ago phased out in the West when malaria became resistant to it — headache pills and sugar solution. I watched him try to stick an IV needle into a 4-month-old girl, Doris Amang. He tried the backs of both her hands, then both sides of her head. Doris screamed and kicked. After pricking her 12 times, he gave up. Her veins had collapsed from dehydration. The windows were wide open. I watched a mosquito settle on Doris' cheek.
The next day, I returned. There were 50 babies now but no sign of Martin or any other staff member. The mothers were looking to me, but I had nothing to offer. I left the ward, walked quickly to my car and headed for the gates. Nearby was a naked street walker, feeling his way along the fence. As I roared past, I caught a glimpse of his startled expression, his emaciated face. I drove out of town and didn't stop until I reached Kampala.
Click to Print
Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1995199_1995197_1995176,00.html
-
I remember reading a book way back in 6th grade that talked about "macroEngineering" while the region mentioned in the previous post wasn't addressed, both the Sahara and Central Africa were.
The smaller of the 2 projects was the Quatrra(sp?) depression. It involved drilling tunnels/canals to the Mediterranean for water and runing said water thru turbines for electricity. The water could then be deslinated with the electricity for irrigation, and the salt used for what salt is used for. After the depression filled up in a few hundred years, you get a new great lake, That lake could then be used as an irrigation reservoir......... Macro with a big M engineering. The angle that makes this germane to the thread would be that the increased availability of electrical power, irrigation, etc. would all raise the quality of living for the human population in the whole region. That has always lessened the instance of disease, less instances makes for less mutation. That would help stop both the spread and evolution of new diseases. This is the least active but here are some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression)
http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80858e/80858e0a.htm (http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80858e/80858e0a.htm)
http://www.springerlink.com/content/p162768711165022/ (http://www.springerlink.com/content/p162768711165022/)
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/r-36.pdf (http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/r-36.pdf)
The larger of the projects was Lake Congo. Dam up the congo river where it passes thru the gorge on the way to the coast. That would drown 3 countries interior to africa, and incidentaklly some of the nastiest hell holes created by man and nature to date. This area is the breeding ground of Filiarisis, HIV, Malaria, a large number of parasites, and who knows what new stuff is bubbling away in the rancid tidal swamp and swamplands of the congo river. That dam alone would power a lot of the african coast from Lesotho on down to Nigeria it wouls also allow the congo alluvial plain to dry abnd be developed into some pretty rich farmlands like the Nile and Missisippi have along their banks eh? Once lake congo filled up you could tap the north end and develop hydro electric/irrigation to the chad region and restart the flow of the Niger river? That would give a secondary supply of water to that whole region....... The east and southern edges of the lake could be tapped too, that lake is basically in a tropical rainforest zone so you have a rain barrel practically overflowing and need to do something with that water............ Maybe all tha free clean power right on the equator could be used to build our first deliberately developed space/star port? It would have a certain justice and balance about it wouldn't it? A small part of this would be the Inga Project
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_River (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_River)
http://www.newsfromafrica.org/newsfromafrica/articles/art_10997.html (http://www.newsfromafrica.org/newsfromafrica/articles/art_10997.html)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Basin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Basin)
How many Trillions have we spent trying to help africans of all tribes and nations only to discover we are not getting anywhere? Make a big project and a big dream and get them more interested in building rather than fighting. In the process you get a whole bunch of apprentices who earn money and...... well we have brains. 2 bootstrap projects that could transform the part of the world that is the most miserable and let them join the rest of us...........
Hey it is a dream, but why not?
-
By MARK SCHOOFS
HIV research is undergoing a renaissance that could lead to new ways to develop vaccines against the AIDS virus and other viral diseases.
In the latest development, U.S. government scientists say they have discovered three powerful antibodies, the strongest of which neutralizes 91% of HIV strains, more than any AIDS antibody yet discovered. They are now deploying the technique used to find those antibodies to identify antibodies to influenza viruses.
Mark Schoofs discusses a significant step toward an AIDS vaccine, U.S. government scientists have discovered three powerful antibodies, the strongest of which neutralizes 91% of HIV strains, more than any AIDS antibody yet discovered.
The HIV antibodies were discovered in the cells of a 60-year-old African-American gay man, known in the scientific literature as Donor 45, whose body made the antibodies naturally. The trick for scientists now is to develop a vaccine or other methods to make anyone's body produce them as well.
That effort "will require work," said Gary Nabel, director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who was a leader of the research. "We're going to be at this for a while" before any benefit is seen in the clinic, he said.
The research was published Thursday in two papers in the online edition of the journal Science, 10 days before the opening of a large International AIDS Conference in Vienna, where prevention science is expected to take center stage. More than 33 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2008, and about 2.7 million contracted the virus that year, according to United Nations estimates.
Vaccines, which are believed to work by activating the body's ability to produce antibodies, eliminated or curtailed smallpox, polio and other feared viral diseases, so they have been the holy grail of AIDS research.
Last year, following a trial in Thailand, results of the first HIV vaccine to show any efficacy were announced. But that vaccine reduced the chances of infection only by about 30%, and controversy erupted because in one common analysis the results weren't statistically significant. That vaccine wasn't designed to elicit the new antibodies.
The new discovery is part of what Wayne Koff, head of research and development at the nonprofit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, calls a "renaissance" in HIV vaccine research.
Antibodies that are utterly ineffective, or that disable just one or two HIV strains, are common. Until last year, only a handful of "broadly neutralizing antibodies," those that efficiently disable a large swath of HIV strains, had been discovered. And none of them neutralized more than about 40% of known HIV variants.
But in the past year, thanks to efficient new detection methods, at least a half dozen broadly neutralizing antibodies, including the three latest ones, have been identified in peer-reviewed journals. Dennis Burton of the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, Calif., led a team that discovered two broadly neutralizing antibodies last year; he says his team has identified additional, unpublished ones. Most of the new antibodies are more potent, able to knock out HIV at far lower concentrations than their previously known counterparts.
HIV is a highly mutable virus, but one place where the virus doesn't mutate much is where it attaches to a particular molecule on the surface of cells it infects. Building on previous research, researchers created a probe, shaped exactly like that critical site, and used it to attract only those antibodies that efficiently attack it. That is how they fished out of Donor 45 the special antibodies: They screened 25 million of his cells to find 12 that produced the antibodies.
Donor 45's antibodies didn't protect him from contracting HIV. That is likely because the virus had already taken hold before his body produced the antibodies. He is still alive, and when his blood was drawn, he had been living with HIV for 20 years.
While he has produced the most powerful HIV antibody yet discovered, researchers say they don't know of anything special about his genes that would make him unique. They expect that most people would be capable of producing the antibodies, if scientists could find the right way to stimulate their production.
Dr. Nabel said his team is applying the new technique to the influenza virus. Like HIV, influenza is a highly mutable virus—the reason a new vaccine is required every year.
"We want to go after a universal vaccine" by using the new technique to find antibodies to a "component of the influenza virus that doesn't change," said NIAID director Anthony Fauci. In principle, Dr. Fauci said, the technique could be used for any viral disease and possibly even for cancer vaccines.
Some of the new HIV antibodies discovered over the past year attack different points on the virus, raising hopes that they could work synergistically.
In unpublished research, John Mascola, deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center, has shown that one of Dr. Burton's antibodies neutralizes virtually all the strains that are resistant to the antibody from Donor 45. He also found the reverse: The antibody from Donor 45 disables HIV strains resistant to one of Dr. Burton's best antibodies. Only one strain out of 95 tested was resistant to both antibodies, he said. Dr. Mascola is one of the authors of Thursday's papers.
Researchers say they plan to test the new antibodies, likely blended together in a potent cocktail, in three broad ways.
First, the antibodies could be given to people in their raw form, somewhat like a drug, to prevent transmission of the virus. But they would likely be expensive and last in the body for a limited time, perhaps weeks, making that method impractical for all but specialized cases, such as to prevent mother-to-child transmission in childbirth.
The antibodies could also be tested in a "microbicide," a gel that women or gay men could apply before sex to prevent infection.
The antibodies might even be tried as a treatment for people already infected. While the antibodies are unlikely to completely suppress HIV on their own, say scientists, they might boost the efficacy of current antiretroviral drugs.
Dr. Nabel said that the Vaccine Research Center has contracted with a company to produce an antibody suitable for use in humans so that testing in people could begin.
A second way to use the new research is to stimulate the immune system to produce the antibodies. Jonas Salk injected people with a whole killed polio virus, and virtually everyone's immune system easily made antibodies that disabled the polio virus. But for HIV, the vast majority of antibodies are ineffective. Now, scientists know the exact antibodies that must be made—those found in Donor 45 and in Dr. Burton's lab, for example. So researchers need "a reverse engineering technology" to find a way to get everyone to produce them, said Greg Poland, director of vaccine research at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
That's what scientists at Merck & Co. have done. In a study published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Merck Scientists knew that an old antibody, weaker than the newly discovered ones, attaches to a particularly vulnerable part of HIV. They created a replica of that piece of the virus to train the immune system to produce antibodies aimed at that exact spot. It was a painstaking process, requiring researchers to add chemical bonds to stabilize the replica so that it wouldn't collapse and lose its shape. Eventually, Merck was able to make experimental vaccine candidates capable of spurring guinea pigs and rabbits to produce antibodies that home in on the target site and neutralize HIV. Those vaccines weren't nearly powerful enough, but, said Dr. Koff, Merck's research provides a "proof of principle" that reverse engineering can work for the much stronger new antibodies.
There are other potential pitfalls. There is evidence that Donor 45's cells took months or possibly even years to create the powerful antibodies. That means scientists might have to give repeated booster shots or devise other ways to speed up this process.
Finally, there are experimental methods that employ tactics such as gene therapy. Nobel laureate David Baltimore is working on one such approach.
His team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., has stitched genes that code for antibodies into a harmless virus, which they then inject into mice. The virus infects mouse cells, turning them into factories that produce the antibodies.
Write to Mark Schoofs at
-
Buried in this piece are some really scary data about transmssion rates:
=========
WASHINGTON — President Obama will unveil a new national strategy this week to curb the AIDS epidemic by slashing the number of new infections and increasing the number of people who get care and treatment.
“Annual AIDS deaths have declined, but the number of new infections has been static and the number of people living with H.I.V. is growing,” says a final draft of the report, obtained by The New York Times.
In the report, the administration calls for steps to reduce the annual number of new H.I.V. infections by 25 percent within five years. “Approximately 56,000 people become infected each year, and more than 1.1 million Americans are living with H.I.V.,” the report says.
Mr. Obama plans to announce the strategy, distilled from 15 months of work and discussions with thousands of people around the country, at the White House on Tuesday.
While acknowledging that “increased investments in certain key areas are warranted,” the report does not propose a major increase in federal spending. It says the administration will redirect money to areas with the greatest need and population groups at greatest risk, including gay and bisexual men and African-Americans. The federal government now spends more than $19 billion a year on domestic AIDS programs.
On average, the report says, one person is newly infected with H.I.V. every nine and a half minutes, but tens of thousands of people with the virus are not receiving any care. If they got care, the report says, they could prolong their own lives and reduce the spread of the virus to others. By 2015 the report says, the United States should “increase the proportion of newly diagnosed patients linked to clinical care within three months of their H.I.V. diagnosis to 85 percent,” from the current 65 percent.
The first-ever national AIDS strategy has been in the works since the start of the administration. It comes in the context of growing frustrations expressed by some gay rights groups. They say that more money is urgently needed for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, and they assert that the White House has not done enough to secure repeal of the law banning military service by people who are openly gay or bisexual.
The report tries to revive the sense of urgency that gripped the nation in the first years after discovery of the virus that causes AIDS. “Public attention to the H.I.V. epidemic has waned,” the report says. “Because H.I.V. is treatable, many people now think that it is no longer a public health emergency.”
The report calls for “a more coordinated national response to the H.I.V. epidemic” and lays out specific steps to be taken by various federal agencies.
Mr. Obama offers a compliment to President George W. Bush, who made progress against AIDS in Africa by setting clear goals and holding people accountable.
The program begun by Mr. Bush, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, “has taught us valuable lessons about fighting H.I.V. and scaling up efforts around the world that can be applied to the domestic epidemic,” the report says.
Mr. Obama’s strategy is generally consistent with policies recommended by public health specialists and advocates for people with H.I.V. But some experts had called for higher goals, more aggressive timetables and more spending on prevention and treatment.
The report makes these points:
¶Far too many people infected with H.I.V. are unaware of their status and may unknowingly transmit the virus to their partners. By 2015, the proportion of people with H.I.V. who know of their condition should be increased to 90 percent, from 79 percent today.
¶The new health care law will significantly expand access to care for people with H.I.V., but federal efforts like the Ryan White program will still be needed to fill gaps in services.
¶Federal spending on H.I.V. testing and prevention does not match the need. States with the lowest numbers of H.I.V./AIDS cases often receive the most money per case. The federal government should allocate more of the money to states with the highest “burden of disease.”
¶Health officials must devote “more attention and resources” to gay and bisexual men, who account for slightly more than half of new infections each year, and African-Americans, who account for 46 percent of people living with H.I.V.
¶The H.I.V. transmission rate, which indicates how fast the epidemic is spreading, should be reduced by 30 percent in five years. At the current rate, about 5 of every 100 people with H.I.V. transmit the virus to someone in a given year.
If the transmission rate is unchanged, the report says, “within a decade, the number of new infections would increase to more than 75,000 per year and the number of people living with H.I.V. would grow to more than 1.5 million.”
The report finds that persistent discrimination against people with H.I.V. is a major barrier to progress in fighting the disease.
“The stigma associated with H.I.V. remains extremely high,” it says. “People living with H.I.V. may still face discrimination in many areas of life, including employment, housing, provision of health care services and access to public accommodations.”
The administration promises to “strengthen enforcement of civil rights laws” protecting people with H.I.V.
One political challenge for the administration is to win broad public support for a campaign that will focus more narrowly on specific groups and communities at high risk for H.I.V. infection.
“Just as we mobilize the country to support cancer research whether or not we believe that we are at high risk of cancer and we support public education whether or not we have children,” the report says, “fighting H.I.V. requires widespread public support to sustain a long-term effort.”
-
Scripps research study shows infectious prions can arise spontaneously in normal brain tissue
Scripps Research Institute ^ | July 26, 2010cimon
Metal surfaces spur conversion of normal prion protein into disease-causing prions
JUPITER, FL, July 26, 2010 – In a startling new study that involved research on both sides of the Atlantic, scientists from The Scripps Research Institute in Florida and the University College London (UCL) Institute of Neurology in England have shown for the first time that abnormal prions, bits of infectious protein devoid of DNA or RNA that can cause fatal neurodegenerative disease, can suddenly erupt from healthy brain tissue.
The catalyst in the study was the metallic surface of simple steel wires. Previous research showed that prions bind readily to these types of surfaces and can initiate infection with remarkable efficiency. Surprisingly, according to the new research, wires coated with uninfected brain homogenate could also initiate prion disease in cell culture, which was transmissible to mice.
The findings are being published the week of July 26, 2010, in an advance, online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
"Prion diseases such as sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans or atypical bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a form of mad cow disease, occur rarely and at random," said Charles Weissmann, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Scripps Florida's Department of Infectology, who led the study with John Collinge, head of the Department of Neurodegenerative Disease at UCL Institute of Neurology. "It has been proposed that these events reflect rare, spontaneous formation of prions in brain. Our study offers experimental proof that prions can in fact originate spontaneously, and shows that this event is promoted by contact with steel surfaces."
Infectious prions, which are composed solely of protein, are classified by distinct strains, originally characterized by their incubation time and the disease they cause. These toxic prions have the ability to reproduce, despite the fact that they contain no nucleic acid genome.
Mammalian cells normally produce harmless cellular prion protein (PrPC). Following prion infection, the abnormal or misfolded prion protein (PrPSc) converts PrPC into a likeness of itself, by causing it to change its conformation or shape. The end-stage consists of large aggregates of these misfolded proteins, which cause massive tissue and cell damage.
A Highly Sensitive Test
In the new study, the scientists used the Scrapie Cell Assay, a test originally created by Weissmann that is highly sensitive to minute quantities of prions.
Using the Scrapie Cell Assay to measure infectivity of prion-coated wires, the team observed several unexpected instances of infectious prions in control groups where metal wires had been exposed only to uninfected normal mouse brain tissue. In the current study, this phenomenon was investigated in rigorous and exhaustive control experiments specifically designed to exclude prion contamination. Weissmann and his colleagues in London found that when normal prion protein is coated onto steel wires and brought into contact with cultured cells, a small but significant proportion of the coated wires cause prion infection of the cells – and when transferred to mice, they continue to spawn the disease.
Weissmann noted that an alternative interpretation of the results is that infectious prions are naturally present in the brain at levels not detectable by conventional methods, and are normally destroyed at the same rate they are created. If that is the case, he noted, metal surfaces could be acting to concentrate the infectious prions to the extent that they became quantifiable by the team's testing methods.
###
The first author of the study, "Spontaneous Generation of Mammalian Prions," is Julie Edgeworth of the UCL Institute of Neurology. Other authors of the study include Nathalie Gros, Jack Alden, Susan Joiner, Jonathan D.F. Wadsworth, Jackie Linehan, Sebastian Brandner, and Graham S. Jackson, also of the UCL Institute of Neurology.
The study was supported by the U.K. Medical Research Council.
About The Scripps Research Institute
The Scripps Research Institute is one of the world's largest independent, non-profit biomedical research organizations, at the forefront of basic biomedical science that seeks to comprehend the most fundamental processes of life. Scripps Research is internationally recognized for its discoveries in immunology, molecular and cellular biology, chemistry, neurosciences, autoimmune, cardiovascular, and infectious diseases, and synthetic vaccine development. Established in its current configuration in 1961, it employs approximately 3,000 scientists, postdoctoral fellows, scientific and other technicians, doctoral degree graduate students, and administrative and technical support personnel. Scripps Research is headquartered in La Jolla, California. It also includes Scripps Florida, whose researchers focus on basic biomedical science, drug discovery, and technology development. Scripps Florida is located in Jupiter, Florida. See www.scripps.edu
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-07/sri-srs072610.php
-
The Shot Heard Round the World
By SCOTT GOTTLIEB
By 1947, smallpox in the U.S. was rare, but when two people died from the disease in New York, officials urged residents who hadn't been vaccinated in the past 7-10 years to get the shot. Above: Morrisania Hospital in the Bronx.
A vaccine that is intended to save countless lives. Parents suspicious of the shots, terrified of what the vaccine will do to their children. The government insisting on vaccinations for the general good.
Sounds like recent history, when a British doctor's study linking autism to the three-in-one vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella panicked some parents into barring their children from being vaccinated. But long before actress Jenny McCarthy prominently stirred fears about MMR shots, the vaccination campaign to eradicate smallpox was met with similar trepidation. One significant difference: The study that caused the anti-MMR hysteria has been proved to be bogus, while the smallpox vaccine used a century ago carried genuine dangers.
When some states introduced mandatory smallpox vaccinations during the epidemic of 1898-1903, Americans resisted by the thousands. The ensuing battles produced medical conventions and case law that altered the balance between government authority and medical practice, in favor of federal control. The effects of the smallpox fight continue to this day: The Obama health-care law and the infrastructure required to administer it rely on some of these century-old precedents.
In "Pox: An American History," Michael Willrich meticulously traces the story of how the smallpox vaccine was pressed into service during a major outbreak. Sometimes the shots were physically forced on people, outraging their sense of personal freedom and—when the vaccine sickened some and killed others—galvanizing suspicion of vaccination programs. The episode, Mr. Willrich says, prompted large swaths of Americans to insist that "the liberty protected by the Constitution also encompassed the right of a free people to take care of their own bodies and children according to their own medical beliefs and consciences."
Historical records show that smallpox was a human scourge for thousands of years. The virus produces high fever, severe back pain and scarring eruptions of flat red spots on the skin that turn into pustules and then into scabs—a two-week process during which the disease is highly contagious. Smallpox can vary in its severity, with some strains killing many sufferers and others relatively few. In the late 18th century, the British scientist Edward Jenner discovered that scratching the arms of healthy children with a bit of pus from cowpox immunized them against smallpox. The revelation was jeered by skeptics, but soon many governments were encouraging smallpox shots—and cowpox-based vaccines would eventually rout the disease from the modern world.
The smallpox outbreak in the U.S. that began in 1898 was not as virulent as some earlier ones, but memories of past horrors and mounting deaths across the country stirred officials to action. Over the epidemic's five-year course, an estimated 4,000 to 5,600 Americans died from smallpox, and tens of thousands suffered from nonfatal but often disfiguring infections.
Prior to the epidemic, public heath was largely the province of state and local authorities. But many officials proved incapable, or unwilling, to intervene when faced with the epidemic itself. In some cases, money was at issue. In other cases, racism. In the South and elsewhere, Mr. Willrich says, local officials refused to invest in stopping a virus that they saw as a blight of "dark people" who who were forced to live in close quarters with poor sanitary conditions. Mostly, though, the failure was a matter of ineptitude: Many doctors and others who focused on the infectious smallpox pustules didn't understand that the virus could be easily transmitted by a cough or a sneeze. And the vaccination programs were at best haphazard.
Walter Wyman, the U.S. surgeon general for two decades beginning in 1891, "railed against the short-sightedness of local and state officials who, he believed, had allowed smallpox to rage out of control," Mr. Wallrich writes. Whatever the cause of the anemic response to the epidemic, it prompted federal intervention in public-health matters—opening a door that has never closed.
Invoking what Mr. Willrich calls "a precedent in the American legal tradition of police power, which allowed for broad governmental intrusions into everyday lives of American citizens" when the public welfare was at stake, the feds stepped in. The government deployed "virus squads" of vaccinators who fanned out across the country, aided by Texas Rangers along the Mexico border and by billyclub-swinging policemen in New York. Health officials opened "pesthouses," where the ill were sequestered; sometimes whole towns were quarantined. The vaccinators visited factories and schools and railroad stations. In some cases, people who had been exposed to the smallpox virus were vaccinated at police gunpoint.
Pox: An American History
By Michael Willrich
Penguin Press, 422 pages, $27.95
Their reluctance was understandable: The smallpox vaccine was sometimes shoddily produced. In Camden, N.J., in 1901, the deaths of nine schoolchildren were linked by newspapers to a commercially produced vaccine tainted with tetanus. (Around that time, 13 children in St. Louis died of tetanus after being vaccinated for diphtheria.) It wasn't just civil libertarians who opposed the compulsory vaccinations; many practical people did the math and preferred to take a chance with the virus, not the vaccine. It was not just a fear of death that scared people: Reports of excruciating arm soreness caused by the vaccine made manual laborers, worried about having to miss work, avoid the shots. People produced fake vaccination certificates and sometimes injured their skin to simulate the telltale scar caused by the vaccine.
The feds realized that if they were going to mandate vaccination, the government would have to ensure that the shots were safe. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Biologics Control Act, the first federal law to regulate drug products. It was a precursor to today's Food and Drug Administration.
This being America, the vaccine tempest also gave rise to litigation. Mr. Willrich, a history professor at Brandeis University, says that the most significant of what became a series of legal rulings was the 1905 Supreme Court decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts. The complex opinion gave the high court's blessing to compulsory-vaccination schemes. But the justices also established a set of standards for balancing governmental power and individual rights during public emergencies. The decision was invoked in 2004 by Justice Clarence Thomas in his dissent from the court's ruling in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, granting certain rights to U.S. citizens detained as "illegal enemy combatants."
In the end, vaccination methods were dramatically improved, the epidemic was stopped—and over the next few decades smallpox was wiped out of human circulation by concerted vaccination campaigns and the swift isolation of the infected. Today, the virus is confined to frozen storage inside a lab in Atlanta and one in Koltsovo, Russia. But the federal role in the practice of medicine remains very much alive.
—Dr. Gottlieb is a clinical assistant professor at the New York University School of Medicine and an American Enterprise Institute resident fellow.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703858404576214482670405722.html
-
That was interesting BBG.
-
At least someone is challenging the deed, and the difusion of the knowledge:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45690564#45690564
-
By BETSY MCKAY
The quest for a vaccine against AIDS is gaining momentum, with research published Wednesday identifying promising new candidates that protected monkeys against a powerful strain of the virus and that soon could be tested in humans.
The study, published in the online edition of the journal Nature, also shed light on how the first human vaccine to have conferred limited protection against the AIDS virus may have worked.
In the research, several experimental vaccines partially prevented infection in monkeys from a highly potent, highly immune-resistant strain of simian immunodeficiency virus, an unusual finding, researchers said. SIV is similar to human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and SIV infection in monkeys resembles HIV infection in humans.
Decades of Progress and Setbacks
Recent advances have followed years of frustration in HIV research and prevention.
View Interactive
..The new vaccines, combining two different technologies to generate an immune response, reduced the chances that a monkey would be infected by the virulent SIV strain in each exposure by 80% to 83%, compared with a placebo. The vaccines also significantly reduced the amount of virus in the blood of monkeys who did become infected.
The protection was only partial—most of the vaccinated monkeys eventually became infected after multiple exposures. Still, the study was among the first to prevent infection against a virulent, highly immune-resistant SIV strain.
Plans are under way for clinical trials of a human-adapted version of one of the vaccines used in the monkeys, said Dan Barouch, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and lead author of the study. The vaccine will be tested in people both in the U.S. and internationally, including in populations in Africa where HIV infection rates are high, he said.
"There's more hope than ever before that an AIDS vaccine might be possible," said Dr. Barouch.
The findings are part of a renaissance in AIDS research, with multiple vaccine candidates under exploration and a landmark study published last year showing that AIDS drugs can reduce the spread of HIV from an infected person to others. But HIV researchers still don't fully understand how to prevent infection.
Vaccines, which work by spurring the body's ability to produce antibodies or immune cells, are considered the holy grail of AIDS research, because of the powerful role they played in eradicating smallpox and eliminating or sharply reducing the spread of other infectious diseases.
About 34 million people globally are infected with HIV, with about 2.7 million more infected each year, according to United Nations estimates.
In 2009, results of the first HIV vaccine to confer any protection against HIV were announced, after a large clinical trial in Thailand. That vaccine reduced the chances of infection only 31%, and prompted some controversy when one analysis found the results weren't statistically significant.
Still, the results helped rejuvenate the field. The latest study helps explain what many scientists suspected after the Thai trial: that the surface protein of the HIV virus, or its envelope, is involved in preventing infection.
"It clearly demonstrated you need to make antibodies against the outer coating of the virus," said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the part of the National Institutes of Health that oversees AIDS research and co-funded the latest study.
"It confirms what was seen in the Thai trial was real," said Louis Picker, associate director of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute at Oregon Health & Science University, who reviewed the study led by Dr. Barouch but wasn't involved in it.
One strength of the study, said Dr. Fauci, was that the researchers made their vaccines with one strain of SIV and infected monkeys with another—replicating a likely real-world scenario, because the ever-mutating AIDS virus comes in many strains.
Many previous studies have used the same virus, but "that's not the way the real world works," he said. "There are so many different varieties of HIV out there. You've got to protect the person against potentially any strain."
While monkey models are considered highly reliable in HIV research and the findings resemble those of the Thai trial in humans, HIV researchers cautioned that it won't be known whether these vaccines work in humans until they are tried.
"HIV is progressively revealing its secrets and each time it gets us closer to the goal, but this isn't like a basketball game where it's the last two minutes," said Bruce Walker, a veteran HIV researcher and director of the Ragon Institute, an enterprise of Massachusetts General Hospital, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. Ragon Institute helped fund the latest study and has raised $11 million of about $22 million needed for the clinical trials, Dr. Walker said.
Mark Schwartz, chairman and founding partner of MissionPoint Capital Partners, a private equity firm, donated $1 million of his own funds, together with his wife Lisa, toward the clinical trials. "Is it risky in a venture capital kind of way? Yes, it is," he said. But, he said," Ultimately, we think the real payoff is going to be in a vaccine."
-
ALthough I have not studied the issue closely, I must say my intuitive reaction is the same.
=============================
Scientists have long worried that an influenza virus that has ravaged poultry and wild birds in Asia might evolve to pose a threat to humans. Now scientists financed by the National Institutes of Health have shown in a laboratory how that could happen. In the process they created a virus that could kill tens or hundreds of millions of people if it escaped confinement or was stolen by terrorists.
We nearly always champion unfettered scientific research and open publication of the results. In this case it looks like the research should never have been undertaken because the potential harm is so catastrophic and the potential benefits from studying the virus so speculative.
Unless the scientific community and health officials can provide more persuasive justifications than they have so far, the new virus, which is in the Netherlands, ought to be destroyed. Barring that, it should be put in a few government-controlled laboratories with the highest containment rating, known as biosafety level 4. That is how the United States and Russia contain samples of smallpox, which poses nowhere near the same danger of global devastation.
In the future, it is imperative that any such experiments be rigorously analyzed for potential dangers — preferably through an international review mechanism, but also by governmental funding agencies — before they are undertaken, not after the fact as is happening in this case.
The most frightening research was done by scientists at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, who sought to discover how likely it is that the “bird flu” virus, designated A(H5N1), might mutate from a form that seldom infects or spreads among humans into a form highly transmissible by coughing or sneezing. Thus far the virus has infected close to 600 humans and killed more than half of them, a fatality rate that far exceeds the 2 percent rate in the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed as many as 100 million people.
Working with ferrets, the animal that is most like humans in responding to influenza, the researchers found that a mere five genetic mutations allowed the virus to spread through the air from one ferret to another while maintaining its lethality. A separate study at the University of Wisconsin, about which little is known publicly, produced a virus that is thought to be less virulent.
These findings led to an unprecedented request from an American federal advisory board that the researchers and the two scientific journals that plan to publish the studies omit any details that might help terrorists figure out how to unleash a devastating pandemic. That presumably includes details on how the engineered virus was made and details on the precise mutations that allowed it to go airborne.
We doubt that anything at all should be published, but it seems clear that something will be.
The two journals reviewing the papers seem inclined to follow the advisory board’s recommendations that the research be published in a redacted form, provided there is some way for researchers who need the information to gain access to the full details. The Erasmus team believes that more than 100 laboratories and perhaps 1,000 scientists around the world need to know the precise mutations to look for. That would spread the information far too widely. It should suffice to have a few of the most sophisticated laboratories do the analyses.
Defenders of the research in Rotterdam claim it will provide two major benefits for protecting global health. First, they say the findings could prove helpful in monitoring virus samples from infected birds and animals. If genetic analysis found a virus somewhere that was only one or two mutations away from going airborne, public health officials would then know to bear down aggressively in that area to limit human contact with infected poultry and ramp up supplies of vaccines and medicines.
But it is highly uncertain, even improbable, that the virus would mutate in nature along the pathways prodded in a laboratory environment, so the benefit of looking for these five mutations seems marginal.
A second postulated benefit is that the engineered virus can be used to test whether existing antiviral drugs and vaccines would be effective against it and, if they come up short, design new drugs and vaccines that can neutralize it. But genetic changes that affect transmissibility do not necessarily change the properties that make a virus susceptible to drugs or to the antibodies produced by a vaccine, so that approach may not yield much useful new information.
We cannot say there would be no benefits at all from studying the virus. We respect the researchers’ desire to protect public health. But the consequences, should the virus escape, are too devastating to risk.
-
The Truth About the Doomsday Virus?
Published: March 3, 2012
o
Two months ago we warned that a new bird flu virus — modified in a laboratory to make it transmissible through the air among mammals — could kill millions of people if it escaped confinement or was stolen by terrorists. Now Ron Fouchier, the Dutch scientist who led the key research team, is saying that his findings, which remain confidential, were misconstrued by the press.
Related
• Genetically Altered Bird Flu Virus Not as Dangerous as Believed, Its Maker Asserts (March 1, 2012)
• Health Guide: Avian Influenza
He says that the virus did not spread easily and was not lethal when transmitted from one ferret to another by coughing or sneezing, and that it became highly lethal only when big doses were injected into the animals’ windpipes.
That is hard to square with his original assertions. Experts who read his original manuscript say it reported that the new virus spread through the air and remained as virulent as the natural virus, which has killed 60 percent of the humans it has infected.
Dr. Fouchier’s new claims are only the latest bizarre twist in a global health debate that badly needs an objective, independent arbiter. The public needs to know whether this virus is a potentially big killer, and if so, how it should be contained. It needs to know what details can be published without giving terrorists a recipe for a biological weapon. And it needs to know that a mechanism will be put in place to assess all the risks and benefits of such research before it is approved — not after a new virus has been created.
The debate became public after a federal advisory board, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, recommended that papers prepared by Dr. Fouchier’s group and researchers doing similar work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison be published only after omitting details that might help terrorists. That drew charges of censorship from some scientists, and others warned that restricting the information would make it harder to track and combat an outbreak of a similar strain.
The World Health Organization convened a closed meeting of 22 experts last month, which concluded that the research should eventually be published in full. The group was dominated by participants with a clear stake in publication — including the researchers who made the viruses, the journals that want to publish their papers in full, and developing countries that want access to full details in exchange for having contributed the viruses that were studied.
Now this country’s National Institutes of Health, which financed the research and has its own reputation on the line, is asking the biosecurity advisory board to reconsider its call to redact details before publication.
We welcome a new appraisal from a board that has already shown considerable independence. We hope it will look beyond the security and terrorism issues and voice its opinion on what safety precautions should be required to prevent the virus from escaping and whether the work should proceed at multiple labs or possibly be halted.
These issues need to be resolved by experts who do not have institutional biases or turf to protect. The World Health Organization should be in the best position to oversee a response to what is a global problem. Its first effort was one-sided and disappointing, but it has pledged to convene further meetings with a much broader range of experts and interested parties. It must ensure that these forums are not rubber stamps for what the narrower special-interest group just concluded.
These are complicated issues, and the stakes are enormous. Governments and scientists have a clear responsibility to get this judgment and future efforts right.
-
Bird Flu Type Could Be Transmitted Through Air .
By GAUTAM NAIK
In an experiment showing how the virus that causes bird flu might trigger a human pandemic, scientists induced five genetic changes in the bug, transforming it into a type capable of airborne transmission between mammals.
The findings signal how the virus, which has killed nearly 60% of about 600 people known to have been infected in more than a dozen countries since 2003, could pose a much greater public health risk in the future. Two of the mutations the scientists created in the experiment already circulate in birds and people, and natural evolution could bring about the remaining three mutations, researchers said.
The findings appear in the journal Science, which on Friday is publishing several papers and commentaries about the virus, which is also known as H5N1. The studies were funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and other groups.
The genetic-alteration paper in Science is one of two controversial experiments whose planned publication sparked fears it would give terrorists a blueprint for making a biological weapon. The first such paper described an alternative genetic technique for creating a pandemic version of H5N1 and appeared in Nature in May.
If public-health officials know which bird-flu genetic signatures to look for, they can obtain swabs from people infected with H5N1 and see whether the critical mutations have started to accumulate.
The authors of the latest studies caution that they cannot predict when or if the remaining three genetic mutations might emerge. Nor are these the only possible mutations that could start a pandemic, they say.
"We only know that it's within the realm of possibility that the [three mutations] could evolve in a human or other mammalian host," said Derek Smith of the University of Cambridge. In one of the Science papers, co-authored by Dr. Smith, a 15-year analysis of surveillance data found that two of the five mutations seen in the lab-engineered viruses had occurred in several existing bird flu strains.
The H5N1 virus, which causes bird flu, can move from birds to people through physical contact. But it isn't yet efficient at jumping from person to person, a necessary ingredient for sparking a pandemic.
The flu-surveillance benefit of the research "far outweighs the risk of nefarious" use posed by terrorists or anyone else pursuing a biological-weapons program, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the NIH. Dr. Fauci and NIH director Francis Collins co-authored one of the commentaries in Science examining the benefits and risks of flu research.
The latest studies also indicate that the risk of an H5N1-pandemic may be greater than previously believed.
In the experiment published in Nature in May, scientists combined H5N1 and swine flu and came up with a hybrid bug that could leap from mammal-to-mammal. That experiment was based on the long-held notion that a pandemic strain is more likely to emerge when a flu virus mixes its genes with another virus in an animal host, such as a pig.
But one of the Science studies suggests that such "re-assortment" may not be necessary to give rise to a pandemic strain, and that it might emerge from mutations in H5N1 alone.
Scientists first changed three amino acids of H5N1 in a way they believed would boost the bug's affinity for human hosts, and then infected ferrets with the mutated virus. Ferrets are a good model because they sneeze like humans and show similar symptoms when infected by flu.
The researchers swabbed the noses of the infected ferrets and used virus samples from their bodies to infect another round of ferrets, thus "passaging" the virus several times through different ferrets. At each stage, they took tissue samples from the animals and analyzed how H5N1 was evolving.
"After about 10 passages, we found the virus had acquired the ability to transmit" from animal to animal, said Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and co-author of the study. That suggests that "in humans it would take a low number of transmissions for the mutations to accumulate."
Five mutations gave the virus the ability to jump from ferret to ferret: three of the initial amino-acid changes, plus two that emerged through evolutionary selection in the animals' bodies.
Four of the genetic substitutions were in hemagglutinin, a protein on the surface of H5N1 that helps it to enter host cells. The fifth was in the polymerase 2, a protein that helps the virus replicate its genetic material.
Although the lab-made virus had acquired the ability to leap between animals, it wasn't lethal and most of the infected ferrets eventually recovered from the flu. The animals succumbed only when large doses of the mutant virus were introduced directly into their throats.
Test-tube experiments also suggested that the engineered virus responded to the antiviral drug oseltamivir and to antbodies from ferrets that had received experimental H5N1 vaccines, according to the study by Dr. Fouchier and his colleagues.
Write to Gautam Naik at gautam.naik@wsj.com
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/health/another-use-for-home-hiv-test-screening-partners.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121006
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/health/a-weak-spot-in-hivs-armor-raises-hope-for-a-vaccine.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121030
-
By THOMAS M. BURTON and BETSY MCKAY
A government health panel on Monday for the first time recommended testing for the human immunodeficiency virus for all Americans aged 15 to 65, in an effort to slow its spread.
An estimated 200,000 people in the U.S. are infected with the virus that can cause AIDS and don't realize it. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said the new draft recommendation is aimed at preventing those people from infecting others or developing AIDS themselves.
The panel's recommendation is significant because, if finalized, private insurers would have to pay for the test. Past recommendations haven't always been embraced by doctors. But in this instance, the weight of medical evidence has already been trending in favor of screening and earlier treatment of people with HIV.
It is estimated that 1.1 million Americans have HIV, with about 50,000 new cases annually.
Focusing tests only on those at high risk hasn't been very effective, the panel said. "Targeted screening misses a substantial proportion of infected persons because of undisclosed or unknown risk factors," said an article in Annals of Internal Medicine published Monday to support the task force's recommendation.
Until now, the task force had only recommended that doctors screen all pregnant women for HIV, and that younger adolescents and older adults who are at increased risk also be screened. Those at high risk include men who engage in sex with other men, people who take drugs by injection, and those who have sex with infected people, the task force has said.
Monday's recommendation doesn't say precisely how often people should get HIV screening. "One reasonable approach," the task force wrote, "would be onetime screening of adolescent and adult patients to identify persons who are already HIV positive, with repeat screening of persons who are known to be at risk for HIV infections."
Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading researcher and White House adviser on AIDS, said more than half of new HIV infections in the U.S. are a result of people who don't realize they have the virus. Testing and treating people, he said, "makes it highly unlikely that people with HIV will transmit their infection to their sexual partners."
Carl Schmid, deputy executive director of The AIDS Institute, a public-policy advocacy group, called the decision "a monumental shift in how HIV in the U.S. can be prevented, diagnosed and treated." He called the current risk-based approach "an ineffective screening strategy."
But there are many people who are skeptical about wider HIV testing, said Michael S. Lyons, an emergency room physician at the University of Cincinnati. "The benefits of diagnosing someone as early as possible are basically proven," he said, "but the difficulty is how do you do that?"
Mr. Lyons said many relatively poor people who show up at the emergency room may well be HIV-positive, "but emergency departments are very strained at this point. This is a compelling example of the tension between what would be good to do and what practically can be done."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declined to comment on the significance of the recommendation because it is only in draft form and subject to public comment. Since 2006, the CDC has recommended routine HIV testing for everyone aged 13 to 64.
Jonathan Mermin, director of the CDC's HIV/AIDS prevention program, has said HIV testing should be "as routine as cholesterol screening."
From here, the task force's draft would have to become a final recommendation. At an unspecified time after that, insurance plans would be obligated to pay for the test. Ultimately, it would be up to doctors to order the test.
Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, said, "If a physician orders a test, the insurer will cover it, and that won't change." The new Affordable Care Act requires insurers to pick up the costs.
The HIV tests are either blood or oral-swab tests, and the results of some are known in minutes. A 2010 study found that the quick test cost on average $48 for a negative test and $64 for a positive test, with the difference being the cost of counseling.
-
How Fight to Tame TB Made It Stronger .
By GEETA ANAND in Mumbai and BETSY MCKAY in Atlanta
The World Health Organization's long-standing strategy for fighting tuberculosis is showing deadly unintended consequences: By focusing for years on the easiest-to-cure patients, it helped allow TB strains to spread that are now all but untreatable by modern medicine.
The WHO and a growing chorus of global health experts are now calling for a significant overhaul in the way nations with widespread drug-resistant TB combat the disease. It amounts to a de facto acknowledgment that the WHO's TB strategy, and the countries that use it, failed to adapt quickly enough as the disease formed more powerful, resistant strains.
"The TB community has been too conservative" on a global scale, said Puneet Dewan, until recently a senior officer in the WHO's India tuberculosis program. "We should have pushed sooner for a more aggressive, comprehensive approach" toward drug resistance, he said this month in an interview. "There was a cost in failing to do that. We're paying that cost today."
The WHO played a particularly sizable role in designing the tuberculosis program in India, which has seen a steep decline in regular TB. But India and other poor countries are now in the midst of an epidemic of drug-resistant strains—deadlier and harder-to-treat varieties of one of the world's top infectious-disease killers.
G.R. Khatri, who headed India's TB program more than a decade ago, called the epidemic of resistant TB in Mumbai "a recipe for disaster." The WHO should have known it was so bad and bears responsibility, he said. "What has the WHO been doing?"
In pilot testing across India this year of a new diagnostic method, some 6.6% of untreated TB patients were drug-resistant—suggesting far higher rates than the 2% to 3% levels India and the WHO have cited for years. The test was a collaboration of international aid groups and India's government.
At one clinic in Mumbai, research showed more than one quarter of 566 TB patients tested in recent months were resistant to the most powerful treatment, according to data obtained by The Wall Street Journal through India's Right to Information Act. The results are preliminary, but in the absence of any nationwide survey they offer a sense of what India's drug-resistance rates might be.
Enlarge Image
Close.The WHO is in the midst of a "complete rethinking" of its strategy toward drug resistance that involves helping countries move more quickly to address their epidemics, said Mario Raviglione, the WHO's top tuberculosis official. Countries with the largest epidemics, such as India, China, South Africa and Russia, haven't moved rapidly enough against drug resistance, he said. "That is why you see no global progress."
Dr. Dewan said that perhaps he and others should have recognized Mumbai's epidemic sooner. But partly because drug-resistant TB was a slow-moving emergency, he said, it was hard to get a full sense of the scope.
"It's a bit like the frog in a pot on a stove," Dr. Dewan said. "If you turn up the heat fast, the frog jumps out. If you turn up the heat slowly, the frog doesn't jump out, it slowly dies."
Only now is India planning its first national survey of drug resistance in TB patients, according to Prahlad Kumar, director of the National Tuberculosis Institute, the government's Bangalore-based research center. A timetable hasn't yet been set.
In-Depth: A Killer Quietly Gains Strength
The Wall Street Journal is chronicling the world's imperfect response to the rise of drug-resistant tuberculosis, an ancient disease that modern medicine, until recently, could defeat.
A selection of reports:
One woman's case of nearly incurable tuberculosis echoes around the world. (9/8/12)
India's slow reaction appears to be nurturing an all-but-untreatable strain of TB, raising the prospect of a global health hazard. (6/20/12)
A top doctor in Mumbai reports finding 12 cases of tuberculosis that are all but untreatable by current methods. (1/19/12)
.The policy changes are vindication for Zarir Udwadia, a prominent Indian physician whose controversial findings earlier this year—he identified several patients in Mumbai who were so drug-resistant that virtually none of the usual medicines worked—helped sound the alarm. Patients like these reflect the way drug-resistant TB "is mismanaged in India," Dr. Udwadia said.
Dr. Dewan said he has been taken by surprise by "crazy" levels of resistance like those identified by Dr. Udwadia. Dr. Dewan's own views have shifted quickly: As recently as last year, he said at a presentation in India that there was too much "hype" regarding drug-resistant TB.
Globally, studies suggest that drug-resistant TB is likely far more common than the WHO's own estimate of 3.7% of previously untreated patients. Resistance is worsening in many countries, the research indicates, even as the WHO's widely praised program to fight regular TB has succeeded in reducing the overall number of TB cases since the 1990s.
For decades, the WHO, aid groups and nations have been fighting TB world-wide. But the governmental effort focused almost exclusively on traditional, treatable strains, which are inexpensive to diagnose and defeat with drugs. However, this approach largely ignored drug-resistant strains.
In India, that has left the lives of patients like 22-year-old Amol Dhuri hanging in the balance. In January he was diagnosed with extensive drug-resistance—but the lab that tested him hasn't yet been accredited by the government to do this kind of testing. In fact, Mumbai, India's largest city, doesn't yet have a single lab accredited to diagnose extensive drug-resistance.
Because India's government will give patients the more powerful drugs only if they are tested by an accredited lab, Mr. Dhuri hadn't until this week started taking the drugs that have a shot at curing his strain.
More
Mumbai Grapples With Drug Resistant TB Strain
The Wall Street Journal's Investigation on Tuberculosis
.He was taking a cocktail of drugs provided by the government at no charge, most of which he was resistant to.
"I just don't understand why I'm taking these medicines and they're having no effect at all," Mr. Dhuri said.
Mr. Dhuri's drug regimen wasn't merely ineffective, it was potentially dangerous. Giving a patient medicines not strong enough to kill the TB bacteria increases the chance that it will mutate into drug-resistant strains.
It also left Mr. Dhuri wandering around, possibly spreading his drug-resistant disease to others. The average TB patient infects 10 to 15 people a year, according to the WHO.
Neither Ashok Kumar, head of India's TB program, nor P.K. Pradhan, secretary of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, returned calls seeking comment on Mr. Dhuri's case. But after the Journal's inquiries, Mr. Dhuri's drug-resistance report from an accredited lab elsewhere in the country showed up by email late last week, confirming his extensive drug resistance, Mumbai TB officials said. They said they would put him on the correct treatment this week.
The WHO, the United Nations agency dedicated to public health, once insisted that countries tackle only regular TB first before trying to treat resistant strains. Now, it urges poor countries to treat both simultaneously.
That, however, requires much more money. There will be a shortfall of $3 billion a year out of the $8 billion a year needed to fight TB in developing countries between 2013 and 2015, according to the WHO's Dr. Raviglione.
In India, medicines to treat regular TB cost $9 a month, compared with $2,000 for resistant strains.
Globally, TB receives much less money from international donors than other major deadly infectious diseases, according to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. International assistance for TB was $1 billion in 2009. By contrast, malaria, which killed nearly half as many people, received $2 billion that same year. HIV received $6.5 billion, although HIV also costs more to treat and kills about 20% more people a year.
"There needs to be a giant leap in funding, thinking and innovation," said Soumya Swaminathan, director of the National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis, one of the Indian government's premier research centers.
Tuberculosis, an ancient, airborne disease that mostly affects the lungs, is spread by coughing and sneezing. In the 19th century, it was the biggest killer of adults in most of Europe.
In the 1940s researchers discovered they could cure it, over many months, with a cocktail of medicines. In many western nations, TB went into retreat. But in poor countries, it thrived and spread amid poverty and a lack of treatments and diagnostic tools.
The WHO in 1993 declared TB a global public-health emergency, following a resurgence driven largely by the HIV epidemic. At the time, there were approximately eight million cases a year world-wide.
Globally, there was almost no funding for TB, no unified strategy to fight it, and hundreds of treatment regimens in effect. Arata Kochi, the WHO's TB chief at the time, called it "treatment chaos."
The solution, many believed, was to devise a standard, simple-to-understand treatment cheap enough to work in the world's poorest places. The WHO developed a strategy known as DOTS, or Directly Observed Therapy Short-Course, so named because patients were to be directly supervised to make sure they took their medicine. Skipping doses, even briefly, gives the disease a chance to mutate and become drug-resistant.
The WHO, which produces health standards and policies, urged countries to adopt its DOTS program, though it can't oblige them.
The WHO played a particularly large role in India because of the size of the country's TB burden. Dozens of WHO consultants provided technical support nationwide.
Under DOTS, India relied on a rudimentary but affordable diagnostic—peering at a patient's spit under a microscope to spot the bacteria. Patients got a six-month treatment of four standard medicines. Anyone still sick went back on the same regimen for eight more months, plus one additional drug.
This could cure most people with regular TB. But it wasn't strong enough to cure multi-drug resistant, or MDR, strains.
The WHO decided that tackling MDR was unfeasible in places with poor infrastructure, little money and millions of patients lacking even basic treatment.
At that time, "there were two million new cases of TB in India each year"—almost none of which were being treated effectively—and "97% of them weren't MDR," said Thomas Frieden, the physician who spearheaded the India program on behalf of the WHO in its initial years. He is now director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Dr. Khatri, who set up the India DOTS program with Dr. Frieden in 1997, agreed with the WHO's philosophy of treating regular TB first. "Every one minute, a patient was dying of TB in India," he said. "So I believed we should not plow a penny into MDR TB in India—and I did not." Dr. Khatri now heads the nonprofit World Lung Foundation for South Asia.
"It was well-intentioned reasoning in a resource-limited world," said Dr. Dewan, who left the WHO in recent weeks to join the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's TB program in India.
Dr. Raviglione, too, supports the WHO's original strategy. Without it, he said, drug resistance would now be "enormous." DOTS eliminated many of the slipshod medical practices that let the bacteria to mutate into super-resistant strains.
Meanwhile, however, evidence showed drug resistance emerging globally. Resistance was found in all 35 countries surveyed for a 1997 WHO-affiliated report. In 2000, a subsequent report found worrisome resistance rates in several countries, including parts of China and India.
In 2000, the WHO began a new program to tackle drug resistance and to "mop up" the damage caused by TB programs that had been "careless in how they treat the disease." But that program was never widely implemented, aside from some pilot programs.
This pilot program didn't even reach Mumbai, India's largest city, until mid-2010.
Around the same time, evidence emerged that resistant strains were more lethal than thought.
In one South Africa neighborhood, some 40% of patients with multi-drug-resistant TB—and 51% with higher levels of resistance—were dead within 30 days of their initial TB diagnosis, a 2010 study showed.
If that many people were dying within just 30 days, India's pilot program looked inadequate: It waited 14 months from initial diagnosis before even testing for resistance.
"We knew it was bad, but we didn't know it was this bad," Dr. Dewan said of the study.
Then, this year Dr. Udwadia and others at Mumbai's P.D. Hinduja National Hospital & Medical Research Center identified an even more menacing threat. The researchers called it "total drug resistance," because virtually none of the 12 treatments used to treat TB worked.
The report "sounded an alarm" globally, Dr. Dewan said. India quickly formulated a plan to increase its TB spending fourfold over five years, although that plan is still awaiting funding. It would establish more labs and 120 drug-resistance specialty centers.
Because most TB patients bypass the government's program when they first seek treatment, the new plan emphasizes engaging India's burgeoning private health-care providers.
Still, even this proposal falls short. By 2017, the plan says, India would only be able to treat fewer than half its estimated 100,000 multi-drug-resistant cases annually. Meanwhile India is home to the world's largest population of TB patients—2.2 million of last year's 8.7 million new cases—and treatment delays remain typical.
Last year the WHO began overhauling its "global architecture" for fighting drug resistance, Dr. Raviglione said. Instead of one committee in Geneva advising the world, regional expert groups will work with governments to help them develop and fund programs to attack drug resistance.
The WHO is also helping countries implement a new test, GeneXpert, that can diagnose TB and a common form of resistance in just 100 minutes, instead of several weeks. This marks the first major diagnostic advance in more than a century.
Eleven new or repurposed TB drugs are also in clinical trials. Dr. Raviglione said a task force is now studying how best to use them without fostering more drug resistance. Meanwhile, India's central TB office says it has established 43 testing labs and plans to build 30 more by 2015.
-
By CARL F. NATHAN
Published: December 9, 2012
Facebook
Twitter
Google+
Save
E-mail
Share
Print
Reprints
I hope you never have this experience: a loved one is hospitalized. Her doctors tell you her infection is resistant to antibiotics. She dies. More than 60,000 American families go through that experience each year — and the number is almost certain to rise.
Connect With Us on Twitter
For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.
.
Multidrug-resistant organisms are showing up in top-flight hospitals — like the klebsiella found in the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center this year, which may have led to the deaths of seven patients. Even infections that used to be a breeze to treat, like gonorrhea, are becoming incurable.
In much of the world, of course, bacterial disease is a routine cause of tragedy. Tuberculosis alone kills 1.4 million people a year. One reason for this staggeringly high figure is that most people in the world are too poor to pay for most medicines. But another reason is that some strains of tuberculosis bacteria have become resistant to most of the drugs we have. Even after two years of toxic treatment, drug-resistant tuberculosis has a fatality rate of about 50 percent.
What makes the rapid loss of antibiotics to drug resistance particularly alarming is that we are failing to make new ones. We are emptying our medicine chest of the most important class of medicines we ever had. And the cause can be traced, for the most part, to two profound problems.
The first is economic. Historically, the drug industry thrived on antibiotics. But if an antibiotic is useful against only one type of bacterium, relatively few people need it during its patent life. And if an antibiotic is “broad spectrum,” meaning it works on many different types of bacteria, wider use shortens its commercial life because it quickens the pace at which bacteria develop resistance. Moreover, antibiotics are designed to cure an acute disease — not to palliate a chronic one — so people need them only for a limited time. Compared with drugs that are used for years to treat widespread conditions like high cholesterol or asthma, antibiotics pale as a corporate investment.
The second challenge stems from the nature of bacteria. Though brainless, they are brainy, enjoying a highly effective collective intelligence. Large numbers of independently mutating bacteria test adaptations to group problems, like how to survive antibiotics. What works — like modifying the bacterial proteins to which antibiotics would otherwise bind — wins. As bacteria become more adept at evading antibiotics, it has become much harder to find drugs that can beat them back.
Merge these two problems — scientific and economic — and the result is a drug-development disaster: the prospects are so discouraging that few companies bother to try anymore.
How can we confront the critical shortage of new antibiotics when both the scientific approach and the economic model are letting us down? We can change both paradigms.
Drug makers survive by selling what people or governments buy in amounts and at prices that maximize profit. Monopoly protects the ability to set price for profit. Patents allow monopoly. Secrecy protects intellectual property until it is patented.
But what if we take a page out of the pathogen playbook? Many pathogens exchange DNA, sharing what they learn. Drug makers can operate in the same way: they can do science “open lab”-style, working in teams with academic and government scientists and other drug companies to share what they learn and to bring fresh scientific ideas and technological tools to bear. Relaxing the traditional insistence on secrecy allows collaboration, and with it, innovation.
Did I hear you say, “It’ll never happen”? It already has. GlaxoSmithKline opened its campus at Tres Cantos, Spain, to outside academic, government and biotech scientists in order to collaborate on finding antibiotics for neglected infectious diseases. The independent Tres Cantos Open Lab Foundation selects the projects and helps cover visiting researchers’ expenses.
In another version of the open lab concept, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation organized a TB Drug Accelerator program that brings together research teams from seven major companies (Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Sanofi) with scientists from four academic and government institutions. The companies have exchanged more than a thousand compounds and provided the academic and government scientists with access to millions.
These experiments show that even competing research teams can share knowledge, risk and reward in anti-infective drug development, test diverse approaches and avoid redundant efforts. (I’m involved in both of these projects.)
Philanthropic efforts have financed these open labs, but they can’t substitute for market forces. Nor can the current economic model give antibiotic development a permanent, prominent place in drug company portfolios.
There are, however, other ways for drug makers to profit beyond using monopoly to protect prices. As Thomas Pogge of Yale and Aidan Hollis of the University of Calgary have pointed out, an intergovernmental fund for drug discovery could reward drug makers for products in proportion to their impact in reducing the loss of healthy years of life. The lower the cost of a lifesaving drug, the greater the number of people who could use it; the more lives protected, then, the greater the monetary reward. An investment of $20 billion a year could encourage more open-lab collaborations to find new medicines in challenging settings like antibiotic discovery and make them accessible to all who need them.
If we don’t make new antibiotics, we will lose the ability to practice modern medicine. A new collaborative model for drug discovery can help make sure this doesn’t happen.
Carl F. Nathan is chairman of the department of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College.
-
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/05/superbugs-infections-hospitals/1965133/
I raise once again the possibility that a major factor to this long threatened appararently now imminent disaster is that massive use of antibiotics by the beef and poultry agro-industries , , ,
-
I gather the avian bird flu thing is happening again in China , , ,
-
In China, a New Bird Flu Emerges
April 9, 2013 | 1045 GMT
Summary
The first three human cases of H7N9, a new strain of bird flu, were reported in eastern China at the end of March. The emergence of a new disease in China can bring back the fears associated with the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. But there are key differences in this case, including the mode of infection and the governmental response. Any impact will be from preventative or reactive actions and not from the disease itself.
Analysis
China notified the World Health Organization on March 31 of three human cases of H7N9 in Shanghai and neighboring Anhui province. The two Shanghai cases resulted in deaths. As of April 8, 24 cases and 7 deaths have been reported in eastern Chinese provinces, and the disease has been detected in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces as well. New cases of H7N9 are likely to be identified frequently in the near term, since the region and the virus are under scrutiny.
While the disease is still new in humans, hundreds of people who have come into contact with the infected individuals are being monitored and there have been no confirmed infections. This indicates strongly that H7N9 cannot be transmitted between humans, and the World Health Organization has said that there is no proof of human-to-human transmission. Although the possibility of an eventual mutation cannot be ruled out, the current lack of human-to-human transmission is an important difference between this flu strain and the SARS virus, which infected more than 8,000 people in 2003. The H7N9 virus is more similar to its H5N1 bird flu cousin, which also is not typically transmitted between humans.
.
Official Responses and Precautions
Another apparent difference between the first occurrence of SARS in China and the new H7N9 virus is the response from Beijing. With the SARS outbreak, several months lapsed between the first case (November 2002) and identification of the disease (March 2003), despite a cluster of 305 cases of an unknown respiratory illness in February 2003 in Guangdong. These delays, along with the fact that the disease could be passed between humans, enabled SARS to spread to Hong Kong and Vietnam. With H7N9, there was less than a month between infection and identification of the disease.
Moreover, international health organizations, such as the World Health Organization, appear to be very involved and informed with this case. The Chinese government did not disclose information regarding the SARS virus as readily as it has with the H7N9 virus. The ready exchange of information aids in the prevention of pandemics. For instance, the World Health Organization Collaboration Center in China has determined that while there is no vaccine, H7N9 does appear to be susceptible to anti-viral treatment. Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has taken measures to prepare a vaccine if necessary, although making the vaccine would take at least six months. Even so, the ongoing openness and sharing of relevant information will be key to proper management of the disease.
In the wake of announcements about H7N9, surrounding countries have begun to take preventive measures. Vietnam has banned poultry imports from China, although illicit trade is prevalent in the area. Japan is taking precautions at its airports, which are on heightened alert for people with flu-like symptoms coming from China.
Potential Economic Effects
The H7N9 virus has been detected in a pigeon in Shanghai, the first detection in an animal since a person contracted the virus. This detection has resulted in the culling of more than 20,000 birds in the Shanghai markets and closures of live poultry markets in Shanghai and Nanjing, Jiangsu province. More than 400 million birds were culled after the H5N1 version of bird flu was first detected in 2003. For China, a large producer of poultry, the birds culled since the H7N9 outbreak make up a relatively small portion of the industry; the country produces on average a little more than 300,000 metric tons of poultry a week.
A key difference between H7N9 and H5N1 is that H7N9 does make the birds visibly sick. Infected birds could then act as carriers without outward symptoms. This could result in broader culling to prevent the spread of the disease between birds. Poultry is a large source of protein in China, and large-scale culling could lead to higher prices for consumers.
The H7N9 outbreak could have more economic effects if culling continues and escalates or if the movement of people changes because of either policy or fear, which could come from the spread of misinformation. International markets for corn and soy fell following news of the culling, since China's poultry industry is a large consumer of both products for poultry feed. Since the announcement of the discovery of the virus, stock prices for Chinese airlines have also fallen.
In studies of the overall economic impact of the SARS outbreak, models have shown that the short-term economic impact was 1 percent of gross domestic product for China and 2.6 percent of GDP for Hong Kong. This would amount to more than $16 billion in losses for China that would have been temporally and geographically acute, most likely affecting specific regions of the country. Overall, China's GDP still grew 10 percent in 2003, and Hong Kong saw growth of 3 percent that same year. Tourism was greatly affected, with travel to infected areas decreasing by more than 50 percent during the peak of the outbreak.
At this point, the overall economic impact of H7N9 appears to be minimal. As measures continue to be taken to prevent any potential pandemic, it is possible that certain sectors, such as tourism and the poultry sector, could see short-term losses. But barring a shift in the behavior of the new virus, the long-term macroeconomic impact is likely to be minimal.
.
Read more: In China, a New Bird Flu Emerges | Stratfor
-
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/04/the-green-death.html
From the article:
In 2005, Experiment Station researchers were unnerved to learn that a bacterial disease called citrus greening had arrived in Florida citrus groves. Citrus greening, also called huanglongbing or yellow dragon disease, is carried by an insect called the Asian citrus psyllid. It cannot, as yet, be cured; while infected trees may not show symptoms for months or years, they eventually begin to produce yellow foliage and misshapen, bitter fruit that drops prematurely to the ground. Researchers consider greening a mortal threat: it is so damaging to fruit crops that in 2003, the U.S. classified the bacteria that causes it as a bioterror tool.
-
OPINION
April 25, 2013, 7:15 p.m. ET.
The Changing Bird Flu Threat
Why China and the U.S. may be better equipped today for a pandemic than a decade ago..
By TEVI TROY
The outbreak of avian flu in China has killed at least 22 people and infected more than 108—including a man in Taiwan who had traveled in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou. For two months airline stocks have been buffeted and officials have raised concerns about a possible pandemic. So why does the American public seem so unconcerned?
There are some good and some bad reasons for the relatively blasé reaction. Most obvious is that the disease seems far away. In addition, talk of pandemics is often overblown. The 2009 swine flu was bad but nowhere near the disaster that some experts feared.
On the positive side, public health has made significant advances in dealing with flu. These suggest cause for optimism about this outbreak and possible future ones.
The first major improvement is in the cooperative posture of the Chinese government—a far cry from the unfortunate experience with the SARS virus a decade ago. Back then, Beijing kept outside organizations such as the World Health Organization in the dark about the outbreak, which ultimately infected 8,000 people and killed about 800.
SARS spread across the Pacific (to Canada) and cost the global economy as much as $50 billion. A quicker and more open Chinese response could have limited the outbreak.
This time, by contrast, China is sharing information with the World Health Organization, closely monitoring the disease and aggressively culling flocks of chickens that could be infected.
Not that we should all sing kumbaya. Shanghai, where this flu began, is a relatively open part of China, which may account for some of the government's new transparency. In addition, the current director-general of the World Health Organization is China's own Margaret Chan. Her successors may not be viewed as favorably by Beijing.
Another positive story has to do with vaccine development and production. Thanks in large part to a push for greater vaccine capacity during the Bush administration, the United States now has a more reliable annual supply of the regular flu vaccine. Researchers in the U.S. have also seen improvements in cell-based vaccine technology that can supplement and perhaps even supplant traditional egg-based vaccines—meaning that vaccine quantity wouldn't be limited by the supply of eggs and wouldn't risk harming people with food allergies.
Regarding this outbreak's particular strain (H7N9), Chinese authorities have shared the virus with international flu labs, and U.S. health officials are developing lab strains that would allow American manufacturers to produce large amounts of a vaccine if needed.
The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and Novartis NOVN.VX -0.58%have a partnership that enabled them to start creating a vaccine before H7N9 even left China, based on the posted genetic sequence. This virus is particularly concerning because the H7 strain is hard for vaccine makers to match (and this year's flu vaccine had a not atypical effectiveness rate of only 62%). Still, Americans are much better off than they were just a decade ago.
The third cause for optimism is that there have been no recorded cases of so-called sustained human-to-human transmissions, meaning the movement of the virus from a single infected person to more than one other person. That occurred with SARS but not in previous cases of avian flu. If it did, it would be the nightmare scenario for public-health officials.
We aren't out of the woods just yet. While China has been tracking severe cases, it is unknown whether any individuals are mildly affected—having few symptoms but still being contagious. A recent World Health Organization report revealed that 40% of those infected had no obvious interactions with poultry, but they must have been infected somehow. The source of those transmissions is unknown.
Because of the uncertainties about transmission, the difficulties in matching H7 strains, and concerns about asymptomatic transmitters, the H7N9 outbreak bears careful watching. But the global public-health system is far more capable of dealing with flu than it was 10 years ago. Here's hoping that the current outbreak doesn't spread and test the limits of this improved system.
Mr. Troy is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former deputy secretary of Health and Human Services
-
Another health threat.
It is still contained but if it gets into community settings like MSRA has there will be big problems. No antibiotics are consistently effective for this and the death rate is reported at 50%. I've read the development of new antibiotics are several years away at least.
http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/organisms/cre/
-
The Next Contagion: Closer Than You Think
By MICHAEL T. OSTERHOLM
Published: May 9, 2013
THERE has been a flurry of recent attention over two novel infectious agents: the first, a strain of avian influenza virus (H7N9) in China that is causing severe respiratory disease and other serious health complications in people; the second, a coronavirus, first reported last year in the Middle East, that has brought a crop of new infections. While the number of human cases from these two pathogens has so far been limited, the death rates for each are notably high.
Alarmingly, we face a third, and far more widespread, ailment that has gotten little attention: call it “contagion exhaustion.” News reports on a seemingly unending string of frightening microbes — bird flu, flesh-eating strep, SARS, AIDS, Ebola, drug-resistant bugs in hospitals, the list goes on — have led some people to ho-hum the latest reports.
Some seem to think that public health officials pull a microbe “crisis du jour” out of their proverbial test tube when financing for infectious disease research and control programs appears to be drying up. They dismiss warnings about the latest bugs as “crying wolf.” This misimpression could be deadly.
It’s important to understand our relationship with the microbial world. Most microscopic organisms benefit humans, other organisms or the environment in some way — for example, they help us digest our food and keep bad bugs in check.
At the same time, we are never far away from one of the 1,400 kinds of disease-causing microbes that are capable of infecting people; many infect animals, too. Of these microbes, known as pathogens, about 500 can be transmitted from humans to other humans. And around 150 of them can cause epidemics — rapidly spreading outbreaks of serious, sometimes life-threatening, disease.
Each pathogen has its own “footprint” (or potential footprint) on our human health and social, political and economic landscapes. Far too often the public — and policy makers and journalists — confuse those infectious diseases that can be life-threatening for a limited number of individuals with those that can cause widespread damage to society as a whole.
A disease in the former category is “flesh-eating strep” (invasive group A streptococcal disease). Approximately 9,000 to 11,500 cases are recognized each year in the United States, and about 1,000 to 1,800 of these patients die. When outbreaks of this type occur in this country, particularly if they affect schools or day-care centers, they generate front-page news and widespread concern.
Conversely, last year worldwide 1.7 million of the 34 million people infected with H.I.V. died from AIDS. There was little front-page news coverage about these cases. Nor was there much coverage last year of the estimated 1.5 million tuberculosis-related deaths, of the 1.1 million young children who died of infectious diarrheal illness, or of the 825,000 deaths from malaria. Infectious diseases like these plague the world but, because they don’t occur in our backyard, they remain relatively invisible to Americans.
In the case of the two latest threats — the H7N9 influenza virus and the new coronavirus — the number of infected people is small, and the infections are occurring thousands of miles away from the United States. Yet we should be seriously concerned about both.
Diseases like H7N9 influenza and the new coronavirus are different from noninfectious causes of serious illness and death — and even most microbial causes of disease. They can kill large numbers of people quickly and simultaneously around the world. The 1918 flu pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide in less than 18 months. The 2003 SARS pandemic, while more limited, resulted in more than 8,275 cases and 775 deaths.
Why does this suddenly happen? Both animal influenza and coronaviruses normally infect animals, not humans. But when these viruses undergo very specific genetic changes that occur as a result of everyday microbial evolution, we have a whole new ballgame; one that is largely played by their rules and on their schedule. Now a virus that once could infect only animals and maybe very rarely infect humans is readily transmitted by people to other people. You could get infected just by breathing shared air with the airplane passenger next to you, or by standing next to the wrong person in an elevator or even by lying next to your sleeping mate. We call this respiratory transmission.
Consider how quickly the H1N1 influenza virus spread in 2009: within the first month of that pandemic, the virus had infected people in at least 42 countries. The only thing keeping these viruses from becoming pandemic killers is their genetics. With few exceptions, all the current human H7N9 and coronavirus cases represent sporadic animal-to-human transmission. But if these viruses continue to spread in their respective animal reservoirs, repeated transmissions of the viruses to humans may lead to the genetic changes that will make either virus readily transmitted by humans to humans. Add in the fact that humans have little to no natural immunity to these viruses, and we could have the next pandemic.
Our public health tools to fight these viruses are limited. We have no vaccines or effective drugs readily available to stop or treat the new coronavirus in the Middle East. And while we have influenza vaccines, my colleagues and I have detailed in an article this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association why we most likely will have limited global impact on an H7N9 pandemic with our current outdated influenza vaccine technology.
In short, we won’t be saved by vaccines if a pandemic emerges from these two new threats. At best, in the case of H7N9, we can only hope that vaccines can help somewhat.
The toll is economic, not just human. Studies have shown that a severe global pandemic, caused by viruses like influenza or coronavirus, could bring the global economy, which is ever reliant on global communications and transportation networks, to its knees. When people are too sick or too afraid to work, borders are closed and global supply chains break, and trade falls. Over months, the economic costs could send the world into recession.
Are either H7N9 or coronavirus pandemics inevitable? We don’t know. But each time one of these viruses infects a human or even another mammal, it’s one more throw at the genetic roulette table.
To reduce the odds of a pandemic, China and the Middle Eastern countries where these viruses are now circulating in animals must do everything they can to identify the animal sources and use every tool they have to eliminate the spreading of the disease. To cull millions of apparently healthy chickens or other domestic animals is not easy, but it is essential.
The world as whole must invest in a new generation of effective influenza and coronavirus vaccines. They are the ultimate insurance policy against similar future emerging viruses. These viruses may seem far away, but tomorrow they could be at America’s doorstep.
Michael T. Osterholm, an epidemiologist, is a professor of environmental health sciences in the School of Public Health, and the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, at the University of Minnesota. .
-
As Hepatitis C Spreads, Scotland Steps In
By JEANNE WHALEN
DUNDEE, Scotland—Sam Nicoll, an unemployed laborer with a history of heroin use in this down-and-out city, has recently been released from prison. He's just become a father. And on a recent morning, he ran out of injection needles.
[image]
But a nurse here, Brian Stephens, wants the 24-year-old to focus on a different problem: hepatitis C.
Mr. Nicoll recently took a blood test for the virus at a local needle exchange, and it came back positive. In most parts of the world, he wouldn't be diagnosed or considered for treatment. Few countries conduct widespread testing of injection drug users or offer them medication for hepatitis C, in part because they are considered too unreliable to turn up for appointments or to stick to the costly, monthslong treatment regimen.
Scotland, however, is ignoring conventional wisdom and making a bold push to control a virus that may be one of the biggest ticking time bombs in medicine. Hepatitis C kills about 350,000 people a year globally, and in many Western countries it infects far more people than HIV. The disease can lead to cirrhosis or cancer of the liver and is the leading cause of liver transplants in many countries.
Yet because the virus often strikes injection drug users, the homeless and other hard-up populations, efforts to tackle the problem have lagged behind, health experts say. While hepatitis C now kills more Americans each year than HIV does, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spends only about $30 million a year on prevention of viral hepatitis, compared with almost $800 million for HIV.
For its part, Scotland, with a population of only five million, has launched a £100 million (about $150 million) program, running from 2008 to 2015, to diagnose and treat hepatitis C, regardless of the patient's history. Medication alone can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 per patient.
Because Scotland was hit with a wave of hepatitis C in the 1980s and it can take 20 years or more for infections to seriously damage the liver, the country is "just at the moment beginning to see this increase in end-stage liver disease," says David Goldberg, head of Health Protection Scotland's hepatitis C and HIV programs and professor of public health at University of Glasgow. "That clearly is going to have a major impact on demand for liver transplants over the next decade."
[image]
The country's taxpayer-funded health system is scrambling to find and treat infections in all hepatitis-prone communities, including Pakistani immigrants and people who received blood transfusions before the virus was discovered in 1989. But it is mostly focusing on current and former injection drug users, who account for about 90% of infections here.
Cities such as Dundee and Edinburgh—setting of the heroin-drenched 1996 film "Trainspotting"—have been particularly hard hit by injection drug use since an economic downturn in the 1980s. Within the European Union, Scotland has one of the highest reported prevalence levels of injection drug use, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
Early results of the Scottish program are promising. About half of the 38,000 Scots estimated to have been chronically infected have now been diagnosed, compared with 39% in 2007. Of those, about 1,100 new patients a year are receiving treatment, nearly triple the number from 2007. Dr. Goldberg says the aim is to reach 2,000 new patients a year, which should help prevent up to 5,200 cases of cirrhosis by 2030.
Tackling hepatitis C is a difficult assignment. It typically is spread when an infected person's blood enters another person's body, as often happens when drug users share needles. According to the U.K.'s National Health Service, the virus can also be found in some other body fluids, including saliva and semen, but this is far less common, making sexual transmission more rare than it is with HIV.
Because symptoms often don't surface until decades after infection, many people don't know they are infected.
To find infections in current drug users, Scotland is blanketing needle exchanges with simple finger-prick diagnostic kits. After identifying people with infections, many parts of Scotland try to start weaning them off heroin before offering hepatitis C medication. The typical approach is to prescribe methadone, a synthetic opiate that can help reduce heroin cravings, and wait for the patient to gain some stability, says John Dillon, a doctor in Dundee who helps run the hepatitis C program, which is staffed with about 85 doctors and nurses.
But Dundee and other regions have started treating drug users without necessarily trying to stabilize them on methadone first. They are motivated by research from University of Bristol, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and other institutions suggesting that if just 20 out of 1,000 active injection drug users are treated each year, it could stop them infecting others and reduce the rate of hepatitis C prevalence by nearly 30% in 10 years.
Doing that requires a ton of support, says Mr. Stephens, 41, the nurse at the hepatitis C program in Dundee. But for many, it may be years before they are ready to quit their drug habit, he says. "And how many people will they have infected in that time?"
Much of the program involves sending nurses like him out into the field. A 16-year veteran in nursing, he is known for going to extremes to stay in touch with patients, sometimes phoning them many times to remind them to turn up for appointments. He gives them his cellphone number, answers their calls on weekends, helps them inject the weekly interferon shots they need to kill the virus and sometimes spends hours at needle exchanges and methadone clinics waiting in vain for them to appear.
On a recent morning, Mr. Stephens met with Mr. Nicoll, who had come to a needle exchange program for a new set of syringes. Mr. Stephens invited him into a private room to discuss the results of the blood test he had taken at the exchange about seven months previously, which indicated that he probably had the hepatitis C virus. Mr. Nicoll had missed several appointments to return for a second test needed to confirm the infection. "I've been quite scared to come back," he acknowledged.
Mr. Stephens seized the moment and drew the blood on the spot, explaining what treatment would involve. Clutching a small bag of syringes, Mr. Nicoll mentioned that his life was about to get more hectic: "I've got a baby daughter coming. She's due soon."
About two weeks before meeting Mr. Stephens, Mr. Nicoll had started taking methadone in an effort to tame his drug habit. But like many methadone recipients—particularly in the early stages of treatment—he was continuing to use heroin. Mr. Stephens said that wouldn't disqualify him from hepatitis C treatment. "If someone is continuing to use heroin and they continue to come to appointments, we don't really care. We'll go ahead and treat them anyway," he said. (In a subsequent interview, Mr. Nicoll said he had stopping using heroin, which Mr. Stephens said was confirmed in a urine test. The two are awaiting more blood test results before deciding on the next step in his hepatitis treatment.)
Mr. Stephens said he wound up specializing in hepatitis C after a London surgeon once told him: "Whatever you do, get into hepatitis, because it's going to be huge." The work takes its own form of patience: At a nearby methadone clinic that afternoon, Mr. Stephens met with George Nelson, a 44-year-old addict who was successfully cured of hepatitis C a few years ago, only to find recently that he had reinfected himself through risky drug use.
"I remember getting cleared last time and saying, 'I'll never do that again,'" Mr. Nelson told Mr. Stephens. "For 14 months I was clean. Then I put myself at risk again."
Many countries don't treat active drug users or patients taking methadone because of this risk: they fear the money and effort will be wasted if the person continues using illicit drugs and gets reinfected. "There's been an argument, if you have constrained resources, who would you treat first? Obviously not drug users. But actually there's an argument that you should treat them first," says Charles Gore, president of the World Hepatitis Alliance in London. In Scotland and many places, injection drug use is by far the biggest source of the virus's transmission. Stopping that transmission is "a way to turn off the tap, and then we can empty the pool," Mr. Gore says.
In a recent study, University of Dundee analyzed treatment results for 291 patients in the region, comparing outcomes for people who had never injected drugs to those of active and former users. They found that 61% of noninjection-drug-users achieved a sustained virological response, or SVR, the clinical term for a cure. About 55% of former users and 47% of active users obtained an SVR, the study showed. The authors concluded that active injection drug use "is not a barrier to treatment or a successful achievement of SVR."
In the U.S., few doctors offer hepatitis C treatment to people taking drugs or methadone, says Michael Ninburg, executive director of the Hepatitis Education Project in Seattle. There are also few needle exchanges or methadone clinics in many communities, and even those that do exist don't typically test people for hepatitis C. John Ward, director of the CDC's viral hepatitis division, says the disease is simply "underrecognized, undermanaged and undertreated."
Still, the Scottish approach is being tried in a few places.
Diana Sylvestre, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco, runs a nonprofit clinic in Oakland that treats many people with drug addictions. When she started the clinic 15 years ago, "it became apparent hepatitis C was a huge problem," she says. She started out treating people who had achieved some stability in their lives while taking methadone, later branching out to addicts in more of a "state of disarray," she says. The clinic conducts blood tests and doles out medicine at weekly meetings that also include lunch and hepatitis C education sessions.
"We find that some people you would never predict are able to organize themselves around this schedule," she says, adding that "virtually 100%" of patients who start treatment complete it, and that 80% to 85% are cured.
The lack of medical insurance among many U.S. drug users makes it hard to tackle the hepatitis C problem in a comprehensive way, says Brian Edlin, an associate professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who treats injection drug users for hepatitis C.
Indeed, in a recent study he led to evaluate hepatitis C treatment in active drug users, some of the patients didn't have health insurance, Dr. Edlin says. He provided free care to everyone in the study and helped eligible patients get enrolled in Medicaid to cover the cost of medication. For those who weren't eligible, he obtained free drugs from manufacturers. He also offered mental-health and substance-abuse treatment to anyone who wanted it. Overall, 72% of the patients were cured of hepatitis C, a result he called "very successful." Next he is aiming to recruit up to 200 injection drug users for a larger trial that will more rigorously test the benefits of treatment.
"Doctors raise legitimate uncertainties about treating this population that need to be addressed through research," Dr. Edlin said.
In Dundee, Mr. Stephens and his colleagues are also attempting to enroll injection drug users in a similar study. To encourage them to sign up, they are offering participants a regular supply of high-protein drinks and vouchers to buy food at supermarkets. That is an incentive because "heroin users don't eat very well," Mr. Stephens says. "They spend most of their money on drugs."
Still, recruitment so far has been tough. One young woman he was hoping to enroll didn't turn up for a meeting at the needle exchange. Later, he learned she was due in court on charges she had assaulted a shopkeeper after she had been caught stealing. He ultimately tracked her down and enrolled her in the study. If she goes to prison, he says, "we'll continue her treatment" there.
Meanwhile, Mr. Stephens says he has seen anecdotal evidence that current and recent heroin users can make it through treatment. One patient recently cured, 35-year-old Leanne Petrie, took heroin for 16 years before quitting in late 2011. In an interview, she said she tested positive for hepatitis C around the age of 25 but didn't seek treatment for years.
In 2010, while living in the Scottish county of Fife, she was taking methadone to try to withdraw from heroin, and attending hepatitis C support meetings to learn about treatment. But because she was drinking heavily, her substance-abuse counselor cut off her methadone, which she says prompted her to drink more—about a bottle of vodka a day. She was also still dabbling in heroin.
In 2011, she says she got involved with a violent man who also took heroin. In December 2011, he burned her hand with a cigarette and wrecked her apartment, she says. A few days later, she took an overdose of sleeping pills. "I felt I couldn't get out," she says.
She woke up in the hospital, and, at the encouragement of her family, decided to move to Dundee to say with her cousin. She stopped drinking and taking heroin, and in January 2012, sought treatment for hepatitis C. In the middle of her treatment, she had to leave her cousin's house and stay in a homeless shelter for three months, but she eventually got an apartment from social services. She completed her treatment in November.
Seeing progress with her hepatitis C treatment helped her cope with the instability in her life and stay off drugs, she says. "Since I moved to Dundee I've achieved a lot," she says. "When you see the treatment is working, it helps you keep going."
-
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/28/health/france-coronavirus-death/index.html?sr=fb052813francecoronvirus730p
-
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — In 36 years with the Los Angeles police, Sgt. Irwin Klorman faced many dangerous situations, including one routine call that ended with Uzi fire and a bullet-riddled body sprawled on the living room floor.
But his most life-threatening encounter has been with coccidioidomycosis, or valley fever, for which he is being treated here. Coccidioidomycosis, known as “cocci,” is an insidious airborne fungal disease in which microscopic spores in the soil take flight on the wind or even a mild breeze to lodge in the moist habitat of the lungs and, in the most extreme instances, spread to the bones, the skin, the eyes or, in Mr. Klorman’s case, the brain.
The infection, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has labeled “a silent epidemic,” is striking more people each year, with more than 20,000 reported cases annually throughout the Southwest, especially in California and Arizona. Although most people exposed to the fungus do not fall ill, about 160 die from it each year, with thousands more facing years of disability and surgery. About 9 percent of those infected will contract pneumonia and 1 percent will experience serious complications beyond the lungs.
The disease is named for the San Joaquin Valley, a cocci hot spot, where the same soil that produces the state’s agricultural bounty can turn traitorous. The “silent epidemic” became less silent last week when a federal judge ordered the state to transfer about 2,600 vulnerable inmates — including some with H.I.V. — out of two of the valley’s eight state prisons, about 90 miles north of here. In 2011, those prisons, Avenal and Pleasant Valley, produced 535 of the 640 reported inmate cocci cases, and throughout the system, yearly costs for hospitalization for cocci exceed $23 million.
The transfer, affecting about a third of the two prisons’ combined population, is to be completed in 90 days, a challenge to a prison system already contending with a federal mandate to reduce overcrowding. Jose Antonio Diaz, 44, who has diabetes and was recently relocated to Avenal, is feeling “very scared of catching it,” said his wife, Suzanne Moreno.
Advocates for prisoners have criticized state agencies for not moving the inmates sooner. “If this were a factory, a public university or a hotel — anything except a prison — they would shut these two places down,” said Donald Specter, the executive director of the Prison Law Office, which provides free legal assistance to inmates.
The pending transfer has underscored the complexities and mysteries of a disease that continues to baffle physicians and scientists. In Arizona, a study from the Department of Health Services showed a 25 percent risk of African-Americans with newly diagnosed valley fever developing complications, compared with 6 percent of whites.
“The working hypothesis has to do with genetic susceptibility, probably the interrelationships of genes involved in the immune system,” said Dr. John N. Galgiani, a professor at the University of Arizona and the director of the Valley Fever Center for Excellence, founded in 1996. “But which ones? We’re clueless.”
Kandis Watson, whose son Kaden, 8, almost died, had a gut feeling that “something was not right,” she said, when Kaden began feeling sick two years ago. The pediatrician prescribed antibiotics, but Kaden’s health deteriorated, with a golf ball-size mass developing at the base of his neck. The infection enveloped Kaden’s chest, narrowing his trachea.
Kaden was essentially breathing through an opening the size of a straw, said Dr. James M. McCarty, the medical director of pediatric infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital Central California in Madera, where Kaden spent six months. Today the boy is back to his mischievous self, surreptitiously placing a green plastic lizard in his mother’s hair.
But how he contracted valley fever is still guesswork. “I think he got it being a boy, digging in the dirt,” Mrs. Watson said.
Kern County, where Bakersfield is located, had more than 1,800 reported cases last year. At Kern Medical Center, Dr. Royce H. Johnson and his colleagues have a roster of nearly 2,000 patients. Many, like Mr. Klorman, have life-threatening cocci meningitis.
“I got a bad break,” said Mr. Klorman, who is known as Joe. Until illness forced his retirement, he preferred a squad car to a desk job. Now he travels four hours round trip three times a week so Dr. Johnson can inject a powerful antifungal drug into his spinal fluid. In other patients, the disease has been known to eat away ribs and vertebrae.
“It destroys lives,” said Dr. Johnson, whose daughter contracted a mild form. “Divorces, lost jobs and bankruptcy are incredibly common, not to mention psychological dislocation.”
Once athletic, Deandre Zillendor, 38, dropped to 145 pounds from 220 in two weeks, and lesions erupted on his face and body. “You keep it forever, like luggage,” he said of the disease.
================================
Page 2 of 2)
Todd Schaefer, 48, who produces award-winning pinot noirs in Paso Robles, was told by his doctors that he had 10 years to live. That was 10 years ago. But valley fever has disseminated into his spinal column and brain, and his conversation is interrupted by grimaces of pain. Ruggedly handsome, he still outwardly resembles the archetype of the California good life. But Mr. Schaefer has had a stroke, a hole in his lung, two serious heart episodes and relapses that “put me on the edge of life,” he said.
Mr. Schaefer, 48, has had serious heart problems, and can no longer drink the wine he and his wife, Tammy, produce.
He believes he got infected with valley fever atop a tractor during the construction of Pacific Coast Vineyards, which he runs with his wife, Tammy. One doctor initially suggested bed rest, chicken soup and cranberry juice.
Today Mr. Schaefer can no longer can drink wine, and he begins every morning retching. “I told her to leave me,” he said at one low point, of his wife, who is 37. “She’s too young, too beautiful.”
Dr. Benjamin Park, a medical officer with the C.D.C., said that the numbers of cases are “under-estimates” because some states do not require public reporting. They include Texas, where valley fever is endemic along the Rio Grande. In New Mexico, a 2010 survey of doctors and clinics by the state’s public health department revealed that 69 percent of clinicians did not consider it in patients with respiratory problems.
Numbers spike when rainfall is followed by dry spells. Many scientists believe that the uptick in infections is related to changing climate patterns. Kenneth K. Komatsu, the state epidemiologist for Arizona, where 13,000 cases were reported last year, said that another factor may be urban sprawl: “digging up rural areas where valley fever is growing in the soil,” he said.
In Avenal, citizens have become activists, looking into possible environmental factors, including a regional landfill that accepts construction waste. Three of the four children of James McGee, a teacher, have contracted the disease, including Marivi, 17, who was found convulsing in the ladies’ room at school. Dr. McCarty of Children’s Hospital is seeing an increasing number of children from Avenal.
Valley fever was a familiar presence during the Dust Bowl, and in Japanese internment camps throughout the arid West. Yet there is still no cure, and research on a fungicide and a potential vaccine have been stalled by financing issues. One company, Nielsen Biosciences Inc., has developed a skin test to identify cocci but has not yet been able to make it financially viable.
Part of the difficulty is that cocci is “a hundred different diseases,” Dr. Johnson said, depending on where in the body it nests. His patients include farm workers, oil field workers and construction workers.
One of his patients, Barbara Ludy, 61, had a job that involved taking care of a man who is quadriplegic. She was strong enough to lift his 175-pound frame, plus his wheelchair, into a van. Cocci meningitis affected her ability to think, to remember, to walk, to live independently. When her weight dropped to 71 pounds, her distraught daughters went to Goodwill to buy their mother size zero clothes.
One daughter, Jennifer Gillet, now takes care of her mother full time. Ms. Ludy is recuperating, slowly. And things are looking up: She is now a size 10.
-
I have no idea of the reliability of this site:
http://www.realfarmacy.com/cdc-admits-98-million-americans-received-polio-vaccine-contaminated-with-cancer-virus/#VgfMOhOPiMr3RBqP.01
-
http://www.reagancoalition.com/articles/2013/20130718005-distract-obama-eo.html
-
Fifteen Years After Autism Panic, a Plague of Measles Erupts
Legions spurned a long-proven vaccine, putting a generation at risk
By JEANNE WHALEN and BETSY MCKAY
PORT TALBOT, Wales—When the telltale rash appeared behind Aleshia Jenkins's ears, her grandmother knew exactly what caused it: a decision she'd made 15 years earlier.
Ms. Jenkins was an infant in 1998, when this region of southwest Wales was a hotbed of resistance to a vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. Many here refused the vaccine for their children after a British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, suggested it might cause autism and a local newspaper heavily covered the fears. Resistance continued even after the autism link was disproved.
The bill has now come due.
A measles outbreak infected 1,219 people in southwest Wales between November 2012 and early July, compared with 105 cases in all of Wales in 2011.
One of the infected was Ms. Jenkins, whose grandmother, her guardian, hadn't vaccinated her as a young child. "I was afraid of the autism," says the grandmother, Margaret Mugford, 63 years old. "It was in all the papers and on TV."
More
Brooklyn Measles Outbreak Shows Risks
The outbreak presents a cautionary tale about the limits of disease control. Wales is a modern society with access to modern medical care and scientific thought. Yet legions spurned a long-proven vaccine, putting a generation at risk even after scientists debunked Dr. Wakefield's autism research.
The outbreak matters to the rest of the world because measles can quickly cross oceans, setting back progress elsewhere in stopping it. By 2000, the U.S. had effectively eliminated new home-grown cases of measles, though small outbreaks persist as travelers bring the virus into the country. New York City health officials this spring traced a Brooklyn outbreak to someone they believe was infected in London.
Measles outbreaks are a "canary in the coal mine," says James Goodson, the lead measles expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People who refuse one vaccine may be spurning others, setting communities up for outbreaks of other dangerous diseases that are slower to propagate, he says, such as diphtheria and whooping cough.
"Despite the fact that it's one of the greatest health measures ever invented by man or woman, there seems to still be a small residue of humanity that objects to the very idea of immunization," says Dai Lloyd, a doctor in Wales who treated many of the recent measles cases. "If you go around the cemetery you can see the historical evidence of childhood slaughter from pre-immunization days."
Measles is a respiratory condition causing fever, cough and rash. Most people who catch it recover fully. But measles can lead to deafness and pneumonia, and, in about one in 1,000 cases, death. It is one of the most contagious diseases, spread by coughing and sneezing.
It is also among the most preventable, with an effective inoculation since the 1960s that is now commonly given with mumps and rubella vaccines in a combined "MMR" vaccine. The U.K., as did the U.S., categorized measles as "eliminated" over a decade ago, meaning it was no longer circulating from within its borders.
Child deaths from measles world-wide fell 71% to 158,000 in 2011 from 2000, says the Measles & Rubella Initiative, a partnership of global-health groups.
Most measles occurs in developing countries. But it is resurging in some of the very countries that have led global campaigns against it. France was close to eliminating it in 2007 before an outbreak infected more than 20,000 people between 2008 and 2011. Philosophical opposition to vaccines helped cause the outbreak, says the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
The 117 U.S. cases reported so far this year are up from 54 in all of 2012 and could put the U.S. on track to match the 220 logged in 2011, the highest since 1996. England reported 1,168 cases in 2013 through May, up 64% from the year-earlier period and the highest recorded level since 1994.
"It's very galling we had measles eliminated and now we've got it again" in the U.K., says Paul Cosford, medical director of Public Health England, the government public-health agency.
The autism scare behind the Wales outbreaks tracks to the era of Dr. Wakefield, then a researcher at London's Royal Free Hospital, whose suggestion of a vaccine-autism link began to get press in 1997.
A paper Dr. Wakefield published in 1998 in the Lancet, a medical journal, described 12 "previously normal" children who developed gastrointestinal problems and developmental disorders including autism. His paper concluded that "in most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immunization. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine."
Medical experts immediately warned parents that they considered the research incomplete and speculative, and said there was no evidence of a link. Among other studies debunking his research, a 2004 review of epidemiological studies by the U.S. Institute of Medicine found no evidence MMR caused autism.
The Lancet retracted Dr. Wakefield's paper in 2010 after the U.K.'s General Medical Council concluded that his work was "irresponsible and dishonest." The council that year stripped him of his medical license, saying in a report that he had engaged in "serious professional misconduct."
Dr. Wakefield says he questioned MMR's safety but strongly urged parents to continue with a measles-only vaccine. "MMR doesn't protect against measles," he says. "Measles vaccine protects against measles." He says he stands by his work despite contrary conclusions by other scientists. He didn't respond to subsequent requests for comment on his license revocation.
His report helped spark backlash against MMR, especially in English-speaking countries, say health officials in the U.S., U.K., Australia and other countries. An estimated 2.1% of U.S. children who received other routine vaccines weren't immunized with MMR in 2000, up from 0.77% in 1995, according to a 2008 study published in Pediatrics that concluded the change was "associated with" Dr. Wakefield's study.
Dr. Wakefield says he rejects the idea that his research helped cause measles outbreaks, because he told parents to keep vaccinating with measles-only vaccine.
U.S. critics, including some who questioned vaccines in general, continued to campaign against the vaccine. Among them, former Playboy model and actress Jenny McCarthy, who has been named a co-host of ABC's "The View," became a leader of the anti-vaccine movement in the U.S. several years ago when in televised interviews she linked her son's autism to vaccinations. A publicist for Ms. McCarthy, who wrote the forward to a 2010 book by Dr. Wakefield, didn't respond to requests for comment.
Dr. Wakefield's work especially reverberated in the U.K. MMR vaccination rates among 2-year-olds in England fell to 80% in the 2004 fiscal year from about 92% in 1997.
But nowhere did the toxic mix of dubious science, sensational headlines and parental fear take a bigger toll than in southwest Wales. As Dr. Wakefield's concerns gathered steam in Britain's national media in 1997, a Port Talbot mother, Jackie Eckton, phoned the South Wales Evening Post to ask whether other parents had experienced problems with MMR.
In one 1997 article, Ms. Eckton told the Post the vaccine turned her 3-year-old, Daniel, who had been diagnosed with autism, into a "distant and silent recluse." She told the paper she wanted to form "some sort of action group so people can help each other fight this thing and what it does."
The Post instructed parents wanting to join her campaign to phone its news desk.
Within days, parents of 20 other children formed a group led by Ms. Eckton, and demanded an investigation into whether the shots—"jabs" in the U.K.—were faulty. The Post ran a headline: "Jab Mums Fear a Rogue Batch."
[image]
The health department told parents there was nothing wrong with the vaccine. The U.K.'s state-run health system encourages parents to vaccinate children but, unlike the U.S. system, doesn't require vaccinations for school enrollment.
Ms. Eckton's group grew, and stories about other children followed, with headlines like "Mum fears twins may be jab victims." After Dr. Wakefield's paper was published in February, 1998, the Post stepped up its coverage, with dozens of stories about worried parents.
Health experts in Wales say the Post's coverage was probably the main reason vaccination rates fell further here than elsewhere. By the third quarter of 1998, uptake of the vaccine in 2-year-olds fell by 14% in the newspaper's distribution area, compared with a 2.4% drop in the rest of Wales, according to a report in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
Doctors urged parents to vaccinate anyway, says Charlotte Jones, a general practitioner in Swansea, Wales. "We'd chase them up by letter, by telephone," she says, but many "weren't having it."
Ms. Jenkins's grandmother, Ms. Mugford, wasn't having it. "I got frightened—what if she ends up with autism? And I just let it go," she says of her decision not to vaccinate.
The backlash lingered for years. Hannah Williams, a 31-year-old mother of two boys, ages five and six, says she skipped their MMR vaccinations over autism fears. Her nephew had been vaccinated and developed autism, she says, so she and her husband "decided we weren't willing to take the risk."
Their pediatrician badgered them to vaccinate, she says, but "we'd just say no."
“A Welsh mother urged a local paper to report vaccine fears after her son became a 'distant and silent recluse.”
It can take years for an outbreak to follow dropping vaccination rates. Doctors in Wales reported from 104 to 223 cases a year from 1999 to 2008. Reported cases rose to 567 in 2009 and fell to 117 in 2010.
Then, in November 2012, doctors started seeing a marked increase. There were dozens of new cases a week, and authorities declared an outbreak.
The outbreak especially hit children 10 to 18 years old who went unvaccinated during the autism scare.
About 10% of infected children in the outbreak area were admitted to the hospital, with complications including severe dehydration and pneumonia, says Sara Hayes, a director of public health in the outbreak area. Most of the infected have recovered. A 25-year-old man died of pneumonia related to the measles, according to Public Health Wales.
Ms. Jenkins in April joined thousands of other children who lined up for belated vaccinations. It was too late: She found the rash soon thereafter, she says. Ms. Jenkins, now 16, says her measles got so bad she had to visit the hospital. She recovered, as have most others.
"It took her getting measles for me to realize how dangerous it was," her grandmother says.
Dr. Wakefield rejects the idea that he helped cause the Welsh outbreak. The government's decision not to offer a measles-only vaccine, he says, "lays the blame fairly on their shoulders."
Measles-only vaccines weren't approved in Britain at the time, says Brendan Mason, an epidemiologist with Public Health Wales. Global health officials have long viewed single-disease vaccines as inferior to combination shots because they increase the likelihood children will miss some doses.
Dr. Wakefield in 2005 moved to Austin, Texas, where he helped found an autism research-and-treatment center. He resigned from the center in 2010 after the U.K. revoked his medical license and says he is now helping run an Austin-based video-production company.
Efforts to reach George Edwards, who edited the Post during the autism scare, were unsuccessful. In April, the BBC quoted him as saying that "at no time did the newspaper ever say to parents 'do not let your children have this jab.'"
The Post's current editor, Jonathan Roberts, wrote in an April editorial: "It is clear that there were genuine concerns in the mid-1990s about MMR and the Post gave them full and responsible coverage." Mr. Roberts says he doesn't have anything to add to his editorial.
Wales declared the outbreak over on July 3. But there may be other ripples from the late-1990s scare. U.K. health officials say the drop in MMR vaccination has contributed to a spike in mumps in the U.K. in recent years.
Public Health Wales warned in recent weeks that many people remain unvaccinated with MMR and leave Wales vulnerable to future outbreaks of measles and mumps.
And resistance persists: Even some Welsh parents who belatedly inoculated remain suspicious of MMR.
Ms. Williams, who had skipped her sons' vaccinations, took her boys to an emergency vaccination clinic during the outbreak. She says she isn't as worried about autism now that her children are older but still isn't convinced of MMR's safety.
Ms. Eckton, who started the parents' group, says she still believes MMR damaged her son, now 18, who she says is severely autistic.
"I'm only a parent who watched what happened to my son," says Ms. Eckton, 46. "When you feel guilt for that, that's quite hard."
-
I have no idea of the reliability of this site:
http://www.realfarmacy.com/cdc-admits-98-million-americans-received-polio-vaccine-contaminated-with-cancer-virus/#VgfMOhOPiMr3RBqP.01
Some of the anti-vaccine hype in our culture is over-zealous (or misleading) on facts. Polio vaccine succeeded on eliminating a horrible disease. The alleged contamination of the virus occurred before the virus was discovered. From the link, the majority of the studies determined that virus did not cause cancer. All of the current evidence indicates that polio vaccines have been free of SV40 since 1963.
It's good to do your homework ... and to always be skeptical of government, but - on this one - they did not show a reason to decline a vaccination, as one might think is implied by those sending this out.
-
I made this point a few years ago here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/health/tracing-germs-through-the-aisles.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130730
There is a vid-clip as part of the article. Text follows here:
======================================================
Twice a month for a year, Lance Price, a microbiologist at George Washington University, sent his researchers out to buy every brand of chicken, turkey and pork on sale in each of the major grocery stores in Flagstaff, Ariz. As scientists pushed carts heaped with meat through the aisles, curious shoppers sometimes asked if they were on the Atkins diet.
Lance Price, a microbiologist, is using genetic sequencing to try to match bacteria found in grocery meat to urinary infections in a study in Arizona.
In fact, Professor Price and his team are trying to answer worrisome questions about the spread of antibiotic-resistant germs to people from animals raised on industrial farms. Specifically, they are trying to figure out how many people in one American city are getting urinary infections from meat from the grocery store.
Professor Price describes himself as something of a hoarder. His own freezer is packed with a hodgepodge of samples swabbed from people’s sinuses and inner ears, and even water from a hookah pipe. But the thousands of containers of broth from the meat collected in Flagstaff, where his nonprofit research institute is based, are all neatly packed into freezers there, marked with bar codes to identify them.
He is now using the power of genetic sequencing in an ambitious attempt to precisely match germs in the meat with those in women with urinary infections. One recent day, he was down on his hands and knees in his university office in Washington, studying a family tree of germs from some of the meat samples, a printout of more than 25 pages that unfurled like a roll of paper towels. Its lines and numbers offered early clues to Professor Price’s central question: How many women in Flagstaff get urinary infections from grocery store meat? He expects preliminary answers this fall.
Researchers have been warning for years that antibiotics — miracle drugs that changed the course of human health in the 20th century — are losing their power. Some warn that if the trend isn’t halted, there could be a return to the time before antibiotics when people died from ordinary infections and children did not survive strep throat. Currently, drug resistant bacteria cause about 100,000 deaths a year, but mostly among patients with weakened immune systems, children and the elderly.
There is broad consensus that overuse of antibiotics has caused growing resistance to the medicines. Many scientists say evidence is mounting that heavy use of antibiotics to promote faster growth in farm animals is a major culprit, creating a reservoir of drug resistant bugs that are finding their way into communities. More than 70 percent of all the antibiotics used in the United States are given to animals.
Agribusiness groups disagree and say the main problem is overuse of antibiotic treatments for people. Bugs rarely migrate from animals to people, and even when they do, the risk they pose to human health is negligible, the industry contends.
Scientists say genetic sequencing will bring greater certainty to the debate. They will be able to trace germs in people to their origins, be it from a farm animal or other patients in a hospital. Representative Louise Slaughter, a Democrat from New York who has pushed for legislation to control antibiotic use on farms, said such evidence would be the “smoking gun” that would settle the issue.
Professor Price is seeking to quantify how extensively drug-resistant bugs in animals are infecting people. He is trying to do that by analyzing the full genetic makeup of germs collected from both grocery store meat and people in Flagstaff last year. The plummeting cost of genomic sequencing has made his research possible.
He is comparing the genetic sequences of E. coli germs resistant to multiple antibiotics found in the meat samples to the ones that have caused urinary tract infections in people (mostly women).
Urinary infections were chosen because they are so common. American women get more than eight million of them a year. In rare cases the infections enter the bloodstream and are fatal.
Resistant bacteria in meat are believed to cause only a fraction of such infections, but even that would account for infections in several hundred thousand people annually. The E. coli germ that Professor Price has chosen can be deadly, and is made even more dangerous by its tendency to resist antibiotics.
The infection happens when meat containing the germ is eaten, grows in the gut, and then is introduced into the urethra. Dr. Price said the germ could cause infection in other ways, such as through a cut while slicing raw meat. The bugs are promiscuous, so once they get into people, they can mutate and travel more easily among people. A new strain of the antibiotic-resistant bug MRSA, for example, was first detected in people in Holland in 2003, and now represents 40 percent of the MRSA infections in humans in that country, according to Jan Kluytmans, a Dutch researcher. That same strain was common in pigs on farms before it was found in people, scientists say. Dr. Price, 44, began his career testing anthrax for resistance to the Cipro antibiotic for biodefense research in the 1990s. His interest in public health led him to antibiotic resistance in the early 2000s. It seemed like a less theoretical threat.
First line antibiotics were no longer curing basic infections, and doctors were concerned. “I thought, ‘Wow this is so obviously crazy, I have to do something about this,’ ” he said. He has done his research on antibiotics at a nonprofit founded in 2002, the Translational Genomics Research Institute, in Phoenix. His lab in Flagstaff, an affiliate, is financed mostly by federal sources, including the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Department.
Dr. Price, trained in epidemiology and microbiology, has been sounding the alarm about antibiotic resistance for a number of years. He recently told a Congressional committee that evidence of the ill effects of antibiotics in farming was overwhelming.
He thinks the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to limit antibiotic use on farms have been weak. In 1977, the F.D.A. said it would begin to ban some agricultural uses of antibiotics. But the House and Senate appropriations committees — dominated by agricultural interests — passed resolutions against the ban, and the agency retreated. More recently, the agency has limited the use of two important classes of antibiotics in animals. But advocates say it needs to go further and ban use of all antibiotics for growth promotion. Sweden and Denmark have already done so.
Ms. Slaughter said aggressive lobbying by agribusiness interests has played a major role in blocking passage of legislation. According to her staff, of the 225 lobbying disclosure reports filed during the last Congress on a bill she wrote on antibiotic use, nearly nine out of ten were filed by organizations opposed to the legislation.
But the economics of food presents perhaps the biggest obstacle. On large industrial farms, animals are raised in close contact with one another and with big concentrations of bacteria-laden feces and urine. Antibiotics keep infections at bay but also create drug resistance. Those same farms raise large volumes of cheap meat that Americans have become accustomed to.
Governments have begun to acknowledge the danger. The United States recently promised $40 million to a major drug company, GlaxoSmithKline, to help it develop medications to combat antibiotic resistance. But Dr. Price says that new drugs are only a partial solution.
“A lot of people say, ‘let’s innovate our way out of this,’ ” he said. “But if we don’t get a handle on the way we abuse antibiotics, we are just delaying the inevitable.”
-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323893004579055083617866454.html?mod=WSJ_hp_EditorsPicks
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/health/cdc-report-finds-23000-deaths-a-year-from-antibiotic-resistant-infections.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130917&_r=0
-
ELLEN KNICKMEYER
A World Health Organization emergency committee on Wednesday asked countries to step up monitoring for a lethal, year-old virus as Muslim pilgrims from around the world return home from the annual hajj in Saudi Arabia, home to most of the victims so far. Many questions remain to be answered, but the most pressing is "we don't understand what kind of risk this poses for global spread," Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director-general, told reporters after the committee's third meeting on Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, or MERS. Nine European and Middle East countries have confirmed a total of 130 cases of the illness, with a 42% death rate, since the virus was identified in September 2012. More than 100 of the confirmed cases were in Saudi Arabia. International disease experts convened Wednesday under the remit of the WHO concluded that the disease so far doesn't merit declaration of a health emergency, Dr. Fukuda said. Members have asked to confer again after next month's hajj, he said. The world's largest annual gathering, the hajj draws more than 3 million pilgrims from dozens of countries for worship in the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The MERS committee is the second emergency panel created under WHO procedures established after the 2003 outbreak of SARS, a virus related to MERS that killed 750 people, mostly in China. The first WHO emergency committee addressed the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. MERS committee members heard from health officials of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, another Gulf country that has confirmed MERS cases recently, Dr. Fukuda said. The United Arab Emirates, which also had recent confirmed cases, didn't make a representative available Wednesday, Dr. Fukuda said.
The experts expressed concern that many of the pilgrims will be returning to countries in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions that are unlikely to screen those who fall ill for MERS, the WHO official said.
Health officials have yet to determine how MERS, which typically causes respiratory infections, and sometimes kidney problems, infects humans. Studies on camels and bats as possible hosts have been inconclusive. Newly concluded animal studies in Saudi Arabia by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and others should provide new information soon, Dr. Fukuda said. The emergency committee urged countries to do more MERS diagnostic testing and investigation. A committee statement emphasized "the importance of timely sharing of relevant information and of coordinating actions with WHO."
Dr. Fukuda declined to say whether Saudi Arabia was doing enough to investigate the disease. "We would like to have more information on the situation" from countries overall, he said.
One reason for the lingering uncertainty over the most basic facets of MERS is that the new virus has spread steadily, rather than in a surge of cases that yielded a corresponding surge of information, as SARS and other recent pandemics did, the WHO official said.
-
second post
A Big Step in the Fight Against Superbugs
Our study zeroed in on an effective way to prevent deadly MRSA infections in hospitals. .
By JONATHAN B. PERLIN
And RICHARD PLATT
In the U.S. and abroad, humans are at risk of increasingly weak antibiotics and increasingly strong superbugs. Before the discovery of penicillin in the early 20th century, a significant portion of people unlucky enough to contract a bacterial infection died. With increasing antibiotic resistance, we risk a post-antibiotic era every bit as frightening.
A report out this month from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights multidrug-resistant bacteria as one of the world's most serious and pressing health threats. "Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2013" notes that drug resistance is often the result of poor stewardship, defined as the lack of careful use of antibiotics in humans and animals.
When antibiotics are used unnecessarily or inappropriately, we kill the most susceptible organisms and, in their void, create a more favorable environment for the selection of more-resistant bacteria. This has resulted in a scary alphabet soup of superbugs, including C. diff, CRE, MRSA, multidrug-resistant TB, and VRE, that can be deadly to those with suppressed immune systems and are threatening even the healthiest patients.
The CDC's strategies to address resistance include tracking resistant bacteria, improving uses of antibiotics, and developing new antibiotics and diagnostic tests for resistant bacteria. But success also means reducing the overuse of antibiotics and requires a commitment from more than health professionals. Patients need to change their expectations for receiving an antibiotic when an illness is likely viral—in which case it will never respond to an antibiotic—or self-limited, like a cold that will go away on its own. Doctors need to feel supported by patients, not pressured, when they exhibit prudent stewardship in prescribing only those medicines that will be effective.
Enlarge Image
image
imageAssociated Press
Plates of MRSA
.
Preventing infection is another critical piece of the CDC's national strategy, and we still have a lot to learn on that front. That is why Hospital Corporation of America, in partnership with researchers from the CDC, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and Harvard Medical School, University of California Irvine School of Medicine, Rush Medical College and Washington University, recently conducted a study known as Reduce MRSA (short for the Randomized Evaluation of Decolonization Versus Universal Clearance to Eliminate MRSA).
The study set out to address the question: What could hospitals do right now to dramatically reduce their infection rates? The answer turned out to be a surprisingly simple intervention to cleanse patients who potentially carry the virulent organism.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, more commonly known as MRSA, was identified in the CDC report as a serious threat to human health. MRSA is a common organism, and individuals who have been exposed to it can become carriers. In the hospital, carriers are at particular risk of developing MRSA infections. MRSA may be transmitted to other patients and can cause bloodstream infections known as sepsis. There are some 80,000 cases of invasive MRSA infections per year, resulting in about 11,000 deaths annually. MRSA, and staphylococcus in general, account for approximately one-quarter of the 80,000 deaths from hospital-acquired infections in the U.S.
The Reduce MRSA trial, conducted across 74 intensive-care units at 43 hospitals, involved more than 74,000 patients over an 18-month period. Results show that hospitals urgently need to better define their standards for infection prevention.
Before this trial, the CDC didn't have enough information to determine which of three alternative approaches is truly best: Would it be most effective to screen patients for MRSA and, if they test positive, isolate them from other patients, or to screen patients for MRSA and, if they test positive, isolate them and apply the "decolonization," which means eradicating bacteria by using antimicrobial soap and nasal ointment to prevent bacteria from entering the bloodstream? Or would it be better to decolonize all patients immediately on admission to intensive-care units?
The third approach proved unequivocally best. Universal decolonization reduced all bloodstream infections, including those caused by MRSA, by 44%. The other approaches were not nearly as successful. There was negligible change in the reduction of bloodstream infections using the first approach; the second approach saw a 22% reduction.
While this study was notable for its outcome, it was also notable for its efficiency. It didn't take a single hospital dozens of years to amass the power of this study—it took 43 hospitals collaborating for 18 months. It didn't take a research team focused only on answering one question. The research was implemented by nurses and infection-prevention professionals during routine patient care, and not in a laboratory, but within the real-world environment of community hospitals. This suggests the prevention strategy can be implemented in hospitals everywhere, as it already has been by all HCA facilities.
The stakes are high. Breeding superbugs threatens a return to the vulnerability of the pre-antibiotic era, when untreatable bacterial diseases and TB were responsible for countless deaths. The Reduce MRSA study demonstrated that government, the private sector and academia, by conducting research collaboratively, can accelerate creating the best scientific evidence for practice. By using that evidence, we can change outcomes for patients, and maybe even the way history records our fate.
Dr. Perlin is president, Clinical & Physician Services of Hospital Corporation of America. Dr. Platt, an infectious diseases specialist, is a professor at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute.
-
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hunting-the-nightmare-bacteria/
"Has the age of antibiotics come to an end? From a young girl thrust onto life support in Arizona to an uncontrollable outbreak at one of the nation’s most prestigious hospitals, FRONTLINE investigates the alarming rise of a deadly type of bacteria that our modern antibiotics can’t stop."
-
https://medium.com/p/892b57499e77
-
As this thread attests, I have been calling for action on this for quite some time:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/health/fda-to-phase-out-use-of-some-antibiotics-in-animals-raised-for-meat.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131212
F.D.A. Restricts Antibiotics Use for Livestock
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: December 11, 2013 207 Comments
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday put in place a major new policy to phase out the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in cows, pigs and chickens raised for meat, a practice that experts say has endangered human health by fueling the growing epidemic of antibiotic resistance.
This is the agency’s first serious attempt in decades to curb what experts have long regarded as the systematic overuse of antibiotics in healthy farm animals, with the drugs typically added directly into their feed and water. The waning effectiveness of antibiotics — wonder drugs of the 20th century — has become a looming threat to public health. At least two million Americans fall sick every year and about 23,000 die from antibiotic-resistant infections.
“This is the first significant step in dealing with this important public health concern in 20 years,” said David Kessler, a former F.D.A. commissioner who has been critical of the agency’s track record on antibiotics. “No one should underestimate how big a lift this has been in changing widespread and long entrenched industry practices.”
The change, which is to take effect over the next three years, will effectively make it illegal for farmers and ranchers to use antibiotics to make animals grow bigger. The producers had found that feeding low doses of antibiotics to animals throughout their lives led them to grow plumper and larger. Scientists still debate why. Food producers will also have to get a prescription from a veterinarian to use the drugs to prevent disease in their animals.
Federal officials said the new policy would improve health in the United States by tightening the use of classes of antibiotics that save human lives, including penicillin, azithromycin and tetracycline. Food producers said they would abide by the new rules, but some public health advocates voiced concerns that loopholes could render the new policy toothless.
Health officials have warned since the 1970s that overuse of antibiotics in animals was leading to the development of infections resistant to treatment in humans. For years, modest efforts by federal officials to reduce the use of antibiotics in animals were thwarted by the powerful food industry and its substantial lobbying power in Congress. Pressure for federal action has mounted as the effectiveness of drugs important for human health has declined, and deaths from bugs resistant to antibiotics have soared.
Under the new policy, the agency is asking drug makers to change the labels that detail how a drug can be used so they would bar farmers from using the medicines to promote growth.
The changes, originally proposed in 2012, are voluntary for drug companies. But F.D.A. officials said they believed that the companies would comply, based on discussions during the public comment period. The two drug makers that represent a majority of such antibiotic products — Zoetis and Elanco — have already stated their intent to participate, F.D.A. officials said. Companies will have three months to tell the agency whether they will change the labels, and three years to carry out the new rules.
Additionally, the agency is requiring that licensed veterinarians supervise the use of antibiotics, effectively requiring farmers and ranchers to obtain prescriptions to use the drugs for their animals.
“It’s a big shift from the current situation, in which animal producers can go to a local feed store and buy these medicines over the counter and there is no oversight at all,” said Michael Taylor, the F.D.A.’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine.
Some consumer health advocates were skeptical that the new rules would reduce the amount of antibiotics consumed by animals. They say that a loophole will allow animal producers to keep using the same low doses of antibiotics by contending they are needed to keep animals from getting sick, and evading the new ban on use for growth promotion.
=========================
Page 2 of 2)
More meaningful, said Dr. Keeve Nachman, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, would be to ban the use of antibiotics for the prevention of disease, a step the F.D.A. so far has not taken. That would limit antibiotic uses to treatment of a specific sickness diagnosed by a veterinarian, a much narrower category, he said.
Another skeptic, Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a Democrat from New York, said that when the European Union tried to stop companies from using antibiotics to make farm animals bigger, companies continued to use antibiotics for disease prevention. She said antibiotic use only declined in countries like the Netherlands that instituted limits on total use and fines for noncompliance.
But another longtime critic of the F.D.A. on antibiotics, Dr. Stuart B. Levy, a professor of microbiology at Tufts University and the president of the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, praised the new rules. He was among the first to identify the problem in the 1970s. “I’m kind of happy,” he said. “For all of us who’ve been struggling with this issue, this is the biggest step that’s been taken in the last 30 years.”
Mr. Taylor, the agency official, said the F.D.A. had detailed what veterinarians needed to consider when they prescribed such drugs. For example, use has to be for animals at risk for developing a specific disease, with no reasonable alternatives to prevent it.
“It’s far from being a just-trust-them system,” he said. “Given the history of the issue, it’s not surprising that there are people who are skeptical.”
He added that some food producers had already curbed antibiotic use.
A spokeswoman for Zoetis, a major drug producer that said it would abide by the new rules, said the new policy was not expected to have a big effect on the revenues of the company because many of its drug products were also approved for therapeutic uses. (Dr. Nachman said that was an indication that overall use might not decline under the new rules.)
The Animal Health Institute, an association of pharmaceutical companies that make drugs for animals, said that it supported the policy and “will continue to work with the F.D.A. on its implementation.”
The National Pork Producers Council was less enthusiastic, saying, “We expect that hog farmers, and the federally inspected feed mills they purchase feed from, will follow the law.”
“It is part of our ethical responsibility to utilize antibiotics responsibly and part of our commitment to public health and animal health,” the council said in a statement.
The National Chicken Council said in a statement that its producers already worked closely with veterinarians, and that much of the antibiotics used in raising chickens were not used in human medicine.
-
Antibiotics of the Future
Scientists hunt for new antibiotics amid a rise in resistant germs
By Shirley S. Wang
Dec. 16, 2013 7:06 p.m. ET
As bacteria continue to develop resistance to existing antibiotics, scientists are working on new strategies to combat bug-borne infections and diseases, Shirley Wang reports. Photo: AP.
Scientists are working to develop new strategies to combat the growing threat of germs that current antibiotics can't fight.
Some researchers are testing new substances, such as silver, to combine with antibiotics to boost their killing power. Other researchers are making use of genetic sequencing of bacteria to help develop killer drugs at a faster pace than medical science was capable of in the past.
Another strategy aims to render harmful bacteria incapable of infecting people, rather than killing the germs outright. One such technique would neutralize disease-causing toxins by disrupting the bacteria's internal mechanisms.
Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to public health, medical officials say. Common germs such as Escherichia coli, or E. coli, which can cause urinary tract and other infections, and Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which causes gonorrhea, are becoming harder to treat because they increasingly don't respond to antibiotics. Some two million people in the U.S. are infected each year by antibiotic-resistant bacteria and 23,000 die as a result, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC says it doesn't have historical numbers.
View Graphics
One of the biggest threats is from Enterobacteriaceae, a family of germs that naturally lives in the gut and includes E. coli, the CDC says. There are about 9,000 cases a year of infections from the germs that can't be treated with usual antibiotics, resulting in 610 deaths. In 1998, there was just one case. Patients who don't respond to normal antibiotics are given older drugs that had been discontinued because of severe side effects, such as kidney damage, the CDC says.
Scientists say that Enterobacteriaceae are particularly hard to kill because of an outer cell wall that prevents many antibiotics from penetrating. James J. Collins, a professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University and Harvard University, and his colleagues recently discovered that adding trace amounts of silver—long known to have antimicrobial properties—allows the common antibiotic vancomycin to work against E. coli, whereas the antibiotic isn't effective against the microbe on its own. The silver appears to make the outer walls of the bacteria more permeable, allowing the antibiotic to get in and do its job, says Dr. Collins, who published the findings in the journal Science Translational Medicine in June.
(Some pharmaceutical companies are experimenting with other types of additives with the aim of short-circuiting bacteria's defenses.)
Researchers at Merck & Co., in Whitehouse Station, N.J., are targeting an enzyme called beta-lactamase that lives in certain bacteria and neutralizes antibiotics sent to destroy them. By adding an enzyme-inhibiting agent called MK-7655 to the antibiotic imipenem, researchers managed to kill about 97% of a type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that causes urinary-tract infections and pneumonia, according to Nicholas Kartsonis, head of clinical development of antibacterial, antifungals and non-hepatology viruses at Merck Research Labs.
Synthetic Biologics Inc. is taking advantage of beta-lactamase's ability to neutralize antibiotics by adding a modified version of the enzyme to the drugs. The aim is to prompt the antibiotic to break down when it reaches the bowel, where side effects and drug resistance for bacteria called Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile, develops, but to leave the antibiotic intact in the bloodstream. The process should allow larger doses of antibiotics to be administered without the patient suffering typical side effects such as gastrointestinal problems, says John Monahan, who heads research and development for the Rockville, Md.-based company.
C. difficile, which causes life-threatening diarrhea and is blamed for 14,000 deaths a year, can spread rapidly in hospital patients on antibiotics. Although there are drugs to treat C. difficile, the bacteria are resistant to many antibiotics used to treat other types of infections.
Antibiotics naturally lose their effectiveness over time as bacteria populations build up resistance, and new drugs need to be continually developed to take their place. But antibiotic development by pharmaceutical companies slowed sharply after about 1990, in part because they are less profitable than other drugs used to treat chronic diseases. Compounding the problem has been an overuse of antibiotics in people and farm animals, which has accelerated the creation of antibiotic-resistant germs.
"Antibiotics have a finite lifetime because resistance is inevitable," says Michael Fischbach, a bioengineering and therapeutic sciences professor at the University of California, San Francisco. "Therefore, there's always a need to innovate."
Bacteria have ways of defending themselves against other bacteria, and most antibiotics are derived from the toxins they use. Identifying and developing new antibiotics is a long and slow process. Now, scientists are able to more efficiently scrutinize microbes for undiscovered antibiotics by sequencing their genomes and then using computer analysis to look for gene patterns that suggest a new antibiotic recipe. Typically, antibiotics are encoded by anywhere from 10 to 40 genes.
Sean Brady, head of the Laboratory of Genetically Encoded Small Molecules at Rockefeller University in New York, and his colleagues recently zeroed in on half a dozen gene sequences. The team found that the genes were encoded for toxins that appeared in lab testing to be active against pathogens resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin, which is commonly used to treat infections in the gut. The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in June.
2 million
The number of U.S. patients per year whose infections aren't treatable with the existing array of antibiotics
Whether the antibiotic will be useful in treating people remains to be seen, says Dr. Brady. The main problem with identifying new antibiotics isn't that they don't work, but that they cause severe side effects or toxicity, drug makers say.
Another group of researchers, headed by Dr. Fischbach at the University of California, has found a handful of new antibiotics that kill methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, by sequencing genomes of bacteria found in the environment. MRSA can cause a range of illnesses from skin infections to pneumonia and bloodstream infections.
An unusual strategy doesn't aim to kill bacteria at all, but rather to make them less harmful. Since bacteria only cause infections when their population has reached a certain threshold, called a quorum, researchers are looking for ways to disrupt the chemical signals the bugs use to communicate with each other. Another approach aims to neutralize toxins or disrupt other signaling molecules that are necessary for bacteria to be infectious.
"We don't challenge them to a duel but basically confuse them into not causing infection," says Gerry Wright, a professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
Dr. Brady and his team at Rockefeller University demonstrated that disrupting a cluster of genes reduced the virulence of a microbe that causes infection affecting the lungs, bones and joints. The researchers published the work late last year in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
-
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/health-science-technology/hunting-the-nightmare-bacteria/illinois-nightmare-bacteria-outbreak-raises-alarms/
The largest U.S. outbreak on record of one particular strain of a so-called “nightmare bacteria” is fueling alarm among public health officials about the spread of potentially lethal drug-resistant infections.
The outbreak, which has been traced to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in suburban Chicago, has so far infected 44 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 2009, just 97 cases of the infection have been reported to the agency.
-
Bigdog,
I haven't seen the CDC reports on this. I am sure my ID colleagues have. In NJ we are seeing ESBL infections. These are the enterobacterioraceae that respond to "penem" and sometimes other antibiotics. This one would be tough.
-
Thanks for the follow up, ccp. If you see anything that adds or contradicts, I'd be interested.
-
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/antibiotic-resistance-6-diseases-may-come-back-haunt-us?1234
-
The Rise of Antibiotic Resistance
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDMAY 10, 2014
The World Health Organization has surveyed the growth of antibiotic-resistant germs around the world — the first such survey it has ever conducted — and come up with disturbing findings. In a report issued late last month, the organization found that antimicrobial resistance in bacteria (the main focus of the report), fungi, viruses and parasites is an increasingly serious threat in every part of the world. “A problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine,” the organization said. “A post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century.”
The growth of antibiotic-resistant pathogens means that in ever more cases, standard treatments no longer work, infections are harder or impossible to control, the risk of spreading infections to others is increased, and illnesses and hospital stays are prolonged.
All of these drive up the costs of illnesses and the risk of death. The survey sought to determine the scope of the problem by asking countries to submit their most recent surveillance data (114 did so). Unfortunately, the data was glaringly incomplete because few countries track and monitor antibiotic resistance comprehensively, and there is no standard methodology for doing so.
Still, it is clear that major resistance problems have already developed, both for antibiotics that are used routinely and for those deemed “last resort” treatments to cure people when all else has failed.
Carbapenem antibiotics, a class of drugs used as a last resort to treat life-threatening infections caused by a common intestinal bacterium, have failed to work in more than half the people treated in some countries. The bacterium is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and infections in newborns and intensive-care patients. Similarly, the failure of a last-resort treatment for gonorrhea has been confirmed in 10 countries, including many with advanced health care systems, such as Australia, Canada, France, Sweden and Britain. And resistance to a class of antibiotics that is routinely used to treat urinary tract infections caused by E. coli is widespread; in some countries the drugs are now ineffective in more than half of the patients treated. This sobering report is intended to kick-start a global campaign to develop tools and standards to track drug resistance, measure its health and economic impact, and design solutions.
Continue reading the main story
Recent Comments
MetroJournalist
8 minutes ago
Big Pharma already gets plenty of money from the government for R&D. They only want to develop medicines that will make a huge profit....
Bob H
25 minutes ago
When you find a solution that doesn't hurt the PROFITS of any industry, then you'll get somewhere. So, basically, we're all in a lot of...
dj-MD
26 minutes ago
Sure, the pharmaceutical industry needs to be more involved in developing solutions, but responsibility doesn't stop there. Doctors need to...
See All Comments
Write a comment
The most urgent need is to minimize the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, which accelerates the development of resistant strains. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has issued voluntary guidelines calling on drug companies, animal producers and veterinarians to stop indiscriminately using antibiotics that are important for treating humans on livestock; the drug companies have said they will comply. But the agency, shortsightedly, has appealed a court order requiring it to ban the use of penicillin and two forms of tetracycline by animal producers to promote growth unless they provide proof that it will not promote drug-resistant microbes.
The pharmaceutical industry needs to be encouraged to develop new antibiotics to supplement those that are losing their effectiveness. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which represents pharmacists in Britain, called this month for stronger financial incentives. It said that no new class of antibiotics has been discovered since 1987, largely because the financial returns for finding new classes of antibiotics are too low. Unlike lucrative drugs to treat chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular ailments, antibiotics are typically taken for a short period of time, and any new drug is apt to be used sparingly and held in reserve to treat patients resistant to existing drugs.
Antibiotics have transformed medicine and saved countless lives over the past seven decades. Now, rampant overuse and the lack of new drugs in the pipeline threatens to undermine their effectiveness.
-
The REAL Pandemic Threat: BioBombers
Hope for the Best -- Prepare for the Worst
By Mark Alexander • August 6, 2014
"A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." --James Madison (1792)
The 24-hour news recyclers have lately devoted a lot of airtime to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and concerns about its spread to the U.S.
In recent weeks, more than 1,300 Africans have been infected with the deadly virus, and most of them have died. There would likely not be much coverage of this regional epidemic if not for the fact that two "humanitarian workers" (read: heroic Christians), an American doctor and nurse, are infected with the virus and have been transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has assured Americans that, while Ebola is deadly in each of its variant forms -- it is much like AIDS or HIV -- transmission requires substantial direct contact with an infected person. Of course, given that in the last three months the CDC's stellar status was tarnished by reports that its personnel were very careless with some deadly pathogens -- including anthrax, avian flu and smallpox -- it's understandable many Americans question CDC's assessment of the Ebola risk.
The fact is, CDC's risk assessment regarding the threat of an Ebola epidemic in the U.S. is correct. There is, however, right now, a very real pandemic threat posed by what we can call "BioBombers."
BioBombers are Islamist "martyrs" who, instead of strapping on a bomb and detonating themselves in a crowded urban area, become human hosts for virulent strains of deadly contagions. Once infected, they fly into the U.S. legally and park themselves in major airport hubs around the nation for days, where they can infect others traveling across country whose symptoms may take days to manifest -- which is to say others unknowingly become hosts and spread the virus to a much wider circle in their communities and work places.
For historical background, the greatest mortal threat to indigenous American populations when 15th- and 16th-century European explorers arrived was not from armed conflict with other native peoples; it was from European strains of diseases for which they had no immunity. The reverse was also true -- many Europeans suffered from American diseases.
In the 19th century, of the estimated 620,000 deaths recorded in the War Between the States, more than 430,000 died from "camp diseases." When soldiers and support personnel from different regions of the country congregated in camps, those who arrived with a virulent strain of influenza or other contagion quickly passed it on to others, and the consequences were devastating.
In the 20th century, there were 5.1 million combatant deaths in the four years of World War I, but the 1918 H1N1 influenza virus, commonly referred to as the "Spanish Flu," infected an estimated 500 million people globally, including even those in remote Pacific and Arctic regions. Indeed, as many as 75-100 million people died in that pandemic -- up to five percent of the world's population, in two years.
In World War II, disease in the Pacific campaign claimed far more casualties than combat.
So how have we avoided another devastating Spanish Flu pandemic?
We've learned how to restrain the spread of these diseases because of our notable early detection of outbreaks and well-rehearsed preventive measures to contain and isolate the infected. (Early detection and containment is critical when dealing with bacterial and viral infections.)
We have learned a lot from managing outbreaks. In 1976, a bacterial contagion called Legionnaires' disease claimed 29 victims in Philadelphia. More recently, a viral SARS outbreak killed 775 people in 37 countries, most of them in Asia. There have also been recurring concerns about "bird flu," which has been spreading worldwide since 2003 and claimed its first victim two years ago in Canada.
There are also inoculation programs that have helped eliminate the spread of disease, and treatment is much better now than it was in the early part of the 20th century.
But pathogens such as these are decimating if health care providers are slow to recognize the symptoms and correctly diagnose the disease. They can spread quickly if not properly reported to the CDC for entry into its early warning and response protocols. Fortunately, dangerous strains of H5N1 influenza and other flu viruses have not adapted, or mutated, into dramatically more virulent and deadly strains.
But there are plenty of artificially engineered bio-warfare viral strains that, if released into urban population centers, would overwhelm medical facilities and claim millions of casualties. The prospect of bio-terrorism, particularly a simultaneous attack across the nation from a cadre of BioBombers, would quickly overload health care service providers and exhaust pharmaceutical reserves. In the event of such an attack, the CDC's epidemic early warning detection map would not merely blink with one or two markers -- the entire board would light up, and the probability of containment would be lost.
In fact, the possibility of such an attack was the impetus last week for the largest bio-terrorism drill in New York City's history.
So, how real is the threat?
The primary symmetric deterrent to weapons of mass destruction in warfare between nation states is the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. But in asymmetric warfare, where Islamic martyrs serve as surrogates for states like Iran, the MAD doctrine is of little deterrence.
The prospect of another catastrophic attack on our homeland by asymmetric terrorist actors is greater now than it was in 2001, and the reason is as plain as it was predictable. But the impact of BioBombers on continuity of government and commerce will be far greater than 9/11.
In his first annual address to the nation in 1790, George Washington wrote, "To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace." The eternal truth of those words is plainly evident today.
Indeed, as our nation's erstwhile "community organizer" leads our nation's retreat from its post as the world's sole superpower, the inevitable consequences have been dramatic. Of greatest concern now is the resurgence of the enemies of Liberty, most notably al-Qa'ida jihadists in the wake of the Middle East meltdown (AKA, Arab Spring) in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Jordan, and now the disintegration of Iraq and the conflagration in Gaza.
At present, all eyes are on the unabated rise of the nuclear Islamic Republic of Iran, a major benefactor of worldwide Islamic terror. Iran could eventually put a compact fissile weapon into the hands of Jihad surrogates with the intent of detonating that weapon in a U.S. urban center.
But the scope and consequences of a coordinated attack by Islamic BioBombers is far greater than that of a nuclear attack. The impact on continuity of government and commerce will be far greater than the 9/11 attack.
So if the threat of a catastrophic bio-terrorism attack has increased, and if the CDC and our homeland security apparatus are not properly prepared to respond to such an attack (the response to Hurricane Katrina comes to mind), then what can be done?
Fact is, there is a lot you can do to protect yourself and your family in the event of a biological attack on our nation with a little knowledge, preparation and not much expense -- and that preparation will also suffice for other types of emergencies.
The bedrock foundation of survival is individual preparedness and being prepared is not difficult. The primary means of protection in a pandemic is sheltering in place. But the Web is flooded with all kinds of preparedness and overwhelming advice from doomsday preppers. But your Patriot Post team has prepared a one-stop reliable reference page with basic instructions and advice.
As a resource to communities across the nation, we convened a knowledgeable team of emergency preparedness and response experts in 2012, including federal, state and local emergency management professionals, and specialists from the fields of emergency medicine, urban and wilderness survival, academia, law enforcement and related private sector services. They compiled basic individual preparedness recommendations to sustain you and your family during a short-term crisis. The result is a Two Step Individual Readiness Plan that enables you to shelter in place in the event of a local, regional or national catastrophic event, including a pandemic.
The most likely scenario requiring you to shelter in place would be the short-term need to isolate yourself from chemical, biological or radiological contaminants released accidentally or intentionally into the environment. (This could require sheltering for 1-7 days.)
But in the event of a bio-terrorism attack setting into motion a pandemic or a panic, you must be prepared to isolate yourself and your family from other people in order not to contract an illness. The best location to shelter in place during such an event is in your residence, and the length of time required could be 1-6 weeks.
Be prepared.
1. Link to our Disaster Preparedness Planning resource page.
2. Link to our Two Step Individual Readiness Plan
Pro Deo et Constitutione — Libertas aut Mors
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis
Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post
-
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/14/you_are_not_nearly_scared_enough_ebola_vaccine_west_africa_outbreak?
-
Weaponized Plague Is Just Another Jihadist Pipe Dream
Security Weekly
Thursday, September 4, 2014 - 03:00 Print Text Size
Stratfor
By Scott Stewart
On Aug. 28, Foreign Policy magazine released an exclusive story by Harald Doornbos and Jenan Moussa titled Found: The Islamic State's Terror Laptop of Doom. The story noted that among a cache of documents found on a computer captured from the Islamic State in Syria was a 19-page document purported to be instructions for creating a biological weapon by weaponizing plague extracted from infected animals. According to the article, the document noted: "The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge."
This document provides a good example of the terrorist tradecraft conundrum militant organizations often face, in which their intent outstrips their capability. While biological weapons do appear to be easy to manufacture and deploy in theory, history shows a successful biological weapons program is far harder to achieve than it may appear at first glance.
As we noted in 2009 in response to rumors that al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was experimenting with the plague as well, the plague, sometimes referred to as the Black Death, is a naturally occurring disease that is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. This pathogen is found in rodents and fleas that infest them and exists in many parts of the world, including the western United States. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are some 1,000 to 2,000 cases of plague diagnosed in humans every year, with between one and 17 of those cases occurring in the United States. It is notable, however, that according to the World Health Organization, plague does not occur naturally in Syria or Iraq, although it does in Libya and Algeria.
Y. pestis can infect humans in three ways. The bacteria cause pneumonic plague when inhaled, though pneumonic plague can also occur when plague bacteria from another form of transmission infect the lungs. Bubonic plague results when the bacteria enter through a break in the skin (such as a fleabite) and septicemic plague occurs when the bacteria multiply in the victim's blood, usually after being infected by one of the other types. In general, a fleabite is the primary form of infection, and if the infection is left untreated, it can evolve into a case of bubonic (the most common outcome) or septicemic plague.
Y. pestis is a fragile bacterium that does not last long in sunlight or after it is dried, and plague is treatable with antibiotics, which are especially effective if administered early. However, pneumonic plague can be contagious if a person inhales respiratory droplets containing the bacteria from an infected person. Such a transmission usually requires close contact with the infected individual. Merely wearing a simple surgical mask can protect a person from pneumonic plague infection.
Weaponized Plague
Before we assess the Islamic State's capability and intent to create a weapon using plague, let's first look briefly at the history of plague as a weapon.
Plague has long been of interest as a weapon in biological warfare, with reports from Tatars catapulting plague-infected bodies at Genoese sailors in the City of Caffa in the Crimea in the 14th century, to Japan's efforts to drop clay pots of plague-infected fleas over Manchuria, to the Soviet weapons programs during the Cold War and perhaps beyond. While the Tatars and Japanese used the bubonic form of the plague, according to former Soviet scientist Ken Alibek, the Soviet program focused on and perfected an aerosolized form of the bacterium designed to cause pneumonic plague.
Without question, the best example of a modern non-state actor developing a biological weapons program was the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo, which in the late 1980s assembled a team of trained scientists and spent millions of dollars to develop a series of state-of-the-art biological weapons research and production laboratories.
Aum experimented with botulinum toxin, anthrax, cholera and Q fever and even tried to acquire the Ebola virus. However, despite multiple attempts to produce mass casualty attacks using botulinum toxin and anthrax from 1990 to 1993, Aum was not able to produce a virulent agent -- indeed, nobody outside of the group was even aware that the attacks happened. It was only when the group switched to producing chemical weapons, such as the nerve agent sarin and sodium cyanide gas, that it was able to conduct fatal attacks in 1995. The investigation into the chemical attacks produced the evidence of the group's extensive biological weapons program. Frankly, they could have killed far more people, with far less expense and effort, using firearms or bombs, but such conventional weapons could never produce the global apocalypse the group's leadership aspired to.
Despite the difficulties inherent in developing a biological weapons program, radical groups have not given up. It has long been known that jihadist groups such as al Qaeda have sought to develop chemical and biological weapons, believing that using such weapons is not only permissible but even an obligation. In an interview aired on ABC News in December 1998, Osama bin Laden said, "If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then this is an obligation I carried out, and I thank God for enabling me to do so." While terrorist groups have experimented with crude biological toxins such as ricin and crude chemical compounds such as sodium cyanide gas, they have not been able to parlay those experiments into viable weapons capable of creating mass casualties.
Radical Intent
To properly understand the threat posed by the Islamic State's employing biological weapons, we must examine both the group's intent and capability. First, as noted above, the group has ample ideological justifications. Second, by design, terrorist attacks are intended to have a psychological impact far outweighing the physical damage they cause. As their name suggests, they are meant to cause terror that amplifies the actual attack. The Islamic State has a long history of conducting brutal actions intended to cause panic, and a successful biological terrorist attack would certainly create such a panic.
Clearly, if the Islamic State were able to develop effective biological weapons, it would employ them, if not against targets in the West, then against regime targets in Iraq and Syria. Indeed, in 2006 and 2007 the group's predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq, included large quantities of chlorine in vehicle bombs in an effort to cause mass casualties against U.S. and Iraqi troops in Iraq. These weapons proved quite ineffective, and the explosives in the bombs killed more people than the chlorine. This caused the group to discontinue their use when they did not achieve the desired results.
The Islamic State would love to discover a cheap and easy way to create mass casualties, but in pursuing plague as a weapon, the group appears to have bought into some of the many common misconceptions involving biological weapons, namely, that they are easy to obtain, easy to deploy effectively, and, when used, always cause massive casualties. But as illustrated by the above-mentioned Aum Shinrikyo example, in the real world, creating an effective biological weapons program requires extensive investment, scientific know-how, and time and effort -- and they still don't always work as advertised.
Limited Capability
Like many biological agents, there are great challenges associated with producing and employing large quantities of a virulent biological agent. Certainly, plague can be obtained from the environment in a place where it occurs naturally, such as Algeria or Libya, but taking that bacteria and producing a large quantity of it in a virulent form and then disbursing it in an efficient manner is another matter entirely. While the huge Soviet biological weapons program was able to overcome these obstacles and successfully produce an effective aerosolized plague weapon, it would be difficult for a smaller organization like the Islamic State to do so, especially since it lacks access to a large and advanced biological weapons program and the associated and necessary facilities.
In addition to the difficulty of establishing a viable biological weapons program in the Islamic State-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria, there are also some additional problems with the plot as reportedly outlined in the purported Islamic State biological warfare document. According to Foreign Policy, the document advised the attackers to "use small grenades with the virus, and throw them in closed areas like metros, soccer stadiums, or entertainment centers," and said that it is "best to do it next to the air-conditioning. It also can be used during suicide operations."
As noted above, Y. pestis is a fragile bacterium. The heat and shock of a grenade explosion would almost certainly kill most of the bacteria before it could be transmitted to a victim. Even if some of the bacteria were to survive the grenade's explosion, bubonic and septicemic plagues are not easily spread from person to person, and an attack with a small grenade device would therefore be unlikely to cause an epidemic; it would likely cause more panic than deaths.
If Islamic State attack planners could isolate a virulent strain of Y. pestis, infecting a few suicide operatives with pneumonic plague and then dispatching them to cough and sneeze on people, or attempting to release some infected fleas in a targeted area, might better serve them. But even if the group were somehow successful in infecting people, even these scenarios would not produce the type of mass casualties the Islamic State seeks since plague is readily treatable with antibiotics, making weaponized plague just another jihadist pipe dream.
Read more: Weaponized Plague Is Just Another Jihadist Pipe Dream | Stratfor
-
U.S. Scientists See Long Fight Against Ebola
By DENISE GRADYSEPT. 12, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/world/africa/us-scientists-see-long-fight-against-ebola.html?emc=edit_th_20140913&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
The deadly Ebola outbreak sweeping across three countries in West Africa is likely to last 12 to 18 months more, much longer than anticipated, and could infect hundreds of thousands of people before it is brought under control, say scientists mapping its spread for the federal government.
“We hope we’re wrong,” said Bryan Lewis, an epidemiologist at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech.
Both the time the model says it will take to control the epidemic and the number of cases it forecasts far exceed estimates by the World Health Organization, which said last month that it hoped to control the outbreak within nine months and predicted 20,000 total cases by that time. The organization is sticking by its estimates, a W.H.O. spokesman said Friday.
But researchers at various universities say that at the virus’s present rate of growth, there could easily be close to 20,000 cases in one month, not in nine. Some of the United States’ leading epidemiologists, with long experience in tracking diseases such as influenza, have been creating computer models of the Ebola epidemic at the request of the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Department.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declined to comment on the projections. A spokesman, Tom Skinner, said the agency was doing its own modeling and hoped to publish the results soon. But the C.D.C. director, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, has warned repeatedly that the epidemic is worsening, and on Sept. 2 described it as “spiraling out of control.”
While previous outbreaks have been largely confined to rural areas, the current epidemic, the largest ever, has reached densely populated, impoverished cities — including Monrovia, the capital of Liberia — gravely complicating efforts to control the spread of the disease. Alessandro Vespignani, a professor of computational sciences at Northeastern University who has been involved in the computer modeling of Ebola’s spread, said that if the case count reaches hundreds of thousands, “there will be little we can do.”
What worries public health officials most is that the epidemic has begun to grow exponentially in Liberia. In the most recent week reported, Liberia had nearly 400 new cases, almost double the number reported the week before. Another grave concern, the W.H.O. said, is “evidence of substantial underreporting of cases and deaths.” The organization reported on Friday that the number of Ebola cases as of Sept. 7 was 4,366, including 2,218 deaths.
“There has been no indication of any downturn in the epidemic in the three countries that have widespread and intense transmission,” it said, referring to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The scientists who produced the models cautioned that their dire predictions were based on the virus’s current uncontrolled spread and said the picture could improve if public health efforts started to work. Because conditions could change, for better or for worse, the researchers also warned that their forecasts became shakier the farther into the future they went.
Continue reading the main story
Predicting Ebola’s Future Toll
Assuming current infection rates continue, a new model estimates there could be 20,000 Ebola cases by mid-October. The model’s estimate would nearly triple under deteriorating conditions and an increasing infection rate.
If conditions deteriorate
60 thousand
50
40
Future
cases
30
20
Cases and deaths
through Aug. 31
10
Deaths
Aug. 1
Sept. 1
Oct. 1
At current infection rates
20
10
Aug. 1
Sept. 1
Oct. 1
If conditions improve
10
Aug. 1
Sept. 1
Oct. 1
Source: The Earth Institute, Columbia University
By The New York Times
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
Dr. Lewis, the Virginia Tech epidemiologist, said that a group of scientists collaborating on Ebola modeling as part of an N.I.H.-sponsored project called Midas, short for Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study, had come to a consensus on the projected 12- to 18-month duration and very high case count.
Another Midas participant, Jeffrey L. Shaman, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, agreed.
“Ebola has a simple trajectory because it’s growing exponentially,” Dr. Shaman said.
Lone Simonsen, a research professor of global health at George Washington University who was not involved in the modeling, said the W.H.O. estimates seemed conservative and the higher projections more reasonable.
“The final death toll may be far higher than any of those estimates unless an effective vaccine or therapy becomes available on a large scale or many more hospital beds are supplied,” she said in an email.
Continue reading the main story Video
Play Video|3:47
Dying of Ebola at the Hospital Door
Dying of Ebola at the Hospital Door
Monrovia, the Liberian capital, is facing a widespread Ebola epidemic, and as the number of infected grows faster than hospital capacity, some patients wait outside near death.
Video Credit By Ben C. Solomon on Publish Date September 11, 2014.
Continue reading the main story
Recent Comments
WhaleRider
1 hour ago
If we do nothing, and a messy civil war in West Africa breaks out, then humanity will begin to lose our most valuable asset in this battle,...
Diane
5 hours ago
Lots of people in these countries DO NOT WANT to be helped. They accuse health care workers of spreading/giving them the disease, don't...
Steve Fankuchen
6 hours ago
Perhaps this tragic epidemic will instill a bit of humility in people, as they (hopefully) ponder unintended consequences of the Green...
See All Comments
Write a comment
Dr. Vespignani said that the W.H.O. figures would be reasonable if there were an effective campaign to stop the epidemic now, but that there is not.
The modeling estimates are based on the observed growth rate of cases and on factors like how many people each patient infects. The researchers use the past data to make projections. They can test their methods by, for instance, taking the figures from June, plugging them into the model to predict the number of cases in July, and then comparing the results with what actually happened in July.
Dr. Shaman’s research team created a model that estimated the number of cases through Oct. 12, with different predictions based on whether control of the epidemic stays about the same, improves or gets worse. If control stays the same, according to the model, the case count by Oct. 12 will be 18,406. If control improves, it will be 7,861. If control worsens, it will soar to 54,895.
Before this epidemic, the largest Ebola outbreak was in Uganda from 2000 to 2001, and it involved only 425 cases. Scientists say the current epidemic surged out of control because it began near the borders of three countries where people traveled a lot, and they carried the disease to densely populated city slums. In addition, the weak health systems in these poor countries were not equipped to handle the disease, and much of the international response has been slow and disorganized.
But questions have also been raised about whether there could be something different about this strain of Ebola that makes it more contagious than previous ones.
Researchers are doubtful, but Thomas W. Geisbert, an Ebola expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, said it was important to keep an open mind about the possibility. During vaccine tests expected to start next month in monkeys, he said, he and his colleagues will monitor infected animals to see if they develop unusually high virus levels early in the disease that might amplify its infectiousness.
Some scientists have also suggested that as the outbreak continues and the virus spreads from person to person, it will have more opportunities to mutate and perhaps become even more dangerous or contagious. But Stuart T. Nichol, chief of the C.D.C.’s Viral Special Pathogens Branch, said that so far, researchers monitoring the mutations had seen no such changes.
-
The US is woefully unprepared for receiving Ebola patients on routine flights from Africa. All of NY city hospitals are preparing for such cases, but the readiness is not great. Hospitals and emergency departments are not equipped for handling of such patients. I can imagine the panic that will occur, if a case is diagnosed at any of the city hospitals. The hospital might even empty!..causing huge financial losses...and if the virus becomes airborne...the panic will be complete. We also have our southern border to think off...what with the declaration of war by Obummer.
On Fri, Sep 12, 2014 at 2:42 PM, , , , wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/opinion/what-were-afraid-to-say-about-ebola.html?ref=opinion&_r=1
-
I actually agree with Obama on this one!
Obama Plans Major Ebola Offensive
More Doctors, Supplies and Portable Hospitals Planned for West Africa
By Carol E. Lee and Betsy McKay
WSJ
Updated Sept. 15, 2014 5:38 a.m. ET
Volunteers in Centennial, Colo., load medical supplies last week bound for Sierra Leone to combat Ebola. Associated Press
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama plans to dramatically boost the U.S. effort to mitigate the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, including greater involvement of the U.S. military, people familiar with the proposal said.
Mr. Obama is expected to detail the plan during a visit Tuesday to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, these people said. Among the possible moves: sending additional portable hospitals, doctors and health-care experts, providing medical supplies and conducting training for health workers in Liberia and other countries.
Mr. Obama also is expected to urge Congress to approve the request he made last week for an additional $88 million to fund his proposal.
"There's a lot that we've been putting toward this, but it is not sufficient," Lisa Monaco, Mr. Obama's counterterrorism adviser, said in an interview Sunday. "So the president has directed a more scaled-up response and that's what you're going to hear more about on Tuesday."
The strategy has four components: control the outbreak at its source in West Africa; build competence in the region's public-health system, particularly in Liberia; bolster the capacity of local officials through enhanced training for health-care providers; and increase support from international organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization.
Mr. Obama plans to use a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations next week to seek commitments of funds, materials and health workers for a more robust international response.
The Ebola outbreak has infected at least 4,784 people as of Sept. 12, with 2,400 of them dying—a jump from 3,707 cases and 1,848 deaths as of Aug. 31. The true toll probably is much higher, the WHO says.
The Obama administration has grown increasingly concerned in the last two weeks, as infectious-disease and public-health experts warned that the global response is inadequate to subdue an epidemic that has spiraled out of control, and that it threatens the U.S. and other countries, not just West Africa.
Mr. Obama ordered a bolder U.S. effort about two weeks ago after CDC Director Tom Frieden briefed the White House on his findings from a trip to West Africa, senior administration officials said. Dr. Frieden said publicly on Sept. 2 that he saw dozens of patients lying on the ground in an Ebola treatment center because there weren't enough beds. "I could not possibly overstate the need for an urgent response," he said.
Mr. Obama's plan is a reaction to concern that the epidemic could significantly grow in West Africa, particularly in urban areas. Administration officials stress that the chances of an outbreak in the U.S. are low.
One rising concern among officials is the possibility that the virus could mutate in a way that would make it more dangerous.
The more the virus spreads from one human to another, the more opportunities it has to mutate, virologists say. While not all scientists agree that significant mutations that would change the way the virus is transmitted are likely, one recent study of virus samples over three weeks in Sierra Leone found many mutations.
While an administration official said a dangerous mutation of the virus is unlikely at this stage, "that is a concern that is motivating us to, and the international community more broadly, to get involved even more so now to bring this under control."
The CDC has at least 105 staff in West Africa—one of the largest deployments in CDC history—tracking down people who have been exposed to Ebola, conducting education campaigns, and other tasks. The government has spent more than $100 million on the outbreak since March, and recently committed an additional $75 million in funding, according to a U.S. Agency for International Development official. The money is used to deploy staff and deliver supplies, such as chlorine and water, as well as hospital beds.
The U.S. military has sent eight service members to the region, including doctors, a logistician and medical specialists. It also said it would send a 25-bed portable hospital unit to Liberia to help care for health workers, but it isn't planning to staff it. Many public-health and infectious disease experts have called for a greater U.S. military role, which is highly valued in humanitarian crises for its ability to command and control large operations, as well as its logistics expertise.
U.S. defense officials have ruled out sending hospital ships or the big-deck amphibious ships that frequently respond to humanitarian disasters. One official said if the virus got aboard one of those ships, it could quickly spread and would be difficult to stamp out.
These experts say that is what is needed in West Africa, because the governments of the three most affected countries—Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea —have been overwhelmed and their health-care systems have all but crumbled. The crisis also has become too large for aid organizations and health ministries to handle alone, they say. The current response, involving several local and international agencies and organizations, also lacks coordination.
The military could be used to direct supplies, set up tent hospitals, and tap the masses of medical personnel that are needed globally to get the sick into isolation and treatment, so they stop spreading the disease to others and improve their chances of recovery. Now, there are so few hospital beds that many are having to suffer through the disease at home, where they risk spreading it to loved ones.
And while hundreds of millions of dollars in aid have recently been pledged, under current circumstances it won't arrive in West Africa for weeks - by which time thousands more will be infected and dead.
Mr. Obama hopes to begin to turn the situation around with the rollout of his new strategy, administration officials said.
"We think these measures, this enhanced response, will help us bring this under control," an administration official said Sunday. "The military has unique capabilities in terms of logistical capacities, in terms of manpower, in terms of operating in austere environments."
The administration faces formidable challenges in carrying out any response plan. Not only is the virus now spreading fast, but health workers and epidemiologists have been physically attacked or run out of villages by angry or frightened locals. Some locals argue that Ebola is a bioweapon seeded by the West.
Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders, called earlier this month for governments to send in their militaries. The aid organization has led treatment efforts since the beginning of the Ebola outbreak and has been warning for months that a bigger response is needed.
"Without this deployment, we will never get the epidemic under control," she said.
—Julian E. Barnes contributed to this article.
-
I actually agree with Obama on this one! ...
The difference is that you are interested in public health and he is interested in focus group polling.
-
It seems like Ebola has already become much more virulent and should be contained ASAP if possible. Hemorrhagic fevers are the stuff of horror movies.
-
C.D.C.’s Worst-Case Ebola Scenario: 1.4 Million Cases in 4 Months
Yet another set of ominous projections about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa was released Tuesday, in a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that gave worst- and best-case estimates for Liberia and Sierra Leone based on computer modeling.
In the worst-case scenario, Liberia and Sierra Leone could have 21,000 cases of Ebola by Sept. 30 and 1.4 million cases by Jan. 20 if the disease keeps following its current trajectory, without effective methods to contain it. These figures take into account the fact that many cases go undetected, and estimate that there are actually 2.5 times as many as reported.
The report does not include figures for Guinea because case counts there have gone up and down in ways that cannot be reliably modeled.
In the best-case model — which assumes that the dead are buried safely and that 70 percent of patients are treated in settings that reduce the risk of transmission — the epidemic in both countries would be “almost ended” by Jan. 20, the report said. It showed the proportion of patients now in such settings as about 18 percent in Liberia and 40 percent in Sierra Leone.
READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/health/ebola-cases-could-reach-14-million-in-4-months-cdc-estimates.html?emc=edit_na_20140923
-
That depends if it is "helped" along by means other than nature and people's will (or lack thereof), to control the flow of people entering and exiting countries. Even then, with all of the ill will in place these days, regardless of side, Ebola will run its course. It matters not. Enjoy the moment.
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/352208.php
-
http://pamelageller.com/2014/10/islamic-state-plots-to-attack-us-with-ebola-jihadists-to-send-infected-militants-to-america-to-spread-disease.html/
-
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/04/ebola-zaire-peter-piot-outbreak
-
Feds Underestimating How Easy It Is to Get Ebola
A nurse from one of the best health care systems in the world has contracted Ebola. The nurse cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who traveled to Dallas from Liberia with the disease, and checked herself into her hospital's emergency room Oct. 12. This story challenges the Obama administration's narrative. In a September video message, Barack Obama told the people of Liberia it was safe enough to sit on the bus next to a person infected with the disease and still not contract Ebola. Cue the CDC, which issued a travel warning for the country, telling travelers to "avoid unnecessary travel." Now, doctors are saying it may be easier to contract the disease than previously assumed. Dr. Dennis Maki, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, "Some of the garb the health worker takes off might brush against a surface and contaminate it. New data suggest that even tiny droplets of a patient's body fluids can contain the virus." The 3,000 American soldiers fighting Ebola in Liberia are in greater danger than Obama lets on.
-
http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/thank-you-barack-10-unaccompanied-illegal-alien-minors-diagnosed-with-tb/
-
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/10/13/the_ebola_virus_board_game_pandemic?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Flashpoints&utm_campaign=2014_FlashPoints14%2F10RS
-
http://www.salon.com/2014/12/05/the_post_antibiotic_future_is_here_chilling_report_highlights_the_reality_of_a_global_crisis/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
-
It makes perfect sense to bring these people here for treatment. Banning travel to these places will only spread those infections around the world even faster.
Alleges CDC head Friedman.
-
http://reverbpress.com/discovery/science/scientists-discover-first-new-class-antibiotics-decades/
-
Second post
The second half of 2014 saw the mainstream media focused on the West African Ebola outbreak and the potential for a widespread epidemic. But the turn of the calendar year has arrived with much more optimistic news for world health. An article published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature reported the discovery of a new antibiotic. Representing what could very well be a paradigm shift, the paper chronicles two very important developments. The first is that this new antibiotic targets the bacterial cell in a way that prevents the easy development of resistance.
Teixobactin, the new antibiotic discussed in the article that works by targeting lipids that are essential to forming the cell wall, did not exhibit any antibacterial resistance when tested against bacteria mutated in the lab. The second development is perhaps even more groundbreaking. The researchers developed a new methodology to grow and isolate potential antibiotic targets. Up to this point, only a fraction of possible compounds could be cultivated in the lab, limiting researchers' ability to test new targets for activity against bacteria. This new method opens the door to a whole new world of possibilities.
Dangers of Drug-Resistant Bacteria
These developments are a huge breakthrough for biology and medicine, but what does this mean for us as a geopolitical forecasting firm? Ebola showed us that just because a disease is covered in the news does not mean that it has a global or immediately obvious geopolitical impact. However, the potential for economic disruption from epidemics and endemic diseases, through lower production and increased expenditures because of treatment or trade restrictions, remains a possibility that would have geopolitical implications. Malaria, for instance, hinders the economic growth of developing countries looking to take advantage of low-end manufacturing opportunities as China's economy shifts. And while this new drug will not have an impact on the malaria epidemic, it could stop another in its tracks.
What is a Geopolitical Diary? George Friedman Explains.
Drug-resistant bacterial infections are a growing problem, one that until Wednesday did not have a good solution. Many antibacterial agents utilize the same chemical scaffolds or backbone, some of which have been around since the 1940s. Bacteria can and do easily mutate to adapt, and the overuse of antibiotics has contributed to the development of antibacterial-resistant strains of a number of diseases. Hospitals are seeing a rising number of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) cases, and drug-resistant tuberculosis is spreading throughout the globe. The high cost of treating drug-resistant tuberculosis, especially prevalent in Russia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, put increased pressure on already struggling economies. The situation had reached a point to where speculation as to what a post-antibiotic society would look like was not completely unwarranted — and some of the scarier scenarios looked much like a pre-antibiotic society.
With little incentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest in expensive drug development, in part because of the development of resistance inherent in many classes of antibiotics, there had been little development or advancement in the field in decades, and resistance continued to rise. Teixobactin or another yet-to-be-discovered molecule could change that. Teixobactin attacks a specific family of bacteria — gram-positive, which includes the bacteria that causes both strep and staph infections — in a way that is not prone to the development of resistance. Resistance is less likely because of where the drug is active. Whereas some other antibiotics target proteins, teixobactin is believed to target lipids. The formation of proteins lends itself more easily to mutation than the synthesis of lipids. In initial tests, teixobactin showed efficacy in fighting drug-resistant tuberculosis.
Exciting, but Not Immediate
Teixobactin is not a panacea. It does not work on gram-negative bacteria, a family that includes the bacterium that causes cholera. That is where the second and perhaps more important finding of the paper comes into play. The biological and medical communities now have a method to access a wide array of possible drugs that previously could not be studied. To put into perspective the staggering number of new possibilities, previously, only 1 percent of microbial targets could be cultured or grown in a lab, which is required to test for antibacterial activity. This new technique, which utilizes special equipment — a device called the iChip, which enables numerous bacteria to be grown and tested in their natural environments, such as soil, instead of using traditional laboratory methods — opens the door to the other 99 percent.
However, while incredibly exciting, this discovery does not necessarily have immediate geopolitical implications. It will not necessarily make drugs cheaper or more readily accessible to developing nations. It will also take several years to develop teixobactin and many more to discover other new drugs. What it really gives is an insurance policy of sorts. Disease outbreaks are hard to predict and rarely have global geopolitical impacts, but when they do, there is the potential for those implications to be staggering. The fear remains that an outbreak on the scale of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 could occur, and in a world that has become far more globalized in the past 100 years, the effects would reverberate through the world much more quickly. Widespread infections, decreased productivity, trade restrictions and border closures could all have economic ramifications that would matter at the geopolitical level.
And while this new discovery does not protect against viruses or parasitic diseases, it does provide a new set of weapons against bacterial infections. The "zombie apocalypse" may still come, but this recent technological advancement makes it far less likely to be in the form of drug-resistant bacteria.
Read more: New Antibiotic Creates Staggering Possibilities | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/extra-funding-sought-to-fight-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria/2015/01/26/df9a34da-a59a-11e4-a7c2-03d37af98440_story.html
-
Scientists have engineered a new molecule they say can block infection with the virus that causes AIDS, a discovery that could lead potentially to a new therapy for patients as well as an alternative to a vaccine.
Researchers have been trying for three decades to develop an effective vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS. They are also searching for a way to flush HIV out of the bodies of the infected, to cure them. But the ever-evolving virus has eluded them thus far.
Now, a team from the Scripps Research Institute and other institutions says it has identified a new way to prevent HIV from infecting cells, using an approach that resembles gene therapy or transfer.
HIV normally invades the body through two cellular receptors. The new protein the scientists created blocks the points where the virus binds to both receptors, leaving no point of entry.
Because it attaches to both receptors rather than just one, the protein, called eCD4-IG, blocks more HIV strains than any of several powerful antibodies that have been shown to disable the virus, the researchers said. The research was published online Wednesday by the journal Nature.
“It is absolutely 100% effective,” said Michael Farzan, a professor of infectious diseases at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla. and lead author of the study. “There is no question that it is by far the broadest entry inhibitor out there.”
The approach has been tested only on four rhesus monkeys, and has yet to be tried on humans.
But the researchers and other scientists not involved with the work said it shows promise and should move into human testing quickly. An estimated 35 million people are infected with HIV, but only 13.6 million receive drug treatment to keep the virus from spreading.
“It’s very clever and very powerful,” said Nancy Haigwood, an HIV researcher at Oregon Health & Science University, who wasn’t involved in the study. “This is going to be much better than any vaccine on the horizon,” said Dr. Haigwood, who also wrote about its potential as a vaccine alternative in a commentary in Nature.
The scientists created the protein by fusing together elements of both cellular receptors to which HIV binds. They then injected genetic material from the protein into a muscle of the rhesus monkeys, stimulating production of the new molecule.
They infected the monkeys with multiple hybrid versions of HIV, administering up to four times the amount of virus it took to infect a control group. The protein protected the monkeys for 40 weeks.
Dr. Farzan said the monkeys were uninfected even when given 16 times the amount of virus that it took to infect the control group in experiments conducted after the study was completed.
He said he hoped human trials could begin within a year, after more testing in animals that is already under way. The first step, he said, would be to gauge the ability of the molecule to keep virus levels in HIV-positive people in check.
“We believe our goal now is to show it can work therapeutically,” he said.
The next step would be to test its efficacy as a vaccine, in people who don’t have the virus but are at high risk of infection, Dr. Farzan said.
The work builds on a 2009 study that proposed using gene transfer as an alternative to a traditional vaccine for HIV.
Philip Johnson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who led that earlier work, said the new research offers promise for that concept. “It appears to be an extraordinarily potent molecule,” he said. “It’s further validating of the idea that we should be thinking in alternate terms about how to attack HIV vaccines.”
He said it should be tested in humans right away. “To me the nonhuman primate data are outstanding,” he said.
Write to Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com
-
Well wait a second. It was Obama's policies that allowed the Ebola virus into the US that led to her infection. This was the same girl shown hugging Obamster. She should be blaming him. Not the hospital.
http://res.dallasnews.com/interactives/nina-pham/
-
http://guff.com/glt-scientists-delete-hiv/20?ts_pid=2
-
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/01/scientists_antibiotic_resistant_bacteria_is_airborne_capable_of_traveling_for_long_distances/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
-
Rural Indiana Struggles to Contend With H.I.V. Outbreak
By ABBY GOODNOUGHMAY 5, 2015
Photo
Sherry McNeely, right, a nurse, testing for H.I.V. on Monday in a mobile testing unit in Austin, Ind. Credit Aaron P. Bernstein for The New York Times
AUSTIN, Ind. — She became addicted to painkillers over a decade ago, when a car wreck left her with a broken back and doctors prescribed OxyContin during her recovery. Then came a new prescription opiate, Opana, easily obtained on the street and more potent when crushed, dissolved in water and injected. She did just that, many times a day, sometimes sharing needles with other addicts.
Last month, the thin, 45-year-old woman learned the unforgiving consequences. She tested positive for H.I.V., one of nearly 150 cases in this socially conservative, largely rural region just north of the Kentucky border. Now a life long hobbled by addiction is, like so many others here, consumed by fear.
She is afraid to start antiretroviral therapy because she does not want to be spotted entering the clinic on Main Street, she says, and afraid to learn her prognosis after hearing a rumor — false, it turns out — that someone else with the virus was given six months to live. Other drug users have refused to be tested at all.
“I thought it was just a homosexual disease,” the woman said one recent evening, twisting a tissue in her manicured hands as tears filled her eyes. She asked that her name not be published out of concerns about being stigmatized. “I didn’t ever think it would be in my small hometown.”
The crisis would test even a large metropolis; Austin, population 4,200, is overwhelmed despite help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state and nonprofit groups like the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. H.I.V. had been all but unknown here, and misinformation is rife. Attempts to halt the outbreak have been hindered by strong but misguided local beliefs about how to address it, according to people involved in the response.
Gov. Mike Pence reluctantly authorized a needle exchange program last month, but local officials are not running it according to best practices, outside experts say. Austin residents still must wait for addiction treatment, even though they have been given priority. And getting those who are H.I.V.-positive on medication, and making sure they adhere to the protocol, has been difficult.
Officials here say the need for education is urgent and deep; even local health workers are learning as they go. Brittany Combs, the public health nurse for Scott County, said she was stunned to discover from talking to addicts that many were using the same needle up to 300 times, until it broke off in their arms. Some were in the habit of using nail polish to mark syringes as their own, but with needles scarce and houses full of people frequently shooting up together, efforts to avoid sharing often failed.
Ms. Combs also learned that many addicts were uncomfortable visiting a needle distribution center that opened April 4 on the outskirts of town. So she started taking needles directly to users in their neighborhoods.
At the same time, H.I.V. specialists from Indianapolis — who have evaluated about 50 people with the virus here so far and started about 20 of them on antiretroviral drugs — are fighting a barrage of misinformation about the virus in Scott County, where almost all residents are white, few go to college and one in five live in poverty, according to the census.
“There are still a significant proportion of people in Austin who have biases about H.I.V. and are contributing to the stigma and subsequent fear,” said Dr. Diane Janowicz, an infectious disease specialist at Indiana University, who is treating H.I.V. patients here. “I have to reassure them: If your grandkid wants a sip of your drink, you can share it. It’s O.K. to eat at the same table. You can use the same bathroom.”
Many whose H.I.V. has been newly diagnosed here have strikingly high amounts of it in their blood, Dr. Janowicz said, and in one patient the H.I.V. has progressed to AIDS. Nonetheless, she said, “if they take their medicine for H.I.V., this is a chronic disease, not something they have to die from.”
Another complication is that the needle exchange has faced strong local resistance. Mr. Pence, a Republican, generally opposes such programs, saying they perpetuate drug use. Many residents here feel the same.
“If you would have asked me last year if I was for a needle exchange program, I would have said you’re nuts,” Ms. Combs said. “I thought, just like a lot of people do, that it’s enabling — that you’re just giving needles out and assisting them in their drug habit. But then I did the research on it, and there’s 28 years of research to prove that it actually works.”
But researchers say Scott County’s hastily created exchange has several features that could sharply curb its effectiveness. To get clean needles, drug users have to register, using their birth date and a few letters from their name to create an identification number that goes on a laminated card. The police are arresting anyone found with needles but no card, saying it will prod more people to participate.
Shortly after the needle exchange began, sheriff’s deputies visited a house in Austin and found a man who had joined the program and a woman who had not. They did not arrest the man, Sheriff Dan McClain said, although they confiscated a number of clean needles he had received from a volunteer group that was not part of the official program. But they did arrest the woman, who had “a freshly used needle lying next to her” in a bed spattered with blood, Sheriff McClain said.
“If they’ve got one needle and they’re not in the program, they’re going to jail,” Sheriff McClain said.
Dr. Don Des Jarlais, the director of research for the chemical dependency institute at Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital in New York, said the most successful needle exchange programs let participants pass out syringes to peers who remain in the shadows instead of requiring everyone to sign up. Arresting drug users who are not officially enrolled in the program “makes it hard to build trust,” Dr. Des Jarlais said, adding, “You’re not going to be able to get enough syringes out to really stop the epidemic if you have those types of restrictions.”
Local supporters of the needle exchange say a limited program is better than none, and believe that improvements will come with time. Last week, the state legislature sent a bill to Mr. Pence that would allow communities to create needle exchange programs for up to a year if they are experiencing an epidemic of H.I.V. or hepatitis C because of intravenous drug use. Mr. Pence said he would sign the measure, noting in a statement that it would allow only “limited and accountable” needle exchange programs, and only “where public health emergencies warrant such action.”
For now, the program here is giving out a maximum of 140 clean needles per user per week to whoever goes to the outreach center or accepts them from the roaming minivan. Ms. Combs said some people told her they injected as often as 15 times a day, and the exchange is erring on the side of providing slightly more than people need. She has passed out needles at a house where the owner, an older woman known as Momma, sits on the porch while a steady stream of visitors comes to shoot up inside. She has knocked on the door of a trailer where, she said, “multiple family members live and the daughters all prostitute themselves out and everyone is doing drugs.” One recent afternoon, on a street fragrant with lilacs, a young woman on a bicycle declined Ms. Combs’s offer of clean needles, saying she already had some — and H.I.V.
“I know I need the medicine to slow it down,” she murmured.
At a run-down house with a wheelchair on the porch, Tiffany Prater, 27, walked out to greet the van, saying, “The needles ain’t lasting me long enough.” She beckoned two men out of the house to get some, too.
“This little boy right here needs a card,” she told Ms. Combs, gesturing toward an expressionless friend whose eyes kept slipping shut. “You got some extra Neosporin and stuff? Because look how bad his arms is.”
The van moved on, stopping as someone yelled from a white house with a broad lawn. A woman in a pink tank top emerged, saying a neighbor had taken some of her clean needles and her daughter’s, too.
The daughter could not come out of the house — she had just injected and “can’t get up from the kitchen table,” the mother said. Ms. Combs gave the woman needles for her and her daughter.
“Spread the word that this white vehicle is a friendly mobile,” she said.
As of Tuesday, the exchange had distributed 9,491 needles to 223 people, including many repeat customers. About 8,300 needles had been returned to the exchange, but not all of them came from the exchange program.
Some participants say they are happy to have clean needles but would be happier in treatment. While some intravenous drug users from Austin have recently gone into treatment at a residential center in Jeffersonville, about 30 miles away, others are still waiting for a bed.
A 23-year-old user with H.I.V. said he had gone to the community outreach center to get clean needles and seek addiction treatment, but was put on a waiting list. Two weeks later, he is still waiting.
Opana remains easy to get, he added, a quarter of a pill selling for $40 — enough of a dose to ease his withdrawal symptoms and enable him to get out of bed.
One unexpected benefit of the H.I.V. outbreak, according to the woman who tested positive and fears starting treatment, is that the men who used to stream into town daily, seeking young female addicts who would prostitute themselves in exchange for drug money, have all but disappeared.
“It took H.I.V. to change our town,” she said. “Those of us who are affected are devastated, but I’m glad H.I.V. is here.”
-
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/scientist-creates-new-flu-virus-that-can-kill-all-of-hu-1599174385?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
-
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/scientist-creates-new-flu-virus-that-can-kill-all-of-hu-1599174385?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
No worries. What could go wrong?
-
A universal flu vacine?
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/scientists-get-one-step-closer-universal-flu-vaccine/
-
We live in wondrous times.
-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2701304/Scientists-delete-HIV-virus-human-DNA-time.html
-
@this time this is the opinion. I wonder if the seasons being opposite in S America to N America helps reduce the chance of spread here. I imagine though that this will be a perineal problem and will be interesting to see if much of it is here in the spring:
http://www.internalmedicinenews.com/specialty-focus/infectious-diseases/single-article-page/zika-could-soon-infect-4-million-us-impact-likely-to-be-much-smaller/d7c95093acd6e4021edc88385ebdfd02.html?utm_source=News_IM_eNL_013116&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AMA+president%3A+Malpractice+study+makes+%27unreliable+conclusions%27
-
Ebola can do this too but seems to be rare. I wonder how common this is:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ZIKA_VIRUS_TEXAS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-02-02-15-42-34
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/health/zika-virus-puerto-rico.html?emc=edit_th_20160320&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
-
25 % in one year is unbelievable. Guillain Barre is also a concern as well as pregnancy.
No stopping it.
I wonder if once one has it are they later immune. Will it mutate?
Ebola:
4 NEW deaths of Ebola in Guinea. I was part of a response team in NJ for Ebola and we just finished the program screening passengers coming to the US as epidemic seemed over - for this time around.
We still do not know the vector - yes it appears to be from exposure to "bush" meat like monkeys or bats. But how does it get into the bush meat? No one knows. Insects maybe the true carriers as per some of the very brave researchers who go out in the field and study these things. Often the limits to researching this is money.
CDC does incredible work. Their facilities are gigantic in Atlanta. And many of the people we met are brilliant. I only wish they would not get into issues that every bit as political as oriented to disease.
What is "disease" about gun ownership. What is disease about sea pollution? What is disease about trans fat? etc.
-
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-superbug-idUSKCN0YH2KT
-
I only post this because there is something strange with the whole story
Women with Zika from Central America breaks out in rash and comes here on "vacation" then gives birth just after arriving in hospital where there just happens to be an OBGyn who works for Fox news.
Sound fishy to me. Hackensack is definitely is a major publicity seeking hospital:
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/05/31/first-baby-born-with-zika-linked-microcephaly-in-new-york-tri-state-area.html
-
Very curious, very alert of you!
-
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/what-will-happen-when-antibiotics-stop-working/18181
http://amr-review.org/sites/default/files/160518_Final%20paper_with%20cover.pdf
-
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/12/another-novel-superbug-shows-us-hog-farm
-
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/blood-dragons-destroy-antibiotic-resistance/
-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/03/10/deadly-fungal-infection-that-doctors-have-been-fearing-now-reported-in-u-s/?utm_term=.eef347092275&wpisrc=nl_wemost&wpmm=1
-
https://www.davidwolfe.com/stevia-kills-lyme-disease-research/
-
Highlights
On the 100-year anniversary of the 1918 flu pandemic, the Northern Hemisphere's flu season is poised to be a rough one.
Medical advances and technology have helped people effectively combat a multitude of diseases, but the risk of a flu pandemic remains.
Technological innovations in data analytics could help prevent the spread of disease, but they could face policy roadblocks.
One hundred years ago on the plains of southwestern Kansas, a storm was brewing. But it was not one bearing rains to support the area's residents, nor would it bring the winds and dust that would ravage the same land less than two decades later. Instead, a microscopic clump of proteins, genetic material, fats and carbohydrates was shaping up to cause the worst global disease pandemic in modern history: In the span of about a year from 1918 to 1919, the Spanish influenza killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million people around the world. Many factors that contributed to the outbreak's severity were unique to their time. The wartime world was more connected, allowing the virus to spread faster than ever, but the still-nascent understanding of how diseases worked meant that sanitation guidelines and treatment methods were lagging. Meanwhile, World War I had ravaged economies and populations across the globe and contributed to media censorship that limited the dissemination of information about the disease.
Since then, vaccines and medicines have been developed to fight diseases of all sorts. Moreover, people now can more closely monitor the spread of disease through social media and the 24-hour news cycle. And yet, the influenza virus, with its ability to rapidly mutate and adapt, remains one of the world's greatest disease threats. Each year, the flu virus kills thousands and poses tens of billions of dollars in treatment costs and equivalent amounts in economic losses in the United States alone. Countries and corporations have long been working to develop a universal vaccine that targets all strains of the flu, and in the coming years, these efforts will continue alongside the increased focus on data sharing, social media and blockchain — all key tools for disease outbreak control. In this way, the flu exists at the intersection of geopolitics and disease. Indeed, as countries continue trying to regulate developing technological sectors, they will also, perhaps inadvertently, effect how diseases are monitored, controlled and contained.
A Lesson 100 Years Long
As December 1917 faded into 1918, World War I raged on, providing perfect breeding grounds for multiple diseases. Training camps and hospitals brimmed with soldiers from around the world, while those on the front lines languished in deplorable conditions. Yet author of The Great Influenza John M. Barry suggests that what would become known as the Spanish flu first emerged in the civilian community of Haskell County, Kansas, in January 1918. Historians may never be certain of its exact origins, but Barry postulates that the disease spread to the nearby Camp Funston military training grounds in the spring, before U.S. troop deployments took it global. The flu did not acquire its moniker until it hit the shores of Spain, a country not at war and therefore more open about recording the presence of the disease in its media. By the fall of 1918, the war was nearing its end, but the flu was at full force, targeting the healthy as well as the very young and old. It had infected hundreds of millions by the time it waned in 1919.
Vaccines, antiviral medication, improved sanitary measures and generally better medical care have dramatically decreased the threat of the flu in the last century. However, the race against evolution continues: None of these advances have been able to completely combat the rapidly evolving nature of the disease. The flu that hit in 1918 was a strain of H1N1, but there are dozens of possible flu types that can arise from combining the proteins on the outside of the virus called hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). So far, scientists have identified 18 types of hemagglutinin and 11 types of neuraminidase — any combination of which yields a new and unique flu, from H2N2 to H3N2 to H5N1 to H7N9. Mutations can alter the severity of the illness and limit the effectiveness of existing treatments year after year.
To cause a new pandemic, the virus would need to mutate into a form that makes it transmittable among humans, easily spread and very deadly. The emergence of a flu strain with this trifecta of traits is unlikely, but given the interconnectivity of the current world, if one did, the risks of widespread contagion would be high. And even the most pedestrian flu seasons exact a death toll in the thousands.
The CDC recently changed the topic of its Jan. 16 meeting from nuclear war preparedness to the flu.
A Flu Season Fit for an Anniversary
While unlikely to reach pandemic levels, the 2017-2018 flu season has gotten off to an early and vigorous start. Australia, where the flu season typically runs from April to September, has historically been a harbinger of the severity of each year's emergent strain of influenza elsewhere. This year's vaccine did little to prevent the spread of the virus in the country, leading many to accurately predict a brutal 2018 flu season for those north of the equator. In the United States, a high number of infections has prompted schools to close in some places and hospitals to institute visitation limits; so far, only Hawaii has not experienced a widespread number of flu cases.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that this year's flu vaccine has been effective in only 32 percent of the population. Additionally, the type of virus that is dominant in the United States this year, H3N2, typically causes more severe symptoms than other common strains. These factors together have caused mortality rates for this year's outbreak to reach epidemic levels throughout the country, according to the most recent CDC update. In response, the CDC recently changed the topic of its Jan. 16 meeting from nuclear war preparedness to the flu.
One hundred years removed from the global pandemic, there is still work to be done in the fight against the flu. While current vaccines typically target the parts of the flu virus that change year to year, firms such as the Alphabet Inc.-funded Vaccitech are working to develop a "holy grail" vaccine that targets the parts that do not easily mutate. Vaccitech hopes to have a universal vaccine, which would boost efficacy rates over current approaches, ready by 2025. In December, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) removed a three-year ban on funding for "gain of function" studies, in which researchers study mutations that change how viruses work, including those that cause Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Ebola and influenza. Funding from an institution as large as the NIH is another major factor in helping scientists stay one step ahead of viruses, and it could eventually aid in the creation of flu vaccines or treatments for new strains.
New Rules for New Tools
Developments in technology — particularly in the area of data science, which can allow researchers nonmedical avenues for tracking diseases and preventing their spread — are crucial in the ongoing fight against disease outbreaks. A recent paper in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, for example, outlined how Facebook could be used to track and target human bridges of transmission. By identifying individuals who act as hubs for the spread of disease, medical professionals could more effectively and efficiently distribute limited vaccines in the event of a widespread outbreak. Other social media outlets all have the potential to play a similar role. Meanwhile, blockchain technology, which allows for the storage of massive amounts of personal data, also offers opportunities for tracking the spread and risk of diseases such as the flu. It would not only allow the efficient transmission and sharing of data — it would enable users to maintain privacy standards, a quality that will become increasingly valuable in the future.
The use of these and other technological advancements to help with disease control may face policy roadblocks, as data sharing and data privacy become key topics of political discussion. As the world becomes ever-more digital, and the amount of available data to analyze increases, governments will diligently focus on developing regulations for how that data is shared. Already, countries the world over are prioritizing intellectual property and digital rights in trade negotiations.
Data sharing and collection is vital for the understanding of disease; indeed, some experts attribute the severity of the SARS outbreak in 2003 to a lack of communication between Beijing and the rest of the world. But in the future, strict regulations developed by countries trying to protect their citizens' privacy may hamper communication efforts. In 2016, for example, the European Union instituted the General Data Protection Regulation, which gave its citizens greater control over how their personal data is shared and distributed. Perhaps more importantly, this new privacy law also permits countries to fine companies found in violation. Of course, the intent of such laws is not to prevent helpful medical communication, but rather to prevent the distribution of private information. But they could still delay the global implementation of these kind of technologies for epidemiological purposes, as governments try to sort out how and when to make exceptions for the medical community.
In the 100 years since the Spanish flu reached even the most remote corners of the globe, society has made countless improvements as it learns more about the science of disease. But though people are better equipped to treat victims and limit the spread of viruses with vaccines and other medicines, the risk of a global pandemic remains. Emerging technologies provide valuable tools for advancing disease control, but policy and regulation have the potential to limit or delay their impact. At the intersection of health, technology and geopolitics, the regulation of data policies have the ability to stir up storms that can spread far beyond Silicon Valley.
-
http://www.alloutdoor.com/2018/01/29/experts-global-pandemic-will-happen/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=2018-01-30&utm_campaign=Weekly+Newsletter
-
"http://www.alloutdoor.com/2018/01/29/experts-global-pandemic-will-happen/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=2018-01-30&utm_campaign=Weekly+Newsletter"
All day long I am seeing people with flu
It is amazing to me how many still do not get flu shots. "I got sicker then I ever got when I got the shot 5 yrs ago and I will never do it again"
or "I don't believe in shots" or this one is the best "I never got the flu before"
People travel with the flu . They go on airplanes knowing they are sick . Too hard to postpone a flight so they just expose another 100 to 200 or more people at airports.
Forget about the paper masks.
What exactly is the CDC supposed to do?
or the WHO ?
They are working on vaccines but as far as I have heard not on antiviral medicines that are better than tamiflu.
you can put or the toilet washes you want around NYC like they did with the cameras and that ain't gonna stop it.
For God's sake we can't cure the common cold
You got aids - you live forever now. You got hep c we can cure you. You got a cold - tough shit.
-
y Robert Lee Hotz
Updated Feb. 12, 2018 11:14 a.m. ET
24 COMMENTS
In a bag of backyard dirt, scientists have discovered a powerful new group of antibiotics they say can wipe out many infections in lab and animal tests, including some microbes that are resistant to most traditional antibiotics.
Researchers at Rockefeller University in New York reported the discovery of the new antibiotics, called malacidins, on Monday in the journal Nature Microbiology.
It is the latest in a series of promising antibiotics found through innovative genetic sequencing techniques that allow researchers to screen thousands of soil bacteria that previously could not be grown or studied in the laboratory. To identify the new compounds, the Rockefeller researchers sifted through genetic material culled from 1,500 soil samples.
“We extract DNA directly out of soil samples,” said biochemist Sean Brady at Rockefeller’s Laboratory for Genetically Encoded Small Molecules, a senior author on the new study. “We put it into a bug we can grow easily in the laboratory and see if it can make new molecules—the basis of new antibiotics.”
The new compounds appear to interfere with the ability of infectious bacteria to build cell walls—a function so basic to cellular life that it seems unlikely that the microbes could evolve a way to resist it. In lab tests, bacteria were exposed to the experimental antibiotics for 21 days without developing resistance, the scientists said.
So far, the new compounds also appear safe and effective in mice, but there are no plans yet to submit it for human testing. “It is early days for these compounds,” Dr. Brady said.
This image shows Enterobacteriaceae, a group of bacteria that includes common pathogens such as such as salmonella and shigella. Photo: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The discovery of antibiotics in the early 20th century transformed modern medicine, but many of them gradually became ineffective as bacteria evolved defenses, often by acquiring protective genes from other more-resistant micro-organisms.
In the U.S. alone, at least two million illnesses and 23,000 deaths can be attributed each year to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. World-wide, deaths due to untreatable infections are predicted to rise 10-fold by 2050.
About 48 experimental antibiotics are undergoing clinical trials. Few of them, though, are aimed at the most intractable drug-resistant infections and, if past history is any guide, most are unlikely to be approved for patient use, several public-health experts said.
“Only a fraction of those will make it,” said Kathy Talkington, director of the Antibiotic Resistance Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington, D.C. “Generating new antibiotics and new therapies will take a while.”
In the quest for new antibiotics, researchers like Dr. Brady and others are deploying advanced genomics, synthetic-biology tools, and a variety of other innovative ways to explore a vast natural reservoir of bacteria notoriously difficult to isolate and study—the so-called “dark matter” of microbiology.
In May, researchers led by chemist Dale Boger at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego created a more-potent version of vancomycin—considered an antibiotic of last resort for the most intractable infections. In a soil sample from Italy, researchers at Rutgers University last June unearthed a powerful new antibiotic called pseudouridimycin. Neither, though, is ready for clinical trials.
At Northeastern University in Boston, microbiologist Slava Epstein and his colleagues have screened thousands of bacteria strains using a portable device he invented called the iChip that allows bio-prospectors to isolate and grow finicky micro-organisms.
Researchers created an online citizen science project called ‘Drugs from Dirt’ that solicits donations of dirt from volunteers around the world.
In 2016, they discovered an antibiotic called teixobactin. It too is years away from clinical trials.
“I did not understand how long it takes to develop an antibiotic, even when things go well,” he said.
To broaden their search for new therapeutic compounds, Dr. Brady and his Rockefeller colleagues set up an online citizen science project called “Drugs from Dirt” that solicits soil donations from around the world. The sandy soil that yielded the new malacidin antibiotics was shipped by relatives from the southwestern U.S.
“I think my parents sent it to me,” said Dr. Brady.
Write to Robert Lee Hotz at sciencejournal@wsj.com
-
Good article thanks - I hadn't seen this yet. Do we have a company to invest in yet? :wink:
-
If you find one/some please let us know here!
-
https://www.popsci.com/komodo-dragon-blood-peptide?CMPID=ene031118
-
http://www.speroforum.com/a/OLKITYZJLH47/83096-NYC-Health-officials-show-86-percent-of-TB-cases-are-among-immigrants?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DVVZTTYEXN53&utm_content=OLKITYZJLH47&utm_source=news&utm_term=NYC+Health+officials+show+86+percent+of+TB+cases+are+among+immigrants#.WrsgwXrcCqA
-
http://www.speroforum.com/a/OLKITYZJLH47/83096-NYC-Health-officials-show-86-percent-of-TB-cases-are-among-immigrants?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DVVZTTYEXN53&utm_content=OLKITYZJLH47&utm_source=news&utm_term=NYC+Health+officials+show+86+percent+of+TB+cases+are+among+immigrants#.WrsgwXrcCqA
Gee, that's strange. Legal immigrants have to be screened for TB. I wonder how these immigrants didn't get screened.
-
Tick and Mosquito Infections Spreading Rapidly, C.D.C. Finds
Image
More Americans are living in wooded suburbs near deer, which carry the ticks that spread Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, babesiosis, rabbit fever and Powassan virus.CreditScott Camazine/Science Source
By Donald G. McNeil Jr.
May 1, 2018
The number of people who get diseases transmitted by mosquito, tick and flea bites has more than tripled in the United States in recent years, federal health officials reported on Tuesday. Since 2004, at least nine such diseases have been newly discovered or introduced into the United States.
Warmer weather is an important cause of the surge in cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the lead author of a study in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
But the author, Dr. Lyle R. Petersen, the agency’s director of vector-borne diseases, repeatedly declined to connect the increase to the politically fraught issue of climate change, and the report does not mention either climate change or global warming.
Many other factors are at work, he emphasized, while noting that “the numbers on some of these diseases have gone to astronomical levels.”
C.D.C. officials called for more support for state and local health departments. Local agencies “are our first line of defense,” said Dr. Robert Redfield, the C.D.C.’s new director. “We must enhance our investment in their ability to fight these diseases.”
Although state and local health departments get brief infusions of cash during scares like the 2016 Zika epidemic, they are chronically underfunded. A recent survey of mosquito control agencies found that 84 percent needed help with basics like surveillance and pesticide-resistance testing, Dr. Petersen said.
While the C.D.C. did not suggest that Americans drop plans for playing outdoors or lying in hammocks this summer, Dr. Redfield emphasized that everyone — especially children — needed to protect themselves against tick and mosquito bites.
Between 2004 and 2016, about 643,000 cases of 16 insect-borne illnesses were reported to the C.D.C. — 27,000 a year in 2004, rising to 96,000 by 2016. (The year 2004 was chosen as a baseline because the agency began requiring more detailed reporting then.)
The real case numbers were undoubtedly far larger, Dr. Petersen said. For example, the C.D.C. estimates that about 300,000 Americans get Lyme disease each year, but only about 35,000 diagnoses are reported.
The study did not delve into the reasons for the increase, but Dr. Petersen said it was probably caused by many factors, including two related to weather: Ticks thriving in regions previously too cold for them, and hot spells triggering outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases.
Other factors, he said, include expanded human travel, suburban reforestation and a dearth of new vaccines to stop outbreaks.
In an interview, Dr. Petersen said he was “not under any pressure to say anything or not say anything” about climate change and that he had not been asked to keep mentions of it out of the study.
More jet travel from the tropics means that previously obscure viruses like dengue and Zika are moving long distances rapidly in human blood. (By contrast, malaria and yellow fever are thought to have reached the Americas on slave ships three centuries ago.)
A good example, Dr. Petersen said, was chikungunya, which causes joint pain so severe that it is called “bending-up disease.”
In late 2013, a Southeast Asian strain arrived on the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Maarten, its first appearance in this hemisphere. Within one year, local transmission had occurred everywhere in the Americas except Canada, Chile, Peru and Bolivia.
Tickborne diseases, the report found, are rising steadily in the Northeast, the Upper Midwest and California. Ticks spread Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, rabbit fever, Powassan virus and other ills, some of them only recently discovered.
Ticks need deer or rodents as their main blood hosts, and those have increased as forests in suburbs have gotten thicker, deer hunting has waned, and rodent predators like foxes have disappeared.
(A century ago, the Northeast had fewer trees than it now does; forests made a comeback as farming shifted west and firewood for heating was replaced by coal, oil and gas.)
Most disease outbreaks related to mosquitoes since 2004 have been in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa. But West Nile virus, which arrived in 1999, now appears unpredictably across the country; Dallas, for example, saw a big outbreak in 2012.
For most of these diseases, there are no vaccines and no treatment, so the only way to stop outbreaks is through mosquito control, which is expensive and rarely stops outbreaks. Miami, for instance, was the only city in the Western Hemisphere to halt a Zika outbreak with pesticides.
The only flea-borne disease in the report is plague, the bacterium responsible for the medieval Black Death. It remains rare but persistent: Between two and 17 cases were reported from 2004 to 2016, mostly in the Southwest. The infection can be cured with antibiotics.
Dr. Nicholas Watts, a global health specialist at University College London and co-author of a major 2017 report on climate change and health, said warmer weather is spreading disease in many wealthy countries, not just the United States.
In Britain, he said, tick diseases are expanding as summers lengthen, and malaria is becoming more common in the northern reaches of Australia.
But Paul Reiter, a medical entomologist at the Pasteur Institute, has argued that some environmentalists exaggerate the disease threats posed by climate change.
The 2003-2014 period fell during what he described as “a pause” in global warming, although the notion of a long trend having pauses is disputed.
Also, disease-transmission dynamics are complicated, and driven by more than temperature. For example, transmission of West Nile virus requires that certain birds be present, too.
In the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, St. Louis encephalitis, a related virus, surged, “and it looked like climate issues were involved,” Dr. Reiter said. But the surge turned out to depend more on varying hot-cold and wet-dry spells and the interplay of two different mosquito species. St. Louis encephalitis virtually disappeared, weather notwithstanding.
“It’s a complicated, multidimensional system,” he said.
A. Marm Kilpatrick, a disease ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said many factors beside hot weather were at work, including “a hump-shaped relationship between temperature and transmission potential.”
Warm weather helps mosquitoes and ticks breed and transmit disease faster, he explained. But after a certain point, the hotter and drier it gets, the more quickly the pests die. So disease transmission to humans peaks somewhere between mildly warm and hellishly hot weather.
Experts also pointed out that the increase in reports of spreading disease may have resulted partially from more testing.
Lyme disease made family doctors begin to suspect tick bites in patients with fevers and to blood more often. Laboratories began looking for different pathogens, especially in patients who did not have Lyme. That led to the discovery of previously unknown diseases.
-
We are getting reports of flu in Texas and Florida so far
So all *patriots* and families may want to get their flu shots now,
I will not post this on Huff[com]post.
-
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2019/05/14/chickenpox-virus-asylum-seekers-central-america-waiting-enter-u-s-varicella-mexico-mexicali/1180527001/?fbclid=IwAR0Xe4vFuX1r5M5bpKa_ebjwkvRyfRczhgI7fm0rUP1Ht6mXT4Hy4l7VvSU
-
Questions of Risk Follow the Spread of a New Virus out of China
8 MINS READ
Jan 23, 2020 | 00:41 GMT
Authorities in Wuhan, China, check the temperature of a passenger at a wharf on the Yangtze River on Jan. 22, 2020.
Security officials check the temperature of passengers at a wharf on the Yangtze River in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 22, 2020. The spread of an emerging coronavirus that has led to 17 deaths so far has prompted emergency health measures across China.
(Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
Compared with the outbreak of SARS in 2003, greater transparency on the part of the Chinese central government about the spread of a new coronavirus that recently surfaced in Wuhan has facilitated earlier responses and greater public awareness.
In the short term, the disease — and the emergency measures introduced in response — will lead to significant logistical disruptions and reduced travel in and out of Hubei province, which will have secondary impacts on China’s manufacturing and export economy.
Moving forward, information transparency, emergency responses at both the national and subnational levels and international coordination will be critical to the management of this emerging virus.
Over the past three days, the reported spread of a deadly strain of coronavirus first detected in Wuhan, China, both within and beyond Chinese borders has raised concerns of a wider outbreak that would increase the risks of significant economic and social impacts in China and the wider world. The coronavirus, which is the same type of virus that led to a disruptive global outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002 and 2003, was first reported in Wuhan in November. Notably, however, compared with the apparent cover-up and scarcity of information released by Chinese officials during the first three months of the SARS outbreak, which first arose in Guangdong province, greater transparency about the current viral outbreak on the part of local and national officials has mobilized an earlier official response and raised public awareness, which could mitigate the extent of its spread.
Still, the exact source of the coronavirus at the heart of the current outbreak and its mutation methods remain unknown. And combined with the up to 14-day asymptomatic period at the early stages of infection and incubation, it's possible that the full extent of the outbreak within China has been underestimated and underreported. At a time of traditionally heavy travel associated with the Chinese New Year season, the disease could well inflict broader impacts on global travel and tourism. It will also test Chinese pandemic management strategies at both the national and subnational levels before the virus can be effectively contained.
The Big Picture
The quick spread of a deadly coronavirus apparently originating in the central Chinese city of Wuhan into other parts of the world has resurfaced memories of the detrimental effects caused by an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) 17 years ago.
At present, 543 confirmed cases of infection have been reported, covering almost all Chinese provinces, including major municipalities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and at least seven other countries, including the United States, Thailand and Japan. Of those confirmed cases, 80 percent have been centered in Hubei province, as well as all 17 of the reported deaths associated with the virus. Among those infected, the vast majority reported living in or traveling to Hubei's provincial capital, Wuhan, with an origination point believed to be a local seafood market.
But the virus has increasingly shown signs of human-to-human transmission. In at least one case, a single patient was found to have infected 14 health care workers. This raises the strong possibility that the new virus strain could easily spread among humans, differentiating it from the coronavirus behind the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), a type of bird flu first reported in 2012 in Saudi Arabia, which has a limited ability to spread through human contact. If the ease of human-to-human transmission of the new coronavirus strain is confirmed, it would make tracking, monitoring and effective containment substantially more difficult. This is especially true given Wuhan's status as a national transportation (rail and waterway) crossroads. The city also hosts the largest university cluster in Asia.
The Potential Effects
At this point, the new virus appears to be less deadly and less contagious than the one behind SARS. The death rate for the Wuhan virus appears to be at 3 to 4 percent of infections, versus 9 percent for SARS, and 35 percent for MERS. For comparison, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 6,600 people have died from the flu during the 2019-20 influenza season, with another 120,000 hospitalizations linked to this season's prevalent influenza strain. Still, much remains unknown about the emerging disease. For instance, the exact source of infection and primary means of transmission, factors that are critical in forecasting the disease's progression and associated socio-economic impacts, have yet to be determined. Likewise, the exact medical measures and antiviral drugs that can be used to control the disease in its early phase have yet to be determined. For perspective, it took about 270 days for the SARS outbreak to be controlled in 2003. But in the short term, a somewhat wider spread of the new virus appears unavoidable before it can be contained.
Given the speed of the spread and apparent relatively high death rate associated with the current outbreak, transparency will be critically important for effective disease management.
Critically, the lengthy incubation period for the new virus, considerably longer than MERS or SARS, means it takes much longer for those infected to show symptoms, thus making early detection and preparation difficult.
Considering the crush of domestic and international travel within and outside China during the Lunar New Year, the two-week incubation period and inconspicuous nature of those infected but not yet showing symptoms can result in significant underreporting or underestimation of the real scale of the virus. This would also delay the necessary response and protective measures that could have been used to prevent a further spread. (This factor can also skew fatality rates, especially if less severe cases are flying under the radar.) What's more, the spread of the disease is highest when symptoms aren't obvious — if that's when the virus is transmitted, as occurred during the SARS outbreak — and when no proper preventive measures are adopted.
A Question of Transparency
Given the speed of the spread and apparent relatively high death rate associated with the current outbreak, transparency will be critically important for effective disease management, including emergency response, mitigation and public awareness. For these reasons, the new disease has resurfaced questions about the credibility of Chinese authorities. During its early stages in 2003, ignorance, deliberate cover-ups and late responses contributed to the unrestrained spread of SARS and brought Beijing to the brink of political crisis. Compared with the four months of delayed reporting and passive responses to SARS, transparency and responsiveness during the current outbreak have increased.
It took 30 days for authorities to report the first case of coronavirus-related pneumonia to the World Health Organization, and about two weeks longer for direct central government intervention — a critical factor in curbing the tendency of local authorities to downplay bad news. Shortly thereafter, a nationwide emergency response, as well as related prevention and control methods, were put into place. Nonetheless, domestic public and international skepticism over a possible cover-up of the current outbreak remains strong. Suspicions were elevated by the fact that several cases of the disease were reported overseas, including in Thailand and Japan, before authorities acknowledged any other cases in China outside of Hubei province. If the transparency issue is not properly managed, the government's credibility could again come under question, possibly resulting in a wider social backlash.
Given that much about the virus remains unknown, the eventual socio-economic and international impacts of the current outbreak by the time it runs its course will be difficult to determine. To put it into perspective, the SARS epidemic in 2003 resulted in more than $40 billion in productivity losses, and the Ebola outbreak in 2014-2016 had an approximate impact of $53 billion. At the least, the current outbreak — and the responses to manage it — can be expected to affect China's logistics and travel sectors and reduce consumption. These effects will come on top of the inevitable disruptions posed by the Lunar New Year that annually weigh on the domestic economy.
What to Expect Next
Questions of Chinese response capacity: On Jan. 22, Wuhan authorities halted all road, waterway and expressway transit in and out of the city and suspended outbound travel by rail and air. This order followed on the heels of an official emergency quarantine by China's health authority affecting hospitals nationwide. In major cities, people have adopted preventive measures such as wearing protective masks. But given local capacity limitations and the limits of available resources, high-level national coordination or even tougher measures, such as employing security forces, may need to be introduced. Hubei province plans to seek national assistance to procure needed supplies, such as protective medical equipment.
Business disruptions: Hubei has the seventh-largest gross domestic product among China's provinces, totaling $541 billion in 2017, and a population of 59 million. Wuhan, meanwhile, is a major Chinese transportation hub as well as a center of scientific research, automobile manufacturing and heavy industry. The emergency measures will significantly disrupt traffic and input goods that rely on road, rail and maritime shipment through Hubei. Those disruptions, in turn, could have secondary effects on major ports — especially Shanghai, which is down the Yangtze River from Wuhan. But as with SARS, the business impact will likely be felt across the country, if not around the world, if the emergency measures remain in place for a considerable period, especially in an age of integrated national connectivity. Elsewhere, the international spread of the disease threatens to disrupt the movement of people and goods as East Asia enters the Lunar New Year holiday season.
International response: The new virus will test pandemic management systems in China and internationally. The CDC has introduced screening and quarantine measures at major U.S. airports that host flights from Wuhan. Countries that have reported cases of the coronavirus, such as South Korea, will be particularly mindful of the risks of human-to-human transmission, given the steep economic impacts of the 2015 MERS outbreak. A massive uptick in the flow of Chinese tourists throughout the Asia-Pacific region will inspire caution in Japan, Southeast Asia and even North Korea as well, although the ability of those countries to screen and manage cases vary widely. Additionally, the World Health Organization will decide on Jan. 23 if it will declare this a global emergency and what that means for funding and world attention.
-
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Quarantine a city the size of Wuhan? How?
-
January 24, 2020 Open as PDF
Chinese New Year 2020: The Year of the Coronavirus
By: Phillip Orchard
Grappling with internal political pressures, a slowing economy, an open rebellion in Hong Kong and an unresolved trade war with the U.S., Chinese leaders may have already been in a less-than-celebratory mood heading into this year’s Lunar New Year festivities, which begin Jan. 25. The last thing the government needed was an outbreak of infectious disease, particularly when hundreds of millions of people are expected to travel throughout the country and beyond. Not only is that exactly what happened, but the disease – a new type of coronavirus – is unknown to science.
The severity of the virus (known as nCoV or the Wuhan Virus) is uncertain, nor is it clear if it will mutate and spread. The World Health Organization has yet to label it a global health emergency. But it’s certainly not yet contained. As of Thursday, there were more than 653 confirmed cases across seven countries, including the United States, and 18 people had died. And despite repeated assurances that it had matters under control, the government on Wednesday began locking down Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei, where the outbreak started, and three nearby cities. Doctors in Wuhan are reportedly expecting the number of infections to exceed 6,000, and local authorities are planning to build a special hospital in just six days to handle the epidemic.
There’s reason to believe the disease isn’t nearly as big a threat to public health as the one posed by the SARS outbreak in 2003, which killed nearly 800 people. Inevitably, though, the biggest political and economic effects of pandemics come from public panic and panicked government responses, not the disease itself. And given Beijing’s checkered track record for managing these sorts of emergencies over the past two decades, the Communist Party of China’s very legitimacy might just prove to be on the line.
How Bad Is It?
Coronaviruses come in a variety of strains. Some, such as the one that’s one of the many causes of the common cold, are relatively harmless. Others, such as those responsible for SARS and MERS, are potentially lethal. The dangerous coronaviruses seem to be linked to animals. SARS may have originated in bats and then spread to humans via civets, which are eaten as a delicacy in China. MERS also came from bats but spread to humans via camels, once again, perhaps through consumption of raw camel milk or meat. It is therefore reasonable to suspect that the new coronavirus is linked to animals that are eaten. Indeed, the reason China is always likely to be ground zero for the next influenza pandemic is that millions of people regularly come into contact with livestock. As Smithsonian Magazine wrote, “Many Chinese people, even city dwellers, insist that freshly slaughtered poultry is tastier and more healthful than refrigerated or frozen meat.”
Whatever the source, it’s now been confirmed to be capable of being transmitted from one human to another. Even so, the new coronavirus will have a limited direct impact on public health. SARS appeared in 2002, spread quickly around the globe in 2003, infected 8,096 people and killed 774. Then, with the exception of a handful of cases, it mostly disappeared. MERS has infected 2,442 people and killed 842. It still lingers throughout much of the world, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula. And though the reported case-fatality rates for both seem high – 9.6 percent for SARS and 34.5 percent for MERS – bear in mind that many mild cases probably went unreported. The real case-fatality rate is likely lower.
(click to enlarge)
The damage inflicted directly by the disease is therefore highly unlikely to have much long-term impact. But, particularly in China, the potential economic and political implications can’t be dismissed.
Economic Impact
The problem with new outbreaks is that the public and public officials alike can’t exactly wait until all the facts become clear before taking preventative measures. And it doesn’t take much for fear of the unknown to grind public transportation systems to a halt, empty out shopping centers, movie theaters and restaurants, and, most important, persuade revelers to just stay put this year during the Lunar New Year rather than join the hundreds of millions of people who take part in the world’s largest annual human migration.
The costs add up quickly. The SARS outbreak in 2003, for example, dented Chinese gross domestic product by as much as $30 billion, reducing annual growth by between 1-2 percent. Globally, the bill for the pandemic ran up to as much as $100 billion.
Not all economic activity will be lost for good. Short-term hits to the sorts of sectors most exposed to the epidemic – mostly ones tied to consumer spending – often lead to supercharged recoveries. Chinese growth drivers where short-term disruption would have longer-lasting effects, such as manufacturing exports, industrial production and investment, stayed mostly intact in 2003. Indeed, while Chinese GDP growth dropped from 11.1 percent in the first quarter of 2003 to 9.1 percent in the second, it bounced all the way back to 11.6 percent a year later.
Still, even if nCoV proves more manageable than SARS, there are reasons to think the impact this year will be worse. For one, the SARS epidemic occurred on the heels of the dot com crash, when consumer spending across the region was already somewhat suppressed. (Incidentally, the resulting reduction of international travel may have helped contain the spread of the virus.) For another, locking down an urban area as large as Wuhan – a city at the center of one of China’s most important internal shipping routes along the Yangtze – will be immensely disruptive.
(click to enlarge)
Moreover, a substantial portion of the lost holiday spending will never be recovered. This is a problem for Asia Pacific nations that, unlike in 2003, are now highly dependent on Chinese tourists. All told, Chinese people took an estimated 130 million more trips abroad in 2018 compared to 2003, and before the outbreak, the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute predicted that more than 7 million Chinese people would head overseas during the Lunar New Year this year. In Thailand, which has already reported four cases of nCoV, foreign tourism accounts for as much as a fifth of economic growth. Around 57 percent of visitors to Thailand last year were Chinese, including more than 2 million in January and February alone. Japan, which hosts the 2020 Summer Olympics, is estimating an economic loss of nearly $25 billion if the virus spreads as widely as SARS.
The biggest difference for China this time around is that the economy can’t as easily shrug off a major shock. In the early 2000s, annual GDP growth was still climbing well above 10 percent. Today, with a long structural slowdown well underway, Beijing is running up staggering debts just to keep growth from swan-diving below 6 percent. Add to this an unresolved trade war with its largest export customer – along with its scramble to implement critical but growth-sapping measures to stave off a financial meltdown before the next global slowdown strikes – and the epidemic starts to look like the sort of thing that could derail Beijing’s best-laid plans for avoiding an economic reckoning.
Political Impact
The outbreak will also complicate a broader, existential challenge weighing on the CPC: preserving its very legitimacy with the public. Delivering steady gains in prosperity is, of course, at the center of this challenge. But breakneck economic growth has become impossible to sustain – and was never going to be sufficient, anyway. The wealthier a country becomes, the more its citizenry demands quality of life that can’t be sourced solely from rising GDP, things like clean air and water, medical services, social safety nets and responsive, corruption-free governance. This is why President Xi Jinping has encouraged the party to shift its focus to “high-quality growth,” and it’s why he’s put environmental and emergency management initiatives at the center of his sweeping reform agenda. No amount of propaganda or censorship can convince his people that a smog-choked sky is actually blue or make devastation from an earthquake disappear.
The 2003 SARS outbreak laid bare the political risks of mismanaging a public health emergency. The government came under withering public criticism for covering up the scale of the epidemic (inadvertently worsening panic), impeding the World Health Organization’s investigation, and moving slowly to contain the outbreak. Bungled government responses to a number of other crises, such as the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, a high-speed rail accident in 2011, and a string of scandals involving tainted milk, tainted vaccines and fiery industrial accidents likewise prompted fierce public outcry. Beijing received higher marks in subsequent health scares, particularly the H171 bird flu outbreak in 2013. And this time around, initially at least, it received international praise for its improved transparency and swiftness in moving to contain the virus. Chinese authorities had isolated and published the nCoV genome by the second week in January, allowing foreign governments to develop critical testing procedures for the virus. Xi addressed the emergency personally last week, ordering “all-out prevention and control efforts.” China’s top political body responsible for law and order said officials who withheld information would be “nailed on the pillar of shame for eternity.”
But facts on the ground are once again giving the public reason to doubt its government’s candor and capability. Authorities have been claiming for more than a month that the virus is “preventable and controllable.” Now, they’re taking extreme measures like locking down the Wuhan metro area, home to some 19 million people, and making belated mea culpas. The government has also struggled to abandon its practice of reflexively cracking down on independent sources of information, despite commands to do so from on high. This has led to contradictory messaging and suppressed information that might have helped contain the virus. Chinese censors initially ordered local media outlets to stick to reprinting official reports, according to the Financial Times, effectively silencing independent reporting. And in early January, eight people were reportedly detained for posting information about the outbreak on social media. As also happened in the SARS outbreak, moreover, the government’s rigidly enforced top-down decision-making structure has once again worsened matters by incentivizing, for example, hospitals to under-report cases and local authorities to go forward with high-profile public gatherings deemed politically important.
For all the criticism they are receiving, authorities in Beijing are trying to address a problem that would bedevil any government. China is very large and very dense. As happened with SARS, panic would almost certainly do more damage than the disease itself. And Beijing may reasonably conclude that resorting to drastic measures may truly be in the public interest, even if they’re at odds with public sentiment. Perhaps more than any government, Beijing has given itself the power to surveil its citizenry, to shut down cities, to silence unfounded rumors on social media – all without permission. Such powers certainly could come in handy in this sort of crisis.
But by hoarding authority – by insisting on the right to micromanage the country – the CPC has raised the bar for what the public expects in response when the country is under attack, whether from foreign powers, economic forces or viral mutations. This is a problem when tight centralization has also, paradoxically, created a rigid top-down institutional culture that’s ill-suited to respond nimbly to public demand. When faced with a crisis, the machinery of the state is programmed to default to the tools it knows best. Censorship, disinformation and problem-solving by brute force are hardwired into the Chinese system, often making it at once flat-footed and prone to overcorrection. Yet, the more pressure intensifies, the more Beijing is doubling down on this model. And the stakes riding on its bet are getting higher.
-
second post
https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-authorities-shut-down-schools-tourist-sites-as-viral-pneumonia-spreads-to-nearly-all-parts-of-china_3214253.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=364c1bd566-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_23_09_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-364c1bd566-239065853
-
Third post
Xi’s Disease Spreading: After this hits the global streets—and it has already—efforts at containment are something akin to containing a global wildfire.
Political and other dimensions are mind-boggling and beyond reach. Epidemiologists and other experts constantly talk about the cruciality of early detection and jumping right on it RIGHT NOW, but if this turns out to be very serious, right now was already yesterday, and listening to the experts we all have to focus on slowing spread by wearing masks and so forth.
There always are cultural aspects, too, such as the habit of mainlander Chinese sneezing everywhere with no attempt cover their faces. They will sneeze in elevators— yes, they do— restaurants, airplanes, more. They ain’t Japanese who will self-quarantine.
To be clear, I am not talking about “Chinese” (difficult to define), but some cultures in Mainland China. Many in Taiwan or Hong Kong and other places are super-civilized, but many of the mainlanders are like something from another time and planet.
The Thai and China governments jointly published a book years ago showing traveling mainlanders how to behave civilized, such as not spitting on restaurant floors, or defecating in department store changing rooms. This drives Thais crazy. Not to mention everyone else.
This is the sort of barbarian invaders that Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, and the rest of us who see, are very concerned about.
They will not hesitate even as known-virus carriers to sneeze on airplanes without covering their faces. Why would they cover their face and soil their hand or whatever when they can just let it fly? They do this constantly.
The virus is doing what viruses do. It bought tickets and flew to Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, USA, more.
Wait ‘till it hits the great incubators of India and Africa. Hopefully it is not that serious but hope is not a plan, or a vaccine.
-
Wuhan crisis not in check. The novel coronavirus is continuing to spread, and China is moving into full crisis mode. At least 869 people have been infected in China, and at least 26 people have died. There was also a fifth confirmed case in Thailand and a second confirmed case in the United States. A number of epidemiology models are now predicting that there will eventually be several thousand infections. In response, at least 10 Chinese cities – with a combined population of more than 40 million – have effectively been placed in quarantine. Beijing has also ordered travel agencies to suspend sales of domestic and international tours. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, an alliance of public and private medical entities, announced a multinational effort to develop a vaccine for the new virus, but it won’t be ready for months, if ever. (There is still no MERS vaccine.) As we’ve noted, the biggest and longest-lasting impacts will come from the reaction to the virus, not the virus itself.
-
fourth post
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/24/coronavirus-fears-rise-chinese-cover-up-40-million-lockdown/
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLp8CHeKQkI
He knows what he is talking about.
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/the-latest-pandemic-threat/#slide-1
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/did-china-steal-coronavirus-canada-and-weaponize-it
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/did-china-steal-coronavirus-canada-and-weaponize-it
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/24/virus-hit-wuhan-has-two-laboratories-linked-chines/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/did-china-steal-coronavirus-canada-and-weaponize-it
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/24/virus-hit-wuhan-has-two-laboratories-linked-chines/
https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-%20chinese-lab-poised-to-study-world-s-most-%20dangerous-pathogens-1.21487
But worries surround the Chinese lab, too. The SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Tim Trevan, founder of CHROME Biosafety and Biosecurity Consulting in Damascus, Maryland, says that an open culture is important to keeping BSL-4 labs safe, and he questions how easy this will be in China, where society emphasizes hierarchy. “Diversity of viewpoint, flat structures where everyone feels free to speak up and openness of information are important,” he says.
-
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
-
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Quarantine a city the size of Wuhan? How?
The ugly truth is you can't really.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjan20/questions-coronavirus1-20.html
-
https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/01/is-market-grossly-underestimating.html
-
https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-outbreak-mongolia-closes-china-border
-
Daily Memo: China's Coronavirus Strategy, the UK's Huawei Policy
By: GPF Staff
Xi responds to the coronavirus. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday charged Premier Li Keqiang with the job of heading government efforts to deal with the coronavirus, after infections doubled over the span of just 24 hours. During a visit to Wuhan, Li pledged greater government support and resources for treating the sick and containing the virus's spread. Criticism over how the Chinese government has responded to the health crisis has been circulating on social media. There are also reports of vigilante groups blocking transit and regulating foot traffic to protect their communities. Yesterday, the city's mayor once again offered to resign, taking part of the blame for the local government’s response but also making the case that China’s sclerotic top-down decision-making structure impeded the Wuhan government’s response. Xi needs someone in the government to assume responsibility over the virus, thereby distancing himself from any cries of government mismanagement. Li has often been tasked with being the public face of the government’s response to crises, in part because he’s considered an effective administrator with a relatively positive reputation among foreign governments (a useful trait at a time when doubt over Beijing’s transparency is growing). But it’s also because he doesn’t hail from Xi’s political network and has been given relatively minimal power by Xi over routine matters, making him an ideal fall guy if the crisis response falls short. The move also shows that Xi appreciates the need to prevent the disease from destabilizing the country and impinging on his hold on power.
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7938887/Thailand-admits-unable-stop-spread-Chinas-deadly-coronavirus.html
This is looking very, very bad.
-
The New Coronavirus Could Leave Global Tourism and Trade Ailing
Countries around the world are facing major fallout from the new coronavirus. Cases of the virus originating in Wuhan have cropped up worldwide, forcing governments to roll out measures to screen travelers or even restrict arrivals in hopes of preventing outbreaks in their own countries. As of Jan. 29, 16 countries besides China have reported cases of the virus. Nearly all of the affected patients contracted the virus in China, but cases of human-to-human transmission have occurred several times outside of China. And while many countries are equipped to prevent the spread of an outbreak on their soil, the complex nature of disease control means that each new case presents risks of an outbreak outside China.
The Big Picture
________________________________________
The new coronavirus has yet to prove particularly deadly, but authorities in China have so far failed to halt its spread — both within the country and abroad. And the longer the outbreak continues, the longer the disruption to international trade and tourism will be.
________________________________________
The Geopolitics of Disease
The effects, of course, are not just limited to public health. Inside China, the virus has already caused massive disruption by dampening consumption during Lunar New Year celebrations — the busiest shopping time in the country — and forcing lockdowns of key supply chain nodes. Moreover, any dip in Chinese economic growth and outbound tourism will have ripple effects in countries that rely on trade with China. The existing global economic slowdown prior to the outbreak has already done a number on the likes of export-oriented economies worldwide, but the possibility of a drop in Chinese tourist numbers or a blow to Chinese economic growth could sap tourist revenue around the world, particularly in East and Southeast Asia.
The next phase of the outbreak will be critical to determining the success of interventions to stop the spread of the virus and limit its impacts outside China. But even in an optimistic scenario, the effects of the virus will last for weeks, raising the possibility of sustained, monthslong disruptions to growth in countries linked to the Chinese economy.
Here is how the new coronavirus could impact economies around the world.
South Korea and Japan
Although well-equipped to screen for and stem the spread of the virus, South Korea and Japan will experience some economic difficulties due to declines in tourism, as well as disruptions to Chinese imports and supply chains. South Korea, however, will be more vulnerable than Japan because its economy has already suffered amid the preexisting global trade slowdown.
Already, the outbreak in China has disrupted the flow of travelers, as Beijing has banned Chinese tourists from conducting overseas group tours, which account for 44 percent of the country's outbound tourism. A sustained outbreak could further stanch flows of Chinese travelers to South Korea and Japan, while the spread of the virus inside either country would naturally have a chilling effect on tourism overall.
South Korea and Japan boast widely diversified economies, yet a drop in tourism revenues from China (or overall) would deal both a blow in certain areas. In 2019, 7.4 million Chinese tourists visited Japan, while a further 5.5 million went to South Korea. In Japan as a whole, Chinese tourists accounted for 30.3 percent of the total, spending $16.2 billion in 2019, or 37 percent of what all tourists to the country spent combined. Japan's Nomura Research Institute estimates that a dropoff on par with the 2002-2003 outbreak of severe acquired respiratory syndrome (SARS) could cost the country's economy $7.1 billion. What's more, Chinese tourism growth in 2019 was key in helping rural, tourism-dependent and economically smaller Japanese areas offset a South Korean boycott stemming from Seoul and Tokyo's trade standoff.
South Korea's tourism sector, too, has enjoyed a greater influx of Chinese tourists, who contributed 34 percent of the total in
2019 and who accounted for a substantial portion of the estimated $21.6 billion in 2019 total tourism receipts — revenue that is doubly important for an export-reliant South Korean economy flagging in the face of global trade headwinds. As it is, Seoul knows all too well what a drop in Chinese tourist arrivals can mean for the economy: In 2017-2018, Beijing banned Chinese citizens from traveling to South Korea on group tours in retaliation for Seoul's deployment of a U.S. missile-defense system, costing Seoul around $6.82 billion in revenue. Beyond Chinese tourists, South Korea is particularly worried about the risk of the new coronavirus spreading inside the country given its experience with Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2015. That outbreak in South Korea scared away tourists, ultimately costing the country's economy $3.6 billion in losses, or 0.2 percent of gross domestic product.
Any drawdowns in tourism revenue would come at a particularly fraught time for South Korea's economy, which is reeling due to drops in worldwide demand and trade tensions with Japan. (Over 44 percent of South Korea's GDP comes from exports as compared to just 18.5 percent for Japan.) More troubling for Seoul, however, is that South Korean exporters are vulnerable to the economic ripples of an extended outbreak in China. Already, South Korean markets have taken a hit on fears that the new coronavirus could dampen Chinese consumption and roil supply chains. China accounts for nearly 24 percent of South Korea's total trade, including 36 percent of electronics exports, 28 percent of machinery exports and over half of organic chemical exports. A virus-related Chinese slowdown would especially hit South Korean chipmakers and display manufacturers hooked into Chinese production chains, as well as South Korean retailers that sell to the Chinese market. With South Korea's economy already suffering in a tough global environment, that would be particularly troubling.
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia is equally vulnerable to the health and economic effect of the virus given the large numbers of Chinese tourists who visit the region, as well as the area's deep links to the Chinese economy. The uneven levels of health care, monitoring and screening capacity among these countries make the situation even riskier. Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam have all confirmed cases of new coronavirus, and while Myanmar and Laos have yet to report cases, their high Chinese tourism flows — and porous, poorly controlled borders with China — put them at risk of undetected infections.
In the region, Thailand stands to fare the worst. Over 21 percent of Thailand's GDP comes from tourism and related spending, while its cities are also key destinations for Chinese travelers. As of Jan. 28, Thailand had 14 reported cases of the virus — the highest number outside China. Furthermore, fear of the virus could deter vital tourism from all countries to Thailand. Most immediately, however, the country could suffer from a long-lasting drop in Chinese arrivals, who accounted for 10.5 million arrivals in 2019 and $17 billion in spending. According to the Tourism Authority of Thailand's estimates, the virus could lead to a drop of 2 million Chinese tourists in 2020 — a big blow that comes on top of the problems stemming from a strengthening baht, competition with Vietnam for tourists and a series of high-profile ferry accidents that discouraged Chinese visitors. The outbreak further jeopardizes this revenue stream at a worrying time for Bangkok, which is trying to prop up growth amid political fragility, weak global demand for its electronics and automotive sector, as well as dampened domestic consumption.
Vietnam, too, relies on China for a substantial number of tourists — one-third of its total. Its economy, however, is not overdependent on tourism, as it has been a key beneficiary of manufacturers fleeing China due to the U.S.-China trade war. But as with most Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam's deep reliance on Chinese supply chains puts it at risk of economic fallout if a sustained outbreak saps China's economic growth.
Africa and the Middle East
While Africa is far from the Chinese center of the outbreak, the increased flow of Chinese nationals to the continent in recent years puts it at risk. Any disruptions in African economies, however, would stem less from a sharp dropoff in Chinese arrivals or a slowdown in the Chinese economy than outbreaks in the countries themselves, particularly as many nations lack decent health care infrastructure or robust screening procedures. On Jan. 28, Ethiopia reported that it had quarantined four students who recently returned from Wuhan exhibiting symptoms of the virus. Ethiopia is comparatively well-positioned to control any outbreak, but others with significant links to China are not. The virus, for instance, could spread much more quickly in a country like Zimbabwe, which is currently facing a severe economic and food crisis. At the same time, many of Africa's major cities, especially Addis Ababa, Cairo, Johannesburg and Casablanca, are all destinations for Chinese travelers, students and businesspeople.
If China's domestic response nips the virus in the bud, the number of cases could peak in the coming weeks, resulting in a relaxing of restrictions within the next two months.
Europe and the Americas
In the Americas, Canada and the United States are the only countries that have reported cases to date, and both are well-equipped to monitor and deal with the threat. Fewer Chinese travelers visit Latin America, which is also at lower risk because many flights from China to the region first go through the United States or Canada, which could prevent the onward travel of anyone suffering from the virus. During the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, for instance, the virus spread at a significantly lower rate in Latin America than elsewhere: Brazil and Colombia each registered just one confirmed case, in contrast to 250 in Canada and 75 in the United States. (The latter, meanwhile, was the only country in the Americas to confirm an outbreak of MERS.) Disruptions to China's economy, however, would still have knock-on effects for Latin American countries, which conducted $307.4 billion in bilateral trade with China in 2019. A long-lasting outbreak would jeopardize agricultural and natural resource exports, especially Chile, which sends over half of its vital copper exports to China, and Brazil, which relies on agricultural exports to China.
Elsewhere in Asia
China's numerous land borders in Northeast and Central Asia also put other countries at risk of the virus, leading Mongolia and Kazakhstan to implement severe restrictions on movement from China. However, most countries have to balance the need to protect their populations against the economic and political ramifications of severing links with China. Particularly worried is North Korea, which has banned Chinese tourist arrivals and set up quarantine zone at its borders. While North Korea's tight, authoritarian system appeared to help it weather both the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak and the 2015 MERS outbreak, the new coronavirus presents the country with more of a dilemma, as Chinese tourists (350,000 visited last year alone) have become a critical source of revenue for the country's economy as it struggles under the weight of sanctions. Another source of danger for Pyongyang are the estimated 50,000 North Korean workers in China. The laborers were supposed to return to North Korea by late last month in accordance with U.N. sanctions, but many reportedly did not due to the haphazard implementation of the measures. Since then, however, some may have returned home before Pyongyang implemented quarantine measures, particularly in the run-up to the Lunar New Year.
The Upshot
China's coronavirus outbreak is a fluid, rapidly evolving situation. What happens now is highly uncertain — and even more so for countries that are trying to contain the spread of the virus within their own borders. If China's domestic response nips the virus in the bud, the number of cases could peak in the coming weeks, resulting in a relaxing of restrictions within the next two months. But if the measures prove ineffective and the virus spreads further — or becomes more fatal — the long period of incubation and contagiousness could mean cases continue to crop up internationally for some time to come. In such a scenario, authorities in China and farther afield won't be lifting restrictions anytime soon, which would herald a difficult year ahead for the global tourism industry.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-underreporting-true-scale-of-deadly-viral-outbreak-expert-says_3218207.html
Shocking!
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=597&v=w0cy_4FmvJY&feature=emb_logo
Plan accordingly.
-
Coronavirus infections predicted to grow exponentially; first death outside China; outbreak becomes political
Major airlines stop flying to China as coronavirus spreads
The United States has issued a “Level 4” travel advisory for China, its highest level of caution, over the rapidly spreading outbreak. (The Washington Post)
By
Anna Fifield and
Alex Horton
The Philippines and New Zealand have joined the list of countries that have sharply restricted entry to people traveling from or through China, as the number of cases confirmed outside the mainland continues to grow. Meanwhile, inside China, the number of reported cases has grown rapidly, and scientists predict that exponentially more have been infected. Here is what we know:
● There are nearly 14,500 confirmed cases of coronavirus in China, including 10 on the self-governing island of Taiwan, with more than 300 dead. A new study says that as many as 75,815 people in Wuhan may have been infected.
● The World Health Organization has reported roughly 130 confirmed cases of the virus in more than 20 countries outside China and Taiwan. The Philippines reported the first death attributable to the virus outside China. New cases have been confirmed in South Korea and India.
AD
● Doctors say the virus can be spread by fecal matter, as well as droplets from the mouth and nose.
● Chinese financial regulators have prepared a $173 billion support package for when markets reopen Monday.
● Are you in isolation or quarantine because of the coronavirus? We want to hear your story.
First person-to-person case reported in the U.S. | Mapping the spread
BEIJING — The Philippines has blocked entry to travelers from China, including from Hong Kong and Macao, after a man from Wuhan died in Manila of the coronavirus, the first person outside China to succumb to the pneumonia-like respiratory illness.
With the coronavirus continuing to spread beyond China’s borders, more countries are moving to close their doors to foreign nationals who have visited there. New Zealand, Iraq and Indonesia joined the Philippines on Sunday in imposing new restrictions on people coming from or through China.
AD
The virus has been detected in small numbers in some 20 other countries — from the United States and France to Thailand and Australia — while the number of infections in China has surged to nearly 14,500, according to the latest National Health Commission figures.
The number of deaths has risen to 304, although anecdotal reports suggest the true number could be much higher.
A 44-year-old Wuhan man died in a Manila hospital Sunday, after arriving, via Hong Kong, on Jan. 21. He was admitted to a hospital with pneumonia four days later and his 38-year-old companion remains hospitalized, but there was no evidence of local transmission, the country’s Department of Health said.
Early missteps and state secrecy in China probably allowed the coronavirus to spread farther and faster
Even before the man’s death, President Rodrigo Duterte had decided to expand the Philippines’ travel restrictions from those traveling from Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, to the rest of mainland China, as well as its special administrative regions, Macao and Hong Kong.
Members of the People’s Liberation Army arrive Sunday in Wuhan with medical staff members and supplies to fight the coronavirus outbreak. (China Daily/Reuters)
Members of the People’s Liberation Army arrive Sunday in Wuhan with medical staff members and supplies to fight the coronavirus outbreak. (China Daily/Reuters)
“I wish to emphasize that we are not singling out Chinese nationals,” Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go, a close aide to Duterte, said in an interview with DZBB radio station on Sunday, after meeting with the president on Saturday night. “It covers all travelers from China to the Philippines regardless of nationality.”
AD
New Zealand’s government announced that starting Monday, it would deny entry to foreign travelers arriving from China and order returning New Zealanders to isolate themselves for 14 days.
Indonesia said it would immediately bar visitors who have been in China for 14 days, the maximum incubation period, from entering or transiting. Iraq’s Interior Ministry said it would ban all foreign nationals coming from China.
These three countries have not reported a case of coronavirus on their shores.
They, however, join countries including the United States, Australia and Singapore in imposing travel restrictions on visitors from China. Japan and South Korea have imposed looser rules on people from the Hubei province, although the subtropical South Korean island of Jeju, where 98 percent of foreign tourists are Chinese, said Sunday that it would rescind visa-free entry for them.
AD
South Korea on Sunday reported three more cases of infection, taking the total to 15, while India confirmed its second case. The United States now has eight infections.
But even as countries around the world impose restrictions on travel from China, the Foreign Ministry’s combative spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, has sought to frame the coronavirus outbreak as part of a bigger, existential battle between the United States and China.
After U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the coronavirus could “help” to bring jobs to the United States as companies moved operations away from China, Hua said these “unfriendly U.S. comments” were “certainly not a gesture of goodwill.”
A worker disinfects an area in Jincheon, South Korea, on Sunday. (Yonhap/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
A worker disinfects an area in Jincheon, South Korea, on Sunday. (Yonhap/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
“Many countries have offered China support in various means,” she said. “In sharp contrast, certain U.S. officials’ words and actions are neither factual nor appropriate.”
AD
Over the weekend, she singled out the United States for going against the World Health Organization’s advice that travel limitations were not necessary, even though a raft of other countries have also imposed restrictions.
A “certain country has turned a blind eye to WHO recommendations and imposed sweeping travel restrictions against China,” Hua tweeted Saturday. “This kind of overreaction could only make things even worse. It’s not the right way to deal with the pandemic.”
Reality check: The flu is a much bigger threat than coronavirus, for now
China is still struggling to contain the spread of the virus, which began in December in a market in the Hubei provincial capital of Wuhan, where exotic animals including bats, civets and snakes were sold for consumption. Bats and the catlike civets have been linked to previous mutations in viruses that have jumped from animals to humans, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which began in southern China in 2002.
AD
With authorities slow to recognize this latest outbreak as a new virus and even slower to warn people of it, the number of infections has continued to rise rapidly, passing the total infected by SARS.
The number of confirmed cases rose by almost 2,000 between Saturday and Sunday, despite stringent restrictions placed on movement of some 50 million people from Hubei province.
The People’s Liberation Army sent 1,400 medical staff members from the armed forces to Wuhan on Sunday to treat patients at the new 1,000-bed Huoshenshan Hospital, which was built in just 10 days and is due to start operation on Monday.
“This is the latest development in the Chinese people’s critical battle against the novel coronavirus outbreak,” the official Xinhua News Agency said in an article that presented leader President Xi Jinping as “commanding this fight” against the coronavirus outbreak.
AD
In trying to contain the outbreak, Hubei officials continue to speak in terms of an epic battle against what Xi has called a “devil” virus.
“Cadres at all levels should truly show a wartime spirit,” the Hubei state newspaper exhorted Sunday after a meeting at the provincial pneumonia prevention headquarters.
A leukemia patient waits for permission to cross a checkpoint in Jiujiang, China, on Saturday. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)
A leukemia patient waits for permission to cross a checkpoint in Jiujiang, China, on Saturday. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)
Scientists around the world have raced to consolidate and share what they’ve learned since the outbreak.
Virologists at Italy’s National Institute for Infectious Diseases announced on Sunday they isolated the virus for research, uploading its partial sequence in the GenBank database — a first in Europe. “In the next few days the whole virus will be made available to the international scientific community,” said Salvatore Curiale, a spokesperson for the institute. “This is a fundamental step for perfecting diagnosis [and] developing treatments and a vaccine.”
AD
China’s stock markets will reopen Monday after the Lunar New Year holiday, the first trading day since the extent of the outbreak became clear.
Anticipating a sharp sell-off, China’s central bank and other financial regulators said Sunday that they had prepared an emergency package totaling an astronomical $173 billion to support companies and markets during the coronavirus crisis.
This news came as a new study by University of Hong Kong scientists, published in the Lancet, said the outbreak could be even worse than it appears and could get dramatically worse over the next week or two.
They found that as many as 75,815 people in Wuhan had been infected with the coronavirus by Jan. 25, based on an assumption that each infected person could have passed the virus to 2.68 others. It also said the epidemic was doubling every 6.4 days.
If the virus was spreading at a similar level around the country, “we inferred that epidemics are already growing exponentially in multiple major cities of China with a lag time behind the Wuhan outbreak of about 1-2 weeks,” the scientists wrote.
In coronavirus outbreak, China’s leaders scramble to avert a Chernobyl moment
Medical advice over the past two weeks has emphasized the need to wear masks to stop transmission through respiratory droplets from the mouth and nose. But Chinese authorities are now saying that the virus can be passed from fecal matter.
Researchers from the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported this weekend that there had been fecal-oral transmission. It warned medical workers to “protect themselves against vomit and feces of patients.”
In Shenzhen, on China’s southern border with Hong Kong, scientists at the Third People’s Hospital said the stool samples of infected people had tested positive for the virus, further suggesting that it could be transmitted through feces in addition to through respiratory droplets.
Health officials urged good personal hygiene, and especially washing hands well and often.
“When mildly ill patients are isolated in their homes, they and their family members should pay special attention to hygiene, and they should avoid sharing bathrooms with family members as much as possible,” officials said, according to the China News Network.
Hubei Vice Gov. Xiao Juhua acknowledged in a news conference Sunday the province’s medical resources were relatively week amid the “severe and complicated” outbreak, Reuters reported, though officials described optimism that test kits for the virus have improved in speed and accuracy.
People in Hong Kong protest on Sunday government plans to convert a heritage site into a quarantine camp. (Philip Fong/AFP/Getty Images)
People in Hong Kong protest on Sunday government plans to convert a heritage site into a quarantine camp. (Philip Fong/AFP/Getty Images)
As the virus continues to spread and new cases continue to emerge, anger is mounting about the lack of access to protective equipment, especially the face masks that authorities are urging to be worn in public places.
With stores and online shopping sites sold out of masks, many cities across the country have launched an online booking system or lottery system for masks.
In Guangzhou in the south, each person can reserve up to five masks a day, although those in the Zhejiang province’s Shaoxing are allowed only one. In the southeastern seaboard city of Xiamen, authorities have launched a lottery system for residents.
Masks and other basic protective equipment like goggles and gloves are in such short supply that Hubei hospitals have been openly appealing for donations on social media.
U.S. seeks to send expert team to China to combat coronavirus outbreak; Xi defends response
There is growing criticism about the shortage of masks and particularly about the distribution of the masks after a video emerged of a man taking a box of masks apparently donated to the Red Cross Society in Wuhan. Rumors spread that the man was diverting the masks for local leaders, rather than for their intended recipients, prompting state news outlets to claim that he was simply delivering them to their rightful place.
A list of the materials donated to the Red Cross Society branch in Hubei showed that 36,000 masks had been given to two private hospitals in Wuhan, while the public Wuhan Union Hospital, whose doctors have been working at the front line in fighting the coronavirus, had only received 3,000.
One Wuhan doctor said that his hospital had not received a single mask from the Red Cross, one of the few officially recognized organizations permitted to handle civic donations.
In a post on social media, since deleted by censors, the doctor said his hospital had only 300 N95 masks left, barely enough for a day. “Fortunately we got a batch of donations from America, 500 U.S. FDA standard N95 masks. It made us so happy because we could last one more day!”
One netizen even called the Wuhan Charity Federation and other such groups “pixiu,” a mythical winged animal that eats but never defecates, accusing them of receiving more than $80 million in donations but spending none of that amount on the public. That post has also been deleted by China’s zealous Internet police, which tries to swiftly stamp out any criticism of the ruling Communist Party.
In apparent recognition of this growing discontent, Premier Li Keqiang, who is leading the party’s efforts to prevent and control the coronavirus outbreak, went to the national hub for medical supplies in Beijing over the weekend.
Kimchi, cow poop and other spurious coronavirus remedies
Li “called for all-out efforts to ensure the provision of key medical supplies and create necessary conditions to win the battle against the outbreak,” the Foreign Ministry said Sunday in a statement about his visit. He also urged “further refinement” of the ways equipment was allocated, noting that “the priority is to meet the needs of medical workers selflessly saving lives on the front lines.”
Echoing the military language of the state media, Li said medical supply manufacturers were “like military contractors producing for the ‘arsenal’ in this battle against the epidemic.”
Liu Yang in Beijing contributed to this report.
-
February 4, 2020 View On Website
Open as PDF
The Geopolitics of the Novel Coronavirus
By: George Friedman
Geopolitics is a fairly slow-moving process that unfolds in predictable ways. This is usually the case. There are then moments when a wild card enters the system from the outside, unpredictable yet significant. At the moment, we can’t tell if the new coronavirus is such an event. We don’t know exactly how it is transmitted, how lethal it is, whether it causes long-term illness and so on. We know it has broken out in a Chinese city, Wuhan; that the Chinese government regards it as serious enough to impose significant controls on movement in and out of Wuhan; and that a small number of cases in China, relative to the population, and a smaller number of cases outside of China have been reported. For this we depend on media reports, since our own knowledge of viral medicine is limited.
Geopolitically, communicable disease ranges from the common cold to the Black Death. The former is ever-present but of little consequence; the latter massively disrupted European society and, in some cases, shifted the regional balance of power. There is a trigger point between these two diseases where the political system erects disruptions in everyday life and commerce designed to limit the effect of the disease. To some extent these actions are effective, and to some extent they can be sufficiently disruptive to cause economic problems. We are at the moment teetering between these points, with the consequence of the disease and the consequence of protecting against the disease uncertain.
The major threat would appear to be travelers carrying the virus. The United States has banned travel to the U.S. for foreigners who have traveled to infected regions, while U.S. citizens may return but are quarantined for two weeks. Major U.S. airlines are starting the process of suspending all flights to and from China, but Chinese airlines and U.S. cargo carriers are still flying to the U.S. Other countries like Russia have also imposed travel bans. The U.S. government has imposed very limited barriers, through which the disease is likely to pass. Most important, maritime shipments to and from China have not been significantly disrupted. This is vital, because if they were to be suspended, the situation would transform from a problem to a crisis.
China is dependent on exports to maintain its economy. About 20 percent of its gross domestic product derives from exports, and its single largest customer is the United States, despite the trade dispute. Assume for the moment that the new coronavirus were closer to the bubonic plague than the common cold, or assume that the panic that arises from the fear of the unknown compelled the governments of multiple advanced countries to place China under quarantine. It is an unlikely but far from impossible outcome.
The Chinese government has been under intense pressure in three ways. First, the crackdown on Xinjiang province generated a massive negative response from Europe and the United States. Alongside that, the United States imposed significant tariffs on China. The contraction in exports hit a financial system that the Beijing government was already struggling to stabilize. This led to fear among Chinese authorities of unrest over economic and financial issues. The result was increasing security, from recognition technology to intrusion into the internet and periodic arrests of those considered dissidents. Economic insecurity led to increased security. This in turn led to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong riots were triggered by a bill that authorized China to extradite Hong Kong residents. This was a desire Beijing did not have before. But as the situation intensified, the desire to assure stability in Hong Kong increased. With the bill, some in Hong Kong recognized that extradition could be carried out for things legal in Hong Kong and could lead to extreme sentences. It represented an existential threat to many in Hong Kong, and the results were transmitted around the world.
A chief responsibility of the Chinese president is to manage relations with its most important customer, the United States. China has deflected American demands to open its markets and not manipulate its currency since the George W. Bush administration. It was expected that President Xi Jinping could continue this process. He failed to manage U.S. President Donald Trump, and the result was that an exporting nation faced a challenge from a consuming nation. To put it more simply, there is a rule in business that you should never have a fight with your best customer. Xi violated this rule by winding up in a tariff fight with the United States.
There is no evidence – but then, there wouldn’t be – of a fight in the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party over Xi’s stewardship. The Central Committee is packed with Xi supporters, of course, but a situation like what has developed must cause concern and generate ambitions. The idea that the Central Committee was content with the financial situation, trade war, Hong Kong and Xinjiang is to me the least likely situation.
Now, to the coronavirus. Assume that the fears that are being expressed do not turn out to be exaggerated. Assume that in response to this, massive trade restrictions and embargoes were imposed on China and that freighters were not permitted to dock in Long Beach or Rotterdam, nor would they be permitted in Shanghai. With the Russians already screening China’s northern border, China would be isolated.
China is a nation whose core dynamic is based on international trade. Under pressure from the United States, a dangerous virus would inevitably cripple that trade at best. At this point, the Chinese government, like any government, would be blamed for what went wrong, and it would be blamed for mismanaging the virus and failing to understand the economic consequences. From here you can play out the game.
The reason for this exercise is to point out that the coronavirus is neither a geopolitical nor a political event. Diseases emerge with some frequency. But given the Chinese dynamic and China's current condition, the virus could readily evolve into a geopolitical and political event, in which tension within China might explode, with the coronavirus the last straw and China’s international position transformed.
To emphasize, I have no idea what “2019-nCoV” is or what it will do, but judging from what is being said about it and the level of anxiety, I will assume for the sake of argument that it is more dangerous than not. Then, given the evolution of the past year or two, and given the fear that always follows new, deadly diseases, we could see a fundamental transformation of the international system.
Not all events are geopolitical. They do not arise out of relations between nations. But events that are unconnected to geopolitics can connect themselves to the system and disrupt it. This is meant as an exercise in geopolitical theory. It is not insignificant in the case of China, which has had a difficult period and doesn’t need to be quarantined by the world.
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/385612.php
I am going with a yes.
-
Beijing's coronavirus mismanagement. We noted Thursday that a 34-year-old doctor in Wuhan who had been detained in early January for sounding the alarm about the appearance of a mysterious new coronavirus, Dr. Li Wenliang, had become one of the 638 people who have succumbed to the disease – and that it was exactly the sort of development that Beijing feared could crystallize rising public anger at the government’s mismanagement of the pandemic. Sure enough, news of the death of the doctor sparked a torrent of outrage on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat. Posts praising whistleblowers and calling for free speech received millions of views over the course of a couple hours before censors caught up. Making matters worse for itself, the government also appeared to spike several stories in state media announcing the death after they had already been published and gone viral on social media, effectively pouring gas on what was already a bonfire of public anger over the heavy hand of censorship.
China’s much-feared anti-graft agency, the CCDI, announced it would launch a probe into the death of the doctor, and a prominent official or two may have to take the fall, raising the risk of a destabilizing power struggle in Beijing. One other takeaway from the incident: State media and the government's censorship apparatus are enormously powerful tools for shaping public opinion, but Beijing’s control over information is hardly airtight, particularly in a crisis, when it has the potential to do more harm than good to the party’s legitimacy.
-
The PTB in Beijing are already blaming city level officials for everything.
Beijing's coronavirus mismanagement. We noted Thursday that a 34-year-old doctor in Wuhan who had been detained in early January for sounding the alarm about the appearance of a mysterious new coronavirus, Dr. Li Wenliang, had become one of the 638 people who have succumbed to the disease – and that it was exactly the sort of development that Beijing feared could crystallize rising public anger at the government’s mismanagement of the pandemic. Sure enough, news of the death of the doctor sparked a torrent of outrage on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat. Posts praising whistleblowers and calling for free speech received millions of views over the course of a couple hours before censors caught up. Making matters worse for itself, the government also appeared to spike several stories in state media announcing the death after they had already been published and gone viral on social media, effectively pouring gas on what was already a bonfire of public anger over the heavy hand of censorship.
China’s much-feared anti-graft agency, the CCDI, announced it would launch a probe into the death of the doctor, and a prominent official or two may have to take the fall, raising the risk of a destabilizing power struggle in Beijing. One other takeaway from the incident: State media and the government's censorship apparatus are enormously powerful tools for shaping public opinion, but Beijing’s control over information is hardly airtight, particularly in a crisis, when it has the potential to do more harm than good to the party’s legitimacy.
-
https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-pandemic-isnt-ending-its-just.html
-
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/02/07/report-china-crematorium-funeral-homes-burning-coronavirus-patients/
China likely is putting the whole world at risk by covering up the true scope of the outbreak
Who can believe anything the Chicoms say ?
There should be world outrage
-
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/02/07/report-china-crematorium-funeral-homes-burning-coronavirus-patients/
China likely is putting the whole world at risk by covering up the true scope of the outbreak
Who can believe anything the Chicoms say ?
There should be world outrage
China's Ambassador to the US came on Face the Nation yesterday, to reassure us of ... something. Should be a friendly forum for him. He said the million plus Muslims being held in concentration camps in China "are happy". And liberals here aren't outraged?!
No, we can't believe anything they say.
Two weeks ago it was 1000 infected. Now it is 40,000. Neither number is accurate. How do we do the math or know the danger level?
-
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/02/how-china-working-quarantine-truth-about-coronavirus/162985/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl
-
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-spiraling-economic-impact.html
-
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2020/02/coronavirus-spiraling-economic-impact.html
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/02/chaos-brings-opportunityand-chaos.html
-
https://www.americanpartisan.org/2020/02/corona-virus-analysis-by-historian/
-
https://www.americanpartisan.org/2020/02/corona-virus-analysis-by-historian/
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0212-cdc-telebriefing-transcript.html
-
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/02/13/us-military-prepping-for-coronavirus-pandemic/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-vows-put-end-lab-leakage-pathogenic-samples
And promises to never do it again!
-
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/reports-china-has-monopoly-on-medical-supplies-and-drugs/
We do.
-
This episode is strongly recommended by Michael Yon:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/34108122
-
February 17, 2020 View On Website
Open as PDF
How Dangerous Is the Wuhan Coronavirus?
By: Ryan Bridges
The political and economic effects of the new coronavirus – both in China and across the globe – hinge overwhelmingly on just how successful efforts to stop its spread are likely to be. Forecasting these, therefore, requires us to take a closer look at the mechanics of both contagion and containment.
When determining how dangerous an infectious disease can be, microbiologists and epidemiologists need to know two numbers: R0 (called R-naught) and the case-fatality rate (which is actually a ratio, not a rate). The former estimates how infectious the disease is, while the latter provides an insight on its virulence.
R0 is an attempt to calculate how many people will catch a disease from an infected person. An R0 of 2, for instance, means that an infected person will spread the disease to two other people. But this is not an easy number to calculate. A paper published in the scientific journal PLOS One describes two methods for finding R0. One involves hunting down every contact of several infected people to determine how many get sick and averaging the results; the second involves calculating an estimate by plugging cumulative data into equations that serve as infectious disease models.
But, as an article in The Atlantic explains, R0 is even trickier than that. It can change depending on external circumstances. A public health campaign or an effective quarantine could lower R0, while the virus’ spreading to a region with poor health care could increase R0. Perhaps the most salient point is that an R0 greater than 1 suggests that the infection will spread, while an R0 less than 1 suggests it will fizzle out.
As its name implies, the case-fatality rate estimates the percentage of deaths that occur among infected people. The Wuhan coronavirus has an estimated case-fatality rate of about 2 percent, meaning that there are two fatalities for every 100 cases of the disease. Science News reports that “the [World Health Organization] says less than 2 percent of patients who have fallen ill with 2019-nCoV have died, most often from multi-organ failure in older people and those with underlying health conditions.”
But just like R0, this number can be tricky to calculate and interpret. First, the true number of cases is hard to know for sure, since people who contract a mild version of the disease don’t go to the hospital, don’t get tested, and don’t become tallied in the official statistics. Second, the case-fatality rate will vary inversely with the quality of a health care system. Wuhan was so overwhelmed by the coronavirus that hospitals were turning away patients. It is quite likely that some people who died could have been saved had they received treatment. Combined, these facts would suggest that the case-fatality rate for the Wuhan coronavirus is lower than 2 percent, especially if an infected person is treated in an advanced nation with a good health care system. Indeed, an article in Reuters concluded that infections have been underreported. As of publication, data from Johns Hopkins show that of the more than 1,000 deaths, only two have occurred outside mainland China (in the Philippines and Hong Kong).
Despite the difficulty in calculating R0 and the case-fatality rate, these numbers are worth estimating because they help place a new disease in the context of what is known about other diseases. The R0 of measles could be as high as 18, while the case-fatality rate of seasonal influenza is approximately 0.1 percent. Thus, preliminary numbers suggest the Wuhan coronavirus is less infectious than measles but deadlier than seasonal flu. But, because of the sheer number of cases of seasonal flu (which number in the millions), the global death toll from influenza is far greater, estimated to be approximately 300,000 to 500,000 deaths annually.
Containing the Coronavirus
The global economy surely will take a substantial hit from the coronavirus. This will be the result of China’s massive, citywide quarantines, a decrease in industrial output, and travel restrictions and supply chain disruptions. Many such efforts to contain the coronavirus are disproportionate to the threat.
China’s massive quarantines will probably work to an extent – after all, preventing people from traveling within and between
cities will help curb transmission of the virus – but this measure cannot be implemented in free societies. In non-authoritarian countries, only individuals can be quarantined, and this has been adequate to prevent the spread of disease. (When Ebola came to the United States, it didn’t spread far thanks to effective treatment and isolation procedures.) Citywide quarantines also aren’t necessary because the best way for uninfected people to remain that way is to wash their hands frequently and to avoid touching their face while in public. It’s difficult to say whether wearing a mask accomplishes anything. On the one hand, masks catch respiratory droplets, which is why sick people and those with whom they are in close contact absolutely should wear them. On the other hand, viruses are so tiny, they can pass right through masks. To the extent that a mask prevents a person from touching his or her face, then a mask may provide some protection. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not recommend that healthy people wear a mask in public.
While coronaviruses can spread via frequently touched fomites (objects, such as doorknobs, that can transmit an infection indirectly to another person), it is not known how long they can survive outside the body on surfaces. While some scientists believe that coronaviruses can last only a few hours, a newly published literature review in the Journal of Hospital Infection concludes that they “can persist on inanimate surfaces like metal, glass or plastic for up to 9 days, but can be efficiently inactivated by surface disinfection procedures… within 1 minute.” Because exports from China take 30 to 40 days to arrive in the United States (if shipped via ocean freight), there is virtually no chance that exported products could infect Americans – unless the export is an infected human, animal or animal product.
When Overreactions Are Rational
The most serious threat to the global economy is not from the virus itself but from overreaction. Chinese manufacturing plants sit idle due to sick or quarantined workers. Travel into and out of China has been reduced. These overreactions are understandable, however, because scientists and public health officials have expressed a lot of uncertainty about the virus. When faced with uncertainty – particularly when that uncertainty potentially involves death – people (especially politicians) behave cautiously. (From the American perspective, restricting travel to China has the side benefit of squeezing that nation’s economy even further.)
The general public hates uncertainty. But scientists live in a world of probability and are very comfortable dealing with uncertainty. This is also why scientists rarely use words like "never" and "always." (We know better from experience. At one time, we thought all swans were white, until we went to Australia and found black swans.) This difference between the public and scientific community on the relationship to risk creates a communication gap that further feeds the uncertainty.
Ultimately, the future of the Wuhan coronavirus is not knowable. Like the other major coronavirus epidemics that preceded it, the Wuhan virus is thought to have jumped from animals to humans. SARS terrified the world, but then quickly vanished. MERS, on the other hand, is now endemic, meaning there are a few cases that occur all the time. The Wuhan virus could follow either path or some other path entirely.
Just like an economic recession, an infectious disease outbreak provokes strong psychological responses. Life will return to normal when enough people believe that it’s okay to return to normal.
-
This episode is strongly recommended by Michael Yon:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/34108122
Worth the time to listen to.
-
https://www.patreon.com/posts/34159825
-
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/china-deploys-40-incinerators-wuhan-21529067
Hopefully, their definition of medical waste doesn't include the possibly infected or political dissidents.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/fda-suspends-inspection-in-china-warns-of-medical-supply-shortages_3243943.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/beijing-decides-to-expel-three-wall-street-journal-reporters-over-coronavirus-coverage_3243321.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=b7a0b55522-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_19_10_57&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-b7a0b55522-239065853
-
https://wilderwealthywise.com/corona-virus-with-a-slice-of-recession/
-
https://gizmodo.com/things-are-not-looking-good-for-stopping-the-coronaviru-1841835193
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/02/what-next.html
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2020
What Next?
If you missed it, read yesterday's post of CDC warnings.
If there are mass quarantines in effect at some point, you're going to need some things.
Some of them you know, and some of them you probably haven't made provision for.
1) Water
One gal/person/day, minimum.
If you're planning on city water continuing to flow, well...best of luck there.
Hope ain't a plan.
Three days without water, and your kidneys will begin to shut down.
2) Food
Figure out a menu for a month. Focus on variety, and calories, ideally of easy-to-prepare food.
Now get to where you have six to twelve months' worth on hand.
If you're planning on the .Gov handing out MREs, well...best of luck there.
Hope ain't a plan.
3) Rx and OTC meds.
Your pharmacy probably won't be open, and you may need to care for yourself and/or family members.
For any conditions you already have, and possibly also Kung Flu.
4) Lights and Heat/AC
If water stops, what makes you think power, gas, etc. will still continue?
5) Banking and cash reserves
Your landlord or bank is still going to expect you to make rent/mortgage payments.
Ditto for property taxes. Trash or utility bills. Any other regular payments.
Whether banks are still operational is an open question. Options, and a cash reserve float, would be prudent. Doubly so if this becomes you not going to work for an extended period, non-voluntarily.
6) Your home version of 9-1-1.
Protection from stupid people, because you've got something they didn't plan to have.
I don't care if, for you, that's a big dog, a baseball bat, a loaded .45, or prayer beads.
People are stupid now, pre-panic.
Think hurricane, that lasts months, here.
Imagine your stupidest near-neighbor, two months into being hungry every day.
Hopefully, nothing gets this bad, or lasts for very long.
But it might. And stay-at-home quarantines are what CDC is talking about when they talk about "community mitigation measures" and "tele-schooling, and tele-working".
And yet again, hope ain't a plan.
Notice I said nothing about isolation gear.
That's because
a) you won't have enough, ever
b) playing outside in a pandemic is about as bright as playing on the highway
c) the results are likely to be rather similar
Stay inside means stay inside.
Going out and about is simply rolling the dice with catching something you didn't have, until you got stupid.
Don't do that.
Someone really smart would start doing an inventory, and see where they're short, then start backfilling those holes in their abilities. That way you're the solution, and not part of the problem, if/when this becomes a thing.
And if it never does, nothing on this list goes bad overnight, and solves 99% of your problems in every other disaster/problem you're likely to face.
It's also too late to shop when they announce things are shutting down now, like they will, with barricades and check points already up.
So decide whether you'd rather be a month early, or five minutes too late.
You only get one chance to make that choice, and it's now.
-
I dunno
we don't quarantine for flu
every yr
this sounds similar
to me
many likely to get, few to die
in US
will be worse in the 3rd world tho
I doubt I will lock myself up for 30 days ........
the world will not end.
if one wants to avoid move the N Pole.
and no visitors for a yr.
-
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/virus-emergency-blueprint-australia-pulls-trigger-on-pandemic-plan-20200225-p54490.html
-
https://thediplomat.com/2020/02/the-coronavirus-outbreak-how-democratic-taiwan-outperformed-authoritarian-china/
-
https://www.the-sun.com/news/461542/world-health-organization-official-lashes-out-donald-trumps-incoherent-ignorant-coronavirus-response/
guess who the WHO official is:
One guess related to Rahm.
I posted some yrs back I saw him and med conference in NJ some yrs ago about different topics .
PS
not sure why we are urged to get 30 days of water.
is there a concern someone will sneeze into the water supplies?
is there a concern I won't be able to turn the faucet?
-
Not willing to sign on for the cookies to get that article.
Tucker had something about the head of the WHO being an corrupt east African quasi-jihadi type or something like that.
-
https://www.the-sun.com/news/461542/world-health-organization-official-lashes-out-donald-trumps-incoherent-ignorant-coronavirus-response/
guess who the WHO official is:
One guess related to Rahm.
I posted some yrs back I saw him and med conference in NJ some yrs ago about different topics .
PS
not sure why we are urged to get 30 days of water.
is there a concern someone will sneeze into the water supplies?
is there a concern I won't be able to turn the faucet?
If the trucks stop running, your local grocery store runs out in 72 hours or less. If the trucks aren’t bringing water purification chems to the local water facility, you will need to purify it yourself. If your water system isn’t gravity fed and the electric grid is down, no water from faucet.
-
https://www.patreon.com/posts/34380411
-
https://www.patreon.com/posts/34380411
Pretty big deal for them to do that.
-
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/
-
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/
Breitbart sites AP for this response:
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/02/27/ap-confirms-democrats-are-lying-to-the-public-about-coronavirus/
-
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hhs-whistleblower-coronavirus_n_5e584414c5b6450a30bc2cd3
New grounds to impeach. :roll:
-
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hhs-whistleblower-coronavirus_n_5e584414c5b6450a30bc2cd3
New grounds to impeach. :roll:
These are our top people who should tell us how to live.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/coronavirus-infects-patient-for-second-time-prompting-new-fears_3252852.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=f02a512270-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_27_06_44&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-f02a512270-239065853
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/02/my-end-of-stick.html
Getting very real.
-
By Peggy Noonan
Feb. 27, 2020 6:52 pm ET
SAVE
PRINT
TEXT
165
President Trump holds a news conference on the coronavirus in Washington, Feb. 26.
PHOTO: SARAH SILBIGER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Punditry 101: It’s bad when you don’t write about what you’re thinking about. All week I was taking notes knowing I’d be looking at South Carolina, Super Tuesday and this week’s debate. I was thinking about polls and Rep. Jim Clyburn’s beautiful remarks in support of Joe Biden. They were beautiful because they were highly personal without being manipulative, which is now something unusual in American politics. But my mind kept tugging in another direction. So I’ll write what I’m thinking, and it may be ragged but here goes.
I’ve got a feeling the coronavirus is going to be bad, that it will have a big impact on America, more than we imagine, and therefore on its politics. As this is written the virus is reported in 48 nations. We’ve had a first case with no known source, in California, and the state is monitoring some 8,400 others for possible infection. Canada has 13 cases. There have been outbreaks in Iran and Italy; in Rome, there are worries because Pope Francis had to cancel a Lenten Mass due to what the Vatican called a “slight indisposition.”
There’s a lot we don’t know but much we do. We know coronavirus is highly communicable, that person-to-person transmission is easy and quick. Most who get it won’t even know they’re sick—it feels like a cold and passes. But about 20% will get really sick. Among them, mortality rates are low but higher than for the flu, and higher still among those who are older or impaired.
So it’s serious: A lot of people will be exposed and a significant number will be endangered. And of course there’s no vaccine.
We live in a global world. Everybody’s going everyplace all the time. Nothing is contained in the ways it used to be. It seems to me impossible that there are not people walking along the streets in the U.S. who have it, don’t know it and are spreading it.
Americans are focusing. If you go to Amazon.com you famously find that the best face masks are no longer available, but check out the prices of hand sanitizers. They appear to be going up rather sharply! (Note to Jeff Bezos: if this turns bad and people start making accusations about price gouging and profiteers, public sentiment won’t just be hard on manufacturers, they’ll blame you too. Whatever downward pressure can be applied, do it now, not later.)
If you limit your focus to politics, to 2020 election outcomes, you find yourself thinking this: Maybe it’s all being decided not in the next few weeks of primaries but in the next few weeks of the virus, how much it spreads, and how it’s handled.
If coronavirus becomes a formally recognized world-wide pandemic, and if it hits America hard, it is going to change a lot—the national mood, our cultural habits, the economy.
The president has been buoyed the past few years by a kind of inflatable raft of good economic news and strengths. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 8,581 points from the day he took office to the beginning of 2020. Unemployment is down so far it feels like full employment. Minority employment is up, incomes are up. He’s running for re-election based on these things.
But the stock market is being hit hard by virus-driven concerns. If those fears continue—and there’s no reason to believe they won’t—the gains the president has enjoyed could be wiped out.
As for unemployment, if the virus spreads people will begin to self-distance. If they shop less, if they stay home more and eat out less, and begin to cancel personal gatherings—if big professional events and annual meetings are also canceled—it will carry a whole world of bad implications.
What I notice as a traveler in America is the number of people who make a traveler’s life easier, and whose jobs depend on heavy travel—all the people in the airport shops and concessions, and those who work in hotels. There’s the woman whose small flower shop makes the arrangements for the donor reception at the community forum, and the floor managers, waiters and waitresses at the charity fundraising dinner. Local contractors, drivers, the sound man who wires the dinner speaker. Many are part of the gig economy, operating without the protections of contracts and unions. If the virus spreads and events are canceled, they will be out of jobs. And that’s just one sliver of American life.
In a public-health crisis the role of government is key. The question will be—the question is—are the president and his administration up to it?
Our scientists and health professionals are. (I think people see Tony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health as the de facto president on this.) Is Donald Trump? Or has he finally met a problem he can’t talk his way out of? I have written in the past questioning whether he can lead and reassure the nation in a time of crisis. We are about to find out.
Leaders in crises function as many things. They are primary givers of information, so they have to know the facts. They have to be serious: They must master the data. Are they managerially competent? Most of all, are they trustworthy and credible?
Or do people get the sense they’re spinning, finagling, covering up failures and shading the facts?
It is in crisis that you see the difference between showmanship and leadership.
Early signs are not encouraging. The messaging early this week was childish—everything’s under control, everything’s fine. The president’s news conference Wednesday night was not reassuring. Stock market down? “I think the financial markets are very upset when they look at the Democratic candidates standing on that stage making fools out of themselves.” “The risk to the American people remains very low.” “Whatever happens we’re totally prepared.” “There’s no reason to panic, because we have done so good.”
It was inadequate to the task.
I wonder if the president understands what jeopardy he’s in, how delicate even strong economies are, and how provisional good fortune is.
If you want to talk about what could make a progressive win the presidency it couldn’t be a better constellation than this: an epidemic, an economic downturn, a broad sense of public anxiety, and an incumbent looking small. Especially if the progressive says he stands for one big thing, health care for everyone.
The only candidate to bring up the threat of coronavirus at the Democratic debate the other night was Mike Bloomberg. This is how you’ll know the fact of the virus has hit the political class: Politicians will stop doing what they’ve done for more than two centuries. They’ll stop shaking hands. It will be a new world of waving, nodding emphatically, and patting your chest with your hand.
Some kinda world, when the pols can’t even gladhand.
It would be extremely reassuring if a temporary armistice were called in the cold war between the White House and congressional Democrats. If the virus is as serious as I think it is, no one will look back kindly on anyone who acted small.
-
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coronavirus-fatality-rates-vary-wildly-depending-on-age-gender-and-medical-history-some-patients-fare-much-worse-than-others-2020-02-26
I suspect the actual numbers here will be much less but. who really knows.
University of Nebraska ID expert on yesterday saying he suspects it will be less than 1%.
The total world wide death rate in the 1918 epidemic was estimated at 30,000 for decades though for some inexplicable reason the numbers seem to get higher as we get further from the disease - 50 mill even 100 mill.
If I recall the death rate was about 5% at that time.
-
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/02/26/the-white-house-shouldnt-downplay-coronavirus-117812
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/02/26/the-white-house-shouldnt-downplay-coronavirus-117812OTOH
in New Jersey the politicians have become our nannies.
Everytime there is a thunder shower I get some sort of warning on my phone
before it rains .
If we have one inch of snow we are hearing warnings about a storm schools are closing
and we advised only go out if absolutely needed
Like every time I get into my car I get a warning about driving and using the radio. and the radio WILL NOT turn on till I am forced to see this
someone is always "covering their ass" at my inconvenience .
the Pols feel if they don't put the warning out they could be criticized if a few people slip in rain or ice.
I just want the information from the CDC and not endless nanny warnings making hysteria worse.
-
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-iran-became-a-new-epicenter-of-the-coronavirus-outbreak?source=EDT_NYR_EDIT_NEWSLETTER_0_imagenewsletter_Daily_ZZ&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_022820&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9d3fa3f92a40469e2d85c&cndid=50142053&esrc=&mbid=&utm_term=TNY_Daily
-
second post
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/02/federal-government-should-go-war-coronavirus-today/163401/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl
-
third post
February 28, 2020 View On Website
Open as PDF
The Coronavirus Outbreak: Impact on Iran
By: Caroline D. Rose
Over the past two weeks, Iran has been dealing with an outbreak of coronavirus that has so far led to 388 infections and 34 deaths in the country. The government has struggled to contain the virus, and in barely more than one week, there have already been riots over its mismanagement of the outbreak. The virus has not only had political consequences but also economic ramifications, especially stemming from the closure of border crossings with some of its most critical trade partners. The dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of the outbreak comes at an especially vulnerable time for the regime. Over the past two years, the United States has applied a maximum pressure campaign on Iran that it hoped would squeeze the country’s finances, instigate social unrest and curtail Iranian influence in the Middle East. It has done so mainly through sanctions, which have crippled Iran’s economy and caused some degree of unrest but failed to weaken the regime to the point of collapse. The coronavirus outbreak, however, has the potential to undermine the regime in ways that U.S. sanctions never could.
Still, we don’t expect the government to completely crack under the pressure; Tehran will manage by implementing curfews, quarantines and other measures to crack down on anti-government sentiment. But coronavirus is yet another issue that will cause the public’s frustration with the government to rise. It highlights the growing distrust of the regime, as well as the government’s own resilience in the face of adversity.
Economic Implications
Many have highlighted the potential implications of the outbreak for Iran’s economy, particularly the effects on trade and Iran’s currency. But the country’s formal economy won’t take as big a hit as other affected countries like China and Italy. Sanctions have already crippled Iran’s economy, forcing the country to reduce its dependence on exports and rely increasingly on illicit trade. While the outbreak will certainly further discourage other countries from trading with Iran and affect its access to foreign currency, the list of willing buyers for Iranian exports is already limited, and the value of the rial has already declined substantially.
Instead, the outbreak’s largest economic impact will be felt in the shadow economy, which has been Iran’s greatest weapon against sanctions. Iran’s gross domestic product dropped by 4.8 percent in 2018 and an additional 9.5 percent in 2019, and its unemployment level rose to 16.8 percent last year. Import shortages, high living costs, drained foreign currency reserves, a strained pension system, and skyrocketing prices for bread, beef, sugar and milk have also contributed to the country’s deep recession. Iranians have therefore increasingly resorted to the informal market as a means of survival. In 2017, Iran’s informal economy was estimated to account for about 36 to 38 percent (worth $12.3 billion) of economic activity in the country. Experts estimated that $10 billion to $15 billion worth of products were smuggled across Iran’s borders annually. By contrast, non-oil exports traded through official channels were worth about $650 million in 2019. At a time of extreme economic hardship, therefore, smuggling has provided a source of income for thousands of otherwise unemployed Iranians.
The informal economy has also enabled Iran’s oil export market to survive. This is because U.S. sanctions only target trade of Iranian goods in the formal market. In May 2019, the U.S. announced a fresh round of sanctions with the intention of slowing Iranian crude production to zero. The campaign has been fairly successful: Iranian exports have fallen 87 percent from 2016 levels, and oil output decreased to 2.1 million barrels per day last October from 3.8 million bpd in 2018. Tehran has therefore been forced to turn to other means, including smuggling, to sell its most profitable export.
In 2018, experts estimated that between 5.3 million to 10.6 million gallons of crude were smuggled out of Iran daily – though this number has undoubtedly declined as production has fallen. Proxy networks and Iraqi Shiite militias loyal to Tehran have served as dependable intermediaries in Iranian smuggling networks. Militias within Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, which the Iraqi government has entrusted with guarding certain border checkpoints, patrolling highways and protecting oil fields, have been particularly helpful. Iraqi Shiite groups and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have also helped smuggle Iranian crude into Syria, now the largest customer for Iranian oil. Crude is typically smuggled across the border using trucks and vans through unofficial or militia-guarded checkpoints, particularly along challenging terrain such the marshlands in the Maysan province. It is often offloaded between Iraqi Shiite groups with limited Iranian logistical supervision and transported along the al-Boukamal-al-Qaim highway at the Iraq-Syria border. Though trucks, which can carry only about 120 barrels of oil, and vans, which can carry only 12 barrels, are not as efficient as oil tankers, Iran’s wide network of proxies in Iraq has turned cross-border smuggling into one of the most reliable methods of distributing Iranian oil to external markets.
But this method will be jeopardized if Iraq closes its border over coronavirus fears. Iraq has already closed some crossings for several days to stop the virus from spreading. The economic impact will depend on how strictly Baghdad enforces the border closures and prohibition on travel to and from Iran. Smuggling won’t end entirely, as poorly defended border crossings will continue to enable illicit trade. But the element of fear will certainly have an impact on Iran’s informal economy. All of the reported infections in Iraq and Lebanon have been linked to Iran. People involved in the trafficking of goods will be increasingly hesitant to deal with Iranians, particularly as cases in the region continue to rise in countries that lack protective gear, medical services and well-staffed hospitals. Even if the Iraqi government does not enforce the border closure as strictly as it says it will, the virus could take a toll on Iran’s informal economy.
Political Unrest
Most importantly, the virus comes to Iran at a politically inopportune time. In its first two weeks of the outbreak in Iran, the government has already shown signs of unpreparedness. Sanctions and the recession have stripped Iran’s health care system down to its bones, depriving it of critical medical equipment, personnel and expertise. As of 2019, the World Health Organization recorded the country had only 10 doctors per 10,000 people. (For comparison, in the U.S. there are 45 doctors per 10,000 – and the Association of American Medical Colleges considers even this a shortage.) Reports have poured in from Iran about the lack of protective masks, hand sanitizer and adequate medical equipment in both rural and urban environments. And the government’s track record of reporting infections has upset opposition lawmakers and citizens alike. Tehran announced the two cases that hit Qom on Feb. 19, two days before elections to the country’s parliament, or Majlis, and withheld information about an additional 18 cases and two deaths (translating to a higher mortality rate than the global rate of a little over 3 percent) two days later.
(click to enlarge)
But the government had a powerful interest in underselling the scale of the outbreak, less than two months after it sparked protests when it accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger airplane during a missile barrage targeting U.S. forces in Iraq, and ahead of an election that was already fated to be controversial. In January, the Guardian Council barred 6,850 reformist candidates from the ballot, causing widespread outcry over a lack of democratic representation and leading to calls, particularly in urban areas, to boycott the vote. The last thing the government needed, then, was a mass viral outbreak that would further damage the credibility of itself and the election. In the end, the election’s outcome was favorable for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with 30 conservative hardliners gaining seats in the Majlis. Just 42.57 percent of Iranians voted, the lowest participation rate since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and down nearly 20 percentage points from the previous election in 2016. Fear of infection certainly played a role in keeping Iranians from the ballot box, and the government didn’t shy away from accusing its “enemies” of sensationalizing the outbreak to influence its internal affairs – even if, in the end, the low turnout probably worked to the government’s advantage.
In the wake of the election, as the extent of the outbreak has become clear, there have been riots over the government’s mishandling of the virus. In Talesh, a city in Iran’s northern Gilan province, people protested the government’s secrecy and mysterious quarantines outside a hospital on Feb. 23 until security forces dispersed them with tear gas. In Isfahan, medical students protested in front of the University of Medical Sciences over the lack of protective gear and supplies, while in Rasht, protesters started fires in the streets to oppose unexplained street closures, where they were met with crackdowns from security forces. And in Najaf, protesters upset with the government’s refusal to close the city’s international airport attempted to block travelers’ access.
In the face of rising unrest, Tehran has tried to nip political threats in the bud. On Feb. 26, Iran’s cyberpolice unit arrested 24 people accused of spreading rumors about the virus, and warned news outlets and social media users against reporting cases that contradicted official reports. The government is gradually shutting down social gatherings, religious sites, schools and sports matches in affected provinces as well as the cities of Isfahan, Mashhad, Tabriz, Shiraz and Tehran, which will soon turn into full-fledged quarantines and curfews. Under such restrictions, large anti-government gatherings will be difficult to coordinate. But that doesn’t mean political resentment toward the regime won’t continue to fester.
In unstable countries such as Iran, the coronavirus outbreak is not only a health crisis but also a political and economic threat to the regime. In the face of a crushing sanctions campaign, the government has been struggling to keep the lights on, keep protesters off the streets and keep up its campaign to spread its influence in the region. The hospitals are lacking proper medical kits and virus protection to treat patients. Panic risks crippling its illicit economy, which has struggled to make up for its teetering formal economy. With such political and economic uncertainty, Iran’s government cannot finance this outbreak and come out unscathed. However, after everything the regime has endured in recent years, it will likely take much more than the coronavirus to force regime change.
-
fourth post
https://www.theepochtimes.com/fda-reports-first-drug-shortage-over-coronavirus-outbreak-we-will-do-everything-possible_3254364.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=ee8142cd67-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_28_08_42&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-ee8142cd67-239065853
-
Fifth post
https://www.gingrich360.com/2020/02/asking-the-right-questions-about-coronavirus/?utm_source=Gingrich+Productions+List&utm_campaign=61eb682240-NL_Fri_Coronavirus-FP_02-28-2020&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bd29bdc370-61eb682240-46602837
-
fourth post
https://www.theepochtimes.com/fda-reports-first-drug-shortage-over-coronavirus-outbreak-we-will-do-everything-possible_3254364.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=ee8142cd67-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_28_08_42&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-ee8142cd67-239065853
I expect that the drug/medical supply shortages to kill more people in the US than the virus.
-
Indeed.
A point that caught my attention today was the danger of secondary respiratory infections going uncured as we run out of antibiotics due to supply chain issues with China.
In the meantime, the Jews are on it: https://www.dailywire.com/news/bds-this-israel-makes-exciting-breakthrough-in-race-for-coronavirus-vaccine
-
if I recall the 1918 -19 pandemic lasted ~ 14 mo .
and traversed the globe twice
-
https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/companies/coronavirus-fears-empty-store-shelves-of-toilet-paper-bottled-water-masks-as-shoppers-stock-up/ar-BB10xRXc
-
https://www.westernjournal.com/cdc-official-helping-spook-trumps-economy-coronavirus-fears-rod-rosensteins-sister/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=westernjournalism&utm_content=2020-02-28&utm_campaign=manualpost
-
https://www.westernjournal.com/cdc-official-helping-spook-trumps-economy-coronavirus-fears-rod-rosensteins-sister/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=westernjournalism&utm_content=2020-02-28&utm_campaign=manualpost
I don't doubt the left is hoping for the virus to derail Trump's chances for re-election. That doesn't negate the very real impact it will have on us all.
-
https://www.epsilontheory.com/dont-test-dont-tell/
I was wondering how Vegas didn't have any cases.
-
Well, apparently they are testing in Coahuila
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2020/02/29/mexican-border-state-governor-announces-4th-coronavirus-case/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=todays_hottest_stories&utm_campaign=20200229
-
Well, apparently they are testing in Coahuila
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2020/02/29/mexican-border-state-governor-announces-4th-coronavirus-case/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=todays_hottest_stories&utm_campaign=20200229
Good thing we have a secure border to keep the infected in Mexico from flooding into the US for medical treatment!
-
(https://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/screen-shot-2020-03-02-at-7.08.21-am.png)
Go back to sleep. Everything is fine.
-
Coronavirus: China stabilises with lowest new cases since epidemic began
Expert team and supplies arrive in Tehran to help worst-hit country outside China cope with epidemic while Chinese officials report record low of 125 new cases.
7 minutes ago
https://www.scmp.com/
Dow up today. When is the big scare over?
-
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/01/world/nasa-china-pollution-coronavirus-trnd-scn/index.html
Greta be praised!
Coronavirus: China stabilises with lowest new cases since epidemic began
Expert team and supplies arrive in Tehran to help worst-hit country outside China cope with epidemic while Chinese officials report record low of 125 new cases.
7 minutes ago
https://www.scmp.com/
Dow up today. When is the big scare over?
-
George Friedman is the founder of Stratfor, and then of Geopolitical Futures.
=====================
March 3, 2020 View On Website
Open as PDF
Thoughts on the Coronavirus
By: George Friedman
I have presented geopolitics to be like economics, a science that predicts and summarizes the impersonal forces that drive a system so vast as to be beyond the control of individuals. Each is controlled by forces so powerful that kings and peasants alike must align with them or fall victim to them. Kings ultimately do not decide the global business cycle, nor do they control the relations between nations. Kings must align with the overwhelming forces that are at work.
To some extent, individuals are helpless in the face of massive forces. In a world of seven billion people and endless variables, humans make history by aligning with it. This is difficult, since thinking that we are caught in a storm in which we may choose to get wet or to make and sell umbrellas collides with the idea that we are all masters of our fate. We are masters of our fate in making certain we understand the forces that compel and constrain us. We are masters of our fate in choosing how we align with the broad reality. But when markets decline, we can claim to have willed them to do so, but the markets consist of billions of people making billions of decisions, so the best we can do is try to anticipate the decisions that are going to be made.
There is something preposterous in all this. We all know that politicians do make decisions and that these decisions matter. It is the wisdom and goodwill of the leader, and sometimes the lack of both, that make history. The idea of history being out of control – the idea that depressions and war are ultimately beyond the control of the leaders whom we hold responsible for all things, good and bad, and can at best anticipate what is coming and mitigate it – is terrifying. Far better to imbue them in our minds with powers they don’t have, to praise or execute them for things over which they are as helpless as we are.
I bring this up in light of the coronavirus, which exists outside the purview of world leaders. It is dreadful because it will do what it will do. It is even more dreadful because it is a virus, something without consciousness that cannot be reasoned with or bribed. We are merely observers of it, waiting for it to show whether it is as powerful as we fear, and waiting with even more dread to see whether we or those we love will fall victim to its terrible power or be saved with the discovery that its power will be meager. We search for a way to align ourselves with the disease, but like history, it flows on.
We live in the age of technology that has achieved remarkable things, from antibiotics to microchips to visions of the universe. We take pride in what has been wrought. But each of these things has come from understanding the nature we have been given, aligning with its forces, and crafting engines that conform with nature, not changing it. And when our power grows enough that we delude ourselves to be nature’s master, something arises to remind us of our limits. In due course, it will learn more about the coronavirus, including ways we can fight it, but for now our fears take counsel of themselves.
The threat of the virus is not only that we may die, but that the fear of death will cause the world to heave up out of control. The virus first emerged with authority in China, a country dominated by the idea that the state’s power governs all things. This belief holds a fractious nation together in pride at how the state had made China great. The coronavirus showed the limits of human power, even in China. Beijing insists that it will deal with the virus and that its edicts will stop its spread, but the reality is that China is being overwhelmed, both by the disease and by the fear of the disease.
Two great forces are being hurled against each other. On the one side is a tiny bag of molecules that aligns with the vulnerabilities of the human body. On the other side is science, desperately trying to find its footing, justifying itself by asserting the limits of its knowledge and the promise that it will know more later. The virus is what it is, science is what it is, and so are the rulers, whose opinions on what the virus is and what ought to be done are of value to the extent that they conform to the reality. Our local supermarket has announced that it is rationing the number of sanitizing wipes that can be bought because of high demand, while the latest word from experts is that the virus is spread by human liquids. No matter, where there is no solution, we invent solutions. They give us comfort that we are fighting back.
In truth, we don’t know how deadly the virus is. It may kill no more than the flu. It may turn out to be much worse. We don’t know. And therefore the global economy is in disarray. China’s economy seems shattered. The price of oil is plunging. And fear of Turkey releasing Syrian refugees on Europe is now compounded by fear that they carry this disease among others.
We speak of black swans, unpredictable events that wreck economic and geopolitical expectations. This is surely a black swan, even if humanity has been periodically hit by unexpected diseases for time immemorial. We know there are black swans swimming about, and that one or two will occasionally come to shore. It is the time they decide to leave the lake, and the reasons that they have chosen this particular time, that startles us and drives us to search for explanations and solutions.
Not understanding why they chose this moment or what their intent is, we search for explanations. Since we no longer believe that they are here as God’s punishment for our sins, they must have been caused by biological warfare units, or have spread because of the incompetence of scientists and politicians. Where priests used to comfort us, now leaders do, and now we hold the leader responsible not for causing the virus, but for not acting quickly enough to protect us.
Coronavirus does not seem to be like the Black Death that wiped out half of Europe. It seems more like a nasty flu. But then that is just one guess in a world full of guesses. It has been elevated to a global menace because living in Texas, I am aware of what is going on in Wuhan. Listening to scientists, I am told that this is a new virus. Being American, I am presented with a problem and expect someone to solve it quickly. It is what I know that concerns me: The virus is global, it kills people, it has wreaked havoc in China and some other countries, and therefore I should be and am afraid. It is not the unknown but the poorly understood that is frightening, as well as the inability of very smart people charged with protecting me from all things natural and dangerous to do so.
Our expectations are what frighten us. The coronavirus does not seem especially dangerous to our species. But we have come to expect to be protected and when we are not our imaginations turn to the apocalypse. The successes of science and the claims of politicians have led us to believe in human invincibility so that the arrival of the virus is a violation of the social contract between the state, science and us. There are limits to power, and that, above all else, frightens us.
-
(https://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/covid-19-contrasts-3-2-2020-304x500-1.jpg)
-
Daily Memo: China Recovers From Coronavirus, Others Descend
By: GPF
Chinese imports. Chinese authorities reported 125 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday. A twist: At least 19 patients had contracted the virus from elsewhere, particularly Italy, prompting Beijing to issue a slew of warnings against travel abroad and urging Chinese citizens currently abroad to stay put. Stories (MARC: Chinese lie?) such as this enable Chinese propaganda chiefs to shift the narrative toward the complexities of epidemiology or the relative inefficiency of democracies’ efforts to mobilize against the outbreak. The problem for China (among many others) is the global spread will only compound its economic crisis. The issue now for China isn’t just the herculean task of getting people back to work and its factories up and humming (without refueling the outbreak), but also the risk that, if much of Europe, Japan and the U.S. go into lockdown – and if the resulting panic triggers a global recession – the loss of external demand for Chinese goods could torpedo the “V-shaped recovery” that would normally follow a public health crisis.
In the U.S., the virus has now been detected from the West Coast to the East Coast, and as of publication, six people have died in the United States, all in Washington state. There is, however, a possible silver lining. Based on a genetic analysis, scientists believe that the coronavirus has been circulating in the Seattle area for about six weeks. If that’s really the case, then it is almost certainly true that hundreds if not thousands of people in Greater Seattle alone already have been exposed to and infected by the virus. That only six people have died is further evidence, then, that the case fatality rate is far below the widely cited 2 percent estimate, which has likely been inflated because of the concentration of deaths in Hubei province. Some 4.2 percent of patients have died in the province, where hospitals are overwhelmed, compared to just around 0.8 percent elsewhere in mainland China. In South Korea, the rate is just above 0.53 percent, while in Italy it’s about 2.5 percent. Iran’s case fatality rate has started to normalize now that Tehran is acknowledging the scale of its outbreak (835 new confirmed cases on Tuesday alone). A lower case fatality rate would suggest the virus is more akin to a severe cold or seasonal flu than the more dire comparisons that have been made.
-
https://www.sciencealert.com/making-your-own-hand-sanitiser-is-easy-here-s-how
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-doctors-seek-tougher-discharge-criteria-after-positive-coronavirus-tests_3257706.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=55a636b234-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_03_11_33&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-55a636b234-239065853
-
https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/03/f-35-factory-japan-shuts-down-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/163505/
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/03/wednesday-sunshine.html
-
Well, that was cheery , , ,
-
https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/fbt49e/the_who_sent_25_international_experts_to_china/
-
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/china-deploys-40-incinerators-wuhan-21529067
Hopefully, their definition of medical waste doesn't include the possibly infected or political dissidents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU5Vu7XBpzg
-
Plausible, but so far uncorroborated , , ,
-
https://www.technicalpolitics.com/articles/were-going-to-need-one-heck-of-a-lot-of-oxygen-an-exclusive-interview-with-dr-john-campbell/
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-hospitals-find-that-discharged-coronavirus-patients-are-relapsing-after-recovering_3261516.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=c201ebb781-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_06_08_36&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-c201ebb781-239065853
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8086077/Hotel-China-holding-coronavirus-victims-quarantine-collapses.html?ito=social-facebook
-
second post
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2020/03/02/doctor-paul-offit-coronavirus-pandemic-trump-response-aman.cnn
-
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/chinese-doctors-say-coronavirus-like-a-combination-of-sars-and-aids-can-cause-irreversible-lung-damage/news-story/f58f19c5eeae99b845c54e2d2b9305ca
-
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2020/03/02/doctor-paul-offit-coronavirus-pandemic-trump-response-aman.cnn
At this point reading mostly the same stuff everyone else reads
I agree with the virologist
this is similar to flu. which has been "grandfathered " in.
However older people and those with chronic lung or heart issues like copd heart failure significan liver or kidney should be concerned and very cautious
the risk to nursing homes etc is alarming.
Problem is we don't yet have wide testing available so the extent is unknown
My best guess is there are 50 to 100 K people walking around now with it we don't see.
I see 25 to 40 patients a day all day long with respiratory illness some of which may well be covid 19.
As result all we hear are the announcements of the deaths the case reports in states making headlines
etc.
increasing the panic
-
Sure. China welds people into buildings and shuts down it's economy to the point where the CCP is facing violent revolution because of bad flu.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2020/03/02/doctor-paul-offit-coronavirus-pandemic-trump-response-aman.cnn
At this point reading mostly the same stuff everyone else reads
I agree with the virologist
this is similar to flu. which has been "grandfathered " in.
However older people and those with chronic lung or heart issues like copd heart failure significan liver or kidney should be concerned and very cautious
the risk to nursing homes etc is alarming.
Problem is we don't yet have wide testing available so the extent is unknown
My best guess is there are 50 to 100 K people walking around now with it we don't see.
I see 25 to 40 patients a day all day long with respiratory illness some of which may well be covid 19.
As result all we hear are the announcements of the deaths the case reports in states making headlines
etc.
increasing the panic
-
https://www.businessinsider.com/presentation-us-hospitals-preparing-for-millions-of-hospitalizations-2020-3
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-removes-tariffs-on-face-masks-and-other-medical-supplies-from-china_3263625.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=b54fe31fda-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_07_11_35&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-b54fe31fda-239065853
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/4/cia-targeted-in-virus-disinformation-campaign/
-
The Most Important Coronavirus Question
By: Alex Berezow
The first person to die from coronavirus on American soil passed away on Feb. 29 at a Seattle area hospital – incidentally, the same hospital where my daughter was born just ten and a half months ago.
For epidemiologists, the most important unanswered question about the Wuhan coronavirus, or COVID-19, is the case-fatality rate. But for the general public, the question is much more personal: “Might I – or anyone I love – get sick and die?” When faced with uncertainty, people make decisions cautiously, and they base them on emotion and personal experience instead of statistics. If enough people answer “Yes,” there could be major repercussions as panic sets in around the world. Small behavioral modifications, such as telecommuting or reducing factory activity to avoid spreading the disease, made by millions of people can have a large impact. The United Nations already estimated $50 billion worth of exports worldwide will be affected, excluding non-trade economic activities such as travel tourism, as manufacturing slows and governments impose measures like port restrictions. This is why it is necessary to develop a “risk of death” profile for COVID-19.
The first substantial effort to do just that was published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Though these numbers should be thought of as preliminary (and perhaps specific to only China), they allow us to begin to comprehend the risk that our global society is facing. After analyzing 44,672 confirmed cases, Chinese health officials estimated the case-fatality rates by age group:
(click to enlarge)
Of the 416 children aged 0 to 9 who contracted COVID-19, precisely zero died. This is unusual for most infectious diseases, but not for coronaviruses; the SARS coronavirus outbreak also had minimal impact on children. For patients aged 10 to 39, the case-fatality rate is 0.2 percent. The case-fatality rate doubles for people in their 40s, then triples again for people in their 50s, and nearly triples yet again for people in their 60s. A person who contracts COVID-19 in their 70s has an 8 percent chance of dying, and a person in their 80s a nearly 15 percent chance of dying.
The virus can be lethal in a variety of ways. Viral infections in the lungs can trigger an immune response so strong that it fatally damages the lungs. In others, a systemic immune response, called a “cytokine storm,” can cause multiple organ failure. This could explain why some young, healthy people are killed by the virus, such as Dr. Li Wenliang, the 34-year-old doctor who died shortly after alerting the world to this new strain of coronavirus. An older person’s immune system may not be able to fight a respiratory virus. Underlying conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes can worsen outcomes.
The above statistics are no doubt frightening numbers. But there are at least three major mitigating factors. First, the number of mild or asymptomatic cases is unknown and probably substantial. Second, China is still a poor country with low-quality health care and, at the epicenter of the outbreak in Hubei province, was overwhelmed by the virus. (The case-fatality rate in Chinese provinces outside Hubei, where hospitals aren’t overloaded, is much lower.) Third, smoking is much more prevalent in China than America, especially among men (52 percent in China versus 16 percent in the U.S.), and smoking is a risk factor for poor responses to respiratory infections. Together, this means the case-fatality rate is likely inflated, and it would be a mistake to apply these figures to the United States or other advanced nations.
The real question, then, is how inflated the case-fatality rates are. At this point, it’s impossible to determine because scientists are still collecting data on how widespread the virus is. But to get a sense of how exaggerated these numbers might be, it is useful to examine the case-fatality rate for seasonal influenza. For the 2018-19 influenza season, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention provides estimates for the number of cases (defined here as “symptomatic illnesses”) and deaths. From these, we can derive case-fatality rate estimates by age group.
(click to enlarge)
If COVID-19 ends up being similar to seasonal influenza, then the case-fatality rates for COVID-19 are inflated by a factor of 20 to 100. Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the U.S. NIAID, co-authored an editorial for the New England Journal of Medicine in which he wrote:
“If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively [emphasis added].”
We have reason to believe this view is closest to reality. In South Korea, public health officials screened about 100,000 people and detected over 7,300 cases. So far, the death toll is 50, which translates to a case-fatality rate of 0.7 percent. That’s still seven times worse than seasonal flu, but it’s far lower than the initial reports from China.
(click to enlarge)
The Future of COVID-19
Stat News describes two possible scenarios that epidemiologists envision for the future of COVID-19. In the first, COVID-19 becomes just another cold virus, and possibly evolves to become less lethal as well. What we call the “common cold” is actually caused by roughly 200 different viruses. Each year, about 25 percent of common colds are due to four coronaviruses, and some scientists think COVID-19 could eventually join this group as its fifth member. In the second scenario, COVID-19 behaves more like a severe seasonal flu, vanishing in the summer and returning to hit us hard in the winter.
In neither scenario does COVID-19 resemble the Spanish flu of 1918, which disproportionately killed young people. In neither scenario does the virus mutate to become more lethal. Most likely, the opposite will be true. There is an inverse relationship between lethality and contagiousness; that is, the most contagious viruses tend to be less lethal. Evolutionary pressures – namely, the biological imperative to reproduce as far and wide as possible (which means not killing people) – may push COVID-19 down this path.
For now, influenza remains the far bigger global public health threat. Each year, about 1 billion people become infected with seasonal flu, killing some 300,000 to 500,000. This season alone (2019-20), about 20,000 Americans have died from flu, including 136 children. Yet, very few people fear the flu. Society has accepted it as part of reality, and people carry about their daily lives without excessive concern over influenza. This is the likely future for COVID-19.
Until then, perhaps the last word should be given to virologist Dr. Lisa Gralinski, who told The Scientist, “If you’re over fifty or sixty and you have some other health issues and if you’re unlucky enough to be exposed to this virus, it could be very bad.” While everyone else should remain vigilant and take proper precautions (e.g., washing hands and avoiding crowds) until more data comes in, from a scientific perspective the public alarm is disproportionate to the risk.
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/03/reality-alert.html
-
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/03/10/coronavirus-preparedness-united-states-public-health-response-squawk-box.html
coronavirus: We must ‘brace for a three-month problem
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZFhjMQrVts&feature=share
-
yes
I have been working telemedicine for over 4 yrs now
and the calls coming in for evaluations for covid 19
are rising
especially with VP Pence mentioning telemedicine yesterday at WH with the health care CEOs
I expect we will be swamped soon
we are being asked to do extra hours shifts etc
-
Keep us posted!
===================
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/03/us-military-scientists-hope-have-coronavirus-therapeutic-summer/163659/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl
==================================
GPF
Signs of a rebound in China. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday visited Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, for the first time since the epidemic began. This is one of a handful of developments we’ve been watching for from Beijing that would signal it truly thinks it has the outbreak under control – even if Xi didn’t explicitly say as much during his trip. The data coming out of China on the spread of the virus, assuming authorities aren’t somehow hiding legions of unreported cases, gives Beijing ample reason to feel confident that touting its success won’t come back to haunt it. Nearly all the new cases reported outside of Hubei province over the past few days were from people who had contracted the virus while abroad. In Hubei, meanwhile, the drop in new cases has enabled authorities to begin closing down makeshift hospitals and reportedly start considering lifting some restrictions on travel from the province. The data on the Chinese economy will stay extremely ugly for a while to come, especially as the global spread dampens consumption of Chinese exports. But it’ll be much easier to rebound with the virus broadly contained at least at home.
-
Keep us posted!
===================
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/03/us-military-scientists-hope-have-coronavirus-therapeutic-summer/163659/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl
==================================
GPF
Signs of a rebound in China. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday visited Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, for the first time since the epidemic began. This is one of a handful of developments we’ve been watching for from Beijing that would signal it truly thinks it has the outbreak under control – even if Xi didn’t explicitly say as much during his trip. The data coming out of China on the spread of the virus, assuming authorities aren’t somehow hiding legions of unreported cases, gives Beijing ample reason to feel confident that touting its success won’t come back to haunt it. Nearly all the new cases reported outside of Hubei province over the past few days were from people who had contracted the virus while abroad. In Hubei, meanwhile, the drop in new cases has enabled authorities to begin closing down makeshift hospitals and reportedly start considering lifting some restrictions on travel from the province. The data on the Chinese economy will stay extremely ugly for a while to come, especially as the global spread dampens consumption of Chinese exports. But it’ll be much easier to rebound with the virus broadly contained at least at home.
Believe nothing from China.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZFhjMQrVts&feature=share
Second and third order effects are the biggest killer.
-
but we don't want panic either:
https://www.thehour.com/business/article/Trump-urged-Mnuchin-to-pressure-Fed-s-Powell-on-15124246.php
stimulate what ? A dead horse?
pumping like mad
interest rates near zero
enough .
what is going to happen is going to happen
contain the virus
the best we can
many will get ill
few of those will die but will be large number since so many will likely be infected in total
this is playing out like the flu 1918- 19 epidemic
panic closing of everything people walking around with masks
hospitals overwhelmed
and few yrs later we had the roaring twenties.
damn if only I sold out to buy back later
Doug would have told me when to buy back in.
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/03/welcome-to-party-pal.html
but we don't want panic either:
https://www.thehour.com/business/article/Trump-urged-Mnuchin-to-pressure-Fed-s-Powell-on-15124246.php
stimulate what ? A dead horse?
pumping like mad
interest rates near zero
enough .
what is going to happen is going to happen
contain the virus
the best we can
many will get ill
few of those will die but will be large number since so many will likely be infected in total
this is playing out like the flu 1918- 19 epidemic
panic closing of everything people walking around with masks
hospitals overwhelmed
and few yrs later we had the roaring twenties.
damn if only I sold out to buy back later
Doug would have told me when to buy back in.
-
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/glitches-missed-opportunities-and-delays-left-the-united-states-behind-in-testing-for-coronavirus/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=owned_echobox_tw_m&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1583602563
-
making the claims and fast with the criticism
watching this guy on CNN MSLSD every day bashing Trump. Just a "non partisan career official":
“They’ve simply lost time they can’t make up. You can’t get back six weeks of blindness,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who oversaw the international response to Ebola during the Obama administration and is a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. “To the extent that there’s someone to blame here, the blame is on poor, chaotic management from the White House and failure to acknowledge the big picture.”
-
Yeah, I saw that-- but the rest of the article for me simply was a chronicling of how humans organized in government bureaucracies act and interact. I'm of the impression that our CDC and the related agencies compare quite favorably to elsewhere in the world.
-
Yeah, I saw that-- but the rest of the article for me simply was a chronicling of how humans organized in government bureaucracies act and interact. I'm of the impression that our CDC and the related agencies compare quite favorably to elsewhere in the world.
Our inept government drones are number one!
-
What say we?
Congress Can Take the Economic Edge off Covid-19
Give cash assistance to low-income Americans so they don’t feel compelled to go to work sick.
By Michael R. Strain and Scott Gottlieb
March 11, 2020 2:02 pm ET
Covid-19 will soon be an epidemic in the U.S. Large cities need to take emergency measures to protect their residents, especially those who are at greatest risk for hospitalization or death. Congress has an important role to play in supporting states and cities.
President Trump’s announcement on Monday that he would work with legislators on a package to help workers is a step in the right direction. As negotiations begin, what economic policies can Congress pass to help limit the virus’s spread and reduce some of its damage?
The Coronavirus Roils Markets and Washington
SUBSCRIBE
A top priority: shielding the poor from economic distress. Congress should make direct cash payments—mailed checks or direct deposits—to low-income households in places with severe outbreaks. Hourly wage workers should not feel compelled to show up to work sick because they need to pay bills. Congress can help these Americans recover and keep other people healthy by financing their time away from work.
In states experiencing severe outbreaks, Congress should waive the requirement that people receiving unemployment insurance payments look for work. Better that such unemployed workers receive financial assistance for rent, mortgages and groceries than to risk spreading the virus by applying and interviewing for jobs. Congress should also waive work requirements in the food-stamp program.
Children in low-income families will miss subsidized meals if schools are closed. Federal subsidies to those households should be increased to account for lost breakfasts and lunches. This might help relieve some of the pressure on low-income parents, who might otherwise feel the need to go to work even if ill.
Cash-strapped states may be reluctant to divert spending from other priorities toward health care, especially as more people use services. States that experience outbreaks may also lose tax revenue. Congress should increase the share of Medicaid spending financed by the federal government to alleviate the budget pressure.
Last week Mr. Trump signed an $8.3 billion emergency spending bill that will fund the public-health response to this outbreak, including research and development for drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tests to treat the coronavirus and stop its spread. The legislation also includes resources for state and local preparedness and response. This is a welcome development and a substantial amount of money. But if the virus continues to spread, more funding may be needed to expand hospital capacity and help local health departments enforce “social distancing” measures.
This coronavirus may be a once-in-a-generation pathogen that combines lethality with easy transmission. It is deadlier than the seasonal flu, and as contagious if not more so. Many will suffer and die if it is allowed to spread unchecked. Italy’s health-care system is on the brink of collapse. In China, fatalities in Wuhan increased as hospitals were overwhelmed. The U.S. must try to slow the spread so that health resources can be spent on those who most need care.
The bump in federal spending should be temporary and only for states experiencing severe outbreaks. Amid trillion-dollar deficits, the federal government shouldn’t spend more money unless necessary. But the risk to public health from overreacting is much smaller than the risk from an inadequate response. The country is better off spending the money to prevent deaths than spending the money to deal with the aftermath of a lethal epidemic.
More to the point, a severe outbreak could push the economic growth rate close to or below zero. In that event, additional spending to stimulate and support the overall economy—and not only areas experiencing severe outbreaks—may be necessary.
Congress should not wait until the crisis intensifies to enact these measures. These changes should be signed into law immediately, with clear triggers for additional funding. This would allow the changes to be executed before a regional outbreak spirals out of control. States will be in a much better position to plan and to address any outbreak if they know these measures will automatically kick in.
States and localities are the tip of the spear in the fight against coronavirus. Congress can—and should—give them weapons to battle the disease.
Mr. Strain is director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, Dr. Gottlieb is a resident fellow at AEI and a partner at New Enterprise Associates. He was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, 2017-19.
==============================
Dodd-Frank Worsens Covid’s Risk
The Fed, FDIC and Treasury need the same powers they wielded against the 2008 crisis.
By Hal Scott
March 11, 2020 7:01 pm ET
SAVE
PRINT
TEXT
21
PHOTO: CHAD CROWE
Coronavirus is contagious. So is financial panic.
The spread of the novel coronavirus could cause a run on the financial system leading to a deep recession. Severe stock-market drops and increased demand for liquidity are warning signals. Bank equity capital has increased by $750 billion to $2.1 trillion since 2007, but a panic could still overwhelm well-capitalized banks. We need to restore the weapons to fight contagion that Congress took away during the last financial crisis. Strong pre-emptive action would greatly diminish the risk of a panic.
The previous systemic threat to the financial system was spurred by the failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008. That threat came from within the banking system in the form of bad housing loans. This time is different. Wall Street risk-taking isn’t to blame for the coronavirus.
The Coronavirus Roils Markets and Washington
SUBSCRIBE
In 2008 the Fed supplied needed liquidity to the banking and nonbanking financial sector, the latter through its authority under Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act. Meanwhile, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. expanded the limits of deposit insurance, among other things providing unlimited protection for transaction accounts. The Treasury Department offered guarantees to money-market funds.
Once the crisis abated, however, there was growing public concern about “moral hazard”—that government backstops and guarantees created incentives for risky behavior. In response, the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 limited the Fed’s lender-of-last-resort powers for nonbanks, an increasingly important part of the financial system. Fed loans to nonbanks can now be made only with the approval of the Treasury secretary. They must be done through a broad program, unlike the one-off rescue of AIG, and must meet heightened collateral requirements. Loans to nonbanks must be disclosed to congressional leaders within seven days and to the public within one year. Loans to banks must be disclosed within two years. While disclosure is usually desirable, in this situation it creates the specter of future stigma that deters financial institutions from seeking even badly needed Fed funding. Even before the current crisis, banks’ use of the discount window had dropped to record lows.
Dodd-Frank also prevents the FDIC from expanding guarantees to bank depositors without congressional approval, as it did in the credit crisis. And the Treasury is now prohibited from guaranteeing money-market funds. These legislative changes make it difficult for the Fed and other regulators to deal effectively with a financial panic.
Government agencies have compounded the problem of their own weakness with regulations that make it harder for financial firms to lend to each other. The liquidity coverage ratio, the Fed liquidity stress tests, and the “living wills” process require the largest banks to meet stiff liquidity requirements that can result in liquidity hoarding.
Even before the coronavirus sent markets tumbling, the scarcity of liquidity was a big problem. The 9% spike of overnight repurchase agreement, or repo, rates last September caused the Fed to supply as much as $75 billion a day to the repo market. Although the demand for such support had fallen to about $26 billion by the end of February, it rose to $100 billion on March 4. The Fed responded Monday by raising the minimum support offered to $150 from $100 billion. While this change is welcome, it falls short.
Here’s what should be done immediately: First, the Fed should reactivate all the facilities it created in the crisis and any additional ones it believes necessary, so it is ready to be the strongest possible lender of last resort—to do whatever it takes, consistent with its present legal authority. This includes making U.S. dollars available to other major central banks through currency swaps. And the Treasury secretary should announce his approval of these efforts, consistent with the requirements of Section 13(3). Second, financial regulators should modify their rules and supervision to stimulate liquidity in the interbank and repo markets. Third, Congress should restore all the powers it took away from the Fed, FDIC and Treasury during the crisis. Fourth, international coordination through the Group of 20 must be accelerated. This is a global problem.
China, Europe and Japan already have many of these powers. Policy makers in the U.S. need them too. Bold action can prevent a panic before it starts. The public knows the situation is serious and wants the government to act.
Mr. Scott is an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School and the director of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation.
-
Sure, why not? It totally won't be abused!
What say we?
Congress Can Take the Economic Edge off Covid-19
Give cash assistance to low-income Americans so they don’t feel compelled to go to work sick.
By Michael R. Strain and Scott Gottlieb
March 11, 2020 2:02 pm ET
SAVE
PRINT
TEXT
190
A sign calling for affordable Covid-19 drugs in Washington, March 5.
PHOTO: SARAH SILBIGER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Covid-19 will soon be an epidemic in the U.S. Large cities need to take emergency measures to protect their residents, especially those who are at greatest risk for hospitalization or death. Congress has an important role to play in supporting states and cities.
President Trump’s announcement on Monday that he would work with legislators on a package to help workers is a step in the right direction. As negotiations begin, what economic policies can Congress pass to help limit the virus’s spread and reduce some of its damage?
The Coronavirus Roils Markets and Washington
SUBSCRIBE
A top priority: shielding the poor from economic distress. Congress should make direct cash payments—mailed checks or direct deposits—to low-income households in places with severe outbreaks. Hourly wage workers should not feel compelled to show up to work sick because they need to pay bills. Congress can help these Americans recover and keep other people healthy by financing their time away from work.
In states experiencing severe outbreaks, Congress should waive the requirement that people receiving unemployment insurance payments look for work. Better that such unemployed workers receive financial assistance for rent, mortgages and groceries than to risk spreading the virus by applying and interviewing for jobs. Congress should also waive work requirements in the food-stamp program.
Children in low-income families will miss subsidized meals if schools are closed. Federal subsidies to those households should be increased to account for lost breakfasts and lunches. This might help relieve some of the pressure on low-income parents, who might otherwise feel the need to go to work even if ill.
Cash-strapped states may be reluctant to divert spending from other priorities toward health care, especially as more people use services. States that experience outbreaks may also lose tax revenue. Congress should increase the share of Medicaid spending financed by the federal government to alleviate the budget pressure.
Last week Mr. Trump signed an $8.3 billion emergency spending bill that will fund the public-health response to this outbreak, including research and development for drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tests to treat the coronavirus and stop its spread. The legislation also includes resources for state and local preparedness and response. This is a welcome development and a substantial amount of money. But if the virus continues to spread, more funding may be needed to expand hospital capacity and help local health departments enforce “social distancing” measures.
This coronavirus may be a once-in-a-generation pathogen that combines lethality with easy transmission. It is deadlier than the seasonal flu, and as contagious if not more so. Many will suffer and die if it is allowed to spread unchecked. Italy’s health-care system is on the brink of collapse. In China, fatalities in Wuhan increased as hospitals were overwhelmed. The U.S. must try to slow the spread so that health resources can be spent on those who most need care.
The bump in federal spending should be temporary and only for states experiencing severe outbreaks. Amid trillion-dollar deficits, the federal government shouldn’t spend more money unless necessary. But the risk to public health from overreacting is much smaller than the risk from an inadequate response. The country is better off spending the money to prevent deaths than spending the money to deal with the aftermath of a lethal epidemic.
More to the point, a severe outbreak could push the economic growth rate close to or below zero. In that event, additional spending to stimulate and support the overall economy—and not only areas experiencing severe outbreaks—may be necessary.
Congress should not wait until the crisis intensifies to enact these measures. These changes should be signed into law immediately, with clear triggers for additional funding. This would allow the changes to be executed before a regional outbreak spirals out of control. States will be in a much better position to plan and to address any outbreak if they know these measures will automatically kick in.
States and localities are the tip of the spear in the fight against coronavirus. Congress can—and should—give them weapons to battle the disease.
Mr. Strain is director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, Dr. Gottlieb is a resident fellow at AEI and a partner at New Enterprise Associates. He was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, 2017-19.
-
"Like the common flu, except the death rate from the virus may be ten times higher. Like the common flu, except the U.S. population has no built-up immunity, so the virus left unchecked could infect a significantly higher share of the population at a faster rate, overwhelming the medical system."
The Virus and Leadership
Trump’s main opponent isn’t Joe Biden. It’s the coronavirus.
By The Editorial Board
March 11, 2020 7:27 pm ET
When President Trump sees a political threat, his instinct is to deny, double down and hit back. That has often been politically effective, but in the case of the novel coronavirus it has undermined his ability to lead.
It’s not accurate, as the press reported last week, that the President called the virus a “hoax.” He said the criticisms of his Administration were a hoax. Yet his public remarks too often continue to give the impression that he views the virus more as another chance for political combat than as a serious public-health problem.
White House advisers last week said the virus is being “contained” despite contrary evidence. On Monday, after suggesting “fake news” was driving the stock-market rout, the President tweeted: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
Like the common flu, except the death rate from the virus may be ten times higher. Like the common flu, except the U.S. population has no built-up immunity, so the virus left unchecked could infect a significantly higher share of the population at a faster rate, overwhelming the medical system.
We hope the dire coronavirus prognostications turn out not to pass, and no one knows how the coming months will play out. Yet with stock markets falling, schools canceling classes, companies emptying their offices, and nations locking down borders and some cities, Americans want steady leadership.
The biggest failure so far has been on testing when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produced contaminated test kits and the Food and Drug Administration was slow to approve private alternatives. The best response to that is to acknowledge the delay, explain what happened, and relate when and how the problem will be addressed. The mistake is to claim there was no problem.
Mr. Trump is right that his opponents, in politics and the media, want to turn the virus into his Hurricane Katrina. That is inevitable and he shouldn’t take their bait. The best defense isn’t to strike back as if the virus is Adam Schiff. It can’t be mocked with a nickname or dismissed with over-optimistic assertions that risk being run over by reality in a week or a month. On Wednesday Mr. Trump punched back at an article in Vanity Fair by tweeting: “Our team is doing a great job with CoronaVirus!” Who cares about Vanity Fair?
The best reply is cool and realistic leadership that marshals the strengths of the government a President leads. This means letting the experts speak, not putting himself in the front of every briefing and speculating about things he doesn’t know much about. It means showing personal support, ideally at some point in person, for virus patients and their front-line caregivers.
Leadership means putting together a response to economic weakness and what can be done to help those who lose their jobs, not promising something he can’t deliver on Capitol Hill or blasting the Federal Reserve for the 100th time. Above all, leadership in a crisis means telling the public the truth, lest people begin to tune him out or, worse, make him a figure of mockery.
Disasters and crises can make or break presidencies—not from the event itself but from how the public judges a President’s response. In the last week the Administration’s performance has improved, and his speech to the nation Wednesday night was at least a step toward more realism. But the pandemic continues to build and he still understated the scope of the health risk. Travel bans are less important than mitigation efforts at home with thousands of likely cases already here. Comparing the U.S. favorably to Europe won’t reassure anyone if the U.S. catches up.
Mr. Trump did seem to recognize that the threat to public health is a chance to rise above narrow partisanship and speak for the whole country. His main opponent for re-election now isn’t Joe Biden. It’s the coronavirus.
-
Virus Relief, Good and Bad
The goal is to relieve hardship, not expand the welfare state.
By The Editorial Board
Updated March 11, 2020 10:16 pm ET
The coronavirus has had the bad judgment to arrive in an election year, so Congress will inevitably respond with what it does best—spend money. As the ideas spill out, it’s worth laying out some principles to sort the good from the bad and the ugly.
• Target the real hardship. Americans who need the most help will be those who lose their jobs because they or their family members are sick, especially low-income workers who are paid hourly rather than by salary. Federal grants could help make up for lost wages, sick leave, or special health-care costs.
The precedents here are unemployment insurance and disaster relief. The former is targeted at individuals who had been working and lose their jobs, and both programs are limited. Jobless benefits expire after a time, with a goal of encouraging recipients to get back into the job market when the economy improves.
Disaster relief addresses the immediate harm to personal property and businesses, and recipients have to meet certain criteria to qualify. Relief can be in the form of grants or loans, especially to small business. Congress recently passed $1 billion in small-business loan subsidies as part of its $8.3 billion virus relief package, and on Wednesday night President Trump asked for another $50 billion more that we hope has virus-damage requirements attached.
• Make the relief immediate. People who lose their jobs or are sick need the money now, not months down the road. One problem, among many, with the Obama 2009 stimulus program is that its spending was spread over years. So-called shovel-ready projects weren’t close to ready. The worst idea we’ve heard in response to the coronavirus is for a big new public-works bill. In other words, to address an epidemic today, the solution is to build more roads in 2021 and 2022.
• Target individuals, not bureaucracies. The further away from people the money goes, the less good it will do. Senate Democrats on Wednesday floated a kitchen-sink virus bill loaded with money for every pet program going back to the Great Society. One chestnut is “supplemental financial assistance directly to housing authorities”—that is, the folks at the New York City Housing Authority who spend $1,973 per apartment to install new lighting. Their tenants may need a check if they lose their job, but why reward the housing bureaucrats?
• Avoid new mandates on business. Progressives will try to use this crisis to require employers to provide mandatory paid sick leave to all employees. The idea will be to start at seven days, and claim it’s temporary, but once in place the mandate will never go away. Soon it will be 90 days, raising the cost of hiring. If Democrats want to pay for virus sick leave, have Uncle Sam write the checks.
• Beware new or expanded entitlements disguised as emergency relief. Senate Democrats want to expand “benefit levels” for food stamps, as you’d expect. But they also want “new pandemic SNAP authority” to provide additional food assistance for public-health emergencies. This looks suspiciously like an increase in food-stamp eligibility that wouldn’t go away when the health-crisis does.
Congress may also try to expand eligibility for Medicaid, or increase the federal share of payments in the state-federal program. But the heavy federal share, which can be as high as 90% for some recipients, already increases the incentive for states to enroll more able-bodied adults at the expense of the needy. If the states need money for virus-related health relief, write them a check based on the number of state cases and let them decide how to spend it.
***
We’ll have more to say in the future about tax cuts and proposals to bail out industries. Our larger point today is that government’s role in this crisis should be to address a genuine short-term hardship, not to permanently expand the size of government and the burden on taxpayers. These spending ideas won’t provide much of an economic stimulus, though they might help consumer confidence. They should end when the virus threat does.
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-hospital-bed/607807/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
-
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/it-failing-let-s-admit-it-fauci-says-coronavirus-testing-n1157036
-
ccp,
Next time at the hospital, figure out how much of your disposable medical equipment is made in China, and how much resupply is readily available. Expect you are 2 to 4 weeks away from where Italy is now.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/it-failing-let-s-admit-it-fauci-says-coronavirus-testing-n1157036
-
"
Next time at the hospital, figure out how much of your disposable medical equipment is made in China, and how much resupply is readily available. Expect you are 2 to 4 weeks away from where Italy is now."
but Bloomberg and the rest of the globalists have told us this was all good.
tariffs to try to bring manufacturing home are all bad........
Let me get this straight. our American generic pharm send the manufacturing overseas so the drugs are made as cheap as possible then sent back here we get billed the highest in the world for same drugs. ...........
-
Denver with first drive through testing site
need doctor's note
we just got the notes ready to get to patients who after assessment qualify
NYC (Mario's kid running for 2024) is planning on doing same
hopefully other locations will have
and this will sure make my job easier.
-
https://ncrenegade.com/editorial/psa-concerning-possible-government-action/
Still, something to consider as we only have X number of shopping days until TEOTWAWKI.
-
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/487221-seattle-mayor-warns-protective-gear-running-low
-
This twit at the NYT of course describing the CDC sarcastically as storied and of course laying the blame on Trump in effort to get senile corrupt Joe elected :
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/opinion/trump-corona-cdc.html
politics aside
the testing was the biggest issue
Look at all the times CDC did protect us from all the past threats
We did not appreciate all they did for us.
Question : should we be manufacturing test kits every time there is outbreak around the. world
by the millions when indeed most of the time they won't be needed?
MAybe FDA restrictions too stringent?
DOn't know.
OTOH do we really want the schysters who sell unneeded vitamins on the radio and everywhere else getting into the testing business?
-
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-12/california-governor-gavin-newsom-hotels-medical-facilities-patients-meeting-requirements?utm_source=Today%27s+Headlines&utm_campaign=ce1d0cf6e0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_13_11_53&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b04355194f-ce1d0cf6e0-80108809
-
I see casinos exempt.
no risk there.
Gee how did that happen?
-
This doesn't sound good, but I am paywalled from seeing it. Could someone paste it please?
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-13/trump-administration-blocks-states-use-medicaid-respond-coronavirus-crisis?utm_source=Today%27s+Headlines&utm_campaign=ce1d0cf6e0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_13_11_53&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b04355194f-ce1d0cf6e0-80108809
-
I see casinos exempt.
no risk there.
Gee how did that happen?
Casinos are sterile environments! Just ask the Las Vegas Mayor.
-
Based on this President Trump should be quarantined for 14 d post exposure
and if gets symptoms THEN get tested
like all the other celebrities he will be tested right away
of course he should be very closely tested etc
but Charlie Barkley?
Just saw patient from Florida who was at rally in Miami for Bolsonaro and gave him a hug
I advised she must remain quarantined since one of his ministers was positive
until the President and the 3 ministers , whose status was unknown as of yesterday test negative
just called pt back - she was aware of this headline and is staying in - advice is to get tested if becomes symptoms
does not really make sense to test now as positive test will not change her quarantine status
and may be a false negative
either way if she gets symptoms she will then need to go in for health evaluation or if severe go to the ER calling ahead
to let them know of her coming in and wear a face mask
-
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/03/12/facing-coronavirus-concerns-collin-county-sheriff-asks-police-not-to-bring-petty-criminals-to-jail/
-
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/03/12/facing-coronavirus-concerns-collin-county-sheriff-asks-police-not-to-bring-petty-criminals-to-jail/
Yes they are.
-
military barracks traditionally also .
though I would think military would have more options.
-
This doesn't sound good, but I am paywalled from seeing it. Could someone paste it please?
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-13/trump-administration-blocks-states-use-medicaid-respond-coronavirus-crisis?utm_source=Today%27s+Headlines&utm_campaign=ce1d0cf6e0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_13_11_53&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b04355194f-ce1d0cf6e0-80108809
L.A. Unified will close effective Monday due to coronavirus concerns
POLITICS
Trump administration blocks states from using Medicaid to respond to coronavirus crisis
Donald Trump, Seema Verma
Seema Verma, head of the government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in a meeting with President Trump in 2017.(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
By NOAM N. LEVEY
STAFF WRITER
MARCH 13, 2020
6:30 AM
WASHINGTON — Despite mounting pleas from California and other states, the Trump administration isn’t allowing states to use Medicaid more freely to respond to the coronavirus crisis by expanding medical services.
In previous emergencies, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the H1N1 flu outbreak, both Republican and Democratic administrations loosened Medicaid rules to empower states to meet surging needs.
But months into the current global disease outbreak, the White House and senior federal health officials haven’t taken the necessary steps to give states simple pathways to fully leverage the mammoth safety net program to prevent a wider epidemic.
That’s making it harder for states to quickly sign up poor patients for coverage so they can get necessary testing or treatment if they are exposed to coronavirus.
And it threatens to slow efforts by states to bring on new medical providers, set up emergency clinics or begin quarantining and caring for homeless Americans at high risk from the virus.
“If they wanted to do it, they could do it,” said Cindy Mann, who oversaw the Medicaid program in the Obama administration and worked with states to help respond to the H1N1 crisis in 2009.
One reason federal health officials have not acted appears to be President Trump’s reluctance to declare a national emergency. That’s a key step that would clear the way for states to get Medicaid waivers to more nimbly tackle coronavirus, but it would conflict with Trump’s repeated efforts to downplay the seriousness of the epidemic.
Qiagen Markets QIAstat-Dx For Coronavirus Testing
CALIFORNIA
Problems mount with coronavirus testing, limiting access and sowing confusion
March 12, 2020
Another element may be ideological: The administration official who oversees Medicaid, Seema Verma, head of the government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has been a champion of efforts by conservative states to trim the number of people enrolled in Medicaid.
The steps that California, Washington and other states hit hard by the epidemic want to take would likely increase the number of people enrolled in the program.
“Medicaid could be the nation’s biggest public health responder, but it’s such an object of ire in this administration,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a Medicaid expert at George Washington University. “Their ideology is clouding their response to a crisis.”
In response to questions about how her agency, known as CMS, is handling state concerns, Verma’s office noted that the agency is trying to assist states, providing answers to frequently asked questions and hosting nationwide calls with state health officials. The agency noted that some waivers are not possible because Trump hasn’t declared a national emergency.
“Waivers cannot be invoked until and unless there is a Presidential Stafford Act declaration,” the agency noted, saying that it was “prepared to exercise that authority should it become available.”
Medicaid, the half-century-old government safety net program, and the related Children’s Health Insurance Program provide health insurance to more than 70 million low-income Americans, many of whom gained coverage through the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
To control fraud, the program has extensive rules dictating who is eligible and what kinds of medical services can be covered; federal officials can penalize states that don’t scrutinize who receives benefits.
During major disasters, CMS has traditionally loosened these rules.
In 2005, for example, two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the administration of President George W. Bush told states that it would grant waivers so they could rapidly enroll people into Medicaid who had been displaced by the storm.
This meant simplified applications for enrollees and no requirement that states verify applicants’ income or other information to grant coverage.
Similarly, in 2009, after President Obama declared a national emergency in response to H1N1, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius invited states to seek waivers from Medicaid rules to make it easier for medical providers to quickly treat patients without worrying about their eligibility for government assistance.
States need similar flexibility now, said Jacey Cooper, who directs Medi-Cal, as California’s mammoth Medicaid program is called.
“Getting an emergency declaration would really help us get services to people who need it,” said Cooper. Medi-Cal currently covers about 13 million low-income Californians.
Among other things, Cooper said the state wants to shorten lengthy verification procedures to quickly enroll people. Public health experts fear that gaps in insurance coverage make controlling coronavirus more difficult because patients who don’t have insurance won’t seek medical attention and testing they fear they can’t afford.
California and other states also want to ensure that mobile clinics and other temporary facilities set up to handle a crush of patients can bill Medicaid, which also would require a waiver.
And a number of states with large homeless populations — including California, Washington and New York — are interested in potentially using Medicaid funding to help homeless victims of coronavirus who need not only medical care but also housing and other services.
The easiest way to speed Medicaid waivers is a declaration from the president of a national emergency. Obama issued such a declaration in 2009 during the H1N1 outbreak.
On Thursday, the American Medical Assn., the American Hospital Assn. and the American Nurses Assn. sent a joint letter to Vice President Mike Pence calling for the president to issue a declaration.
But the White House hasn’t indicated whether Trump will make such a move.
State leaders are wary of criticizing the president directly, fearing that he may attack them personally or retaliate against their states.
Last week, Trump called Washington Gov. Jay Inslee a “snake” after the governor, a Democrat, criticized the administration’s slow coronavirus response.
That’s left states with a more limited set of Medicaid options that CMS outlined Thursday afternoon. These include small steps such as allowing hospitals to more easily enroll patients in Medicaid.
In California, Cooper said CMS officials have been helping the state develop a plan. But she noted California needs significantly more flexibility.
For example, state health officials do not want to have to send people to hospitals to get rapidly enrolled in Medi-Cal, potentially exposing them to the virus.
“We need help sooner rather than later,” Cooper said.
Noam N. Levey writes about national healthcare policy out of Washington, D.C., for the Los Angeles Times. He covered passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act and has written extensively about the landmark law and reported on its implementation from around the country. A former investigative and political reporter, he is a Boston native and a graduate of Princeton University. He joined the newspaper in 2003 and has reported from Washington since 2006
Subscribe for unlimited access
Copyright © 2020, Los Angeles Times
-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-us-shutdown-self-isolation-how-long-anthony-fauci-work-from-home-a9400096.html
-
For me DJT was at his finest!
It was a great sight to see America stepping up to the plate!
Of course Pelooooosi had to have her own speech
in which she is saving "the families".
(wait, since when have the crats been for families ....... they have destroyed them )
-
Reasons to Be Positive About the US Coronavirus Fight
Less than a month ago markets were at a record high, as healthy data on the US economy signaled continued growth on the horizon. Then, as Coronavirus made its way to continental Europe and the United States, markets went into a tailspin, suffering one of the fastest declines on record. The last several weeks have been characterized by extreme volatility as investors try to make heads or tails of the situation. Coverage around the virus has been almost exclusively negative, as experts extrapolate worst case scenarios to spur action. It should come as little surprise then, that fear of a recession has moved to the forefront of many minds. At times like these, we think it's crucial to look at the data and note some positive developments that aren't getting as much media coverage.
Testing Capacity is About to Rise Substantially: The initial government response to Coronavirus has been extremely disappointing. The first round of test kits sent out by the CDC were faulty, requiring a recall and costing precious time in the fight to find/quarantine those infected. Further slowing action, only the CDC was allowed to do tests at its own facilities, limiting testing capacity. Now, things are beginning to change. Many private labs have now been approved to conduct tests, and the FDA has announced that not only will high-volume testing be allowed, but that emergency approval has been given for an automated Coronavirus test that is estimated to speed up the testing process 10-fold. So not only are tests becoming more available, results will come quicker as well. Identify and contain, the proven method to-date, can be rolled out at the national level.
A Wave of Recoveries on the Horizon: The number of official infections in the United States has continued to rise at an accelerated pace over recent weeks. Meanwhile, our preferred measure of active cases (total cases minus deaths and recoveries, which gives a better picture of the number of people who are able to spread the virus further) has continued to rise consistently as well. As so often occurs during virus outbreaks, fears arise that the early pace of spread will continue, unabated, at an exponential rate. History – including the experiences of both China and South Korea with Coronavirus – shows identification and treatment leads to a slowdown in the pace of new cases, and a pickup in recoveries. Typically, it takes roughly two weeks for otherwise healthy individuals who test positive to get better and be officially moved from the "active" to the "recovered" counts. Now that we are about two weeks out from the initial surge in US cases, recoveries should begin to rise consistently. The world recovery rate currently sits at 93% right now, while in the US it is only 43%. We expect the US to move toward and then exceed the world recovery rate in the weeks ahead.
The Private US Healthcare Industry is the Best in the World: One of the biggest things overlooked (and underappreciated) in the fallout from the Coronavirus is just how fast the private US healthcare industry has responded. Moderna has already begun testing a vaccine, and many other companies have followed suit with their own treatments. Meanwhile, doctors have begun using the experimental anti-viral drug Remdesivir to treat US Coronavirus patients, with positive results. The speed with which these discoveries have been made is absolutely breathtaking, imagine how long it would take to develop effective treatments for a never-before-seen illness 50 years ago! Meanwhile, a 2013 study by the Department of Health and Human Services determined that the US has the most Intensive Care Unit beds per capita of any country at 20-32 per 100,000 people. This is far higher than China where there are only 2.8-4.6, demonstrating why they needed to build hospitals overnight. Likewise, the US far outdoes countries with socialized medical systems like Canada (13.5), Sweden (5.8-8.7), or the UK (3.5-7.4). This means the US is better suited to deal with the healthcare capacity issues that could arise with a Pandemic than virtually any other country in the world.
Put it all together, and the US is well poised to not only win its own fight against the Coronavirus, but also to export treatments that should help the rest of the world. The coming weeks will be critical as tests go out en masse and we learn more about the fight we are up against, but we are up to the task. Panic is never permanent, and as the virus response ramps up, sentiment will turn higher as well. Every day we learn more. Every day we make progress. This too shall pass.
Brian S. Wesbury - Chief Economist
Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist
-
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/487489-worst-case-coronavirus-models-show-massive-us-toll
-
second
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/03/14/dod-bans-all-domestic-travel-for-troops-employees-in-response-to-coronavirus-threat/?utm_campaign=Socialflow%20AIR&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social
-
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/the_wuhan_virus_escaped_from_a_chinese_lab.html
https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab/
-
definite amazing coincidence.
of course the Left is only concerned about xenophobia
perhaps we call the Left something like "identity politics phobics"
EVERYTHING is seen placed in category of identity politics to stir up their me too crowds
-
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/china-ground-zero-future-pandemic-180965213/
-
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-could-take-20-billion-hit-coronavirus-impact-1284582
:wink:
-
https://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/article/958328/18
see my reply #250
of course that was last week....
but glad to see experts at Johns Hopkins are reading this threat on Dog Brothers
-
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/the_wuhan_virus_escaped_from_a_chinese_lab.html
https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab/
Is this a Chinese bioweapon?
« Reply #162 on: January 25, 2020, 09:35:19 PM »
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/did-china-steal-coronavirus-canada-and-weaponize-it
-
Seems a tad tin foil GM. I'm not saying it can't be-- indeed given how vulnerable we have been revealed to be to Chinese antibiotic based extortion by all this, if it didn't occur to them before it surely is occurring to them now-- but that article seems really thinly sourced and highly speculative.
Anyway, here is this:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316
-
Nothing definite, but it sure is an interesting coincidence that China's only BSL-4 lab is located in Wuhan, a short distance from that alleged wet market source of the virus.
Seems a tad tin foil GM. I'm not saying it can't be-- indeed given how vulnerable we have been revealed to be to Chinese antibiotic based extortion by all this, if it didn't occur to them before it surely is occurring to them now-- but that article seems really thinly sourced and highly speculative.
Anyway, here is this:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB_A2HKmZgI
-
https://www.fr24news.com/u/2020/03/why-the-minister-of-health-advises-against-taking-anti-inflammatory-drugs-which-could-worsen-the-infection.html
-
Just one thing about the youtube video
Wuhan virus CAN start with cold like symptoms
-
Hopes for coronavirus vaccine rise after infected monkeys become immune
Primates found to have developed antibodies after being infected with Covid-19 – a discovery that suggests the immune system will fight back against the disease
Scientists have been puzzled by case of patients apparently being reinfected with the disease, but this study suggests that may not be the case
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3075438/hopes-coronavirus-vaccine-rise-after-chinese-scientists-find
-
US #CoronaVirusDeathRate by date:
4.06% March 8 (22 deaths of 541 cases)
3.69% March 9 (26 of 704)
3.01% March 10 (30 of 994)
2.95% March 11 (38 of 1,295)
2.52% March 12 (42 of 1,695)
2.27% March 13 (49 of 2,247)
1.93% March 14 (57 of 2,954)
1.84% March 15 (68 of 3,680)
https://twitter.com/brithume/status/1239543249704030216
As the number of cases has expanded, the mortality rate has declined. It will likely decline even further if and when those without symptoms can be diagnosed and counted.
-
hiring more doctors
wait times up at times
overtime encouraged with bonuses
businesses calling our company
one call after another
As in Doug's post as we are able to test more then deaths rates will continue to come down
My armchair guestimate this could peak in 2.5 to 3.5 months.
if we are able to contain likely sooner
Wish I had more cash
Of course the dirty libs making this another " never waste a crises " moment for their darn programs
My favorite part of last night 's debate betwee Jewish Trotsky and Senile Old Joe
was when Bernie calls wuhan virus "ebolat"
and a minute later senile Joe calls it "Sars"
what a laugh
I noticed Jake Tapper ran to get slow Joe out of trouble when he started rambling garbled crap at one point.
-
I nominate our own GM for director of CDC who called this months ago.
leave it to a prepper ! :))
-
I nominate our own GM for director of CDC who called this months ago.
leave it to a prepper ! :))
Well, I couldn't do a worse job...
-
One would think we doctors would get the most up to date
information learned from Italy or China etc
but it is hard for even me to find
CDC which has been a gem in past is not
posting anything for us that one can't find on CNN or the website that goes to everyone.
-
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.
One would think we doctors would get the most up to date
information learned from Italy or China etc
but it is hard for even me to find
CDC which has been a gem in past is not
posting anything for us that one can't find on CNN or the website that goes to everyone.
-
I second the nomination!!!
-
I second the nomination!!!
GM has been right on this so far. Not many saw this leading to almost total lockdown. People should have been prepared BEFORE they heard of any of this. I have many more questions on preparedness for other kinds of crises and much can be learned from this one.
------------------------------------
I am still of the view that this will pass in a relatively short order but I am short on the details or vision of how that will happen. ccp: "My armchair guestimate this could peak in 2.5 to 3.5 months.
if we are able to contain likely sooner". Yes, it could be worse but that gives me something to work with on a recovery scenario.
In preparedness we need to look at multiple scenarios and look at it from multiple dimensions. Personal health, public health, economic, financial, political, geo-political.
In the doom scenario that this just covers the globe, some things get better in the aftermath. Not for those who die of it or suffer permanent health damage from it.
------------------------------------4
On the source of it, was it a Chinese bio-weapon leak? Crafty: "Seems a tad tin foil GM. I'm not saying it can't be-- indeed given how vulnerable we have been revealed to be to Chinese antibiotic based extortion by all this, if it didn't occur to them before it surely is occurring to them now-- but that article seems really thinly sourced and highly speculative."
- Yes, there is no evidence, no proof, no real sourcing. It is only speculative, just the most plausible explanation out there at this time. What we do know is that China hid this, lied about it, allowed it to become what it is now. What was their motive to hide it, just habit possibly. I would add my question to the conspiracy question, what is the other tie to Iran and the Chinese center of bio-weapons? Were the Islamists having a cultural exchange with the Chinese communists right while China imprisons a million Muslims? I can't think of an innocent explanation.
-
I have seen pieces by scientists-doctors saying that study of the virus itself show that is was not man created.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=60&v=_tqdOwOxY3s&feature=emb_logo
1 minute Cheers bar episode.
-
I have seen pieces by scientists-doctors saying that study of the virus itself show that is was not man created.
Interesting point to know. Assuming not manmade, does that mean no connection to this Chinese facility? If it jumped from animal to human, it could have happened there or had some connection. This outbreak is tied to their deceit and incompetence. I think we know the outbreak was not deliberate or they wouldn't have tried to kill and contain it. If it did leak or escape from such a facility, it means it was related to something they were contemplating, not intending in the immediate sense.
What is the Iran China connection? Let's assume it was an innocent belt-road-train planning meeting. Then which Chinese official(s) had it? When did it spread? Who else was exposed? We are researching a pandemic killing people on 6 continents that originated in Wuhan China (coincidentally near a bio-weapons facility) and what they do in place of cooperate is hide facts, blame us and tell lies. It makes full study difficult (understatement).
-
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/lab-made-coronavirus-triggers-debate-34502
I have seen pieces by scientists-doctors saying that study of the virus itself show that is was not man created.
Interesting point to know. Assuming not manmade, does that mean no connection to this Chinese facility? If it jumped from animal to human, it could have happened there or had some connection. This outbreak is tied to their deceit and incompetence. I think we know the outbreak was not deliberate or they wouldn't have tried to kill and contain it. If it did leak or escape from such a facility, it means it was related to something they were contemplating, not intending in the immediate sense.
What is the Iran China connection? Let's assume it was an innocent belt-road-train planning meeting. Then which Chinese official(s) had it? When did it spread? Who else was exposed? We are researching a pandemic killing people on 6 continents that originated in Wuhan China (coincidentally near a bio-weapons facility) and what they do in place of cooperate is hide facts, blame us and tell lies. It makes full study difficult (understatement).
-
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/coronavirus-change-shop-travel-years-210000612.html
When this blows over people will once again start flying cruising again
etc.
This is a very rare event.
-
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/coronavirus-change-shop-travel-years-210000612.html
When this blows over people will once again start flying cruising again
etc.
This is a very rare event.
What time frame do you foresee for this to blow over?
-
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2020-03-16/coronavirus-universal-to-make-current-theatrical-movies-available-for-home-viewing-on-friday
-
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DqfSnlaW6N3GBc5YKyBOCGPfdqOsqk1G/view
-
https://www.vox.com/videos/2020/3/6/21168006/coronavirus-covid19-china-pandemic?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=entry&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
-
G M, from another thread: "I expect multiple waves".
Yes. If this current round of closures curtails it, there will still be multiple waves. People can't stay home and do nothing forever.
They closed my ski areas. They closed my hockey arena. I had 12 top players in our age group confirmed for tennis and they closed our indoor club (even though one of our guys runs the club and has the keys).
Instead we played winter, outdoor platform tennis last night, aka 'paddle', '(not quite) 'stick fighting with social distancing'. It goes something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBO6v3jF_8s
-
It goes something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBO6v3jF_8s
wow great form; good action
could send to ESPN . They need more sports now .
Isn't it hard to go from tennis to paddle ball.
In college playing tennis then going to racketball was hard because racquets different lengths.
-
COV 19 Wuhan Virus dashboard, cases by country:
https://ncov2019.live/
If you lived on planet earth during this crisis so far, the odds you contracted a known case of this virus are: .000000023
Significantly lower in the US.
When that number doubles or goes up 10 or 100-fold, it still rounds to zero.
-
COV 19 Wuhan Virus dashboard, cases by country:
https://ncov2019.live/
If you lived on planet earth during this crisis so far, the odds you contracted a known case of this virus are: .000000023
Significantly lower in the US.
When that number doubles or goes up 10 or 100-fold, it still rounds to zero.
Subject to rapid change.
-
I am telling most people who call in sick to quarantine themselves for 2 weeks
unless it is near certain it is not corona
unfortunately most of the time we can't tell
so i wind up having to tell people to stay home
a lot of people calling with subjective shortness of breath
I can't tell if anxiety or real
sometimes.
employers also calling anyone who travelled or with a cough or sniffle to call us and get a release
Are not the posters here all over 60?
:-o
-
[Odds of contracting virus] "Subject to rapid change."
Yes. And the odds that your finances, work and day to day activities are affected by it are now 100%.
----------------------------
[Exercise/recreation during the crisis]
ccp: "Isn't it hard to go from tennis to paddle ball.
In college playing tennis then going to racketball was hard because racquets different lengths."
The mind/body is amazing in its ability to adapt. At a competitive level you wouldn't want to mix the sports too much. For me, the limiting factor is physical / mobility, so any exercise and movement in one is helpful in the others. Racquetball is wristier than tennis so the stroke has to be different. Hockey for me has the hardest hand to eye, to pick a puck out of the air with the blade of the stick so far from the eye, it's hit and miss. Baseball even harder, round bat to hit a round moving ball at just the right angle. Even Ty Cobb only batted .366 Given that, golf should be easy. The ball is just sitting there! In golf, the clubs in the bag are all different lengths intentionally. That isn't what makes it hard...
-
I am telling most people who call in sick to quarantine themselves for 2 weeks
unless it is near certain it is not corona
unfortunately most of the time we can't tell
so i wind up having to tell people to stay home
a lot of people calling with subjective shortness of breath
I can't tell if anxiety or real
sometimes.
employers also calling anyone who travelled or with a cough or sniffle to call us and get a release
Are not the posters here all over 60?
:-o
I am not yet 50.
-
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/trump-awakens-to-the-covid-19-danger
my question is why was he listening to him to start with?
-
GM
"I am not yet 50."
GM you may have to carry on the forum for us ........ :|
-
https://coloradosun.com/2020/03/16/gunnison-county-coronavirus-restaurant-bar-ban/
Gunnison County bans restaurants, bars from serving people 60 and older to slow coronavirus spread
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. ccp: "Are not the posters here all over 60?"
63, young and healthy from my perspective. Just realized my daughter is being so careful around me because she thinks I'm elderly, at risk.
-
Corona Is Slowing Down, Humanity Will Survive, Says Biophysicist Michael Levitt
Nobel laureate and Stanford professor Michael Levitt unexpectedly became a reassuring figure in China at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. Now he assures Israelis: statistics show the virus is on a downturn
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3800632,00.html
-
Thanks Doug
for the post
if one reads drudge the world will end soon
we will all be on streets killing each other for the right to eat the remaining cats rabbits and possums
Trump vs the Dems
can't stop falling all over themselves to spend more than the other to show that they are doing more than the other side
yes I get it for the people out of work it sucks big time
and I do fear for elderly (I am 62 and not as trim the past yr as the jocks on this site)
and those with serious chronic conditions
This is the first real test of the nation in my life time
I did not live through WW 1. the 1918 to 1919 flu pandemic or WW 2
I did not live in Europe during the Iron Curtain etc
We kind of did during the cold war but that was not ever the same during my life
maybe it was in the later 40 s or early 50 s though with nuclear testing going off all over
Hopefully this will re awaken the American spirit and not the Left ist spirit
we will see.....
-
https://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2020/03/14/ventilator-maker-we-can-ramp-up-production-five-fold/#76a50c885e9a
-
https://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2020/03/14/ventilator-maker-we-can-ramp-up-production-five-fold/#76a50c885e9a
How fast can you ramp up production of the trained medical personnel to run them?
-
Without them we will never find out.
===============================
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/health/coronavirus-uk-model-study/index.html
-
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-coming-coronavirus-critical-care-emergency?source=EDT_NYR_EDIT_NEWSLETTER_0_imagenewsletter_Daily_ZZ&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_031820&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9d3fa3f92a40469e2d85c&cndid=50142053&esrc=&mbid=&utm_term=TNY_Daily
-
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/03/us-air-force-flew-half-million-coronavirus-test-kits-italy-tennessee/163879/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl
-
https://www.officer.com/command-hq/news/21130218/with-courts-closed-by-pandemic-philadelphia-police-stop-lowlevel-arrests-to-manage-jail-crowding?utm_source=Officer.com%20Newsday%20E-Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS200318091&o_eid=2450A5959134B2V&rdx.ident[pull]=omeda|2450A5959134B2V&oly_enc_id=2450A5959134B2V
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/chinese-authorities-gagged-laboratories-in-december-over-coronavirus-sars-connection/?fbclid=IwAR2BZWjgQ6Vu5RbD8UiXApd9csI5iMtAzJOYDy6B5yi5MaNar203ynDPed4
https://dailycaller.com/2020/03/18/flashback-who-china-coronavirus-contagious/?fbclid=IwAR3_YlCHoGbqJ6jKgWO0pcIAGq2cd9v7bgmX25wUjR6c1nXoEaqjMEr2I6E
-
The exponential growth curve of the virus is theoretical. It assumes people make no changes to their behavior, to anything, which of course is not possible is this more interconnected than ever before world. In fact the curves are already flattening in every country:
(https://i1.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/corona-deaths-20200316-1.png?w=713&ssl=1)
-
All information from China should be discarded. Italy's is still skyrocketing in deaths. It's very premature to assume anything.
The exponential growth curve of the virus is theoretical. It assumes people make no changes to their behavior, to anything, which of course is not possible is this more interconnected than ever before world. In fact the curves are already flattening in every country:
(https://i1.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/corona-deaths-20200316-1.png?w=713&ssl=1)
-
All information from [the regime of] China should be discarded. But there are other data points.
"Italy's is still skyrocketing in deaths." - Good point, but the curve is bending. In Italy, young people have contact with their elders. Not so much here.
99% of Those Who Died From Virus Had Other Illness, Italy Says
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says
As MIT Prof Jonathon Gruber might coldly observe, this is lowering our health care costs.
"It's very premature to assume anything." - Absolutely!
Also look at South Korea and Singapore. They took extreme measures and are getting good results.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/03/19/us/coronavirus-flatten-the-curve-countries-promo-1584592592793/coronavirus-flatten-the-curve-countries-promo-1584592592793-threeByTwoMediumAt2X-v5.png?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=1100
There will be more and better testing soon. Someday hand sanitizers (and toilet paper) will return to the shelves.
Imagine (to the tune of John Lennon) wand washing stations at the front of the restaurants. Tongs in the buffet lines that aren't touched by every finger licking dirty hand and then dropped in the food. Imagine subsidies for private automobiles equal to those for mass transit. Imagine all the people ... practicing basic, first-world hygiene.
-------------------------
Here's a thought:
If you were the enemy or an alien force and wanted to weaken or destroy the human species, you would kill off the youngest and strongest, not the oldest and weakest.
War can kill off the youngest and strongest - and we come back from it. Traffic deaths hit every category and perhaps the young and healthy worst and we don't blink unless it's someone we know. This, except for all the carnage and grieving, makes us stronger.
-
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15752/coronavirus-comes-for-europe
-
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/818192535/burr-recording-sparks-questions-about-private-comments-on-covid-19?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social
-
Too bad this chart doesn't start at or before Nov 17, the first known outbreak of the crisis:
(https://media.nature.com/lw800/magazine-assets/d41586-020-00758-2/d41586-020-00758-2_17805816.jpg)
-
Is going up with the worsening news every day
people calling with panic attacks, any little sore throat sniffle
discomfort in the chest
people with colds flu
crying they have this disease and might die.
loved ones all fearful for their older relatives
Terrible
I am almost crying feeling bad for them
most are low risk
have not anyone to hospital but am quarantining most people
-
https://www.ktnv.com/news/little-darlings-strip-club-to-offer-drive-thru-strip-shows-nude-hand-sanitizer-wrestling
It may be the cleanest place in the city.
-
https://www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describes--terrifying-lung-failure-from-covid19-even-in-his-young-patients
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/03/more-math.html
-
https://pjmedia.com/trending/report-china-stopped-testing-for-covid-19-thats-why-there-are-zero-new-cases/
-
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/21-inmates-17-employees-test-positive-for-covid-19-on-rikers-island-officials/2338242/
-
https://www.jpost.com/International/Israeli-doctor-in-Italy-We-no-longer-help-those-over-60-621856
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8141971/Beijings-leading-doctor-warns-new-coronavirus-outbreak-China.html?ito
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-jersey-to-release-hundreds-of-inmates-to-slow-coronavirus-spread/
-
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which called for the action along with the Public Defender’s Office, praised the move in a statement, calling it a “landmark agreement” that embodies the principles of “compassion” and “looking out for all people’s well-being.”
“Unprecedented times call for rethinking the normal way of doing things, and in this case it means releasing people who pose little risk to their communities for the sake of public health and the dignity of people who are incarcerated,” ACLU New Jersey Executive Director Amol Singha said in a statement.“Unprecedented times call for rethinking the normal way of doing things, and in this case it means releasing people who pose little risk to their communities for the sake of public health and the dignity of people who are incarcerated,” ACLU New Jersey Executive Director Amol Singha said in a statement."
What a joke.
-
https://reason.org/commentary/in-early-stages-private-sector-was-ready-to-help-fight-coronavirus-but-federal-government-didnt-let-it/
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/chinas-devastating-lies/
-
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/man-dies-after-ingesting-chloroquine-attempt-prevent-coronavirus-n1167166?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_ma
-
https://www.boredpanda.com/doctors-nurses-photos-fighting-coronavirus/
-
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30382-2/fulltext
On Dec 30, 2019, Li Wenliang sent a message to a group of fellow doctors warning them about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, where he worked. Meant to be a private message, he encouraged them to protect themselves from infection. Days later, he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau in Wuhan and made to sign a statement in which he was accused of making false statements that disturbed the public order
-
Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan Infectious Diseases Hospital, and Wuhan CDC. According to the analysis of epidemiological investigations and preliminary laboratory tests, the above cases are considered to be viral pneumonia. The investigation so far has not found any obvious human-to-human transmission and no medical staff infection.
http://wjw.wuhan.gov.cn/front/web/showDetail/2019123108989
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/chinas-devastating-lies/
-
I posted the bored panda link on our doctor email site
As doctors we are glad we can help but are obviously not at risk like our face to face frontline colleagues .
-
Mainstream media's first mention of the Wuhan Coronavirus. Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post, December 31 2019. Nothing to see here, "no human-to-human infection had been reported so far", "we are [now] quite capable of killing it in the beginning phase, given China’s disease control system, emergency handling capacity and clinical medicine support." What could go wrong?
This is as far as a somewhat free HK newspaper can go without being jailed with the other whistleblowers.
Besides, US Media was consumed with Nancy Pelosi holding her passed articles of impeachment and not delivering them to the Senate.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3044050/mystery-illness-hits-chinas-wuhan-city-nearly-30-hospitalised
Photo: Wuhan’s Huanan seafood market, where most of the mystery viral pneumonia cases have originated. Photo: HandoutWuhan’s Huanan seafood market, where most of the mystery viral pneumonia cases have originated.
China / Politics
Hong Kong takes emergency measures as mystery ‘pneumonia’ infects dozens in China’s Wuhan city
Most patients worked at a seafood market and health workers are still trying to identify virus responsible
City authorities tell hospitals to report any more cases of the illness, which is described as being ‘of unknown origin’
Mandy Zuo, Lilian Cheng, Alice Yan and Cannix Yau
Published: 2:35pm, 31 Dec, 2019
Hong Kong health authorities are taking no chances with a mysterious outbreak of viral pneumonia in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, warning of symptoms similar to Sars and bird flu as they step up border screening and put hospitals on alert.
“The situation in Wuhan is unusual, and we are not sure about the reasons behind the outbreak yet,” said Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee said after an urgent night-time meeting with officials and experts on New Year’s Eve. “Since we are now in the holiday season, and Hong Kong has close transport ties with Wuhan, we must stay alert.”
With Wuhan reporting 27 infections so far, Chan said the Department of Health would increase vigilance and temperature screenings at every border checkpoint, including the city’s international airport and high-speed railway station in West Kowloon.
Hospital Authority chief executive Tony Ko Pat-sing said frontline medical staff had been alerted at public and private hospitals.
Central Hospital in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where an “unknown pneumonia” has so far affected nearly 30 people.
“So far, there are no suspicious pneumonia cases in public hospitals,” he said. “But once we suspect cases, including the presentation of fever and acute respiratory illness or pneumonia, and travel history to Wuhan within 14 days before onset of symptoms, we will put the patients into isolation.”
News of the outbreak in Wuhan came to light after an urgent notice from the city’s health department, which told hospitals to report further cases of “pneumonia of unknown origin”, started circulating on social media on Monday night.
The notice invoked memories of the 2002 and 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, which killed hundreds of people in mainland China and Hong Kong.
Protests took a harder toll on Hong Kong’s economy than Sars virus
2 Nov 2019
Over the past month, 27 patients in Wuhan – most of them stall holders at the Huanan seafood market – have been treated for the mystery illness.
The Wuhan municipal health commission said seven of the patients were seriously ill. Two had nearly recovered and were about to leave hospital, while the remaining patients were in a stable condition. Most patients had fevers and some were short of breath.
Hong Kong health authorities are taking no chances with a mysterious outbreak of viral pneumonia in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, warning of symptoms similar to Sars and bird flu as they step up border screening and put hospitals on alert.
With Wuhan reporting 27 infections so far, Chan said the Department of Health would increase vigilance and temperature screenings at every border checkpoint, including the city’s international airport and high-speed railway station in West Kowloon.
Hospital Authority chief executive Tony Ko Pat-sing said frontline medical staff had been alerted at public and private hospitals.
“So far, there are no suspicious pneumonia cases in public hospitals,” he said. “But once we suspect cases, including the presentation of fever and acute respiratory illness or pneumonia, and travel history to Wuhan within 14 days before onset of symptoms, we will put the patients into isolation.”
Experts from the University of Hong Kong have also been enlisted to conduct faster genetic testing of virus samples.
News of the outbreak in Wuhan came to light after an urgent notice from the city’s health department, which told hospitals to report further cases of “pneumonia of unknown origin”, started circulating on social media on Monday night.
The notice invoked memories of the 2002 and 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, which killed hundreds of people in mainland China and Hong Kong.
Over the past month, 27 patients in Wuhan – most of them stall holders at the Huanan seafood market – have been treated for the mystery illness.
The Wuhan municipal health commission said seven of the patients were seriously ill. Two had nearly recovered and were about to leave hospital, while the remaining patients were in a stable condition. Most patients had fevers and some were short of breath.
The health commission’s initial investigations, which included clinical diagnosis and laboratory tests, suggested all 27 were viral pneumonia cases.
No human-to-human infection had been reported so far, officials said, and no medical staff had contracted the disease. More pathological tests and investigations were underway.
“So far, there are no suspicious pneumonia cases in public hospitals,” he said. “But once we suspect cases, including the presentation of fever and acute respiratory illness or pneumonia, and travel history to Wuhan within 14 days before onset of symptoms, we will put the patients into isolation.”
Experts from the University of Hong Kong have also been enlisted to conduct faster genetic testing of virus samples.
Microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung from the University of Hong Kong noted similarities with the 1997 outbreak of avian influenza, and the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic of 2003 – all cases in Wuhan were linked to the same seafood market, reported in December, and with a severe infection rate of 25 per cent.
“But there’s no need to panic. First, compared with 2003, we have better systems in notification, testing and infection control. We also have medicines that we can try,” Yuen said.
“In the past, we didn’t have proper isolation facilities. If you ask me will there be any chance that the severity will be the same as in 2003, I will say the chance is low. All we have to do is to be on alert.”
The 2003 epidemic infected more than 1,750 people and killed 299 in Hong Kong.
The patients in Wuhan were under quarantine while tests and a disinfection programme were being carried out at the seafood market, the city’s health authorities said.
Qu Shiqian, a vendor at the seafood market, said government officials had disinfected the premises on Tuesday and told stallholders to wear masks.
He said he had only learnt about the pneumonia outbreak from media reports.
“Previously I thought they had flu,” he said. “It should be not serious. We are fish traders. How can we get infected?”
State television reported that a team of experts from the National Health Commission had arrived in Wuhan to lead the investigation, while People’s Daily said the exact cause remained unclear and it would be premature to speculate.
People’s Daily also quoted several hospital sources in the city who said it was likely that the virus responsible was different from Sars, which infected more than 5,300 people and killed 349 in mainland China between late 2002 and mid-2003.
Tao Lina, a public health expert and former official with Shanghai’s centre for disease control and prevention, said that while a return of Sars could not be ruled out, the public health care system was now better able to handle such an outbreak.
“We don’t know whether Sars will come back after 16 years. In human history, we’ve never seen an epidemic disappear forever without the interference of vaccines. So we have reasons to be cautious, but not to panic too much,” Tao said.
“I think we are [now] quite capable of killing it in the beginning phase, given China’s disease control system, emergency handling capacity and clinical medicine support.”
-
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/texas-lt-governor-suggests-elderly-should-risk-lives-save-economy-050531075.html
-
To call it Wuhan or China is racist(?) but to name it COVID-19 is to single out the year that China was lying about it, endangering the world.
Dec 31 2019 China was reporting "no human-to-human infection had been reported so far", and had already jailed 8 medical personnel who said otherwise.
See previous posts and Jim Geraghty's National Review article yesterday:
The Comprehensive Timeline of China’s COVID-19 Lies
By JIM GERAGHTY
March 23, 2020
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/chinas-devastating-lies/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first
-
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/texas-lt-governor-suggests-elderly-should-risk-lives-save-economy-050531075.html
I know people who feel that way and I strongly disagree. We are in the middle of a mostly voluntary 15 day shutdown that took a couple of days to get started. We can do this for let's say 16 days and then see where we are with it. We need progress on every front, test kits, sanitizers, TOILET PAPER, ventilators, hospital beds and treatments. That takes time.
OMG, you can't go to a restaurant - where the hygiene should have been looked at a lot closer a long time ago. Flying is a privilege, not a right. Right?
I am able to get in my car and go almost anywhere I want and buy almost anything I want. Young, healthy people who are inconvenienced should be thankful they are young and healthy. That won't always be the case.
The economy will bounce back just fine (MHO) when the medical crisis is clearly in the rear view mirror.
-
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-was-most-prepared-country-in-the-world-for-pandemics-johns-hopkins-study-found-in-2019
-
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-03-20/us-mexico-border-to-close-amid-coronavirus-spread?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newslink&utm_term=members&utm_content=20200324133615
-
third post
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-russia-idUSKBN21B2F3?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm
-
third post
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-russia-idUSKBN21B2F3?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-russia-idUSKBN21B2F3?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
Super spreader of Zuckberg-19
-
At Andy:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/24/andrew-cuomo-supports-loosening-restrictions-to-restart-economy/
-
This site is the simplest:
https://www.coronainusa.com/
-
can this one Senator delay a bill?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/rep-amash-signals-may-single-134541682.html
he does make excellent points.
bail out big business ?
increase wealth gap?
massively grow government?
where would he get that idea?
-
More optimistic take:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/oxford-epidemiologist-heres-why-that-doomsday-model-is-likely-way-off
-
More optimistic take:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/oxford-epidemiologist-heres-why-that-doomsday-model-is-likely-way-off
Killing 2 million is hardly doomsday. Now Ebola, or something similar could be the "slate wiper".
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-ebola-future-rick-kogan-perspec-1001-20141017-story.html
-
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/covid-19-5-dead-405-confirmed-cases/
-
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/covid-19-5-dead-405-confirmed-cases/
Better secure that border with El Norte muy rapido!
-
https://reason.com/2020/03/25/fda-tells-at-home-diagnostics-companies-to-stop-coronavirus-test-roll-outs/?amp&__twitter_impression=true
-
More optimistic take:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/oxford-epidemiologist-heres-why-that-doomsday-model-is-likely-way-off
Killing 2 million is hardly doomsday. Now Ebola, or something similar could be the "slate wiper".
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-ebola-future-rick-kogan-perspec-1001-20141017-story.html
Yes, this is looking like it is our practice run, unlikely to make the list of top 100 causes of death in the US in the year of its outbreak. The number I see today is 857 deaths in US as we approach the end of a 14 day shutdown. http://deathcount.info/ It would take 69,000 deaths/yr. to make the top 100 list: https://thestacker.com/stories/1100/top-100-causes-death-america
That does not mean we have over-reacted, just that it isn't a bug with a 90 or 100% kill rate. If we ever get to universal testing I expect we find the kill rate is below 0.1%. And there are immunizations and treatments coming. This bug is not killing off humanity. It's part of mortality we already face.
-
Important paper I should have posted sooner. I didn't fully understand what he was saying.
"THE NOVEL CORONAVIRUS emerging out of Wuhan, China has been identified as a deadly strain that is also highly contagious."
...
"Fat tailed processes have special attributes, making conventional risk-management approaches inadequate."
We should have done sooner what we are doing now, but I don't think the public would have complied before they fully recognized the risk. At the time of that writing, the ruling regime of China was still denying important aspects of the risk.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b68a4e4a2772c2a206180a1/t/5e2efaa2ff2cf27efbe8fc91/1580137123173/Systemic_Risk_of_Pandemic_via_Novel_Path.pdf
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat-tailed_distribution]
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/scientists-find-69-drugs-and-compounds-potentially-effective-against-covid-19_3284366.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=b751c4c659-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_24_11_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-b751c4c659-239065853
-
we always knew that travel today would make any pandemic spread even faster.
the troops movements around the world in 1918 spread it far faster at that time.
what surprises me is back then, most deaths are thought to be from the secondary bacterial pneumonias - in the days before antibiotics which I wrongly assumed with thus mitigate deaths in the next pandemic.
Corona victims are not dying as much. from pneumonias as from acute respiratory distress syndrome wherein the lungs fill with fluid
and then the heart give out.
so antibiotics will not save most people.
that all said I am more optimistic
I think we have seen the bottom in the market
and I think the total death rates will be on lower end
due to our ingenuity in finding ways to treat, mobilization
etc.
This is not doomsday.
Though I wish I had more cash - I never have it when I need it. Only the rich keep tons of cash on hand.
I think Grannis was right
The government 's job is to step in and find ways to spread out trillions. ( into the black bottomless hole of no return)
I know much are "loans" ... yada ....
-
It’s not doomsday, but don’t be so quick to assume we have hit bottom. Tread carefully. This is only the first wave.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAHOMuiipsE
Even worse than catching a falling knife.
we always knew that travel today would make any pandemic spread even faster.
the troops movements around the world in 1918 spread it far faster at that time.
what surprises me is back then, most deaths are thought to be from the secondary bacterial pneumonias - in the days before antibiotics which I wrongly assumed with thus mitigate deaths in the next pandemic.
Corona victims are not dying as much. from pneumonias as from acute respiratory distress syndrome wherein the lungs fill with fluid
and then the heart give out.
so antibiotics will not save most people.
that all said I am more optimistic
I think we have seen the bottom in the market
and I think the total death rates will be on lower end
due to our ingenuity in finding ways to treat, mobilization
etc.
This is not doomsday.
Though I wish I had more cash - I never have it when I need it. Only the rich keep tons of cash on hand.
I think Grannis was right
The government 's job is to step in and find ways to spread out trillions. ( into the black bottomless hole of no return)
I know much are "loans" ... yada ....
-
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3903937
-
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3903937
Shocking.
:roll:
-
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/62251.html
-
wow the Chinese really are our friends:
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/sorry-conspiracy-theorists-study-concludes-covid-19-not-090026698--abc-news-topstories.html
All well and good, but the "stuy deals blow to conspiracy theorists" title of yahoo post is an obvious PC jab.
-
wow the Chinese really are our friends:
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/sorry-conspiracy-theorists-study-concludes-covid-19-not-090026698--abc-news-topstories.html
All well and good, but the "stuy deals blow to conspiracy theorists" title of yahoo post is an obvious PC jab.
Trace the Chinese funding.
-
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/technology/489680-dyson-designs-new-ventilator-will-produce-15000-to-fight
-
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-usa/u-s-announces-aid-for-china-other-countries-impacted-by-coronavirus-idUSKBN2012FH
-
This I understand was the first US report of "Wuhan Virus". WSJ
It is loaded with inaccuracies based on the Chinese Communist Party cover up.
The number in China went from 300 to 18,000 in days.
This is roughly what was known when Pres. Trump said we have it under control.
-------------------------------------------------
First U.S. Case Reported of Deadly Wuhan Virus
The coronavirus has sickened hundreds, killed six in China
[No. It was way worse than that in China; they were lying to us, to the WHO and to the world.]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-virus-kills-two-more-patients-as-authorities-step-up-control-measures-11579614626
The U.S. confirmed its first case of a patient with the new coronavirus. A traveler takes precautions at Seattle’s international airport.
PHOTO: DAVID RYDER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
By Betsy McKay and Chao Deng
Updated Jan. 22, 2020 11:26 am ET
A man in Washington state has been diagnosed with a deadly strain of coronavirus, the first case to be confirmed in the U.S. in an outbreak that has sickened hundreds of people in Asia, federal and state health officials said Tuesday.
The man, who is in his 30s and is a U.S. resident, recently traveled to Wuhan, China, the city where the outbreak is believed to have started last month, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as Washington state and local health authorities. The man arrived back in the U.S. on Jan. 15.
Spread of the Virus
Since it first appeared in the central Chinese city of Wuhan last month, a newly identified coronavirus has spread across China and into neighboring countries. On Tuesday, a case was confirmed in Washington state.
Confirmed cases, deaths: see graphic
Sources: local governments; China Central Television
He is the first patient to be diagnosed with the new coronavirus outside of Asia, where more than 300 people have been sickened and at least six have died. While most of the confirmed illnesses occurred in people in Wuhan, cases have been reported in other cities in China, as well as Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
The CDC said last week that it was expecting cases in the U.S., and now says it expects more. “We do expect additional cases in the United States and globally,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
An emergency committee for the World Health Organization is scheduled to meet Wednesday to determine whether to declare the outbreak a public-health emergency of international concern, a designation that would help mobilize resources to prevent the virus’s spread around the globe.
Aware of the outbreak in Wuhan, the Washington man sought medical care when he developed symptoms a day after arriving home to Snohomish County, north of Seattle, the health officials said. He is in good condition and has been hospitalized at the Providence Regional Medical Center Everett out of an abundance of caution, the officials said.
A hospital spokesman said that the patient is being monitored in a special isolation unit “for at least the next 48 hours.” The hospital is contacting health workers and other patients who may have had contact with him, so they can be monitored for symptoms, the spokesman said.
Ground Zero for China’s Mysterious Virus
Spreading quickly from its epicenter in the city of Wuhan, a potentially lethal virus has sickened hundreds around China and reached the U.S., Japan and South Korea. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
“The man who tested positive acted quickly to seek treatment,” said John Wiesman, Washington State Secretary of Health. “We believe the risk to the public is low.”
The fact that local health officials and a regional hospital in the Pacific Northwest have suddenly been confronted with a virus that scientists discovered just a few weeks ago thousands of miles away in central China shows how rapidly diseases can spread around the world. The risk is even greater when a new virus emerges in a busy transport hub like Wuhan, which is connected through direct and connecting flights to many other major cities around the globe.
The CDC said Tuesday that it will expand screening of airline passengers for symptoms of the new virus to two more airports: Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. All passengers from Wuhan will now be funneled through five airports where screening is taking place, said Martin Cetron, director of the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine at the CDC.
The CDC began screening at the end of last week at three airports that receive the majority of travelers from Wuhan: San Francisco International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. More than 1,200 passengers have been screened, but none have been referred to a hospital, said Dr. Messonnier.
A Chinese-language sign in the Seattle airport tells arriving passengers to call a doctor if they have been in Wuhan and feel sick.
PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Washington state man returned to the U.S. before screening began. It isn’t clear how he was infected, deepening a mystery as to how the virus is transmitted and how easily it spreads from one person to another. He didn’t visit any animal or seafood markets in Wuhan, which were suspected sites for transmission, said Chris Spitters, health officer for the Snohomish Health District. Nor did the man know anyone who was ill.
It is also unclear how easily the virus is spreading from one human to another, the CDC said Tuesday. Coronaviruses circulate primarily in animals such as bats and pigs, and Chinese authorities initially believed that patients had been infected during contact with animals at a market. But as more cases emerged in people who said they hadn’t visited the market, they revised their stance. Chinese authorities acknowledged on Monday that the virus is spreading among humans.
China’s Mysterious New Virus Spreads Beyond the Epicenter
Chinese health authorities have reported more than 300 cases of a pneumonia-like illness that has spread to South Korea, Japan and Thailand. While different from the deadly SARS, the coronavirus is sparking memories of the outbreak in the early 2000s. Photo: Getty Images
The CDC is working with authorities in China and other experts globally to learn more about the virus, and scientists are working on the development of treatments, Dr. Messonnier said. “There is new information hour by hour, day by day that we are tracking and following closely,” she said.
Experts believe the current coronavirus to be much less deadly than severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, a different coronavirus strain that killed hundreds of people around the world in late 2002 and early 2003 after it first appeared in southern China.
Even so, China’s cabinet-level National Health Commission said Monday it would treat the new coronavirus as a Class A infectious disease, meaning it would be handled similarly to cholera, the plague and to how it handled the SARS outbreak
Wuhan will take more stringent measures to prevent transmission of the disease, including canceling what it considers unnecessary large gatherings, setting up a prevention and control center, and strengthening protection of medical staff, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday.
Authorities at Wuhan’s international airport are monitoring outbound travelers in an effort to curb spread of the infection.
“We recommend outsiders not come to Wuhan and also that Wuhan residents not leave Wuhan without a special reason,” Zhou Xianwang, the city’s mayor, told CCTV on Tuesday.
North Korea, which borders northeastern China, has stopped allowing entry for tourists as a preventive measure, according to two China-based travel agencies that arrange tours to the country.
In Australia, the country’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, told reporters that three direct flights each week between Wuhan and Sydney would be met by officials who would inquire about sick passengers.
Philippine health authorities, meanwhile, said they are testing which type of coronavirus a 5-year-old who traveled from Wuhan this month had contracted.
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
-
"The testing fiasco was the original sin of America’s pandemic failure, the single flaw that undermined every other countermeasure."
well I dunno
I don't like to jump on the chorus band wagon
what are they saying
a virus that might have spread
(remember the other ones that did not) should have within weeks triggered production of millions of test kits available everywhere for immediate
use that may never have been needed in the first place
at every outbreak of anything everywhere will now subject us to all sorts of God knows. what.
-
another end game scenario
the "novel" corona disappears from the face of the Earth like the 1918 flu pandemic virus to never be heard from again or mutates back to a regular cold virus.
-
these guys and gals cannot be released from their stations. and sent home :
(maybe some can)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-outbreak-on-aircraft-carrier-sends-troops-scrambling
-
I need citations of doctors and serious folks endorsing the off label use of the malaria drug, and of the current study being done in real time in NYC.
-
"I need citations of doctors and serious folks endorsing the off label use of the malaria drug, and of the current study being done in real time in NYC."
what do you mean citations?
the general consensus as far as I know is this drug should not be used for outpatient people suspected of or having confirmed corona at all.
for those who look like they are critically ill there is controversy
I don't like doctors hoarding these for themselves or their families as reported
I have had people calling up asking for zpacks (nothing else works! - total BS). one calls up stating he thinks he has malaria - called from Michigan.
Some doctors I work with feel these drugs should not be used at all unless in some kind of clinical trial
On that note I personally disagree. If someone is on a ventilator and dying I think there is enough evidence these drugs may work they should
be used / offered.
though agree it is best if they are used in a way that the results can be measured so we have a better idea how well they work
they are drugs around for decades so we already know side effects etc. though we do not really understand well in the situation of corona obviously
it is important to remember the history of medicine is littered with drugs that seemed to work, theoretically should work , and either did not or indeed, not rarely made things worse.
-
https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/coronavirus-resource-center
-
This seems relevant:
https://therightscoop.com/good-news-trump-admin-cuts-red-tape-on-hydroxychloroquine-production-to-meet-coronavirus-demand/
-
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/coronavirus-california-mobile-hospitals-ventilators
"Sharing this not to bash anybody, but to point out how difficult preparedness really is. If you don’t need something for a long time, you can persuade yourself that you’ll never need it. Or that it’s too expensive to maintain based on the unlikelihood something will happen. Then it does and everyone becomes a critic."
-
"If you don’t need something for a long time, you can persuade yourself that you’ll never need it. "
yeah, like 100 yrs
-
Yeah, who could have foreseen the potential for a pandemic in California? The sprawling homeless camps filled with MRSA, TB, HIV, Leprosy, Hepatitis and Typhus are otherwise very hygienic!
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/coronavirus-california-mobile-hospitals-ventilators
"Sharing this not to bash anybody, but to point out how difficult preparedness really is. If you don’t need something for a long time, you can persuade yourself that you’ll never need it. Or that it’s too expensive to maintain based on the unlikelihood something will happen. Then it does and everyone becomes a critic."
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/386550.php
Glorious victory!
-
Well, if that is so, and given that Taiwan and HK do have WuFlu, then they must not be part of China.
-
Well, if that is so, and given that Taiwan and HK do have WuFlu, then they must not be part of China.
They aren’t.
-
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32777/covid-19-drives-command-teams-charged-with-homeland-defense-into-cheyenne-mountain-bunker
-
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/28/coronavirus-fda-authorizes-abbott-labs-fast-portable-covid-test/2932766001/
do the Chinese have such a test. :-P
-
of course Cuomo
who thinks America was never that great
must not think much of American ingenuity............
-
But he does think a lot of bureaucracy:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/03/27/coronavirus-test-officials-botched-rollout-derailed-containment/5080781002/
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/03/todays-reality-check.html
-
Well, if that is so, and given that Taiwan and HK do have WuFlu, then they must not be part of China.
They aren’t.
That's right, they aren't and this is a breakthrough catch by Crafty, like when Justice Breyer referred to the woman in an abortion situation as a "mother". Mother of what?! Here the WHO pretends to not know Taiwan - as anything other than China, even though the stats are separate and so is the sovereignty.
https://twitter.com/HKWORLDCITY/status/1243865641448169474
-
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/coronavirus-california-mobile-hospitals-ventilators
-
THIS is the first report WE had of the Wuhan virus:
[China had a scientific report on Jan 5.]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-virus-discovered-by-chinese-scientists-investigating-pneumonia-outbreak-11578485668
New Virus Discovered by Chinese Scientists Investigating Pneumonia Outbreak
Latest tally of people sickened in Wuhan is 59, with seven in critical condition
Public-health officials in Bangkok hand out disease-monitoring information after performing thermal scans on passengers arriving from Wuhan, China, on Wednesday.
PHOTO: LAUREN DECICCA/GETTY IMAGES
By Natasha Khan
Updated Jan. 8, 2020 8:30 pm ET
HONG KONG—Chinese scientists investigating a mystery illness that has sickened dozens in central China have discovered a new strain of coronavirus, a development that will test the country’s upgraded capabilities for dealing with unfamiliar infectious diseases.
The novel coronavirus was genetically sequenced from a sample from one patient and subsequently found in some of the others affected in the city of Wuhan, people familiar with the findings said. Chinese authorities haven’t concluded that the strain is the underlying cause of sickness in all the patients who have been isolated in Wuhan since the infection first broke out in early December, the people said.
Chinese state media reported Thursday that the unidentified pneumonia “is believed to be a new type of coronavirus,” citing experts. State media reported that the results were preliminary and more research was needed to understand the virus.
There are many known coronaviruses—some can cause ailments like common colds in humans, while others don’t affect humans at all. Some—such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS-coronavirus, identified in 2003—have led to deadly outbreaks, lending urgency to efforts to contain the current situation.
The number of reported cases of viral pneumonia in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, was 59 on Sunday, rising from 27 on Dec. 31, according to Wuhan’s Municipal Health Commission, with seven people in critical condition. No deaths have been reported.
The disease afflicting patients in Wuhan hasn’t been transmitted from human to human, and health-care workers have remained uninfected, according to city health officials as of Sunday, suggesting that what is sickening them is for now less virulent than SARS. Those ill in Wuhan are believed to have become sick through exposure to animals linked to a live seafood and animal market.
Health experts say one risk is that the disease could become a bigger threat as tens of millions of Chinese travel around the country during the Lunar New Year holidays that begin in just over two weeks.
Health authorities in Singapore and Hong Kong, cities that have direct flights from Wuhan, have issued alerts and quarantined patients traveling from the region who show signs of fever or breathing difficulties.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked health-care providers and state and local health departments on Wednesday to screen patients with severe respiratory illnesses about whether they have traveled to Wuhan. Any patients meeting those criteria should be reported immediately to public health authorities, the U.S. public health agency said in a health advisory. No cases have been reported in the U.S., the CDC said, adding that it is prepared to respond “if additional public health actions are required.”
In Hong Kong on Tuesday, the government said it was taking precautions against a “severe respiratory disease associated with a novel infectious agent.” that it is seeking to make a statutory notifiable infectious disease, meaning doctors would need to report any suspected cases, and patients evading quarantine could be fined or jailed.
A visitor walked past a large photo depicting the 2003 SARS epidemic at an exhibition, ‘40 Years Through the Lens,’ at the National Museum of China, in Beijing, September 2018.
PHOTO: WU HONG/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
China was criticized for initially covering up SARS, which was first detected in late 2002 but was disclosed only after it began spreading widely, eventually killing 774 people globally, according to the World Health Organization. Beijing overhauled the nation’s disease control after reviews found that initial failures to contain and isolate patients with SARS allowed it to proliferate across densely populated southern China.
The Wuhan outbreak will test how much has changed.
“We learned a bitter lesson in 2003, and we do not want that to happen again,” said Alex Lam, chairman of advocacy group Hong Kong Patients’ Voices. “China should immediately release their findings so doctors across the world can better know how to tackle this illness.”
Hong Kong’s department of health, citing information from China’s National Health Commission, said the cause of the cluster of pneumonia cases detected in Wuhan was still under investigation, but other known respiratory pathogens had been ruled out.
The main clinical symptoms of those affected by the Wuhan outbreak are fever—with a few patients having difficulty breathing—and invasive lesions of both lungs, which show up on chest radiographs, the WHO said Sunday.
A mourner wearing a mask to ward off SARS under an umbrella during the funeral of a SARS doctor in Hong Kong in 2003.
PHOTO: BOBBY YIP/REUTERS
It is unclear what the underlying source of the disease is, though the reported link to a wholesale fish and live-animal market could indicate an exposure link to animals, the WHO said. Bats, for example, are known reservoirs for coronaviruses, and have been found to transmit the disease to humans through a third vector such as a civet cat, as scientists found in the case of SARS.
The pattern of the unexplained pneumonia cases linked to the market selling seafood and live game strongly suggests that this is a novel microbe jumping from animal to human, said K.Y. Yuen, chair professor of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Medicine.
Researchers have determined that a large proportion of new infectious diseases in humans are transmitted via animals. Such illnesses are referred to as zoonoses. Two newer human coronaviruses, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, have been known to cause severe illness and death, according to the U.S. CDC.
The Wuhan strain is similar to bat coronaviruses that were a precursor to SARS, a person familiar with the new findings said.
Given the marked advances in hospital isolation facilities, infection-control training and laboratory diagnostic capabilities in the past two decades, it is unlikely that this outbreak will lead to a major 2003-like epidemic, Mr. Yuen said.
In Wuhan, which has China’s first Biosafety Level 4 laboratory—a specialized research laboratory that deals with potentially deadly infectious agents like Ebola—the market at the center of investigations has been shut since Jan 1.
In Hong Kong, badly hit by the SARS virus, which claimed 299 lives locally in 2003, residents have donned surgical masks on the streets and public transport in recent days, despite no local cases of the Wuhan infection being confirmed.
—Betsy McKay and Stephanie Yang contributed to this article.
Write to Natasha Khan at natasha.khan@wsj.com
-
https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-test-announced-could-determine-if-people-were-already-infected-with-coronavirus-and-are-now-immune?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=benshapiro
-
https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-test-announced-could-determine-if-people-were-already-infected-with-coronavirus-and-are-now-immune?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=benshapiro
Yes.
-
https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/03/newsom-california-can-produce-enough-ventilators-to-meet-covid-19-need/
-
https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/03/newsom-california-can-produce-enough-ventilators-to-meet-covid-19-need/
https://explorehealthcareers.org/career/allied-health-professions/respiratory-therapist/
YEARS HIGHER EDUCATION
2 - 5
Got a way to mass produce people to run the vents?
-
https://cnsnews.com/article/national/melanie-arter/dr-fauci-willing-bet-anything-recovered-coronavirus-patients-have?utm_source=
-
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-netherlands-recalls-defective-masks-bought-from-china/a-52949216
-
https://www.doximity.com/collections/5a030e69-d884-4112-9eef-1872038e3a5b?_eda_link_uuid=c63aaf2b-722e-4312-842f-45ec43b300db&_r=1&_ref=digest&_t=7703864&clicked=true&featured_item=docnews-articles%2F8059465&position=1&source=email_doc_news%3A%3Aspecialty_digest&utm_campaign=doc_news%3A%3Aspecialty_digest&utm_source=doximity-eda&utm_medium=email
for yrs I subscribed to NEJM then I started seeing all the PC correct articles and cancelled
I still was member of ACP and that got overwhelming PC and I cancelled.
The lead article in the Green journal this past month that I get sent to be for free is "why is there not more women in cardiology?"
the article notes 51 % of new doctors are babes now , but only 20% of cardiologists.
My thought: why should I give a hoot.
No one is stopping them.
here it is ; good for bathroom reading which IS where I usually wind up reading it:
https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(19)30866-6/fulltext
PS
and you can't even use it for toilet paper for those of us not savvy foresightful enough, like GM, to stock up.
the ink comes off the paper.
well do have another package of paper left.... but am close to out on paper towels.
-
A friend who is a successful entrepreneur in biotech says the goal [other than to succeed] is to "fail fast".
With every new theory, drug, test procedure or treatment, whether you are the investor or the scientist, you want it to fail fast [if it is going to fail at all] and move the learning from it and your time and resources into the next theory, test, drug or treatment [until you get it right].
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/the-power-line-show-ep-174-a-look-at-covid-19-data-with-brian-sullivan.php
-
https://www.axios.com/fauci-coronavirus-deaths-america-aa3c1c66-329b-49a6-bcc4-50484ace46ed.html
a heck of a lot less then 3 to 5 million
the NYT wants to smear Trump with
that said only time will tell.
American ingenuity has not let us down yet - except maybe in politics.
-
This comes well recommended
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wr9Z_enNQ4
-
second post
https://nypost.com/2020/03/28/experts-say-face-masks-can-help-slow-covid-19-despite-previous-claims/
-
my sister sent me Dr Price's video
and it was noted on Watter's World last night
not a huge fan of saturday fox shows
but even with the choice of 100 stations or more I still can't find things I want to watch
that is when I pick up a book
still reading about the 14th century plague
reading how the religious monks friars popes bishops etc were at least as much political and financial animals as religious!
at least bishopship was a collection of gays even then!
-
second post
https://nypost.com/2020/03/28/experts-say-face-masks-can-help-slow-covid-19-despite-previous-claims/
Sadly, they seem to be playing down the importance of masks because we can't have any. Is that valid reason to hide the truth, i.e. lie?
That and the hand sanitizer scandal ... these parts of the puzzle are solvable!
https://time.com/5811201/ethanol-producers-hand-sanitizer/
-
https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1244016912281059329
-
I thought I posted response to this but didn't hit post I guess
Am doing this in between patients
I wondered about the face mask claim too.
for 36 years I was alway told when going into a patient's room in the hospital who had legionnaires or TB or other resp. born illness we. needed to wear mask to protect ourselves
now suddenly we are told they don't work
I wondered why for the new revelation ?
mask does not filter corona, mask was not tight enough,
people who wear them not taking them off correctly and just contaminating their hands? masks do not cover eyes?
or are we being fed a bunch of bullshit?
I think Doug is right
the elites decide what is best for us to know and not know.
now back to seeing patients.
I am done saying wash your hands blah blah blah
and everyone else I am sure is tired of hearing the same crap
-
https://www.statutesandstories.com/blog_html/an-act-relative-to-quarantine/
-
https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/03/700-nj-police-officers-have-tested-positive-for-coronavirus-state-police-leader-says.html
-
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-25/suspected-or-confirmed-coronavirus-patients-fill-up
-
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6485/1412
-
"Once in the ICU, patients typically need somewhere between 10 to 14 days of mechanical ventilation, Parodi said."
That is a long time
I read the Gilead drug seems to cut that length of time down a lot .
Not sure about chloroquine drug but likely that too. ("doc I have malaria !" )
the sooner we get them off the vents the faster we get the vent tube into the next windpipe.
-
People are speculating Wuhan plague death rates, 100,000 US? Here is my prediction: The [overall] death rate in the US and in the world will be statistically unchanged in this period we are in. More COVID deaths, fewer of some of the others, less air pollution, better hygiene and distancing, fewer traffic deaths etc. Leading causes of death will still be heart disease and cancer. I hope the current crisis and panic does not get in the way of my friends who need cancer treatment now.
-
The Coronavirus Threat To view this article, Click Here
Brian S. Wesbury, Chief Economist
Robert Stein, Deputy Chief Economist
Date: 3/30/2020
Total deaths in the US from COVID19 look like they'll hit at least 3,000 by the end of March. A potentially brutal April lies ahead.
In the meantime, the measures taken to limit deaths have temporarily tanked the US economy. Initial claims for jobless benefits soared to 3.283 million per week, easily the highest ever. The prior record was 695,000 in October 1982; the highest during the Great Recession was 665,000.
Policymakers have reacted to the economic damage with massive measures. The Federal Reserve has reduced interest rates to nearly zero, has begged banks to use the discount window, embarked on unlimited quantitative easing, and is backstopping an unprecedented array of markets, including commercial paper, money markets, commercial mortgages, and municipal securities.
Meanwhile, we have a newly enacted "stimulus" bill that could total $2 trillion, possibly more. These include IRS checks, a major expansion in unemployment benefits, as well as a broad combination of grants, loans, and loan guarantees for businesses (large and small), hospitals, schools, and state and local governments.
The federal budget deficit for this fiscal year, previously estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to be about $1.1 trillion, could easily run around $2.5 trillion, and that's without other major spending bills. Since World War II, the largest budget deficit relative to GDP was 9.8% in 2009; but a $2.5 trillion deficit this year could be about 11.8% of GDP.
Of course, these monetary and fiscal measures are on top of the massive economic interference - designed to stem the virus -by governments at all levels. The longer these measures persist, the greater the risk of atrophy setting in for small business across the country, making them less able to reopen in the future. The loss of intangible capital would be enormous, the internal knowledge of how to get things done. Slower economic growth in the post-COVID19 world would be the result.
It's important that the expansion of government is not made permanent. The New Deal took annual federal spending from about 3% of GDP to about 10% of GDP (before World War II) and we never went back, or even close. Policymakers need to avoid making COVID19 an excuse for another permanent leap upward in the size of government, which would erode future living standards versus where they would otherwise go.
Once we have a vaccine, some things have to change. Governments at all levels should consider "strategic health reserves" of masks, ventilators, respirators,...whatever is needed in an emergency, so we don't have to take drastic measures again. Our recent response should not be a periodic feature of American life.
Dr. Fauci recently said there could be 100,000 – 200,000 deaths. The mid-point would be 47 people per 100,000 residents, not much different from the number of people the US lost to the flu in early 1953, late 1957, early 1960, the peak of the 1968-69 Hong Kong Flu, or early 1976.
Those episodes didn't permanently expand government and neither should this one. In order to be better prepared in the future, we need a vibrant private sector, not a permanent expansion in government.
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/03/more-local-color.html
-
CNN et al.
is not going to let Orange man get any credit and will keep saying it everything is his fault.
every time I wiz by CNN the bottom hashtag is something , anything negative
about Trump or the response or death toll is rising and not enough tests.
-
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/coronavirus-mask-hysteria-us-trnd/index.html
-
https://www.westernjournal.com/dr-ron-paul-hits-nail-head-no-nonsense-coronavirus-interview/
he was a gynecologist I think
I agree about the power grabbing and the use of this for political gain
but not really with the rest
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=60&v=_B9pRLPNffE&feature=emb_logo
-
https://outline.com/yngRFP
-
https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/30/its-not-the-federal-governments-fault-new-york-doesnt-have-more-ventilators-its-andrew-cuomos/
-
Hungary’s parliament gave Prime Minister Viktor Orbán the right to rule by decree until his government decides the coronavirus crisis has ended, defying criticism from European Union leaders that the pandemic is providing cover for his and other governments to crack down on democratic freedoms.
The bill, passed on Monday almost entirely by votes from the prime minister’s nationalist party, Fidesz, contained two important provisions: If parliament is unable to meet, which its leaders have already said would be difficult, Mr. Orbán could continue to govern under a state of emergency, creating and suspending laws by decree. Only Mr. Orbán’s government, or a two-thirds majority in parliament, could decide when this period would come to an end.
Secondly, the law imposes a maximum of five years’ prison time against those who intentionally spread false news or “distorted truth” that is seen to be detrimental to the government’s efforts to fight the virus and address its economic toll.
Military police patrolled the Hungarian capital on Monday, amid a national lockdown to halt the spread of the new coronavirus.
PHOTO: ZOLTAN BALOGH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The law came under criticism from EU leaders and some legal scholars, who said that the coronavirus crisis has now given Mr. Orbán autocratic powers that can only be clawed back by his own cabinet, or his party, which controls two-thirds of seats in parliament.
The bill is part of a spate of new measures in Europe that target individuals who share rumors or falsehoods that hinder the battle against the pandemic.
Mr. Orbán has rejected such criticism, saying that the EU has been less helpful to Hungary than China, which sent 3 million medical masks last week. Fighting the virus will require unusual measures for an indefinite period, said Mr. Orbán, who has promised to relinquish his rule-by-decree powers as soon as the crisis ends.
“There are situations in which one cannot be polite,” he said during a radio broadcast on Saturday. “So I plainly told EU nit-pickers, if I may put it that way, that this is not the time to come to me pontificating about all sorts of no doubt fascinating legal and theoretical questions. Because now we have a crisis, now we have an epidemic, and now we must save lives.”
Hungary has had 447 confirmed Covid-19 cases as of Monday, with 15 deaths, since its first case on March 4. Members of Mr. Orbán’s party said they worried that the government would cease to function if they fell ill before affording their prime minister extraordinary powers.
Related Video
Coronavirus Update: Social-Distancing Extended and Make-or-Break Week
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
UP NEXT
Coronavirus Update: Social-Distancing Extended and Make-or-Break Week
Coronavirus Update: Social-Distancing Extended and Make-or-Break Week
The White House extends social-distancing guidelines to April 30, bills are due this week for millions of Americans, and while China gradually reopens, India sees a mass exodus of workers leaving cities. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday has the latest on the pandemic. Photo: Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
“We needed a law for the worst-case scenario when parliament is unable to operate,” said a Fidesz member of parliament who declined to be named because he wasn’t authorized by the party to speak to the press. “What if all of us will be in the hospital?”
The law is one in a number of emergency measures that human-rights groups worry will leave parts of the world less democratic than before the coronavirus pandemic, including Russia, Bolivia and Israel.
Europe has seen a crackdown on press freedoms and social media, as some governments try to snuff out news that they feel spreads unwarranted panic. Serbia, Montenegro and Hungary have launched investigations into some social-media posts, and in some cases arrested individuals involved. In February, police in Budapest raided a building and detained two people suspected of seeding articles and Facebook posts that inflated Hungary’s death toll.
“Political leaders could abuse the coronavirus crisis to undermine democracy,” wrote Andras Racz, senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations. “Europe’s biggest risk is Hungary.”
Mr. Orbán, a nationalist known for fencing off his border to migrants, has long feuded with the EU’s center-right and liberal blocs. The 56-year-old prime minister, who has led Hungary for nearly half of its postcommunist history, has won repeat landslide elections in part by campaigning against the union’s political establishment.
“We’re not preventing anyone from doing their job,” said Eric Mamer, the spokesperson of the European Commission, after receiving a question on Mr. Orbán’s comments on Monday. “At the same time, however, we are vigilant and we ensure compliance with EU standards in all areas of politics during the fight against the coronavirus.”
Write to Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com
-
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-agencies-warned-of-ventilator-shortages-for-nearly-two-decades
-
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/18/new_yorks_ventilator_rationing_plan_142685.html
-
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/18/new_yorks_ventilator_rationing_plan_142685.html
-
fourth post
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/democrats-misleading-coronavirus-claims/
-
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/can-survivors-of-the-coronavirus-help-cure-the-disease-and-rescue-the-economy?source=EDT_NYR_EDIT_NEWSLETTER_0_imagenewsletter_Daily_ZZ&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_033120&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9d3fa3f92a40469e2d85c&cndid=50142053&esrc=&mbid=&utm_term=TNY_Daily
-
sixth
https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/30/its-not-the-federal-governments-fault-new-york-doesnt-have-more-ventilators-its-andrew-cuomos/
-
https://reason.com/2020/03/31/america-could-import-countless-more-face-masks-if-federal-regulators-would-get-out-of-the-way/
-
https://reason.com/2020/03/31/america-could-import-countless-more-face-masks-if-federal-regulators-would-get-out-of-the-way/
Is it too much to ask that everyone get a mask and a 2 ounce bottle of sanitizer as we head into MONTH SIX of the Wuhan Plague?
Screw the $1200. Let us buy what we need to protect ourselves and know that the people around us have the ability to cover their mouth and clean their hands on the fly a hundred times a day if they have to. Too much to ask, or are we too G*d D*mned regulated for safety to find our way to safety?
-
https://reason.com/2020/03/31/america-could-import-countless-more-face-masks-if-federal-regulators-would-get-out-of-the-way/
Is it too much to ask that everyone get a mask and a 2 ounce bottle of sanitizer as we head into MONTH SIX of the Wuhan Plague?
Screw the $1200. Let us buy what we need to protect ourselves and know that the people around us have the ability to cover their mouth and clean their hands on the fly a hundred times a day if they have to. Too much to ask, or are we too G*d D*mned regulated for safety to find our way to safety?
https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/31/how-fda-thwarting-distilleries-trying-make-hand-sa/
-
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa344/5812996
-
do your job or stay home,
and stop blaming Trump for a natural phenomenon. everyone is doing the best they can asshole:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nurse-30-years-were-being-180054180.html
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-intelligence-concludes-china-concealed-extent-of-coronavirus-outbreak/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=19898815
-
April 1, 2020 View On Website
Open as PDF
The Method to Bolsonaro’s Madness
By: Allison Fedirka
Known for his contrarian and uncouth behavior, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro frequently comes under intense scrutiny for his decisions. The latest controversy stems from his refusal to shut down economic activity in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Many governments face this decision but few have opted for Bolsonaro’s economy-first approach. The policy hasn’t been well received at home: Governors have lined up against him, media outlets have raised the idea of removing him from office, and even Facebook removed a video of Bolsonaro speaking to street vendors on the grounds that the content violated misinformation standards related to the virus. But however controversial it may be, there is a method to Bolsonaro’s apparent madness. Brazil’s economy is simply too weak to deliberately close down for a prolonged period of time.
Backlash
Brazil first addressed the coronavirus as an economic problem rather than a public health one because the economic effects arrived a month before its first confirmed case. At the end of January, Brazilian mining giant Vale suspended operations in China and restricted travel to and from the country. In early February the electronics industry, particularly makers of small electronics such as mobile phones, started experiencing supply chain problems, and by mid-month firms were implementing short-term closures and discussing furloughs. Leading solar power companies in Brazil, also highly dependent on China, forecast supply shortages in April and May as well as a 5-10 percent drop in sales. Brazilian beef exports – worth billions of dollars when it comes to China trade – experienced a sharp drop in demand, putting small and medium-sized slaughterhouses in peril of closing. Oil giant Petrobras, which sends 72 percent of its exports to China, also reported slumping demand. The shipping industry and exporters expressed worries about a potential shortage of containers by April. All this occurred before Feb. 25, when Brazil reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19.
Once the virus arrived in Brazil, the question in the government of balancing competing demands between health and economic needs unsurprisingly turned contentious. Bolsonaro leads the economy-first camp, downplaying health risks in public and rejecting restrictions on social movement on the grounds that they will destroy the economy. He advocates “vertical isolation,” which calls for the elderly and those with preexisting conditions to self-isolate while everyone else goes about business as usual. On the public health side, several state governors, led by Sao Paulo’s Joao Doria and accompanied by Rio de Janeiro’s Wilson Witzel, have called for restrictions on movement for the whole population. Together, these two states account for nearly 40 percent of national gross domestic product and are home to 63.2 million of Brazil’s 210 million inhabitants. Restricting economic activity in these states will greatly reduce the country’s GDP. On one hand, the governors fear that their densely populated major cities are conducive to the virus’ rapid spread. But on the other hand, those cities also have concentrations of poor neighborhoods whose residents cannot afford extended periods of limited or no work.
A further complication is the question of jurisdiction. In mid-March, the executive proposed legislation aimed at centralizing power to regulate the closure of businesses and social distancing measures to ensure an efficient response. The proposal now has 126 amendments and is currently in a joint commission for discussion, allowing governors to pursue their own measures in the meantime. A second measure that addresses workers’ rights and unemployment during the crisis has already been rejected by some legislators as unconstitutional. Judges have weighed in, encouraging the federal government to coordinate efforts more closely with states.
Bolsonaro is reluctant to limit economic activity because the Brazilian economy is weak and can ill afford another economic crisis. Brazil has yet to recover from its two-year recession from 2015 to 2016. During that time, GDP contracted by nearly 7 percent. In the three years since, the economy essentially stagnated, registering growth of just about 1 percent annually. Prior to the recession, in 2014, Brazil overtook the United Kingdom to become the seventh-largest economy in the world, with a GDP of $2.4 trillion. Now the economy ranks ninth globally, with a GDP of $1.89 trillion. The unemployment rate in 2014 was 6.8 percent before doubling to 13.7 percent in early 2017. Now unemployment has been reduced to 11.6 percent, though the quality of jobs created is low, as is remuneration.
(click to enlarge)
Plans Interrupted
Bolsonaro was elected in 2018 on a pledge to reform and jump-start the economy, but economic measures taken early in his term have reduced the country’s arsenal for dealing with the impending global recession. Last year, the government focused on structural reforms and facilitating household consumption, which accounts for over 70 percent of GDP. The central bank launched monetary easing in July 2019 in an effort to boost lending to consumers. In the second half of 2019, the government also permitted individuals to withdraw funds from their Workers’ Severance Fund accounts to help boost economic activity. The effect of these policies was supposed to kick in during the first half of 2020, but the onset of the global recession doomed the strategy from the get-go. In just two months, the central bank cut interest rates to 3.75 percent from 4.5 percent. Though there is still room to go lower, these rates are already very low by Brazilian standards.
(click to enlarge)
The global downturn has hampered other stimulus policies. A privatization drive was intended to raise 150 billion reais ($29 billion) this year, but this week the electric utilities company Eletrobras postponed its privatization plans until 2021, and others will likely follow. The government also loosened rules to give foreign companies equal footing in competition for government contracts, with public tenders valued at 50 billion reais, but foreign investment interest has dried up. Finally, the government planned limited trade deals to open markets and diversification in trade with China, the U.S., Mexico and India. But trade has fallen off a cliff, and governments are focused on mitigating the contagion and economic damage at home.
Other plans to remake the economy have had to be repurposed to limit the short-term damage from the virus. A plan launched in February called Brazil More included funds to incentivize startups and provide more credit to small and medium-sized businesses, but it will now be used to save existing companies. Around the same time, after months of study, the central bank loosened reserve requirements in a move that could inject up to 135 billion reais into the economy. The central bank will also allow individuals to use personal retirement plans as collateral to access lower interest loans.
And lastly, there are the reforms that risk being undone as a result of the government’s all-out effort to mitigate the impact of the recession. One of the main objectives of the reforms was to cap government spending and reduce debt. However, in mid-March, it became apparent that government bailouts and other costly measures would be necessary to prop up the Brazilian economy. A state of emergency was declared, enabling the government to remove national spending caps and launch a 147.3 billion-real support package to ensure liquidity, prevent layoffs and support vulnerable groups. The government also intended to reduce its support for states’ debt but has now released an 85.8 billion-real bailout package for them (and that’s after suspending debt payments). At the end of 2019, the government stayed on track for a primary budget surplus of 1 percent of GDP, well below the official goal of 2.3 percent. The National Treasury now anticipates a primary deficit for 2020 of 4.5 percent of GDP (over 350 billion reais), well over the previous goal of 124.1 billion reais.
Difficult Choices Ahead
Support packages like these can keep firms afloat only for so long, and the ability to extend them depends on disposable resources. Herein lies the problem for Brazil: It has very limited headroom to deal with these matters. There are already concerns over the potential for a credit crisis and future lack of investment. The government does have $359 billion in reserves, but it is extremely reluctant to tap these resources – the government would do so only if it believed it was entering the worst-case scenario. All of this is further complicated by the fact that dollar gains against the real since the start of this year resulted in a 43.4 billion-real increase in gross debt, and low oil prices have wiped out tens of billions of reais in oil-related royalties and tax revenue (the budget was based on an average price of oil of $61.25 per barrel).
(click to enlarge)
Under these circumstances, Bolsonaro’s effort to preserve what’s left of Brazil’s economy at any cost does not seem unfounded.
At present, the economic pause in parts of Brazil has been in place for only a couple of weeks. During this time, the government has worked to better position the economy to stay afloat. The calls for vertical isolation demonstrate that the government believes it is reaching the limits of its ability to save the economy from severe recession if more economic activity is not restored soon. Bolsonaro, of course, is not alone in being trapped between two bad policy options, and many leaders will soon have to decide when measures to protect public health no longer outweigh the economic cost. When this shift will occur depends on the economic resilience of the country in question, and Brazil came in with a weak hand already half-played.
-
third post
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-truth-national-security-council-pandemic-team/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/one-worst-coverups-human-history-msm-turns-gaze-chinese-biolab-near-covid-19-ground-zero
-
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/03/report-fbi-warned-of-chinese-researchers-transporting-disease-samples-in-us-before-coronavirus/?utm_campaign=DailyEmails&utm_source=AM_Email&utm_medium=email
-
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/03/report-fbi-warned-of-chinese-researchers-transporting-disease-samples-in-us-before-coronavirus/?utm_campaign=DailyEmails&utm_source=AM_Email&utm_medium=email
We do know that China did know it had a very contagious virus rapidly spreading in China and did nothing to attempt to keep the disease contained within it's borders.
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/one-worst-coverups-human-history-msm-turns-gaze-chinese-biolab-near-covid-19-ground-zero
From the article: "it shouldn't take Perry Mason to conclude that a virulent coronavirus outbreak which started near a biolab that was experimenting with -- coronavirus -- bears scrutiny."
Tucker Carlson video: https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1245143177037787141
"The virus likely came from one of these two labs in Wuhan."
"There were no horseshoe bats living within 900 km."
"27 of 41 infected patients were found to have contact with the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. We noted two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus in Wuhan, one of which was only 280 meters from the seafood market. We briefly examined the histories of the laboratories and proposed that the coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory....
... somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan."
---------------------
Given that this outbreak was said to begin in early winter when most bat species in the region are hibernating and the Chinese horseshoe bat’s habitat covers an enormous swath of the region containing scores of cities and hundreds of millions people, the fact that this Wuhan Strain of coronavirus, denoted as COVID-19, emerged in close proximity to the only BSL-4 virology lab in China, which in turn was staffed with at least two Chinese scientists – Zhengli Shi and Xing-Yi Ge – both virologists who had previously worked at an American lab which had already bio-engineered an incredibly virulent strain of bat coronavirus – the accidental release of a bio-engineered virus from Wuhan’s virology lab cannot be automatically discounted, especially when the Wuhan Strain’s unnatural genomic signals are considered.
UPDATE 2/14, 3:02am EST: A probable smoking pre-print has been released, by the National Natural Science Foundation of China:
“In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.”
In a predictable turn, that article has been removed and both researchers have since deleted their profiles off of the ResearchGate site completely. Furthering the appearance of a cover-up, back on January 2nd, the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s director sent out a memo forbidding discussion of an “unknown pneumonia in Wuhan” after ordering the destruction of all related lab materials a day earlier, making it abundantly clear that the Chinese government knew about this outbreak long before they took any steps to contain it, or made any public announcement.
https://harvardtothebighouse.com/2020/01/31/logistical-and-technical-analysis-of-the-origins-of-the-wuhan-coronavirus-2019-ncov/
------------------------
Chinese government researchers isolated more than 2,000 new viruses, including deadly bat coronaviruses, and carried out scientific work on them just three miles from a wild animal market identified as the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/30/china-researchers-isolated-bat-coronaviruses-near-/
-
"Coronavirus: pathogen could have been spreading in humans for years, study says
Virus may have jumped from animal to humans long before the first detection in Wuhan, according to research by an international team of scientists
Findings significantly reduce the possibility of the virus having a laboratory origin, director of the US National Institute of Health says"
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3077442/coronavirus-pathogen-could-have-been-spreading-humans-decades
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doug's observations from above: Wouldn't that be, 'reduce the probability'. You can't reduce a "possibility".
All of the studies indicating its likely otherwise leave open the possibility that This Virus Came Directly from That Lab.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3077442/coronavirus-pathogen-could-have-been-spreading-humans-decades
Coronavirus: pathogen could have been spreading in humans for years, study says
Virus may have jumped from animal to humans long before the first detection in Wuhan, according to research by an international team of scientists
Findings significantly reduce the possibility of the virus having a laboratory origin, director of the US National Institute of Health says
Published: 29 Mar, 2020
An international team of scientists say the coronavirus may have jumped from animal to humans long before the first detection in China. Photo: APAn international team of scientists say the coronavirus may have jumped from animal to humans long before the first detection in China. Photo: AP
An international team of scientists say the coronavirus may have jumped from animal to humans long before the first detection in China. Photo: AP
The coronavirus that causes Covid-19 might have been quietly spreading among humans for years or even decades before the sudden outbreak that sparked a global health crisis, according to an investigation by some of the world’s top virus hunters.
Researchers from the United States, Britain and Australia looked at piles of data released by scientists around the world for clues about the virus’ evolutionary past, and found it might have made the jump from animal to humans long before the first detection in the central China city of Wuhan.
Though there could be other possibilities, the scientists said the coronavirus carried a unique mutation that was not found in suspected animal hosts, but was likely to occur during repeated, small-cluster infections in humans.
The study, conducted by Kristian Andersen from the Scripps Research Institute in California, Andrew Rambaut from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Ian Lipkin from Columbia University in New York, Edward Holmes from the University of Sydney, and Robert Garry from Tulane University in New Orleans, was published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine on March 17.
Dr Francis Collins, director of the US National Institute of Health, who was not involved in the research, said the study suggested a possible scenario in which the coronavirus crossed from animals into humans before it became capable of causing disease in people.
“Then, as a result of gradual evolutionary changes over years or perhaps decades, the virus eventually gained the ability to spread from human to human and cause serious, often life-threatening disease,” he said in an article published on the institute’s website on Thursday.
In December, doctors in Wuhan began noticing a surge in the number of people suffering from a mysterious pneumonia. Tests for flu and other pathogens returned negative. An unknown strain was isolated, and a team from the Wuhan Institute of Virology led by Shi Zhengli traced its origin to a bat virus found in a mountain cave close to the China-Myanmar border.
The two viruses shared more than 96 per cent of their genes, but the bat virus could not infect humans. It lacked a spike protein to bind with receptors in human cells.
Coronaviruses with a similar spike protein were later discovered in Malayan pangolins by separate teams from Guangzhou and Hong Kong, which led some researchers to believe that a recombination of genomes had occurred between the bat and pangolin viruses.
Doctors in Wuhan began noticing a surge in the number of people suffering from a mysterious pneumonia in December. Photo: Handout
But the new strain, or SARS-Cov-2, had a mutation in its genes known as a polybasic cleavage site that was unseen in any coronaviruses found in bats or pangolins, according to Andersen and his colleagues.
This mutation, according to separate studies by researchers from China, France and the US, could produce a unique structure in the virus’ spike protein to interact with furin, a widely distributed enzyme in the human body. That could then trigger a fusion of the viral envelope and human cell membrane when they came into contact with one another.
Some human viruses including HIV and Ebola have the same furin-like cleavage site, which makes them contagious.
It is possible that the mutation happened naturally to the virus on animal hosts. Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and Mers (Middle East respiratory syndrome), for instance, were believed to have been direct descendants of species found in masked civets and camels, which had a 99 per cent genetic similarity.
There was, however, no such direct evidence for the novel coronavirus, according to the international team. The gap between human and animal types was too large, they said, so they proposed another alternative.
“It is possible that a progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 jumped into humans, acquiring the genomic features described above through adaptation during undetected human-to-human transmission,” they said in the paper.
“Once acquired, these adaptations would enable the pandemic to take off and produce a sufficiently large cluster of cases to trigger the surveillance system that detected it.”
They said also that the most powerful computer models based on current knowledge about the coronavirus could not generate such a strange but highly efficient spike protein structure to bind with host cells.
The study had significantly reduced, if not ruled out, the possibility of a laboratory origin, Collins said.
“In fact, any bioengineer trying to design a coronavirus that threatened human health probably would never have chosen this particular conformation for a spike protein,” he said.
The findings by Western scientists echoed the mainstream opinion among Chinese researchers.
Zhong Nanshan, who advises Beijing on outbreak containment policies, had said on numerous occasions that there was growing scientific evidence to suggest the origin of the virus might not have been in China.
“The occurrence of Covid-19 in Wuhan does not mean it originated in Wuhan,” he said last week.
A doctor working in a public hospital treating Covid-19 patients in Beijing said numerous cases of mysterious pneumonia outbreaks had been reported by health professionals in several countries last year.
Re-examining the records and samples of these patients could reveal more clues about the history of this worsening pandemic, said the doctor, who asked not to be named due to the political sensitivity of the issue.
“There will be a day when the whole thing comes to light.”
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVWgXJDBH6Y
4 minutes, worthwhile.
-
From Scott Johnson, Brian Sullivan, posted on Powerline:
• New York has 10 times more Wuhan virus cases per capita than the rest of the country. If banning travel from China made sense, why doesn’t it make sense to restrict the interstate travel of New Yorkers in some fashion?
• The elderly and those with underlying health issues are most at risk of dying from Wuhan virus. Why don’t we find ways to isolate and protect them without shutting the entire country down?
• The United States has reported 14 deaths per million of population. Italy and Spain have reported over 200 deaths per million. France, England, and Germany have reported an average of 35 deaths per million. Critics claim Trump’s response is costing American lives. If relatively fewer Americans have died than every other major European country, what is the basis for the critics’ charge?
• Governor Cuomo said New York would start enrolling patients in clinical trials to test hydroxychloroquine last week, but the trials are described as “not yet recruiting” on the ClinicalTrials.gov site? Why are these trials delayed?
• On January 21 the first case of Wuhan virus was confirmed. Ten days later, after Trump promulgated his order limiting travel from China, critics condemned the step as unnecessary and xenophobic. Are these critics still of the same opinion? (Note: Thank “The Senator who saw the coronavirus coming.”)
• The model Minnesota government officials used to justify our current shutdown policies projected that 1.5 percent, or 74,000, of all Minnesotans could die from the Wuhan virus. If these modelers used these same assumptions to estimate deaths in the United States, their model would project 5,000,000 Americans deaths. This is roughly 3 times more deaths per capita than died from the Spanish flu in 1918-19. Do Minnesota government officials think the Wuhan virus is possibly 3x more deadly than the Spanish flu? What model are they using?
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/the-wuhan-virus-six-notes-queries.php
-
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-million-n95-masks-are-coming-from-chinaon-board-the-new-england-patriots-plane-11585821600
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/russian-plane-coronavirus-medical-gear-lands-u-s-after-trump-n1174436
-
China’s “second waves” start to build. A county in the central Chinese province of Henan went back into lockdown mode on Wednesday following a modest surge in coronavirus infections. Yunnan province, meanwhile, is preventing citizens from crossing into Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar. The broader body of evidence suggests China is still generally bringing the outbreak under control. But as we’ve noted, its behavior at home will speak louder than somewhat dubious Chinese data regarding its success in managing the outbreak. And given that China is facing a surge of imported cases and still trying to figure out just how big a threat is posed by asymptomatic cases, the risk of coronavirus revival in China is high enough – and the geopolitical implications of an uncontainable second wave would be wide-ranging enough – that any such events merit close observation. Irrespective of just how much China has the virus contained, its economy is also facing a second wave of damage as foreign demand for its exports plummets. Both the state and Caixin PMI surveys released this week showed contractions in new orders. Small and medium-sized enterprises are getting hit particularly hard.
-
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6146182586001#sp=show-clips
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGsqtF0MhlI&feature=share
-
fifth post
https://reason.com/2020/04/02/the-fda-is-making-it-much-much-harder-for-distilleries-to-produce-hand-sanitizer/
-
https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/hk-sees-80-rise-in-new-covid-19-cases/
-
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/31/time_for_a_second_opinion_142817.html
-
https://www.dailywire.com/news/professors-push-back-on-pandemic-models-be-honest-about-what-happens-after-lockdowns-are-lifted?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=benshapiro
-
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/31/time_for_a_second_opinion_142817.html
I guess some people still can’t grasp the concept of exponential growth, or visualize what happens when you push the medical infrastructure beyond capacity. Lockdown is buying us time. At a serious financial cost, to be sure. Break the medical system and everyone gets to die in big community hospice centers pretending to be hospitals. Then people with other medical issues will also die from lack of treatment or medication along with virus victims.
-
last week our calls were ~ 39 % corona. = correction ~30 not 39.
now closer to 50 %
-
last week our calls were ~ 39 % corona
now closer to 50 %
32 days ago, the NY Slimes reported the FIRST NY case of coronavirus. Where will we be 32 days from now?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8181893/Bodies-flow-Brooklyn-hospital-like-conveyor-belt-NYC-expects-reach-16-000-deaths.html
-
https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/best-materials-make-diy-face-mask-virus/
-
Testing Is Our Way Out
Returning to normal is too dangerous. Lockdowns are unsustainable. Let’s save lives without a depression.
By Paul Romer and Rajiv Shah
April 2, 2020 7:21 pm ET
For now, social distancing is the best America can do to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. But if the U.S. truly mobilizes, it can soon deploy better weapons—advanced tests—that will allow the country to shift gradually to a protocol less disruptive and more effective than a lockdown.
Instead of ricocheting between an unsustainable shutdown and a dangerous, uncertain return to normalcy, the U.S. could mount a sustainable strategy with better tests and maintain a stable course for as long as it takes to develop a vaccine or cure. The country will once more be able to plan for the future, get back to work safely and avoid an economic depression. This will require massive investment to ramp up production and coordinate the construction of test centers. But the alternatives are even more costly.
Two types of testing will be essential. The first test, which relies on a technology known as the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, can detect the virus even before a person has symptoms. It is the best way to identify who is infected. The second test looks not for the virus but for the antibodies that the immune system produces to fight it. This test isn’t so effective during the early stages of an infection, but since antibodies remain even after the virus is gone, it reveals who has been infected in the past.
Together, these two tests will give policy makers the data to make smarter decisions about who needs to be isolated and where resources need to be deployed. Instead of firing blindly, this data will let the country target its efforts.
Here’s a simple illustration of how test data can save lives. Every day millions of health-care professionals go to work without knowing whether they are infectious and might spread the virus to their colleagues. We both have close relatives on the front lines. As soon as one of them developed a cough, she pulled herself out of service. But at that point she may have been infectious for several critical days. If she and her colleagues had all been tested every day, her infection would have been caught earlier and she would have isolated herself sooner.
To be used as a screening mechanism at the beginning of a shift, the test would need to be able to give a result within minutes. Developers are making progress on speeding up these PCR tests—so much so that the aforementioned physician received the results from her second test, conducted five days after the first, before those from the first test. Abbott and Roche, two pharmaceutical companies, are moving forward with tests that can decrease reporting times from days or hours to minutes. Now that the doctor has recovered, an antibody test could help determine when she can return to the frontlines of patient care.
As testing capacity expands, the same tests could be offered to all essential workers, such as police officers and emergency technicians, and then to other overlooked but critical workers—pharmacists, grocery clerks, sanitation staff. The next step would be to test people throughout the country at random to get up-to-date information about who is infected now and who has ever been infected.
For those who are currently infected, governments can provide immediate assistance to make sure they don’t infect anyone else, especially family members. Those infected before who now have antibodies may be less susceptible to reinfection. If that is proved in the weeks to come, they could also return to work.
Putting this system in place will take resources, creativity and hard work. Test developers will have to increase the production rate of kits by an order of magnitude. In his work fighting Ebola in West Africa, Dr. Shah saw how a virus can cause a 30% reduction in economic output. Mr. Romer’s back-of-the-envelope calculation is that the recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic has already caused a 20% reduction in U.S. output, which means the country is losing about $350 billion in production each month. If a $100 billion investment in a crash program to make antibody and PCR tests ubiquitous brought a recovery one month sooner, it would more than pay for itself.
Building this testing system would be complicated and require the best of American science, business and philanthropy working together. But it is the type of challenge that the U.S. has overcome before. It isn’t viable to wait a year or two for a vaccine before getting people back to work safely. To save lives and prevent a depression, testing on a massive scale is essential.
Mr. Romer is a professor at New York University and a 2018 Nobel laureate in Economics. Dr. Shah is president of the Rockefeller Foundation and served as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, 2010-15.
-
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15840/china-defective-medical-equipment
-
IYI bureaucrats opposed to masks used (bogus) arguments abt the protection of the wearer ("not perfect", etc.)
They didn't think that since it ALSO prevents (more effectively) ASYMPTOMATIC sick pple from spreading it, there wd be yuuge systemic effect.
- n.n. taleb 4/2/20 https://twitter.com/nntaleb
[IYI: intellectual yet ignorant.]
-
Attributed to Martin Luther regarding the plague:
"I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence.
If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others.
If my neighbor needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God."
"Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 43: Devotional Writings II, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 43 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 119–38."
--------------------------------
Pandemic wisdom from other religions:
“Trust in Allah but tether your camel first — because Allah has no other hands than yours.”
https://sufiway.eu/trust-in-allah-but-tether-your-camel/
-
during the great Black Death
a moniker first used in the 19 th century previously known as the great pestulence
the wealthy in England would escape to their chateaus castles etc.
their death rate ~ 25 %
everyone else~ 35 or up to 40 or more %.
they were half right
the plague was mostly spread from the bite of flea infested rats
so did these flea infested rats travel from the cities into the rural areas ? or was some of the deaths in the rural areas from cattle to human anthrax that happened around the same time?
unlike Martin Luther , the wealthy were not likely thinking of contaminating others when they fled to their estates in the countryside.
-
https://710wor.iheart.com/featured/mark-simone/content/2020-04-03-watch-dr-fauci-in-january-say-you-dont-need-to-worry-about-coronavirus/
-
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliorosas/2020/04/02/gov-andrew-cuomo-has-not-accepted-remingtons-offer-ppe-ventilators-n2566211
-
Cuomo cuts off his nose to spite NY's face
will never hear this in MSM
where are all those f'ng columbia profs coming and claiming he is killing people by refusing this offer from Remington?
-
Just talked with neighbor, a nurse at the major west suburban hospital here in the Twin Cities. They have 17 COVID cases out of 361 beds. Week 4 of exponential growth.
Therefore the liquor stores are open but the golf courses are all locked up. Essential / non-essential. Target is open but a friend's gift shop is state ordered shut. Housing open, rent optional. Eviction courts closed.
-
Therefore the liquor stores are open but the golf courses are all locked up. Essential / non-essential
soon prisons emptied
of criminals
and those who don't cover faces with scarf or hijab or walk their dog
fill up the prisons again
-
A Pandemic Expert Tells Us Why She Was So Wrong About Coronavirus
'I just assumed that the US system would be a little bit better...and I just couldn't have been more wrong.'
By Matthew Gault
31 March 2020, 1:39pmShareTweetSnap
IMAGE: ANGUS MORDANT/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, many public health experts were sure that the virus could be beaten before it had a disastrous impact: as long as testing was robust, and the systems in place functioned properly, America would pull through relatively unscathed.
They may have been right, but we’ll never know, because testing has not been robust, and the systems in place have all failed miserably.
One expert I spoke with in late February was Theresa MacPhail, a medical anthropologist, Assistant Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology, and author of the book The Viral Network: A Pathology of the H1N1 Influenza Pandemic. MacPhail worked with the CDC in 2009 as a volunteer intern as part of its Global Disease & Detection unit, taking part in global conference calls on the H1N1 pandemic and seeing how the organization is structured. She was in Hong Kong during its H1N1 outbreak.
In late February, she spoke optimistically with me about America’s ability to handle the coming Covid-19 outbreak. In early March, she got sick with what she believes to be Covid-19. She reached out to me recently, insisting to go on the record again to say that she was wrong, and that she put too much faith in the CDC and America’s ability to manage the crisis.
How are you feeling?
I feel guilty. I feel like I should have known better.
What was it about our previous conversation that made you feel guilty?
I made a lot of assumptions and didn’t think twice about having made them. I know I’m not alone, I’m just one of the only people that is saying publicly, "Well, I got this completely wrong."
I think it was overconfidence. I feel like what we're seeing is a bit of hubris. We're basically suffering, partially, because there was no plan for when the [Center for Disease Control] fucked up, because they don't fuck up, or they haven't in the past. They don't have a protocol for when they can't do an assay. And that's exactly what happened. Their assays didn't work. And there was no plan for that.
What do you mean by an assay?
I just assumed that the US system would be a little bit better, would be a little bit more robust and do more testing and containment than China was able to do, and I just couldn't have been more wrong.
When we talked, I was still so confident that this response was gonna look like the 2009 [H1N1] pandemic response, which was a good response. Initially, it had some problems… but once they realized what was going on, they kicked into gear and everything went pretty well.
One thing that's super different is that the CDC in 2009 provided central leadership. They were proactively reaching out to state, regional, and local Health officials saying, ‘Here's what you need to be doing. Here's what this should look like.’ And people did it.
I am scared and enraged because there's no central authority here. I don't understand what's going on. The CDC isn't giving press briefings. They're just absent. And that could be because the administration is muzzling them. Or it could mean that there's disarray inside the CDC. And I guess all of that will come out.
But I feel guilty because I knew them. So it's a bit like not wanting to think your Uncle Bob did something wrong or was capable of doing something wrong. That's why I feel bad, because I just assumed that this response would look like the old response. And it doesn't at all, and I just feel so awful.
I wasn't one of those people sounding the warning alarm. I really felt like we had a shot at containing [it]. But that meant that we had to have tests. I didn’t realize what 10 years of underfunding public health had done.
You got sick after we spoke last, right?
I was never tested, but if I had to lay bets I would say I have it. I’m still sick now. I’m on day 25. I got sick on March 1. It was the classic sore throat, feeling a little bit disgusting, and then at day five or six my fever started to spike. It got as high as 102.5 and never went below 100, despite taking massive amounts of fever reducer.
I started having tightness in my chest. I had a dry cough. I went to the ER on March 9. They put me in a separate room. Before all this went down, I had been contacted to go to Washington to the House of Representatives and give a public statement before Congress about what we’ve learned in pandemics past. Of course, that all got shot out of the water.
I asked the ER doctor, “Can you tell me in your professional opinion, are you prepared for this?” He said, "Absolutely not." He had been doing this for 12 years. He was there for the 2009 pandemic. He said in 2009 they were overprepared. They had extra flu kits, they had extra supplies, they were ready. They had been prepared by the Department of Health. The communication had been clear. He said, "I hate to tell you this but we’re underprepared now. We don’t have extra supplies. We don’t have any tests." That’s when I started to think, "This is serious."
The only way we get out of this, the only way we return to a semblance of normal, is massive testing. And I’m starting to get worried because when are we doing that? It’s mind boggling.
You’ve mentioned a few times that past responses were better. What do you mean?
After SARS [in 2003], everyone got real serious for a minute. And there was a lot of funding going into public health surveillance and response because the world got a little preview of what could happen, what was possible. And I feel like maybe that's also why 2009 went better. It was only six years after SARS, people had been drilling, and they had been planning, and they had been prepping. And they had a little bit more money because of SARS.
Why do you think this happened and how do we make sure it doesn’t happen again?
We’ve been too successful. It’s the same story with vaccinations. As a culture, we have no institutional or cultural memory anymore of what it’s like to live with microbes. This is a crash course. It’s a wake up call. My hope is, the only thing that keeps me going, is maybe we’ll learn a lesson from this.
Fund public health. Maybe we’ll change our culture so that it’s not expected or brave of you to go to work sick. Maybe we’ll start to protect each other the way Asian cultures do. It’s pretty normal in Asian societies to wear a mask when you’re sick when you go out in public and to stay home if you can. We are the exact opposite. We wear masks to protect ourselves and we feel free to show up at a meeting when we have a fever.
The CDC has to be cut free of political influence. I can’t believe the agency is a federally-appointed administration. Everytime the administration changes, the leadership of CDC changes and that’s insane. We need to find a way to give places like the CDC and [National Institute of Health] autonomy with oversight.
How are you processing your guilt?
I have made a resolution that going forward, I will not make the same mistake twice. I will not be so certain about what I know in the future. And I will do more due diligence on trying to figure out what the current situation is. And as a second thing that I'm doing with my guilt is I'm being extremely honest with my students and with my colleagues.
This article originally appeared on VICE US.
TAGGED:COVID-19
-
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/03/fact-check-did-obama-administration-deplete-n-95-mask-stockpile/5114319002/
-
(https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/WHO_0.png?itok=MsKa33GR)
A Pandemic Expert Tells Us Why She Was So Wrong About Coronavirus
'I just assumed that the US system would be a little bit better...and I just couldn't have been more wrong.'
By Matthew Gault
31 March 2020, 1:39pmShareTweetSnap
IMAGE: ANGUS MORDANT/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, many public health experts were sure that the virus could be beaten before it had a disastrous impact: as long as testing was robust, and the systems in place functioned properly, America would pull through relatively unscathed.
They may have been right, but we’ll never know, because testing has not been robust, and the systems in place have all failed miserably.
One expert I spoke with in late February was Theresa MacPhail, a medical anthropologist, Assistant Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology, and author of the book The Viral Network: A Pathology of the H1N1 Influenza Pandemic. MacPhail worked with the CDC in 2009 as a volunteer intern as part of its Global Disease & Detection unit, taking part in global conference calls on the H1N1 pandemic and seeing how the organization is structured. She was in Hong Kong during its H1N1 outbreak.
In late February, she spoke optimistically with me about America’s ability to handle the coming Covid-19 outbreak. In early March, she got sick with what she believes to be Covid-19. She reached out to me recently, insisting to go on the record again to say that she was wrong, and that she put too much faith in the CDC and America’s ability to manage the crisis.
How are you feeling?
I feel guilty. I feel like I should have known better.
What was it about our previous conversation that made you feel guilty?
I made a lot of assumptions and didn’t think twice about having made them. I know I’m not alone, I’m just one of the only people that is saying publicly, "Well, I got this completely wrong."
I think it was overconfidence. I feel like what we're seeing is a bit of hubris. We're basically suffering, partially, because there was no plan for when the [Center for Disease Control] fucked up, because they don't fuck up, or they haven't in the past. They don't have a protocol for when they can't do an assay. And that's exactly what happened. Their assays didn't work. And there was no plan for that.
What do you mean by an assay?
I just assumed that the US system would be a little bit better, would be a little bit more robust and do more testing and containment than China was able to do, and I just couldn't have been more wrong.
When we talked, I was still so confident that this response was gonna look like the 2009 [H1N1] pandemic response, which was a good response. Initially, it had some problems… but once they realized what was going on, they kicked into gear and everything went pretty well.
One thing that's super different is that the CDC in 2009 provided central leadership. They were proactively reaching out to state, regional, and local Health officials saying, ‘Here's what you need to be doing. Here's what this should look like.’ And people did it.
I am scared and enraged because there's no central authority here. I don't understand what's going on. The CDC isn't giving press briefings. They're just absent. And that could be because the administration is muzzling them. Or it could mean that there's disarray inside the CDC. And I guess all of that will come out.
But I feel guilty because I knew them. So it's a bit like not wanting to think your Uncle Bob did something wrong or was capable of doing something wrong. That's why I feel bad, because I just assumed that this response would look like the old response. And it doesn't at all, and I just feel so awful.
I wasn't one of those people sounding the warning alarm. I really felt like we had a shot at containing [it]. But that meant that we had to have tests. I didn’t realize what 10 years of underfunding public health had done.
You got sick after we spoke last, right?
I was never tested, but if I had to lay bets I would say I have it. I’m still sick now. I’m on day 25. I got sick on March 1. It was the classic sore throat, feeling a little bit disgusting, and then at day five or six my fever started to spike. It got as high as 102.5 and never went below 100, despite taking massive amounts of fever reducer.
I started having tightness in my chest. I had a dry cough. I went to the ER on March 9. They put me in a separate room. Before all this went down, I had been contacted to go to Washington to the House of Representatives and give a public statement before Congress about what we’ve learned in pandemics past. Of course, that all got shot out of the water.
I asked the ER doctor, “Can you tell me in your professional opinion, are you prepared for this?” He said, "Absolutely not." He had been doing this for 12 years. He was there for the 2009 pandemic. He said in 2009 they were overprepared. They had extra flu kits, they had extra supplies, they were ready. They had been prepared by the Department of Health. The communication had been clear. He said, "I hate to tell you this but we’re underprepared now. We don’t have extra supplies. We don’t have any tests." That’s when I started to think, "This is serious."
The only way we get out of this, the only way we return to a semblance of normal, is massive testing. And I’m starting to get worried because when are we doing that? It’s mind boggling.
You’ve mentioned a few times that past responses were better. What do you mean?
After SARS [in 2003], everyone got real serious for a minute. And there was a lot of funding going into public health surveillance and response because the world got a little preview of what could happen, what was possible. And I feel like maybe that's also why 2009 went better. It was only six years after SARS, people had been drilling, and they had been planning, and they had been prepping. And they had a little bit more money because of SARS.
Why do you think this happened and how do we make sure it doesn’t happen again?
We’ve been too successful. It’s the same story with vaccinations. As a culture, we have no institutional or cultural memory anymore of what it’s like to live with microbes. This is a crash course. It’s a wake up call. My hope is, the only thing that keeps me going, is maybe we’ll learn a lesson from this.
Fund public health. Maybe we’ll change our culture so that it’s not expected or brave of you to go to work sick. Maybe we’ll start to protect each other the way Asian cultures do. It’s pretty normal in Asian societies to wear a mask when you’re sick when you go out in public and to stay home if you can. We are the exact opposite. We wear masks to protect ourselves and we feel free to show up at a meeting when we have a fever.
The CDC has to be cut free of political influence. I can’t believe the agency is a federally-appointed administration. Everytime the administration changes, the leadership of CDC changes and that’s insane. We need to find a way to give places like the CDC and [National Institute of Health] autonomy with oversight.
How are you processing your guilt?
I have made a resolution that going forward, I will not make the same mistake twice. I will not be so certain about what I know in the future. And I will do more due diligence on trying to figure out what the current situation is. And as a second thing that I'm doing with my guilt is I'm being extremely honest with my students and with my colleagues.
This article originally appeared on VICE US.
TAGGED:COVID-19
-
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-prisons-emerge-idUSKBN21M02R?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
Could someone get and paste here the article today on Inside the Corona Virus Testing Failure?
Thank you.
-
Link added:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/03/coronavirus-cdc-test-kits-public-health-labs/?arc404=true
-------------
Inside the coronavirus testing failure: Alarm and dismay among the scientists who sought to help
A technician transfers a sample to a tube for coronavirus testing at a lab in Seattle on March 27. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
By Shawn Boburg, Robert O'Harrow Jr., Neena Satija and Amy Goldstein
April 3, 2020
On a Jan. 15 conference call, a leading scientist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assured local and state public health officials from across the nation that there would soon be a test to detect a mysterious virus spreading from China. Stephen Lindstrom told them the threat was remote and they may not need the test his team was developing “unless the scope gets much larger than we anticipate,” according to an email summarizing the call.
“We’re in good hands,” a public health official who participated in the call wrote in the email to colleagues.
Three weeks later, early on Feb. 8, one of the first CDC test kits arrived in a Federal Express package at a public health laboratory on the east side of Manhattan. By then, the virus had reached the United States, and the kits represented the government’s best hope for containing it while that was still possible.
For hours, lab technicians struggled to verify that the test worked. Each time, it fell short, producing untrustworthy results.
That night, they called their lab director, Jennifer Rakeman, an assistant commissioner in the New York City health department, to tell her it had failed. “Oh, s---,” she replied. “What are we going to do now?”
In the 21 days that followed, as Trump administration officials continued to rely on the flawed CDC test, many lab scientists eager to aid the faltering effort grew increasingly alarmed and exasperated by the federal government’s actions, according to previously unreported email messages and other documents reviewed by The Washington Post, as well as exclusive interviews with scientists and officials involved.
In their private communications, scientists at academic, hospital and public health labs — one layer removed from federal agency operations — expressed dismay at the failure to move more quickly and frustration at bureaucratic demands that delayed their attempts to develop alternatives to the CDC test.
“We have the skills and resources as a community but we are collectively paralyzed by a bloated bureaucratic/administrative process,” Marc Couturier, medical director at academic laboratory ARUP in Utah, wrote to other microbiologists on Feb. 27 after weeks of mounting frustration.
The administration embraced a new approach behind closed doors that very day, concluding that “a much broader” effort to testing was needed, according to an internal government memo spelling out the plan. Two days later, the administration announced a relaxation of the regulations that scientists said had hindered private laboratories from deploying their own tests.
By then, the virus had spread across the country. In less than a month, it would upend daily life, shuttering the world’s largest economy and killing thousands of Americans.
In a statement to The Post, the CDC said an investigation of the initial problems is ongoing. The test is now in use in every state and is “accurate and reliable,” the agency said.
Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates testing, told The Post the agency is continuously adapting to an “unprecedented global public health crisis."
“Right now, our efforts are focused on doing everything we can do to fight COVID-19, but we know there will certainly be a time to learn larger lessons from the agency’s response,” he said in a statement, referring to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
In an interview Thursday, Brett P. Giroir, a Public Health Service admiral who on March 12 was named the top administration official on the testing effort, acknowledged the government should have moved more decisively to detect and contain the virus.
“There was a clear need for a more aggressive posture,” said Giroir, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, adding that agency leaders named him to the new role because “unprecedented steps needed to take place.”
Asked who was responsible for the delays in the early stages of the crisis, he paused.
“A problem like this is bigger than any single agency,” he said. “Clearly, there needed to be a higher level of leadership and organization.”
The need for a test
The first reports about a strange, possibly unknown virus started leaking out of China in late December. Scientists and researchers in the United States and around the world began paying keen attention to the apparent epicenter of the spread, a sprawling industrial city in central China called Wuhan.
Among those keeping close track were virologists and other specialists at the CDC, the country’s flagship public health agency. Founded in 1946 to fight malaria in Southern states, the CDC is at the vanguard in the fight against infectious diseases throughout the nation. It employs some 22,000 epidemiologists, biologists, behavioral scientists and others. Recent successes include rapid responses to contain the Zika, MERS and Ebola viruses.
In early January, the CDC publicly treated the virus from Wuhan as a distant potential threat, issuing an advisory urging that the “usual precautions” be taken when traveling abroad.
The agency also began laying plans to protect the country. Led by Lindstrom, one team began considering the kinds of tests, technically called assays, that could identify the virus.
Lindstrom is a microbiologist with an impressive track record: He had helped develop a testing method critical to detecting the H1N1 virus in 2009. During a Jan. 7 conference call, he told public health officials that the CDC’s aim was to “plan for the worst, hope for the best,” according to an email exchange among scientists and others. Lindstrom, like several other officials named in this report, did not respond to requests for interviews.
On Jan. 10, CDC scientists received an important break when the Chinese government published the pathogen’s genetic sequence. The sequence, a long string of letters representing the RNA structure of SARS-CoV-2 described a coronavirus never before seen in humans. It also gave scientists a path to create a precise diagnostic test that could detect the virus.
CDC has long led the nation’s efforts to create diagnostic tests when a public health threat emerges. The agency usually distributes the tests to a network of state and county public health labs nationwide, using the results to track and contain new pathogens until large-scale commercial tests come on line.
But state and local public health labs juggle an immense array of responsibilities, including water and food safety, and government studies dating back two decades have found the public health labs often lack the money and resources to keep pace with the demands.
On the Jan. 15 call, Lindstrom told more than a dozen public health officials that the CDC planned to make its test available to all state and county public health labs. He assured them “there will not be pressure for everyone (at least from CDC) to implement unless the scope gets much larger than we anticipate right now,” according to the email summary written by Kelly Wroblewski, director of infectious disease programs at the Association of Public Health Laboratories.
CDC scientists were not the only ones interested in creating a test. Commercial laboratories began to mobilize, and scientists at major hospitals and universities sprang into action to develop tests of their own.
One of them was Alex Greninger, 38, an assistant director of the University of Washington’s clinical virology lab. For Greninger, the chance to create a diagnostic test for a novel coronavirus was a rare opportunity.
Researchers at the University of Nebraska, Stanford University and elsewhere also began taking their first steps toward inventing tests for the virus to use in their own labs. These academic labs didn’t have the capacity to process the millions of tests that would be needed in the event of a pandemic, a scale that is achievable only by commercial labs, but their limited testing capabilities might have helped efforts to detect and slow the virus in its early stages.
On Jan. 16, the day Greninger started buying supplies for his test, a 35-year-old man who had recently visited Wuhan became ill with flu-like symptoms after returning to the Seattle area, according to a CDC incident report. The man went to his doctor, who swabbed his nose and sent the sample to the CDC, according to the report.
Four days later, using its newly developed test, the CDC confirmed that the man was the first person in the United States known to be infected with the novel coronavirus.
In a CNBC interview two days after that, President Trump downplayed the threat to Americans.
“We have it totally under control,” he said.
Early December
Dec. 31
Jan. 7
Jan. 8
Jan. 10
Jan. 15
Jan. 16
Jan. 17
Jan. 20
Early December
The first presumed case of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19, appears in Wuhan, China.
Dec. 31
China informs the World Health Organization about a strange pneumonia-like illness.
Jan. 7
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention begins planning for tests. In an email, Stephanie Chester from the Association of Public Health Laboratories tells her colleagues that the CDC’s chief microbiologist said the agency’s aim is to "plan for the worst, hope for the best."
Right now the pathogen is still unidentified, but if it is identified and is truly novel, they will be putting together an EUA assay. He said they are in a "plan for the worst, hope for the best" mode. A lot of their response efforts are contingent on being able to actually get data and info out of China. The main concern for the US PHLs is general travel and people returning from the Chinese New Year in the coming weeks. Will let you know if I hear more.
Jan. 8
The CDC issues an official health advisory recommending travelers to take the usual precautions.
Read the full document
Jan. 10
China publishes the pathogen’s genetic sequence.
Jan. 15
The first known person in the United States to be infected with the virus arrives in Seattle from China. On the same day, CDC scientists say the agency will make its tests available to all state and county public health labs.
Jan. 16
Alex Greninger, a scientist at the University of Washington who was creating a coronavirus test, orders the necessary chemical reagents. He is one of several scientists across the country rushing to design their own test.
Jan. 17
Nancy Messonnier, a CDC official, says that "for a family sitting around the dinner table tonight, this is not something that they generally need to worry about."
Since the outbreaks of MERS and SARS, we have made improved in our capacity in the United States and around the world. We’re now better poised to respond to this new threat quickly and collaboratively. Based on the information that CDC has today, we believe the current risk from this virus to the general public is low. For a family sitting around the dinner table tonight this is not something that they generally need to worry about.
Jan. 20
After developing a test over the weekend, the CDC in an internal incident report confirms the first positive case of the coronavirus in the United States.
Read the full document
A significant moment
Designing the test took CDC scientists seven days — a stunningly short period of time for a health-care system built around the principles of medical quality and patient safety, not speed.
The CDC could use the test in its Atlanta labs but could not send it out to public health labs until it won approval from the FDA. On Jan. 28, Lindstrom and others at the CDC assured public health scientists in a conference call that “CDC’s goal is to get (FDA approval) as quickly as possible and expects the assay will be ready to deploy within two weeks, possibly sooner,” according to an Association of Public Health Laboratories’ summary of the call.
Although the CDC test was a priority, the FDA was also fielding inquiries from other test developers. At the end of January, about 20 companies and scientific groups were talking with the FDA about their plans to develop tests, according to two government officials familiar with those inquiries who like many others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
At the same time, pressure on the Trump administration to take action was growing. The number of people who had died of the infection worldwide spiked to 200 by Jan. 30, when the World Health Organization declared the virus a public health emergency of international concern.
The next day, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced a health emergency in the United States. At the time, Azar was the leader of the White House’s newly created coronavirus task force.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar speaks during a January briefing with members of President Trump's coronavirus task force. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The declaration was one of the most significant moments in the unfolding crisis. Such declarations provide the FDA flexibility to speed up approvals for critical medical products, including commercial diagnostic tests. But they also trigger strict limits on scientists in government-certified clinical labs at universities, research centers and hospitals.
Those labs are typically permitted by the FDA to make and use their own tests without government approval, including to make decisions about patient care, as long as they use them only in their own facilities and do not sell them.
But once Azar announced a public health emergency, tests created in such laboratories had to receive an “emergency use authorization,” or EUA, from the FDA. The additional regulation is intended to ensure the efficacy of tests in public health crises in which inaccurate results could be damaging.
The new regulatory hurdle stalled efforts like the one underway by Greninger at the University of Washington. Greninger and other scientists were located in some of the nation’s early coronavirus hot spots, where successful tests might have helped reveal the scope of the outbreak. Suddenly, their hands were tied.
Clinical scientists fumed about the new obstacle, according to exchanges in private online chat groups among academics and scientists.
“The EUA process is flawed, broken, and inefficient,” Couturier, the medical director and diagnostic specialist at ARUP Laboratories in Utah, wrote later on ClinMicroNet, a private message system for microbiology lab directors across the world.
Alex Greninger, an assistant director of the University of Washington’s clinical virology lab, said his efforts to develop a test for coronavirus were stalled by an FDA regulation. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
In a statement this week, the FDA said its regulations “had not hindered or been a roadblock” to the rollout of tests.
“Every action the FDA has taken during this public health emergency to address the COVID-19 pandemic has balanced the urgent need to make diagnostic tests available with providing a level of oversight that ensures accurate tests are being deployed,” the agency said.
But in his interview, Giroir offered a different analysis.
“If someone says they were a barrier, to me, you have to believe them,” he told The Post. “If they thought it was a barrier, it becomes a barrier.”
One person familiar with the emergency declaration told The Post that FDA career staff did not raise concerns about the EUA’s burdens on clinical labs to Azar or to FDA leaders. Azar oversees the FDA.
Hahn had been confirmed by the Senate as FDA commissioner on Dec. 12 — just seven weeks before Azar’s declaration. Before that, Hahn was a radiation oncologist and chief medical executive at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Hahn’s agency approved the CDC test on Feb. 4, making it the country’s only accepted test for the novel coronavirus. Public health officials in New York City, Nebraska, Colorado, Minnesota, New York State and elsewhere began receiving them four days later.
The test kits contain compact collections of chemicals known as reagents. The chemicals help isolate viral genetic material and then amplify it so that it can be detected by probes that also came with the kit.
Scientists in the local labs quickly recognized something was wrong. The assays often produced results that suggested the virus was present in samples in which scientists knew it was not.
On Feb. 8, when lab technicians for New York City’s health department ran the test on samples that contained the virus, they saw on their computer screens a logarithmic curve sloping upward, indicating the virus was present. The problem was, they saw something similar when they ran the test on distilled water that contained no trace of the virus.
When they finally gave up that evening, the technicians called their director, Rakeman. Shortly before midnight, she relayed the bad news in an email to local health authorities. “The issue will need to be investigated and could result in significant impact to testing availability at the CDC and across the country until the issue is resolved,” she wrote.
New York State lab officials also passed on the news, according to documents and interviews. “There is a technical problem in one of the reagents which invalidates the assay and will not allow us to perform the assay,” the lab director of New York State’s Wadsworth Center, Jill Taylor, wrote to state health officials in an email that same night.
“I am sorry to not have better news,” she wrote. “It is a bummer.”
Word that some labs were having problems with the test quickly made its way back to the CDC.
“Is this something to worry about?” Daniel Jernigan, a leader of the CDC’s coronavirus response, wrote to the Association of Public Health Laboratories the next morning as he prepared to board a plane.
It was, he was told.
Later that day, Scott Becker, chief executive of the association, raised concerns to another CDC official. “The states and their governors are going to come unglued,” he wrote, adding later, “If CDC doesn’t get ahead of this it will be a disaster.”
As they struggled to make the test kit work, many of the public health labs realized they might succeed by eliminating one of its three main chemical components. But under the FDA’s emergency rules, they could use the test only as it was approved. The flaw meant they could not use it at all.
“The silence from CDC … is deafening,” Joanne Bartkus, the Minnesota health department’s lab director, wrote to Becker on Feb. 10. “What is going on? We are getting questions from our governor’s office and other labs are getting media requests asking when we will be starting.”
By Feb. 12, a total of 2,009 tests had been conducted in the United States, according to CDC data.
“We’re screwed from a testing standpoint if this thing takes off in the US,” Susan Butler-Wu, director of medical microbiology at the Los Angeles County and University of Southern California Medical Center, warned in a Feb. 13 email to fellow scientists.
Scott Becker, chief executive of the Association for Public Health Laboratories, raised concerns to the CDC about issues with its test. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Falling behind
The United States was clearly falling behind in the fight against covid-19. Other countries such as Singapore and Taiwan were ramping up testing quickly. In South Korea, 1,000 people were being tested each day by mid-February, a number that would increase more than tenfold by the end of the month.
The Geneva-based World Health Organization, meanwhile, had already delivered 250,000 diagnostic tests designed and manufactured by a German lab to 70 laboratories around the world.
Academic and hospital researchers including Greninger eagerly experimented with the German lab design early on and found it workable, but U.S. health officials continued on their own path.
“To our knowledge, no discussions occurred between WHO and CDC (or other USG agencies) about WHO providing COVID-19 tests to the U.S.,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told The Post.
Hahn defended the U.S. government’s approach at a news conference weeks later.
“In the U.S., we have policies in place that strike the right balance during public health emergencies of ensuring critical independent review by the scientific and public health experts and timely test availability,” he said in a White House press briefing. “What’s important here is that we have a test that the American people can trust.”
The FDA’s confidence in the flawed test was based in part on assurances from the CDC that it could be fixed easily, according to officials familiar with the agency’s deliberations.
In its statement to The Post, the CDC said it collaborated closely with the FDA and “encouraged our government partners to work with the private sector to develop diagnostic tests for commercial use and to remove restrictions for … labs in hospitals and universities across the county.”
On Feb. 16, officials from the FDA and CDC met to discuss solutions, including the possibility of eliminating the component of the test that was causing problems, officials said. FDA officials said that would be a fast solution that could quickly get the public health labs up and running. But in the following days, the FDA learned that some public labs were reporting continuing problems with the test, the officials said.
As officials struggled to understand the test flaws, leading clinical labs were spending much of their time and energy on the FDA’s paperwork and data demands to win approval for their tests.
The Mayo Clinic created its first-ever rapid response team. A third of the 15 members were devoted solely to the FDA’s data and paperwork demands. Like others on the team, they worked 15-hour days for three weeks.
“It’s unlike anything we’ve ever done before,” said Matt Binnicker, a director of clinical virology at Mayo.
He said they decided to persist because, in a worst-case scenario, the public health labs alone could not test on the scale that would be needed. “The public health infrastructure is really not set up to handle a pandemic,” he said.
At the University of Washington, Greninger and his fellow scientists were initially baffled by an FDA process they viewed as baroque. They had always worked under strict guidelines, aimed at protecting patients and guaranteeing quality. But the EUA was a bureaucratic puzzle they had never encountered.
“The most pernicious effect of the current regulatory environment is that it kneecaps our ability for preparedness should a true emergency emerge,” Greninger wrote to colleagues on Feb. 14.
Greninger channeled his energy into the paperwork problem, spending more than 100 hours filling out forms and collecting information needed for the application, he told The Post. But when he finally submitted the material, an FDA official told him the agency could not accept it — because he had emailed it.
“We received your email and attachments regarding the UW 2019-nCoV assay pre-EUA,” an FDA official wrote on Feb. 20. “However, we have not received the official submission through DCC.”
“What is the DCC?” Greninger wrote back.
“The Document Control Center,” came the reply.
“What is the Document Control Center?”
Greninger then learned about another requirement. Under FDA rules, he was supposed to digitally copy the electronic documents he had emailed to the FDA, burn the copies onto a disk and mail the hard disk to an office in suburban District of Columbia.
Greninger shared his exasperation in a Feb. 20 email to a colleague: “repeat after me, emergency.”
In a statement, an FDA official said information sent by Greninger on Feb. 19 was promptly reviewed, despite not having been submitted properly, and was found to be insufficient to demonstrate that the test would work. The official said that after that interaction, “we immediately addressed how we receive applications.”
“The FDA is improving ways we interact with developers of products to address the pandemic, including those we don’t normally interact with,” the official said.
By the time Greninger sent his email, the FDA was in discussions with dozens of test developers, a number that was growing quickly. But none had managed to complete a formal application to the FDA, according to officials familiar with the agency’s actions. FDA officials interpreted the paucity of applications as a sign of limited ability or interest, the officials said.
Some private labs struggled to obtain samples of the virus necessary to verify their tests and complete their applications, according to government officials and lab representatives. An FDA official said that, at the time, the agency supported efforts to help those labs secure the necessary samples.
Jan. 28
Jan. 30
Jan. 31
Feb. 4
Feb. 8
Feb. 13
Jan. 28
HHS Secretary Alex Azar praises the CDC for developing a coronavirus test in one week: "This was really a historic accomplishment."
Jan. 30
The World Health Organization declares a "public health emergency of international concern."
It is important to note that as the situation continues to evolve, so will the strategic goals and measures to prevent and reduce spread of the infection. The Committee agreed that the outbreak now meets the criteria for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and proposed the following advice to be issued as Temporary Recommendations.
Jan. 31
Azar declares a public health emergency, triggering tight restrictions on FDA approvals for tests called emergency use authorizations, or EUAs. Though meant to expedite approval of medical products, the EUAs added delays to the development of coronavirus tests at clinical labs at hospitals and universities.
Following the World Health Organization’s decision to declare the 2019 novel coronavirus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, I have declared today that the coronavirus presents a Public Health Emergency in the United States.
Feb. 4
The CDC receives an emergency use authorization from the FDA to distribute its test to public health labs around the country. The CDC also announces it will start shipping test kits to around 100 public health labs. It is the only test kit available.
Feb. 8
CDC test begins arriving at labs in New York, Nebraska, Colorado, Minnesota and elsewhere. By the end of the day, public health lab directors tell the CDC it doesn’t work properly. Through the weekend, the lab directors share notes of the test not working and start to realize, "this could be really bad."
The silence from CDC on the nCoVtest kit failures is deafening. What is going on? We are getting questions from our governor’s office and other labs are getting media requests asking when we will start testing. We need to be able to respond.
Feb. 13
Susan Butler-Wu, director of medical microbiology at the Los Angeles County and University of Southern California Medical Center, warns in an email to fellow scientists: "We’re screwed from a testing standpoint if this thing takes off in the US."
Anxiety intensifies
On Feb. 22, an FDA official named Timothy Stenzel flew to Atlanta. The director of a diagnostic office at the FDA, Stenzel was a key figure in the decisions about testing. The purpose of his visit was not clear to CDC officials, but he said he wanted to understand the testing development and help find a way to fix the troubled assay, according to three people familiar with the visit.
Stenzel spent much of the following week attending CDC meetings, touring the facilities and offering suggestions about how to cobble together viable tests from existing materials, the officials said.
At the same time, CDC officials, including Jernigan from the agency’s influenza division, urged Stenzel to convince the FDA to approve other tests under development in private laboratories.
Anxiety about the lack of widespread testing, meanwhile, was cresting among scientists and public health officials nationwide. Many felt the country could wait no longer.
On Feb. 24, the Association of Public Health Laboratories formally asked Hahn to loosen the FDA’s rules.
“We are now many weeks into the response with still no diagnostic or surveillance test available outside of the CDC for the vast majority of our member laboratories,” the association’s letter said. “While we understand that the EUA process is open to [public health labs], we believe a more expeditious route is needed at this time.”
Two days later, the FDA allowed public health labs to begin using the CDC test, with the troubled component eliminated.
On Feb. 27, Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, added to the pressure to expand testing further. He spoke in person with Brian Harrison, Azar’s chief of staff, and underscored the urgent need to accelerate the approval of new tests, according to two people familiar with the call. At noon that day, Harrison convened a teleconference of officials from the FDA, CDC and other agencies.
In strong language, Harrison told the group to come up with a new test approval plan before they left the meeting. The participants scrambled to swap ideas. At the FDA and CDC, Stenzel, Jernigan and others worked on a memo into the evening that outlined a new strategy.
The memo, “A Plan to Increase Covid-19 testing in the U.S.,” frankly acknowledged that the original approach had not worked. The spread of the virus was “leading to significant impact on healthcare systems and causing social disruption,” it said.
“CDC has worked with FDA to assure that testing is available at Public Health Laboratories to support public health investigations and control efforts; however, a much broader interagency approach is needed to fill the greater need for diagnostics by commercial manufacturers and laboratories capable of developing their own tests.”
It recommended giving clinical laboratories, such as the University of Washington, leeway to create and begin using their own tests while seeking FDA approval. The memo was forwarded to top government officials, including Azar, who supported loosening the regulations.
The next day, Greninger and scores of other clinical scientists appealed to Congress in a letter of their own. They complained that “significantly more stringent” FDA rules had nearly frozen the country’s fight against the virus.
“Notably, no test manufacturer or clinical laboratory has successfully navigated the EUA process for SARS-CoV-2 to date,” the Feb. 28 letter said. “Therefore, the CDC test remains the only test available with EUA status, and it has not been made available to hospital laboratories.”
A laboratory test kit for coronavirus that was developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (CDC/AP)
FDA’s turnaround
On Feb. 29, the FDA finally reversed course, opening the way for clinical labs outside the government to begin testing for coronavirus. Under a revised policy Hahn announced at a White House briefing, the labs would have to notify the FDA when testing began, but they would not have to submit paperwork for 15 days.
“The FDA recognized the urgent need for even faster testing availability,” the agency said in a statement this week. “Although laboratories could use the EUA pathway, many were hesitant or didn’t know the pathway was available to them.”
Giroir told The Post that the FDA was right to reverse itself but could have done so sooner.
“In retrospect, it might have been useful earlier, right?” he said. “I mean, it was the right decision to make.”
On March 2, Greninger and his colleagues at the University of Washington went live, testing 30 patients in a single day. Two days later, they tested 202 people. That number soon soared to over 2,800 per day, roughly the equivalent of a quarter of tests done by all state and federal public health labs on the same day.
About two weeks after the FDA loosened its grip on testing, two major manufacturing giants, Roche and Thermo Fisher Scientific, won approval. By then the number of confirmed cases in the United States had grown to more than 2,000.
On March 12, Fauci, who runs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers the problem was not simply the failure of the CDC test. The coronavirus testing debacle had exposed deep structural problems in the nation’s public health system, he said.
“Yeah, it is a failing, let’s admit it,” he said. “The idea of anybody getting it easily the way people in other countries are doing it, we’re not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes, but we’re not.”
Feb. 14
Feb. 18
Feb. 24
Feb. 26
Feb. 27
Feb. 28
Feb. 29
Mar. 11
Mar. 12
Feb. 14
As of this date, more than three dozen public health labs are having problems with the CDC test. Greninger writes a message to his colleagues about the bureaucratic difficulties for clinical labs at universities trying to make their own tests.
The most pernicious effect of the current regulatory environment is that it kneecaps our ability for preparedness should a true emergency emerge, as Susan notes. Why bother getting ready as a clinical lab if you think that you won’t ever be allowed to do anything until May or June (per the time frame on the prior Zika virus EUAs).
Feb. 18
The CDC warns clinical laboratories around the country against testing on their own without FDA approval. Meanwhile, it has still not provided public health labs with instructions on how to modify its test to make it work properly.
Feb. 24
A coalition of public health labs asks the FDA for permission to make their own tests: "We are now many weeks into the response with still no diagnostic or surveillance test available outside of CDC for the vast majority of our member laboratories."
We are now many weeks into the response with still no diagnostic or surveillance test available outside of CDC for the vast majority of our member laboratories. While we understand that the EUA process is open to PHLs, we believe a more expeditious route is needed at this time.
Read the full document
Feb. 26
The FDA commissioner sends a letter to the coalition of public health labs that had asked for permission to make tests: "False diagnostic test results can lead to significant adverse public health consequences -- not only serious implications for individual patient care but also serious implications for the analyses of disease progression and for public health decision-making.
Read the full document
Feb. 26
The CDC announces to public health labs that a workaround for the test has been approved.
Feb. 27
CDC Director Robert R. Redfield testifies to the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and nonproliferation that the "CDC believes that the immediate risk of this new virus to the American public is low." Privately, the CDC concluded that a "much broader" effort to testing is needed. An internal memo titled, "A Plan to Increase Covid-19 testing in the U.S.," frankly acknowledged the approach was not working. The spread of the virus was "leading to significant impact on healthcare systems and causing social disruption," it said. "A much broader interagency approach is needed to fill the greater need for diagnostics by commercial manufacturers and laboratories capable of developing their own tests."
Read the full document
Feb. 28
Dozens of clinical laboratory scientists from across the nation write to Congress asking for more leeway to create new tests, saying "this regulatory process is significantly more stringent than that required for every other virus we test for."
Feb. 29
The FDA reverses course and announces it will permit clinical labs to develop tests with less stringent review. By this date, the CDC and public health labs have tested 3,999 people nationwide.
March 11
WHO declares the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.
March 12
Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, testifies to Congress about coronavirus testing and the nation’s response to the outbreak: "The system does not, is not really geared to what we need right now," he said. "Yes, it is a failure, let's admit it."
Emily Rauhala, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.
-
THANK YOU.
=================
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/cdc-was-fighting-racism-and-obesity-instead-daniel-greenfield/
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/04/math-update-and-ventilator-numbers.html
-
rapidly accelerated the PC of CDC
like he did with the military and everywhere else. the military
"CDC has a history of wasting money on everything from a $106 million visitor's center with Japanese gardens, a $200K gym, a transgender beauty pageant, not to mention promoting bike paths." :-o
Mr Greenfield forgot to mention
the PC correct
CDC's push against *climate change and pollution*
I saw exhibits about this in their museum when I was there
in '16
"
the obesity thing while nice is doomed to fail when we have pizza and chinese and fast food every square 1/2 mile in the country
and we work at desks all day from home (like the overweight author of this post) and
unless GM is right and we go back to the stone age and thus will lose weight from starvation I still think obesity treatment has the best hope of success coming from the drug industry
but nothing soon........as far as I know.
-
I don't think we are headed quite back to the stone age (Short of a massive EMP striking the CONUS). I do think the world's debt driven fake economics are finally hitting the wall, with serious kinetic force.
rapidly accelerated the PC of CDC
like he did with the military and everywhere else. the military
"CDC has a history of wasting money on everything from a $106 million visitor's center with Japanese gardens, a $200K gym, a transgender beauty pageant, not to mention promoting bike paths." :-o
Mr Greenfield forgot to mention
the PC correct
CDC's push against *climate change and pollution*
I saw exhibits about this in their museum when I was there
in '16
"
the obesity thing while nice is doomed to fail when we have pizza and chinese and fast food every square 1/2 mile in the country
and we work at desks all day from home (like the overweight author of this post) and
unless GM is right and we go back to the stone age and thus will lose weight from starvation I still think obesity treatment has the best hope of success coming from the drug industry
but nothing soon........as far as I know.
-
".I do think the world's debt driven fake economics are finally hitting the wall, with serious kinetic force."
yup
-
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/disaster-motion-34-million-travelers-poured-us-coronavirus/story?id=69933625
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-china-trail-leading-back-to-wuhan-labs/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-china-trail-leading-back-to-wuhan-labs/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first
No way!
-
https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/cuomo-panel-recommends-400m-in-hospital-cuts-as-coronavirus-pandemic-rages/
https://nypost.com/2020/03/29/heres-the-next-big-problem-after-new-york-gets-ventilators/
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/sean-hannity-cuomo-failed-to-prepare-for-coronavirus-but-keeps-wrongly-blaming-trump-and-others
-
https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/31/the-real-coronavirus-chronology-shows-trump-was-on-top-of-it-while-biden-was-mocking-the-danger/
-
"CDC has a history of wasting money on everything from a $106 million visitor's center with Japanese gardens, a $200K gym, a transgender beauty pageant, not to mention promoting bike paths."
Yes. I was wondering if we would find out where they were spending their time and our money while they weren't doing their job.
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8188557/Did-coronavirus-leak-research-lab-Wuhan-Startling-theory-no-longer-discounted.html
Who could have forseen such a thing?
-
Doug:
What is the URL of that big WaPo article you pasted for me?
-
The VIRUS has awakened a "sleeping giant":
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-pandemic-america-still-global-leader-time-crisis/
so who might be its critics. ? :wink: :roll:
-
Doug:
What is the URL of that big WaPo article you pasted for me?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/03/coronavirus-cdc-test-kits-public-health-labs/?arc404=true
-
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bet-big-on-treatments-for-coronavirus-11586102963?mod=hp_opin_pos_1
Antivirals and antibody therapies are showing promise. The FDA needs to step up its pace.
By Scott Gottlieb
April 5, 2020 12:09 pm ET
Gilead Sciences produces remdesivir, an antiviral drug that shows promise in treating Covid-19.
PHOTO: OLIVIER DOULIERY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Some imagine that the coronavirus will run its tragic course in the spring, with the direst results avoided by intense social-distancing and other mitigation efforts, and then our lives can more or less return to normal in the summer.
But that isn’t realistic. Even if new cases start to stall in the summer heat, the virus will return in the fall, and so will fresh risk of large outbreaks and even a new epidemic. People will still be reluctant to crowd into stores, restaurants or arenas. Schools may remain closed. The public’s fears won’t relent simply because there are fewer new cases. We’ll be running an 80% economy.
The only way out is with technology. Aggressive surveillance and screening can help warn of new infection clusters that could turn into outbreaks, but that won’t be enough. A vaccine could beat the virus, but there won’t be one this year. The best near-term hope: an effective therapeutic drug. That would be transformative, and it’s plausible as soon as this summer. But the process will have to move faster.
Americans would have the confidence to return to work, even if the virus is still circulating in the fall, if they knew that a robust screening system is in place to identify and arrest new outbreaks and medication can significantly reduce the chance of becoming severely ill. Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve governor, estimates that such a drug could restore at least $1 trillion in economic activity.
Given the enormous public-health and economic stakes, it is worth doing whatever it takes to move such a drug to market. There are two promising approaches, and both could be available soon if government and private industry do things right. It’s time to place some firm bets and put resources behind these experimental treatments.
One approach involves antiviral drugs that target the virus and block its replication. Think of medicines for treating influenza, HIV or cold sores. The drugs work by blocking the mechanisms that viruses use to replicate. Dozens of promising antiviral drugs are in various stages of development and could be advanced quickly. The one furthest along is remdesivir, from Gilead Sciences. There’s evidence from clinical experience with Covid-19 patients that it could be effective.
The other approach involves antibody drugs, which mimic the function of immune cells. Antibody drugs can be used to fight an infection and to reduce the risk of contracting Covid-19. These medicines may be the best chance for a meaningful near-term success.
Antibody drugs are based on the same scientific principles that make “convalescent plasma” one interim tactic for treating the sickest Covid-19 patients. Doctors are taking blood plasma from patients who have recovered from Covid-19 and infusing it into those who are critically ill. The plasma is laden with antibodies, and the approach shows some promise. The constraint: There isn’t enough plasma from recovered patients to go around.
Antibody drugs are engineered to do the same thing as convalescent plasma, but because they’re synthesized, they don’t depend on a supply of antibodies from healed patients. Biotech companies would manufacture them in large quantities using recombinant technology, the same approach behind highly effective drugs that target and prevent Ebola, respiratory syncytial virus and other infections. The antibodies can also be a prophylaxis given to those exposed to Covid-19, or to prevent infection in vulnerable patients, such as those on chemotherapy. These drugs could protect the public until a vaccine is available.
The biotech company Regeneron successfully developed an antibody drug to treat Ebola as well as one against MERS, a deadly coronavirus similar to Covid-19. Regeneron has an antibody drug that should enter human trials in June. Vir Biotechnology is also developing an antibody treatment for Covid-19 and says it could be ready for human trials this summer. Amgen recently started its own program with Adaptive Biotech and Eli Lilly has one as well. If these approaches work, the drugs can advance quickly, because much of the science and the safety is already well understood.
But success will require a strong sense of urgency from manufacturers—and from regulators, who need to collaborate with drug developers in innovative ways to move the most promising therapies. The Food and Drug Administration has deployed tactics in recent years to advance therapeutics aimed at rare and deadly cancers. One is real-time reviews, in which regulators work with drug developers to evaluate data as it is read out from clinical trials, instead of waiting until the trial concludes, to understand the potential benefits and risks rapidly. This has enabled drug developers to accelerate development timelines. FDA’s senior career scientists need the firm backing of political leadership to apply these and similar scientific approaches to Covid-19.
Americans’ lives won’t return to normal absent a technological breakthrough. But with some effort, American industry and government can before this fall produce therapies that save lives and restore freedom and prosperity.
Dr. Gottlieb is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, 2017-19. He serves on the boards of Pfizer and Illumina and is a partner at the venture-capital firm New Enterprise Associates.
-
Why aren't we tracking the number who have recovered? Those include the only people currently carrying an immunity at this point.
We have such bad data, partly because of no good testing in place.
Death toll is wrong. Some "dead from CV19" were never tested for the virus, never had the virus.
Many who died with virus infection already had a life threatening ailment. Some of the people with extreme old age and or life threatening illnesses die anyway, before or without coronavirus.
More are infected with the virus than we know, since almost no one is tested. Therefore the recovery rate is higher than we think.
The real death rate is going to look more like 0.1% or 0.01%, not the 3% or 8% we were told. IMHO.
Most accurate measurements are the numbers tested with virus and hospitalized and number placed in ICU. That does not give us an accurate percentage of the infected but it does give us a trend line that will go down when we are winning.
-
https://www.universal-sci.com/headlines/2020/4/1/scientists-warn-that-many-covid-19-patients-are-still-contagious-after-their-symptoms-have-vanished
Researchers warn that a large portion of COVID-19 patients remain contagious for quite some time after their symptoms have vanished
[small sample]
-
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/China-sees-rise-in-coronavirus-cases-and-asymptomatic-patients
-
not very specific
just a general we gotta get people to work business open and people not to be afraid of each other
a more "individualistic" approach:
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/gingrich-italy-southkorea-pandemic/2020/04/06/id/961509/
Of course the Left is already criticizing Trump before we even know what is going to happen:
What's your plan for the future Mr Trump the CNN attack dog barks with angry facial expression on his weekend show last night.
As though Trump has done nothing and is not every day working on this like a bipolar person in the manic phase
BTW , interesting theory is that Florence Nightingale , seen working night and day in the soldier's hospital during the Crimean War
must have been bipolar to have been physically able to do what she did
NO ONE could keep up with her 24/7 work to help the injured and dying
Few can keep up with Trump. - (tho he is not bipolar .)
-
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-05/viagra-discovery-could-treat-coronavirus-patients?fbclid=IwAR1H1cz57f247qnO-KVy4mJQfj3RlhQXTnr_aIgzN6erjiwHfojg5lw6_74
-
second post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr98gE88W60
9/19/20: THIS HAS BEEN DELETED!!! Angry that I did not think to download it!!!
-
viagra is used for pulmonary artery hypertension
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCyqcoC747o
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUo1w5aSkro&feature=youtu.be
-
second post
https://www.physiciansweekly.com/mortality-rate-of-covid-19-patients-on-ventilators/amp/
-
That the Chinese viral just happens to be in Wuhan.
"CHINESE RESEARCHERS: Coronavirus bats linked to Chinese gov't LABS, not wet markets"
FAuci says he trusts his Chinese colleagues who say this theory that the virus purposely or accidentally originated for bat to human transfer from eating animal meat
is naive .
How would even most of then know?
They hear the same propaganda we do
and why are they going to come out to say otherwise when they see researches and doctors being arrested
disappear or die.
-
Doug:
Can you dig up the URL for your Repy #499?
-
Doug:
Can you dig up the URL for your Repy #499?
See #515
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/03/coronavirus-cdc-test-kits-public-health-labs/?arc404=true
-
https://www.businessinsider.sg/boris-johnson-government-coronavirus-may-leaked-chinese-laboratory-covid-2020-4
Boris Johnson’s government has considered the possibility that the coronavirus may have accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab
Adam Payne, Business Insider USApril 6, 2020
A laboratory technician working on samples to be tested for the new coronavirus at the
A laboratory technician working on samples to be tested for the new coronavirus at the “Fire Eye” laboratory in the city of Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province. Getty
The UK government reportedly believes the coronavirus outbreak may have started in a Chinese laboratory.
Most experts believe the outbreak began when animals passed the virus to humans in China, specifically in or near a market in the city of Wuhan where live animals were sold.
Some scientists, however, believe an accidental leak is a plausible alternative theory – and the Mail on Sunday said UK officials were not ruling it out.
A UK parliamentary committee last week accused the Chinese government of spreading disinformation about the origins of the virus.
“Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan,” one UK government official told the Mail on Sunday.
Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The UK government believes the novel coronavirus may have accidentally leaked from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan where scientists were researching viruses, according to a Mail on Sunday newspaper report.
Most experts believe the outbreak of the virus began with animals passing the disease to humans in or near a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan where live animals were sold.
The Mail on Sunday report, however, says that while officials in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government believe this is still the most likely explanation, it is “no longer being discounted” that a leak from a nearby laboratory actually caused the outbreak.
“There is a credible alternative view [to the zoonotic theory] based on the nature of the virus,” a member of the UK government’s emergency committee of senior officials, Cobra, told the newspaper. “Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted.”
There are two scientific labs close to Wuhan where scientists are believed to have been carrying out tests on viruses: the Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control.
Both are within 10 miles of the animal market where the outbreak is widely believed to have started late last year.
Some scientists in the US believe an accidental laboratory leak is a plausible theory, The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said last week.
One biologist Ignatius pointed to was Richard Ebright, a professor at Rutgers University’s Waksman Institute of Microbiology.
Ebright was quoted in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as saying many of the scientists in Wuhan who had been researching viruses had only “minimal protections” against infection.
“Virus collection, culture, isolation, or animal infection at BSL-2 [moderate biosafety level] with a virus having the transmission characteristics of the outbreak virus would pose substantial risk of infection of a lab worker, and from the lab worker, the public,” he said.
He went on to say the evidence available left “a basis to rule out a lab construct, but no basis to rule out a lab accident.”
In other words, while the virus was not believed to have been created in a lab, it could have been studied in one and released in an accident.
Boris Johnson
Pippa Fowles/10 Downing Street/Handout
Johnson’s government has reportedly started to question the veracity of China’s statements regarding the coronavirus.
Last week it was reported that UK officials were furious with the Chinese state.
On March 29, the senior UK lawmaker Michael Gove told the BBC he was skeptical of China’s official virus numbers.
“The first case of coronavirus in China was established in December of last year, but it was also the case that some of the reporting from China was not clear about the scale, the nature, the infectiousness of this,” he said.
A report by the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee last week accused the Chinese government of spreading disinformation about the spread of the virus.
“Disinformation about COVID-19 has already cost lives,” the committee said.
“It is essential that the Government issues clear and transparent messages at home to confront and rebut disinformation spread by foreign powers.”
-
https://www.justsecurity.org/69549/can-governments-track-the-pandemic-and-still-protect-privacy/
https://www.justsecurity.org/69444/how-to-think-about-the-right-to-privacy-and-using-location-data-to-fight-covid-19/
https://www.justsecurity.org/69538/how-much-liberty-should-we-give-up-the-constitution-and-coronavirus-lockdown-proposals/
-
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/health/candidate-who-director-general-ethiopia-cholera-outbreaks.html
-
https://www.newsmax.com/us/virus-outbreak-infectious-disease/2020/01/26/id/951325/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who/who-chief-says-widespread-travel-bans-not-needed-to-beat-china-virus-idUSKBN1ZX1H3
-
Government and Businesses Turn Attention to Eventual Reopening of $22 Trillion U.S. Economy
Once social distancing slows coronavirus pandemic, tough questions follow over how to get the nation back to work: ‘It isn’t like a light switch on and off’
A St. Louis movie theater is one of the many businesses closed during the coronavirus pandemic.
PHOTO: JEFF ROBERSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Stephanie Armour and Jon Hilsenrath
Updated April 7, 2020 8:03 pm ET
SAVE
PRINT
TEXT
53
Government officials and business leaders are turning their attention to a looming challenge in the fight against the new coronavirus pandemic: Reopening a $22 trillion U.S. economy that has been shut down like never before.
With some preliminary signs that infections from the virus are slowing, the whole nation is hopeful to get back to business as soon as possible. But a host of questions arise: Under what conditions should people be allowed back to work and stay-at-home orders be lifted? How will people at work be monitored for reinfection or antibodies to prevent a resurgence of the deadly virus? Does it all happen at once or is it staggered? Who is in charge of the effort?
A sharp reduction in new infections is a critical first step, but health experts say other steps will be needed to prevent another devastating outbreak that shuts the economy down all over again. That includes building testing and surveillance systems—and a readiness to reintroduce some social distancing and other mitigations on smaller scale if necessary—to give businesses and individuals confidence that they can return to work without risking infection.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy Says States Need More Federal Support
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
UP NEXT
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy Says States Need More Federal Support
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy Says States Need More Federal Support
In an interview with WSJ’s Gerald F. Seib, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said there is room to be optimistic after his state saw a drop in the rate of new Covid-19 cases, but warned that more federal support is needed to continue the fight against the novel coronavirus. Photo: Associated Press
“It isn’t like a light switch on and off,” said Anthony Fauci, a member of President Trump’s task force on the pandemic, in an interview with “The Journal,” a Wall Street Journal podcast. “It’s a gradual pulling back on certain of the restrictions to try and get society a bit back to normal.”
Dr. Fauci said a first condition is a steep drop in the number of cases. “You’ve got to make sure you are absolutely going in the right direction.” Then, he said, “you gradually come back. You don’t jump into it with both feet.”
Disparate Measures
Number of states that have implemented:
Source: National Governors Association
50
49
45
29
27
15
5
Statewide school closures
Stay at home orders
Business closures
Mask policies, recommendations
Travel restrictions
State, local curfews
All
The federal government has yet to put in place the kind of nationwide testing, tracing and surveillance system that public health experts say is needed to prevent another surge in coronavirus cases when social distancing eases. That includes identifying people who are asymptomatic and can also spread the coronavirus, health experts said.
Mr. Trump said Saturday that he is considering a second coronavirus task force focused on reopening the country. The administration’s current social distancing guidelines run through April.
“It’s the health people that are going to drive the medical-related decisions,” National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said in an interview with Politico webcast on Tuesday. “But I still believe, hopefully and maybe prayerfully, that in the next four to eight weeks we will be able to reopen the economy, and that the power of the virus will be substantially reduced and we will be able to flatten the curve.”
The federal government has yet to release a detailed recovery strategy, so state and local leaders are scrambling to create their own approaches. As a result, the recovery process could unfold in the same patchwork fashion as the shutdown.
New York, the state hit hardest by the pandemic, is looking to join with New Jersey and Connecticut on a unified reopening approach. “We cannot restart life as we knew it without testing,” Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted Tuesday.
Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, which has the second-most Covid-19 deaths, said the resumption of economic activity would be “slow and careful, because the last thing we’re going to need is going too quickly.… That’s the equivalent, I think, of throwing gasoline on the fire.”
San Miguel County in Colorado, using a test from United Biomedical, has plans to check all its residents for immunity. Republican Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker last week announced a coronavirus tracking initiative that will involve 1,000 people working at a virtual call center to trace people exposed or infected with the virus.
GOP Texas Lieut. Gov. Dan Patrick announced Tuesday he is forming a task force on how to reopen the economy, and GOP Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has created a response team to discuss measures that must be in place for opening the state back up.
Some governors talked Tuesday with Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, about ways to work together or launch their own surveillance plans that would trace the disease should it resurface and spread. One idea is to galvanize congressional lawmakers to pass legislation setting a U.S. surveillance system for coronavirus in place.
Dr. Gottlieb, who ran the FDA from 2017 to 2019, released a report on the “roadmap to reopening” Tuesday with Mark McClellan, a physician and economist who ran the FDA under President George W. Bush.
“I’m worried we don’t have the systems in place to carefully reopen the economy,” Dr. Gottieb said in an interview. “You need to be able to identify people who are sick and have the tools to enforce their isolation and [tracing of people they contact]. You have to have it at a scale we’ve never done before. We need leadership.”
Dwindling Economies
With 82% of U.S. counties under lockdown, states’ economies are feeling the impact.
Daily GDP lost by state
Percentage of GDP loss
Percentage of remaining GDP
The height of the bars is proportional to
the total daily GDP of each state.
States with the largest GDP
Daily GDP
0
50
100
%
$60 billion
Calif.
Texas
N.Y.
40
Fla.
With the Covid-19 crisis, the daily GDP lost in these states is $12.5 billion.
Ill.
Pa.
Ohio
N.J.
Ga.
Wash.
Mass.
N.C.
Va.
Mich.
20
Md.
Other
states
Thirty other states and D.C. are losing a total of $4.9 billion in daily GDP.
0
Source: Moody's Analytics
Tensions are simmering, in some states, about how and when to reopen. Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania have proposed legislation to scale back Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s business closure order from mid-March and create a Covid-19 emergency plan to allow businesses to reopen.
“Our governor is being overly aggressive on this, I feel,” said Matt Stuckey, president of Stuckey Automotive, which owns three dealerships in Altoona, Pa.
Democrats say the Republican proposal in the state would threaten public health and risk increasing the spread of the virus.
Many states and counties lack resources to set up their own systems for identifying infected residents and people who may have been exposed, a necessary step to contain the virus once social distancing rules have been eased.
It is unknown what role the federal government will take in running or coordinating a monitoring system once the worst effects of the crisis have eased. It is only now starting to grapple with some of these issues.
The administration, which was slow to respond to the early stages of the pandemic, began collecting key testing and epidemiological data from hospitals in late March. In the coming weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to deploy tests known as serology tests to find people who have immunity to the disease, including among those who didn’t have symptoms, to better assess its presence in the population.
People who lost their jobs waited in line to file for unemployment in Fort Smith, Ark., on Monday.
PHOTO: NICK OXFORD/REUTERS
Dr. Fauci suggested the federal government itself won’t take the lead on testing. “It isn’t up to the task force or necessarily the federal government to flood the country with testing,” Dr. Fauci said. “It’s in the hands of the private sector.”
About 60% of Americans say the federal government should be primarily responsible for the coronavirus response, almost double the 32% who say the states should be responsible, according to a March poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Roughly one out of every 300 people in the country is now being tested, based on federal data, compared to about one out of every 100 people in Germany.
Testing is hampered by delays and shortages that limit who can get tested. It is unlikely that the problems will be resolved by the end of April, according to one person familiar with the planning.
Some health experts said any reopening scenario is likely to work like an accordion: Any easing on social distance protocols would be followed by a tightening in areas where the virus resurfaces. A vaccine is still at least 12 to 18 months away, and even that timetable is considered optimistic.
Federal Reserve officials have cautioned that state and local efforts to lift restrictions could be ineffective for the economy if they haven’t been paired with muscular measures to beef up testing for infections and to provide treatments for those infected.
Most of the hardest-hit sectors—restaurants, hospitality, travel—require workers and customers “not feel like they’re taking their health at risk,” said Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren in an interview last week. “How effective are we at getting people tested so that you feel comfortable holding the subway pole?”
Economic outcomes “are very, very dependent on the public-health outcomes,” he added.
396,223
confirmed cases in the U.S.
12,722
total deaths in the U.S.
Hawaii
Calif.
Nev.
Ariz.
N.M.
Colo.
Utah
Fla.
Texas
Okla.
Kan.
La.
Miss.
Ala.
Ga.
Ark.
Mo.
Ill.
Tenn.
Ky.
Ore.
Wash.
Wyo.
Idaho
Mont.
Neb.
S.D.
N.D.
Iowa
Wis.
Ind.
Mich.
Minn.
S.C.
N.C.
Va.
W.V.
Md.
D.C.
Del.
Ohio
Pa.
N.J.
Conn.
N.Y.
R.I.
Mass.
Vt.
N.H.
Maine
Alaska
Confirmed cases
as of Apr 7, 2020
139,900
10
New York
139,875 cases
Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering
Some business executives are starting to look beyond the crisis to reopening. Movie-theater executives are talking to officials at the CDC about when they might reopen auditoriums, said John Fithian, chief executive of the National Association of Theatre Owners. As of this week, the theater chains hope to open around Memorial Day and use the month of June to re-acclimate moviegoers to the habit of sitting in a room with dozens of strangers.
The International Air Transport Association, a trade group, plans regional meetings with governments this month to standardize health screening at airports.
Tractor Supply, a Nashville, Tenn.-based retailer with 1,800 stores that sell animal feed and farm supplies to mostly rural customers, plans to split corporate employees into groups to reduce crowding when corporate offices reopen, said CEO Hal Lawton. The groups would be in the office on alternating days “to work in more of a social distancing kind of way,” said Mr. Lawton.
It’s not top of mind yet. “We certainly think this continues on at least until mid-May, if not end of May, end of June, before we are starting to do anything close to relaxing our existing policies,” he said.
—Kris Maher, Sarah Nassauer, Doug Cameron, Betsy McKay, Nick Timiraos, Erich Schwartzel and Kate Linebaugh contributed to this article.
-
Birx says government is classifying all deaths of patients with coronavirus as 'COVID-19' deaths, regardless of cause.
Nearly one million per year were already dying from heart and respiratory conditions.
-------------------------------------------------
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/birx-says-government-is-classifying-all-deaths-of-patients-with-coronavirus-as-covid-19-deaths-regardless-of-cause
The federal government is classifying the deaths of patients infected with the coronavirus as COVID-19 deaths, regardless of any underlying health issues that could have contributed to the loss of someone's life.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, said the federal government is continuing to count the suspected COVID-19 deaths, despite other nations doing the opposite.
"There are other countries that if you had a pre-existing condition, and let's say the virus caused you to go to the ICU [intensive care unit] and then have a heart or kidney problem," she said during a Tuesday news briefing at the White House. "Some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death.
"The intent is ... if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that," she added.
-
well without autopsies may not be able to determine cause of death
this happens in real world too.
that said fix the stats so democrats could use against Trump
American ingenuity is already getting us out of this.
Worst is over soon.
We will be more ready and prepared for second wave .
His caretakers will have to walk silverplugs out of hiding for his prepared questions and answers .
(I dare say Grannis called the bottom - yeah I know unemployment will go up and people will stay in and not shop as much
and everyone will be screaming for their bailout checks to arrive faster - with CNN right there telling as the heartbreak stories along with the negative Trump hashtag on the bottom of screen)
-
Nice to see our Doc optimistic on the medical side of it. This won't be easy or a return to old normal, but the worst of it is soon behind us. Someday we will be able to buy a mask and sanitizer locally and see touchfree dispensers in public places. Better tests and treatments are coming and eventually a vaccine.
Maybe we will be better prepared for the next disaster because of this experience.
-
I see a lot of rough sledding in front of us.
Hopefully we as individuals and as a nation will work to become more ready for the next one.
Nice to see our Doc optimistic on the medical side of it. This won't be easy or a return to old normal, but the worst of it is soon behind us. Someday we will be able to buy a mask and sanitizer locally and see touchfree dispensers in public places. Better tests and treatments are coming and eventually a vaccine.
Maybe we will be better prepared for the next disaster because of this experience.
-
Even with the obligatory "Orange Man Bad", lies of omission, and obfuscating evasions, Pravda on the Hudson is forced to begin looking in the mirror , ,
Some really good details in here.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-response-delays.html?smid=fb-share
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/americans-are-paying-the-price-for-trumps-failures/609532/
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/americans-are-paying-the-price-for-trumps-failures/609532/
Why even waste time on this garbage?
-
Without clicking on the link, do the critics ever mention how bold, prescient and controversial the travel bans were? W.H.O. said travel ban was not necessary or helpful. Trump right, experts wrong.
Did the article mention Obama administration depleting mask inventory and not replaciing, not notifying the new administration?
Most of all, blaming Trump is probably just bad politics. November will be a choice of direction for going forward from there.
-
This was from the WHO on Jan 14, 2020:
https://mobile.twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152
Without clicking on the link, do the critics ever mention how bold, prescient and controversial the travel bans were? W.H.O. said travel ban was not necessary or helpful. Trump right, experts wrong.
Did the article mention Obama administration depleting mask inventory and not replaciing, not notifying the new administration?
Most of all, blaming Trump is probably just bad politics. November will be a choice of direction for going forward from there.
-
Haywire Immune Response Eyed In Coronavirus Deaths, Treatment
Researchers are looking at treatments to suppress ‘cytokine storm,’ increasingly linked to the most severe Covid-19 cases
A laboratory at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, whose anti-inflammatory drug is being tested to treat Covid-19.
PHOTO: REGENERON PHARMACEUTICALS INC.
By Joseph Walker and Jared S. Hopkins
April 9, 2020 7:00 am ET
An immune system gone haywire may be doing more damage than the coronavirus itself in patients with the severest forms of Covid-19, doctors and scientists say, a growing theory that could point the way to potential treatments.
Much remains unknown about the path the virus takes in the sickest patients, but an increasing number of experts believe a hyperactive immune response, rather than the virus, is what ultimately kills many Covid-19 patients.
The out-of-control immune response eventually causes the patients’ lungs to stop delivering oxygen to the rest of organs, leading to respiratory failure and in some cases death, the experts say. The malfunctioning immune system may be driving the rapid decline in lung function experienced by some patients, including younger and relatively healthy ones, after the initial onset of symptoms, doctors say.
Anatomy of a Cytokine Storm
An overactive immune response is thought to play a role in the disease progression of the sickest Covid-19 patients.
1
Coronavirus infects lung cells.
2
Lung Cells
Immune cells, including macrophages, identify the virus and produce cytokines, part of the body's inflammatory response against infection.
2
Macrophage
3
Fibrin
Alveoli
3
4
Cytokines attract more immune cells, such as white blood cells, which in turn produce more cytokines, creating a cycle of inflammation that damages the lung cells.
5
Cytokines
Capillary
White blood cells
Red cells
4
5
Damage can occur through the formation of fibrins, scar tissue that impede oxygen from passing into the bloodstream.
Weakened blood vessels allow fluid to seep in and fill the lung cavities, leading to respiratory failure.
Sources: Randy Q. Cron, University of Alabama at Birmingham; Autoimmunity Reviews
Alberto Cervantes and Josh Ulick /THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
As scientists race to better understand the phenomena, pharmaceutical companies including Roche Holding AG are partnering with hospitals to explore whether drugs proven to tamp down an out-of-control immune response could help the sickest Covid-19 patients.
Some doctors are already administering the drugs to patients who are unable to breathe without the support of ventilators, or to prevent deterioration of patients who appear ready to slip into respiratory failure.
“You remove one piece of the storm, and it can quiet the whole thing,” said Kevin Tracey, president of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health, which is testing Kevzara, an anti-inflammatory drug from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Doctors have used the term “cytokine storm” to describe an overactive immune response triggered by external pathogens such as bacterial and viral infections.
Proteins called cytokines are part of the immune system’s arsenal for fighting disease. When too many are released into the bloodstream too quickly, however, it can have disastrous results, including organ failure and death.
As with other diseases, it is a mystery why cytokine storms are experienced by some but not all Covid-19 patients, doctors say. Genetics may be a factor.
In the most severe coronavirus patients, the disease appears to have two stages, doctors and researchers say. First the immune system fails to respond quickly or effectively enough to the virus. Then the immune response becomes too aggressive and floods the body with cytokines.
The surge of cytokines damages blood vessels and allows fluids to seep into the lungs, filling them up like water balloons, doctors say.
“The virus initiated it,” said Ya-Chi Ho, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine who studies infectious diseases. “The second problem is our immune system handled it wrong, and induces this cytokine storm and clogs our lungs. That’s why patients die.”
Drugs called corticosteroids can be used to treat patients with cytokine storms, but studies are mixed on their effectiveness, with some studies indicating that Covid-19 patients may be at a higher risk of death when treated with steroids. Some doctors are reluctant to use steroids because they broadly dampen the immune response, which is risky in patients fighting infections.
Drugs targeting specific cytokines rather than the entire immune system may be more effective, doctors say.
Among the most promising targeted treatments, doctors say, is Roche’s rheumatoid-arthritis drug tocilizumab, which is marketed under the brand name Actemra. The drug was approved in 2017 to treat cytokine storms caused by cancer treatments known as CAR-T cell therapies.
On Tuesday, a federal agency that supports health research said it is committing $25 million to accelerate a late-stage study of Actemra in Covid-19 patients.
Last month, doctors from Seattle’s Swedish Health Services used Actemra to treat a 45-year-old emergency-room physician who was infected while caring for patients from a nursing home in Kirkland, Wash.
The man was transferred to Swedish and put on life support after his lungs and kidneys began to fail, said Samuel J. Youssef, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Swedish. Lab tests showed the man’s inflammation levels were 200 times greater than the normal range, indicating he might be suffering from a cytokine storm.
The doctors at Swedish decided to administer Actemra after discussing a small Chinese study that had shown that 21 Covid-19 patients with high levels of inflammation had been successfully treated with the drug.
Over the next two days, the patient’s inflammation levels began to decline and his blood-oxygen levels increased, Dr. Youssef said. After a week, he was well enough to be taken off life support on March 23, and was released from the hospital on Sunday.
“All we did was quiet the storm and support his body—his kidneys, his lungs, his heart—to give him the time to fight the virus,” said Dr. Youssef, who attributes the recovery both to Actemra as well as other interventions like being put on life support.
CytoDyn Inc., a Vancouver, Wash.-based biotech company, said 10 severely sick Covid-19 patients showed signs of recovering three days after being infused with its experimental HIV drug leronlimab, which may block the production of inflammatory cytokines. Three of the patients were taken off ventilators, including two who have since been discharged from care, according to CytoDyn.
The company is studying its drug in a trial for patients with mild-to-moderate symptoms and expects to start one for severely sick patients.
Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB expects results in July from a study evaluating its rheumatoid-arthritis drug Kineret and an antibody called emapalumab in patients in Italy, said Milan Zdravkovic, Sobi’s head of research and development.
Novartis AG and Incyte Corp. said they plan to start clinical trials of their drug ruxolitinib in Covid-19 patients with cytokine storm. The drug, marketed as Jakafi in the U.S., is approved to treat rare blood cancers.
Write to Joseph Walker at joseph.walker@wsj.com and Jared S. Hopkins at jared.hopkins@wsj.com
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/did-china-steal-coronavirus-canada-and-weaponize-it
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/24/virus-hit-wuhan-has-two-laboratories-linked-chines/
https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-%20chinese-lab-poised-to-study-world-s-most-%20dangerous-pathogens-1.21487
But worries surround the Chinese lab, too. The SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Tim Trevan, founder of CHROME Biosafety and Biosecurity Consulting in Damascus, Maryland, says that an open culture is important to keeping BSL-4 labs safe, and he questions how easy this will be in China, where society emphasizes hierarchy. “Diversity of viewpoint, flat structures where everyone feels free to speak up and openness of information are important,” he says.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/coronavirusfilm?utm_source=Epoch_Times&utm_medium=Banner
-
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079293/coronavirus-nature-magazine-apologises-reports-linking-covid-19
ok
a couple of ugly incidents around the world of 8 billion
is cause to apologize for speaking the truth
the virus came out of Wuhan
This is pure Chinese propaganda.
-
I can't find my post predicting the US death rate would be unchanged under coronavirus and I have been looking for statistics on this. I think I chickened out on posting because it is bad to sound callous on a death toll that is hitting real people and families. But we were bound to have less death of (almost) everything else with stay at home orders, don't drive, disinfect all the time and distancing.
I heard this reported yesterday. I am unable to verify the accuracy at this point. Odd to have a major story reported only on conservative sites, but that happens, and the source is reported to be CDC data. Is Snopes on this?
CDC' March 2020 there were a total of 193,000 deaths in the US.
The average number of deaths in the US for March over the four years prior to 2020 (2016 – 2019) is 227,000. The difference between this year and the average for the past four years is 34,000. [Month of March] 2020 deaths are 85% of the average of the prior four years.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/strange-total-us-deaths-march-2020-actually-15-average-prior-four-years/
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBlogFeed/comments/fxa4k9/just_for_knowing_total_us_deaths_in_march_2020/
https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html
-
I am thinking
the death rate will be *less than* 0.5 %
by the time we have all the measurements. presuming we have honest measurements.
I don't agree with right wing pundits who are poo pahing the social distancing as being not such a big factor here
I think it certainly is a major factor
I always said I agree with Rush most of the time , but not all of the time
-
https://nypost.com/2020/04/09/san-franciscos-mayor-did-everything-de-blasio-didnt-to-fight-coronavirus/
-
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-2-200-coronavirus-deaths-nursing-homes-federal-government-isn-n1181026
It is not in the interest of nursing homes to test for corona and have to report this.
Nursing homes get their patients from hospitals that have a variety (sometimes of NH home to choose from )
What pt is going to go to a NH known for corona when they are due to leave the hospital?
-
Or patients who go from home into a NH ; would they go if they hear of corona cases there?
of course not.
reporting and testing not good for business.
But somehow the MSM reports this in a way to be able to pin it on Trump
Just my two cents.
Don't have real information to back my thoughts but just a hunch
where there is smoke........as the saying goe
-
Yes there could be undercount as well as overcount. I don't think a nursing home could keep a CV breakout secret very long.
-
or giving up even more freedoms?
both ?
https://nypost.com/2020/04/11/should-we-let-tech-giants-help-save-us-from-coronavirus/
I like Gates funding vaccine research but the business of tracking people just gives google and FB and the rest even more power and control over us and out politicians
no stopping them .
-
https://jennifermargulis.net/glyphosate-and-covid-19-connection/
-
https://jennifermargulis.net/glyphosate-and-covid-19-connection/
Very interesting. I don't find it persuasive but it is good for someone to raise a number of those question. Strange that someone so credentialed and published writes something so speculative.
The connection of glyphosate and COVID is evident because it follows out rivers and rural areas where the herbicide is used, and it is evident because it is hitting our biggest urban areas the hardest. Hmmm. Reminds me of global warming causing droughts - and record rainfalls.
If biofuels are the problem, then why not switch to clean fossil fuels, cleanest is natural gas? And why not switch to nuclear, the cleanest and safest of all. SIlence of course from that side of the discussion.
Most of the comments attached to the article are supportive, but I excerpt from one here that questions the science and logic:
"Wow, lets break this argument down.
Quote: The United States has stood out as the country hit the hardest by COVID-19. We also consume more glyphosate per capita than any other country in the world.
* I don’t know if the claim is true that the US “consumes” more glyphosate per capita. Notice how they chose the word “consume” (to imply eating) rather than use? People do not consume glyphosate any more than they consume trace elements of uranium, arsenic… But if people did consume glyphosate, we actually have the MSDS for glyphosate and we know what the LD50 is… >5000mg/kg of body weight.
* There is no possible connection between this virus and a glyphosate. It isn’t even a correlation much less a causation. They operate in different biological kingdoms on different biological scales.
* If more Glyphosate equals more Covid19, then why are urban area rather than agricultural regions the center of the spread of the virus.
* The death rate per capita in the US is lower than MANY countries around the world where glyphosate isn’t used…. but you don’t see people making the insane suggestion that glyphosate prevents covid19.
Quote: It will be a tragic irony if it turns out that our attempts to reduce carbon emissions through the use of extracts from glyphosate-exposed food crops and trees as a source of fuel in cars, trucks, buses, ships, airplanes—and as heating oil for buildings—turn out to be one of the primary causes of the COVID-19 epidemic.
* I don’t even know what this sentence means…. Is she really saying that ethanol created from corn is a contributing factor in covid19? That is anti-scientific nonsense on so many levels.
* Lets take the most charitable interpretation first, that glyphosate use on crops increases its presence in the environment and this is a cause of COVID19. Again, if this were the case then agricultural workers and people in rural areas would be disproportionately effected by covid19. We would also see a lower death rate in countries that didn’t use it… but there isn’t even a correlation. Glyphosate doesn’t bio-accumulate either so this argument is totally bunk.
* Does the author actually believe there is high concentrations of glyphosate in wood people are using to burn to heat their houses? And that this glyphosate doesn’t breakdown over the period of time the wood is drying and then miraculously survives the burning process of the wood… and then is more toxic then using a wood fire stove?
* Assuming the worse interpretation. Does this author actually believe the chemical “glyphosate” survives the distillation process into ethanol? They seem to imply this…. hint, it cannot in decomposes at relatively low temperatures and certainly will not survive the processes of corn into ethanol. See chemical properties of glyphosate.
Quote: I cannot claim to have proven that glyphosate is causing the weakened immune system and lung damage that sets up a susceptibility to an acute response to COVID-19. Science is a process of inquiry and we must keep inquiring. However, the circumstantial evidence is compelling and more research is needed. I hope I will inspire scientific researchers who have the necessary skills to further explore this hypothesis.
The “just asking a question” tactic over every dishonest propagandist that ever existed.
There is no connection between glyphosate and “weakened immune system and lung damage”
There is no correlation between (much less causal relationship) glyphosate and death rate of covid19
There is no possible mechanism to glyphoste to be in ethanol.
There is no reputable scientific body who would support this dishonest and irresponsible claim made by the author."
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-consent-governed-authoritarian-overreach-unnecessary/
-
https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-need-politicians-in-a-pandemic-11586710824?mod=opinion_lead_pos5
We Need Politicians in a Pandemic
The conceit that everyone must bow to ‘science’ is not only undemocratic but dangerous in its own right.
By George Gilder
April 12, 2020
The U.S. economy has been cratered less by the coronavirus than by the response to it—driven by the undemocratic idea that “science” should rule, even when much of the science and the data behind it remain in dispute.
We’re told in this plague year that politicians have no role—in essence, that the people have no real rights against consensus science, which can demand that we forfeit our liberties and suspend the Constitution. Political leaders, elected to exercise judgment on our behalf, must defer to doctors, because the viral threat is addressable only through medical expertise.
Yet since many liken fighting the coronavirus to war, we should remember that in war admirals and generals defer to civilian authority—to the president, as commander in chief, on matters of strategy and to Congress on matters of budget. This is not a design flaw but how a free people governs itself, even in a perilous crisis. It is how we bring the largest possible perspective to decision-making.
The demands of health-care experts are not greater than the demands of the economy, for a very simple reason: The health-care system is not separate from the economy but a crucial part of it. The health-care system saves lives; the economy provides everything we need to live. The damage being done to the economy—if sustained—could easily cost more lives world-wide than the coronavirus.
There are not, and never will be, scientific answers to all public problems. Scientific expertise and specialization inform good policy, but they should never be the final word. To navigate successfully between competing interests or competing calamities, between war and peace, and even between deadly pandemics and deadly economic depressions, we need politics—and politicians.
The American system of government asserts these truths: that the people have an ineradicable right to govern themselves, that politics is how we exercise our free will, and that rather than reflexively deferring to experts, we should defer as much as possible to the principles of freedom and common sense.
Common sense says that if a disease threatens to kill millions of elderly people already afflicted by disease, those people should be sequestered and protected. But the rest of us should proceed with our work, taking prudent precautions, even if some of us die anyway.
Anthony Fauci is undoubtedly a fine physician, but he is not in a position to cure what ails us. We are beset by more than a virus; we are beset by bad ideas about what government can and should do, and about who should be making crucial decisions.
It may be a hard truth for many to grant, especially because so many in the media hate the president with a fever that itself seems a contagion, but an optimistic, patriotic, practical-minded politician like Donald Trump, who over the past few years presided over a period of singular economic success, is exactly the man to provide the correct, if undoubtedly painful, cure for the current crisis. We may not envy him his decisions, but he is in the best position to make them.
Mr. Gilder is author of “Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy.”
-
As I am reading it, this is a particularly nasty virus that gets your auto immune system to attack your own lungs, and I wish that on no one, especially me and people I know.
But the death count is misleading. In these deaths, CV is not necessarily the cause or sole cause of death and the median age of these reported deaths (in MN) is now 88. It is hitting men harder than women. The life expectancy of men in America is 76.3; in MN it is 78.7. The median death age is 10 years older for coronavirus victims than for non-coronavurs victims. Some of these people dying would have died from the next nasty virus they caught, whether it was corona virus, pneumonia, bronchitis or a new case of last year's worst flu strain stressing their system past its fragile limit, and some in their late 80s and 90s die of old age without a virus. We aren't tracking death causation very well, IMHO. The numbers as reported imply 100% causation in those patients and that is most certainly not the case.
(https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/04/Screen-Shot-2020-04-13-at-5.45.26-AM.png?w=577&ssl=1)
Hat tip: Powerlineblog
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/coronavirus-in-one-state-11.php
-
AS for Doug MacG post
yes I agree the death count may well be exaggerated
in many elderly especially in NH even a simple common cold can knock them off
"
they have no reserve"
On GG I agree with him.. on Trump response but
on his book I disagree : "Mr. Gilder is author of “Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy"
at this juncture in time it appears to me the corona thing is only going to increase the power of "big data"
and the master of it.
That said as usual perhaps I am jumping the gun as I have not read his book
-
Jake Tapper got exactly what he wanted
got Fauci to say more lives would have been saved if more done earlier
AND
of course, the immediate Trump tweet " your fired to Fauci"
I assume Trump will now berate his as well which no one needs.
Can anyone tell me what the Obama Cuomo Biden or anyone Democrat including Chuck and Nance have done to avert this.
And the most amazing thing is the extrapolated death toll which was in several hundred thousand and some in many millions , is now dow to ~ 60 K
and NOT ONE in the leftist media MOB giving Trump ANY credit.
-
The Young Will Reopen America
Widespread, frequent antibody testing will help them know when they can hug grandma again.
By Bill Cassidy
April 13, 2020 6:53 pm ET
The novel coronavirus has caused a medical crisis that in turn created an economic crisis. The situation involves severe trade-offs. Currently, public health predominates; the economy is largely shut down, schools closed, 401(k)s battered. Can a fair equilibrium be established between health and economic well-being? Antibody testing may hold the key.
It is likely, but not yet proven, that antibodies in the blood of those who have recovered from Covid-19 confer immunity to the disease. This is the case for many other viruses and also the principle behind therapies that treat severely ill Covid-19 patients using plasma donated by patients who have recovered. In the absence of countervailing evidence, the U.S. government should assume that antibodies confer immunity to the coronavirus and plan accordingly. That way, if in the coming weeks evidence emerges to support this assumption, appropriate procedures and programs would already be in place.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, could integrate coronavirus immunity status into an immunization registry currently in use and compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This would be similar to the registries states use to track childhood vaccine records. British, German and Italian leaders are likewise considering issuing certificates of immunity. The principle is the same: Those with antibodies can return to the workplace.
Some are suggesting that younger people, who have a lower risk of developing severe Covid-19 symptoms, could soon be allowed to return to work and school. This would help the economy. But because the virus is already widespread, it will likely continue to circulate, and more freedom for young people would make them likelier to infect older people at risk of severe complications and death. Widespread, frequent antibody testing would help them make wise decisions. Until grandchildren know that they have Covid-19 antibodies, for example, they should refrain from hugging their grandparents.
We know from experience with other diseases that immunity in young people contributes greatly to communitywide immunity, or “herd immunity.” Administering hepatitis A vaccines to young children, who when infected rarely show symptoms, dramatically decreases symptomatic infections in older siblings and adults. Childhood pneumonia vaccinations dramatically decrease related diseases in the elderly.
If younger people are allowed to return to the benefits of a freer society, they will inevitably acquire immunity over time. A collateral benefit of letting the young return to work and school is that their immunity will help protect the more vulnerable.
Nothing in medicine is 100%. But society could reopen through the combination of personal responsibility to reduce coronavirus transmission and documenting who acquires naturally occurring immunity in the registry system currently used for immunizations. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs, scientists and civil servants will work toward effective vaccines, therapies and nonpharmaceutical measures. All this will help us to strike the fair and proper balance between physical health and financial health.
Dr. Cassidy, a gastroenterologist, is a Republican U.S. senator from Louisiana.
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/13/nolte-fauci-okayed-campaign-rallies-cruise-ships-healthy-march-9/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=daily&utm_campaign=20200413&utm_content=A
-
https://www.wnd.com/2020/04/washington-field-hospital-dismantled-didnt-see-single-patient/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=wnd&utm_campaign=wjstudio&utm_content=2020-04-13
-
https://summit.news/2020/04/15/who-blocked-doctors-from-urging-border-controls-to-stop-spread-of-coronavirus/
-
https://www.foxnews.com/world/taiwan-releases-december-email-showing-unheeded-warning-to-who-about-coronavirus
-
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.10.20060699v1
still too early to say about mild cases.
-
Coronavirus Ravages the Lungs. It Also Affects the Brain.
As Covid-19 cases mount, doctors are seeing patients who are experiencing symptoms like seizures, hallucinations and loss of smell and taste
Paramedics taking a coronavirus patient to an emergency center at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Monday.
PHOTO: ANDREW KELLY/REUTERS
By Daniela Hernandez
April 14, 2020 4:28 pm ET
A patient in Japan had seizures. An airline worker ended up in a Detroit hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with a rare form of brain damage. Others reported auditory and visual hallucinations or losing their sense of smell and taste.
What they share: presumed or confirmed coronavirus infections.
As the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases worldwide reaches 2 million, clinicians are realizing the disease doesn’t just ravage the lungs and hurt the heart. It also can, in a significant proportion of cases, affect the nervous system in myriad little-understood ways.
Through a growing number of papers, doctors around the globe are chronicling Covid-19’s lesser-known neurological manifestations including brain inflammation, hallucinations, seizures, cognitive deficits and loss of smell and taste. It is unknown whether these are caused directly by the virus infiltrating the nervous system, or by the body’s immune response to infection.
The hope is these reports could speed up diagnosis. Some patients say they were going out in public, potentially exposing others, due to lack of awareness of these symptoms. The reports could also open avenues of research that elucidate whether the virus gets into the brain, how long neurological symptoms might persist, and whether a full recovery can be expected.
In late March, while keeping quarantine, Dwantrina Russell noticed she couldn’t smell the bleach she was using to sanitize her Houston bathroom. Since then, most of the 47-year-old business owner’s symptoms of Covid-19, including fever and a violent cough, have receded. But she said she can only smell things like cleaning products or food if they are close by.
The range of effects could take decades to play out. Some epidemiological studies and lab experiments with other viruses suggest severe infections could set in motion molecular events that might increase the risk of developing neurodegenerative disorders, like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, many years later. The links are a matter of debate among neurologists and neuroscientists.
Last Friday, Chinese doctors published a study of 214 hospitalized patients in Wuhan showing that more than a third had neurologic symptoms. The most common included dizziness, headaches, impaired consciousness, skeletal-muscle injury and loss of smell and taste. The paper—published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the largest to date on the disease’s impact on normal nervous-system function—also documented rare, but more serious, effects including seizures and stroke, which occurs when a blood clot hits the brain.
“When this virus first came out, the general feeling was that there wasn’t much in the way of neurological manifestations. This was a pulmonary process,” said S. Andrew Josephson, chair of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. “This article should open up everyone’s eyes that this disorder affects the brain as well.”
The novel coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, isn’t the only virus known to affect the nervous system. Research in humans and animals has shown that non-coronaviruses such as HIV, measles and certain influenza strains can infect the brain or affect its function through inflammatory responses elsewhere in the body. Laboratory studies have shown that other coronaviruses can infect nerve cells.
Some neurologists hypothesize, based on results from animal studies, that the sometimes fatal breathing problems seen in severe Covid-19 cases might be in part due to direct infection and subsequent malfunction of the brainstem, which is involved in coordinating breathing.
“We are certainly on a learning curve in terms of understanding what the neurological manifestations would be” of SARS-CoV-2 infection, said Florian Thomas, chair of neurology at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.
On April 4, Cobain Schofield, a 25-year-old lighting technician based in Liverpool, said he realized that he couldn’t smell a pungent brand of garlic bread he likes. He consulted government-run health sites, but these didn’t list anosmia, the medical term for the condition, as a Covid-19 symptom, so he figured he was coronavirus-free.
Days later, he developed in his nose a “burning sensation while breathing,” he said, and a nurse at a nearby clinic told him several patients with confirmed Covid-19 diagnoses also had anosmia. He has been in quarantine since.
“Knowing now that I could have been spreading it, it’s quite a horrible feeling,” he said, adding that he had probably been experiencing anosmia for days before he noticed.
Whether a coronavirus infection affects the ability of receptors in the nasal cavity to detect odorants or the nerves that shuttle the odor-containing signals to the brain is unknown. Loss of smell and taste are common during other respiratory infections. (Much of what humans perceive as taste is related to smell.)
A growing number of hospitals are investigating antibody testing and blood plasma therapy as a way to combat the new coronavirus in sick patients. WSJ’s Daniela Hernandez explains. Photo illustration: Laura Kammermann
In the U.S. and elsewhere, policy makers and public-health officials have asked patients to avoid going to the hospital unless suspected Covid-19 symptoms like fever and cough don’t improve, or if they have trouble breathing. Critical-care neurologists said the messaging should expand to make patients more aware of brain-related symptoms.
Symptoms like confusion, trouble speaking or numbness on one side of the body should also be red flags. Those symptoms can signal an impending stroke, which, if not treated within a certain time window, can lead to permanent brain damage, they said. Covid-19 patients are at higher risk of stroke due to the virus’s impact on blood clotting.
For already hospitalized patients, doctors are running standard neurological exams that include low-tech tests like asking patients to follow simple commands, in conjunction with more high-tech diagnostics like brain imaging as needed, neurologists said.
Northwell Health, a health-care system in New York, plans to soon start using portable MRIs to monitor the brains of very sick patients, some of whom are sedated and on ventilators, according to Richard Temes, Northwell’s director of neurocritical care.
The hospital system is also using another type of brain-monitoring test, known as an electroencephalogram, to ensure patients aren’t having silent seizures, he said. Catching problems early increases the chances that patients’ brains can fully recover.
“As we fight this illness, we’re saving the lungs. We’re saving the heart and we’re saving the kidneys. But the brain is who we are,” said Dr. Temes.
-
It just keeps getting better...
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/04/researchers-report-wuhan-coronavirus-could-attack-immune-system-like-hiv-by-targeting-protective-cells/
Coronavirus Ravages the Lungs. It Also Affects the Brain.
As Covid-19 cases mount, doctors are seeing patients who are experiencing symptoms like seizures, hallucinations and loss of smell and taste
Paramedics taking a coronavirus patient to an emergency center at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Monday.
PHOTO: ANDREW KELLY/REUTERS
By Daniela Hernandez
April 14, 2020 4:28 pm ET
A patient in Japan had seizures. An airline worker ended up in a Detroit hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with a rare form of brain damage. Others reported auditory and visual hallucinations or losing their sense of smell and taste.
What they share: presumed or confirmed coronavirus infections.
As the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases worldwide reaches 2 million, clinicians are realizing the disease doesn’t just ravage the lungs and hurt the heart. It also can, in a significant proportion of cases, affect the nervous system in myriad little-understood ways.
Through a growing number of papers, doctors around the globe are chronicling Covid-19’s lesser-known neurological manifestations including brain inflammation, hallucinations, seizures, cognitive deficits and loss of smell and taste. It is unknown whether these are caused directly by the virus infiltrating the nervous system, or by the body’s immune response to infection.
The hope is these reports could speed up diagnosis. Some patients say they were going out in public, potentially exposing others, due to lack of awareness of these symptoms. The reports could also open avenues of research that elucidate whether the virus gets into the brain, how long neurological symptoms might persist, and whether a full recovery can be expected.
In late March, while keeping quarantine, Dwantrina Russell noticed she couldn’t smell the bleach she was using to sanitize her Houston bathroom. Since then, most of the 47-year-old business owner’s symptoms of Covid-19, including fever and a violent cough, have receded. But she said she can only smell things like cleaning products or food if they are close by.
The range of effects could take decades to play out. Some epidemiological studies and lab experiments with other viruses suggest severe infections could set in motion molecular events that might increase the risk of developing neurodegenerative disorders, like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, many years later. The links are a matter of debate among neurologists and neuroscientists.
Last Friday, Chinese doctors published a study of 214 hospitalized patients in Wuhan showing that more than a third had neurologic symptoms. The most common included dizziness, headaches, impaired consciousness, skeletal-muscle injury and loss of smell and taste. The paper—published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the largest to date on the disease’s impact on normal nervous-system function—also documented rare, but more serious, effects including seizures and stroke, which occurs when a blood clot hits the brain.
“When this virus first came out, the general feeling was that there wasn’t much in the way of neurological manifestations. This was a pulmonary process,” said S. Andrew Josephson, chair of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. “This article should open up everyone’s eyes that this disorder affects the brain as well.”
The novel coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, isn’t the only virus known to affect the nervous system. Research in humans and animals has shown that non-coronaviruses such as HIV, measles and certain influenza strains can infect the brain or affect its function through inflammatory responses elsewhere in the body. Laboratory studies have shown that other coronaviruses can infect nerve cells.
Some neurologists hypothesize, based on results from animal studies, that the sometimes fatal breathing problems seen in severe Covid-19 cases might be in part due to direct infection and subsequent malfunction of the brainstem, which is involved in coordinating breathing.
“We are certainly on a learning curve in terms of understanding what the neurological manifestations would be” of SARS-CoV-2 infection, said Florian Thomas, chair of neurology at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.
On April 4, Cobain Schofield, a 25-year-old lighting technician based in Liverpool, said he realized that he couldn’t smell a pungent brand of garlic bread he likes. He consulted government-run health sites, but these didn’t list anosmia, the medical term for the condition, as a Covid-19 symptom, so he figured he was coronavirus-free.
Days later, he developed in his nose a “burning sensation while breathing,” he said, and a nurse at a nearby clinic told him several patients with confirmed Covid-19 diagnoses also had anosmia. He has been in quarantine since.
“Knowing now that I could have been spreading it, it’s quite a horrible feeling,” he said, adding that he had probably been experiencing anosmia for days before he noticed.
Whether a coronavirus infection affects the ability of receptors in the nasal cavity to detect odorants or the nerves that shuttle the odor-containing signals to the brain is unknown. Loss of smell and taste are common during other respiratory infections. (Much of what humans perceive as taste is related to smell.)
A growing number of hospitals are investigating antibody testing and blood plasma therapy as a way to combat the new coronavirus in sick patients. WSJ’s Daniela Hernandez explains. Photo illustration: Laura Kammermann
In the U.S. and elsewhere, policy makers and public-health officials have asked patients to avoid going to the hospital unless suspected Covid-19 symptoms like fever and cough don’t improve, or if they have trouble breathing. Critical-care neurologists said the messaging should expand to make patients more aware of brain-related symptoms.
Symptoms like confusion, trouble speaking or numbness on one side of the body should also be red flags. Those symptoms can signal an impending stroke, which, if not treated within a certain time window, can lead to permanent brain damage, they said. Covid-19 patients are at higher risk of stroke due to the virus’s impact on blood clotting.
For already hospitalized patients, doctors are running standard neurological exams that include low-tech tests like asking patients to follow simple commands, in conjunction with more high-tech diagnostics like brain imaging as needed, neurologists said.
Northwell Health, a health-care system in New York, plans to soon start using portable MRIs to monitor the brains of very sick patients, some of whom are sedated and on ventilators, according to Richard Temes, Northwell’s director of neurocritical care.
The hospital system is also using another type of brain-monitoring test, known as an electroencephalogram, to ensure patients aren’t having silent seizures, he said. Catching problems early increases the chances that patients’ brains can fully recover.
“As we fight this illness, we’re saving the lungs. We’re saving the heart and we’re saving the kidneys. But the brain is who we are,” said Dr. Temes.
-
"hallucinations "
like Chris Cuomo
who is now having hallucinations during sleep and more recently
that CNN might some BS political propaganda outfit.
He now denies any of this.
and thanks zucker "for the record"
-
https://apnews.com/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9
China didn’t warn public of likely pandemic for 6 key days
By The Associated Press
today
1 of 11
In this Tuesday, March 10, 2020, photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping talks by video with patients and medical workers at the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province. Top Chinese officials secretly determined they were likely facing a pandemic from a novel coronavirus in mid-January, ordering preparations even as they downplayed it in public. Internal documents obtained by the AP show that because warnings were muffled inside China, it took a confirmed case in Thailand to jolt Beijing into recognizing the possible pandemic before them. (Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via AP)
In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations.
President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day, Jan. 20. But by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and expert estimates based on retrospective infection data.
Six days.
That delay from Jan. 14 to Jan. 20 was neither the first mistake made by Chinese officials at all levels in confronting the outbreak, nor the longest lag, as governments around the world have dragged their feet for weeks and even months in addressing the virus.
But the delay by the first country to face the new coronavirus came at a critical time — the beginning of the outbreak. China’s attempt to walk a line between alerting the public and avoiding panic set the stage for a pandemic that has infected more than 2 million people and taken more than 133,000 lives.
“This is tremendous,” said Zuo-Feng Zhang, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “If they took action six days earlier, there would have been much fewer patients and medical facilities would have been sufficient. We might have avoided the collapse of Wuhan’s medical system.”
Other experts noted that the Chinese government may have waited on warning the public to stave off hysteria, and that it did act quickly in private during that time.
But the six-day delay by China’s leaders in Beijing came on top of almost two weeks during which the national Center for Disease Control did not register any cases from local officials, internal bulletins obtained by the AP confirm. Yet during that time, from Jan. 5 to Jan. 17, hundreds of patients were appearing in hospitals not just in Wuhan but across the country.
It’s uncertain whether it was local officials who failed to report cases or national officials who failed to record them. It’s also not clear exactly what officials knew at the time in Wuhan, which only opened back up last week with restrictions after its quarantine.
But what is clear, experts say, is that China’s rigid controls on information, bureaucratic hurdles and a reluctance to send bad news up the chain of command muffled early warnings. The punishment of eight doctors for “rumor-mongering,” broadcast on national television on Jan. 2, sent a chill through the city’s hospitals.
“Doctors in Wuhan were afraid,” said Dali Yang, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Chicago. “It was truly intimidation of an entire profession.”
Without these internal reports, it took the first case outside China, in Thailand on Jan. 13, to galvanize leaders in Beijing into recognizing the possible pandemic before them. It was only then that they launched a nationwide plan to find cases — distributing CDC-sanctioned test kits, easing the criteria for confirming cases and ordering health officials to screen patients. They also instructed officials in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, to begin temperature checks at transportation hubs and cut down on large public gatherings. And they did it all without telling the public.
The Chinese government has repeatedly denied suppressing information in the early days, saying it immediately reported the outbreak to the World Health Organization.
“Those accusing China of lacking transparency and openness are unfair,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Wednesday when asked about the AP story.
_________________________
The documents show that the head of China’s National Health Commission, Ma Xiaowei, laid out a grim assessment of the situation on Jan. 14 in a confidential teleconference with provincial health officials. A memo states that the teleconference was held to convey instructions on the coronavirus from President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, but does not specify what those instructions were.
“The epidemic situation is still severe and complex, the most severe challenge since SARS in 2003, and is likely to develop into a major public health event,” the memo cites Ma as saying.
The National Health Commission is the top medical agency in the country. In a faxed statement, the Commission said it had organized the teleconference because of the case reported in Thailand and the possibility of the virus spreading during New Year travel. It added that China had published information on the outbreak in an “open, transparent, responsible and timely manner,” in accordance with “important instructions” repeatedly issued by President Xi.
Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak
The documents come from an anonymous source in the medical field who did not want to be named for fear of retribution. The AP confirmed the contents with two other sources in public health familiar with the teleconference. Some of the memo’s contents also appeared in a public notice about the teleconference, stripped of key details and published in February.
Under a section titled “sober understanding of the situation,” the memo said that “clustered cases suggest that human-to-human transmission is possible.” It singled out the case in Thailand, saying that the situation had “changed significantly” because of the possible spread of the virus abroad.
“With the coming of the Spring Festival, many people will be traveling, and the risk of transmission and spread is high,” the memo continued. “All localities must prepare for and respond to a pandemic.”
In the memo, Ma demanded officials unite around Xi and made clear that political considerations and social stability were key priorities during the long lead-up to China’s two biggest political meetings of the year in March. While the documents do not spell out why Chinese leaders waited six days to make their concerns public, the meetings may be one reason.
“The imperatives for social stability, for not rocking the boat before these important Party congresses is pretty strong,” says Daniel Mattingly, a scholar of Chinese politics at Yale. “My guess is, they wanted to let it play out a little more and see what happened.”
In response to the teleconference, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing initiated the highest-level emergency response internally, level one, on Jan. 15. It assigned top CDC leaders to 14 working groups tasked with getting funds, training health workers, collecting data, doing field investigations and supervising laboratories, an internal CDC notice shows.
The National Health Commission also distributed a 63-page set of instructions to provincial health officials, obtained by the AP. The instructions ordered health officials nationwide to identify suspected cases, hospitals to open fever clinics, and doctors and nurses to don protective gear. They were marked “internal” — “not to be spread on the internet,” “not to be publicly disclosed.”
In public, however, officials continued to downplay the threat, pointing to the 41 cases public at the time.
“We have reached the latest understanding that the risk of sustained human-to-human transmission is low,” Li Qun, the head of the China CDC’told Chinese state television on Jan. 15. That was the same day Li was appointed leader of a group preparing emergency plans for the level one response, a CDC notice shows.
On Jan. 20, President Xi issued his first public comments on the virus, saying the outbreak “must be taken seriously” and every possible measure pursued. A leading Chinese epidemiologist, Zhong Nanshan, announced for the first time that the virus was transmissible from person to person on national television.
If the public had been warned a week earlier to take actions such as social distancing, mask wearing and travel restrictions, cases could have been cut by up to two-thirds, one paper later found. An earlier warning could have saved lives, said Zhang, the doctor in Los Angeles.
However, other health experts said the government took decisive action in private given the information available to them.
“They may not have said the right thing, but they were doing the right thing,” said Ray Yip, the retired founding head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s office in China. “On the 20th, they sounded the alarm for the whole country, which is not an unreasonable delay.”
If health officials raise the alarm prematurely, it can damage their credibility — “like crying wolf” —and cripple their ability to mobilize the public, said Benjamin Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong.
The delay may support accusations by President Donald Trump that the Chinese government’s secrecy held back the world’s response to the virus. However, even the public announcement on Jan. 20 left the U.S. nearly two months to prepare for the pandemic.
During those months, Trump ignored the warnings of his own staff and dismissed the disease as nothing to worry about, while the government failed to bolster medical supplies and deployed flawed testing kits. Leaders across the world turned a blind eye to the outbreak, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling for a strategy of “herd immunity” — before falling ill himself. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro sneered at what he called “a little cold.”
_________________________
The early story of the pandemic in China shows missed opportunities at every step, the documents and AP interviews reveal. Under Xi, China’s most authoritarian leader in decades, increasing political repression has made officials more hesitant to report cases without a clear green light from the top.
“It really increased the stakes for officials, which made them reluctant to step out of line,” said Mattingly, the Yale professor. “It made it harder for people at the local level to report bad information.”
Doctors and nurses in Wuhan told Chinese media there were plenty of signs that the coronavirus could be transmitted between people as early as late December. Patients who had never been to the suspected source of the virus, the Huanan Seafood Market, were infected. Medical workers started falling ill.
But officials obstructed medical staff who tried to report such cases. They set tight criteria for confirming cases, where patients not only had to test positive, but samples had to be sent to Beijing and sequenced. They required staff to report to supervisors before sending information higher, Chinese media reports show. And they punished doctors for warning about the disease.
As a result, no new cases were reported for almost two weeks from Jan. 5, even as officials gathered in Wuhan for Hubei province’s two biggest political meetings of the year, internal China CDC bulletins confirm.
During this period, teams of experts dispatched to Wuhan by Beijing said they failed to find clear signs of danger and human-to-human transmission.
“China has many years of disease control, there’s absolutely no chance that this will spread widely because of Spring Festival travel,” the head of the first expert team, Xu Jianguo, told Takungpao, a Hong Kong paper, on Jan. 6. He added there was “no evidence of human-to-human transmission” and that the threat from the virus was low.
The second expert team, dispatched on Jan. 8, similarly failed to unearth any clear signs of human-to-human transmission. Yet during their stay, more than half a dozen doctors and nurses had already fallen ill with the virus, a retrospective China CDC study published in the New England Journal of Medicine would later show.
The teams looked for patients with severe pneumonia, missing those with milder symptoms. They also narrowed the search to those who had visited the seafood market — which was in retrospect a mistake, said Cowling, the Hong Kong epidemiologist, who flew to Beijing to review the cases in late January.
In the weeks after the severity of the epidemic became clear, some experts accused Wuhan officials of intentionally hiding cases.
“I always suspected it was human-to-human transmissible,” said Wang Guangfa, the leader of the second expert team, in a Mar. 15 post on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform. He fell ill with the virus soon after returning to Beijing on Jan. 16.
Wuhan’s then-mayor, Zhou Xianwang, blamed national regulations for the secrecy.
“As a local government official, I could disclose information only after being authorized,” Zhou told state media in late January. “A lot of people didn’t understand this.”
As a result, top Chinese officials appear to have been left in the dark.
“The CDC acted sluggishly, assuming all was fine,” said a state health expert, who declined to be named out of fear of retribution. “If we started to do something a week or two earlier, things could have been so much different.”
It wasn’t just Wuhan. In Shenzhen in southern China, hundreds of miles away, a team led by microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung used their own test kits to confirm that six members of a family of seven had the virus on Jan. 12. In an interview with Caixin, a respected Chinese finance magazine, Yuen said he informed CDC branches “of all levels,” including Beijing. But internal CDC numbers did not reflect Yuen’s report, the bulletins show.
When the Thai case was reported, health authorities finally drew up an internal plan to systematically identify, isolate, test, and treat all cases of the new coronavirus nationwide.
Wuhan’s case count began to climb immediately — four on Jan. 17, then 17 the next day and 136 the day after. Across the country, dozens of cases began to surface, in some cases among patients who were infected earlier but had not yet been tested. In Zhejiang, for example, a man hospitalized on Jan. 4 was only isolated on Jan. 17 and confirmed positive on Jan. 21. In Shenzhen, the patients Yuen discovered on Jan. 12 were finally recorded as confirmed cases on Jan. 19.
The Wuhan Union Hospital, one of the city’s best, held an emergency meeting on Jan. 18, instructing staff to adopt stringent isolation — still before Xi’s public warning. A health expert told AP that on Jan. 19, she toured a hospital built after the SARS outbreak, where medical workers had furiously prepared an entire building with hundreds of beds for pneumonia patients.
“Everybody in the country in the infectious disease field knew something was going on,” she said, declining to be named to avoid disrupting sensitive government consultations. “They were anticipating it.”
___
Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emyNXZ8v8sY
Not dumb, like those flyover states!
-
We have the bill of rights, the constitution to protect us from leaders who would be kings.
psssssst:
but nothing in there about "QUEENS "
hahahahahahha. :wink:
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/chinas-information-about-the-virus-wasnt-six-days-late-more-like-six-weeks-late/
Also, I gather that China blocked domestic flights out of Wuhan but not international during that time. Can we find a proper citation for this?
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/chinas-information-about-the-virus-wasnt-six-days-late-more-like-six-weeks-late/
Also, I gather that China blocked domestic flights out of Wuhan but not international during that time. Can we find a proper citation for this?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-airlines/chinas-airlines-to-cut-international-flights-due-to-coronavirus-global-times-idUSKBN2132D6
-
If I am reading that correctly our answer is buried in the final lines and even there the data is presented in a way which blurs what we are looking for.
Do I have this right?
-
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnrlottjr/2020/04/15/headlines-around-the-world-say-the-u-s-has-the-highest-number-of-coronavirus-dea-n2566941
Maybe that segment on Tucker tonight needed to do a bit more research:
https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/sweden-grapples-with-high-death-toll-after-controversially-refusing-to-lockdown/
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/pork-plant-at-center-of-south-dakotas-virus-outbreak-had-visit-from-ccp-tied-owners_3313529.html
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/pork-plant-at-center-of-south-dakotas-virus-outbreak-had-visit-from-ccp-tied-owners_3313529.html
Interesting. S. Dakota doesn't see a whole lot of international travel.
-
If I am reading that correctly our answer is buried in the final lines and even there the data is presented in a way which blurs what we are looking for.
Do I have this right?
It appears China placed restrictions, but never stopped outbound international flights from Beijing, Shanghai and other cities besides Wuhan.
https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2020/03/27/china-cuts-international-flights-to-stop-imported-coronavirus-cases/
Looks like you can fly from Beijing to LAX, as long as you don't fly direct.
https://www.kayak.com/flights/BJS-LAX/2020-04-17/2020-05-24?sort=bestflight_a
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/pork-plant-at-center-of-south-dakotas-virus-outbreak-had-visit-from-ccp-tied-owners_3313529.html
Interesting. S. Dakota doesn't see a whole lot of international travel.
Interesting that the Chinese Communist Party owns our food production system. Odd that they brought a horseshoe bat to a business meeting...
It's not really 'National Socialism' if a foreign government owns your means of production.
-
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnrlottjr/2020/04/15/headlines-around-the-world-say-the-u-s-has-the-highest-number-of-coronavirus-dea-n2566941
Maybe that segment on Tucker tonight needed to do a bit more research:
https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/sweden-grapples-with-high-death-toll-after-controversially-refusing-to-lockdown/
John Lott's chart looks different than the ones I see elsewhere:
(https://media.townhall.com/townhall/reu/hv/2020/105/250faf3d-8c74-4b69-9a1d-f6b27d64f94f.png)
Also it looks like we are losing between .00005 and .0001 portion of our population to this end of the world pandemic, average age of the dead in my state 88, 10 years past everyone else's life expectancy.
I hope the other .99995 of the population are okay.
Meanwhile it's too dangerous outside to allow golf course grass to be mowed.
-
Just one study, not yet peer reviewed.
"318 identified outbreaks that involved three or more cases is that they all occurred in indoor environments, for a total in the study of 1245 cases. We identified only a single outbreak in an outdoor environment, which involved two cases."
Best things you can do to survive this nasty virus is to avoid catching it and strengthen your immune system with good nutrition and exercise. Instead we are ordered to stay indoors?
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1
Three hundred and eighteen outbreaks with three or more cases were identified, involving 1245 confirmed cases in 120 prefectural cities. We divided the venues in which the outbreaks occurred into six categories: homes, transport, food, entertainment, shopping, and miscellaneous. Among the identified outbreaks, 53.8% involved three cases, 26.4% involved four cases, and only 1.6% involved ten or more cases. Home outbreaks were the dominant category (254 of 318 outbreaks; 79.9%), followed by transport (108; 34.0%; note that many outbreaks involved more than one venue category). Most home outbreaks involved three to five cases. We identified only a single outbreak in an outdoor environment, which involved two cases. The first salient feature of the 318 identified outbreaks that involved three or more cases is that they all occurred in indoor environments. Although this finding was expected, its significance has not been well recognised by the community and by policy makers. Indoors is where our lives and work are in modern civilisation. The transmission of respiratory infections such as SARS-CoV-2 from the infected to the susceptible is an indoor phenomenon.
-
GM:
When were domestic flights/travel out of Wuhan first stopped?
-
GM:
When were domestic flights/travel out of Wuhan first stopped?
Try this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Hubei_lockdowns
On 23 January 2020, the central government of China imposed a lockdown in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei
--------------------
Per previous post, about 6 (or 8) weeks too late.
-
More famous people agreeing with our G M:
https://americanmind.org/essays/a-storm-for-which-we-were-unprepared/
Senator William Frist, M.D. is a nationally acclaimed heart and lung transplant surgeon and the former Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. In 2005, during his tenure in Congress, he delivered the Marshall J. Seidman Lecture for the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard University. In this strikingly prescient speech, he foretells the possibility of a viciously deadly pandemic and calls for action to defend against that eventuality on a vast scale. Though his warnings went unheeded, we are honored to publish his words now as part of our ongoing efforts to understand and counteract COVID-19 and its effects.
...
"the evidence strongly suggests that we are at the threshold of a major shift in the antigenicity of not merely one but several categories of pathogens, for never have we observed among them such variety, richness, opportunities for combination, and alacrity to combine and mutate. HIV, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (mad cow), avian influenzas such as H5N1, and SARS are merely the advance patrols of a great army forming out of sight, the lightning that however silent and distant gives rise to the dread of an approaching storm—a storm for which we are entirely unprepared. How can that be? How can the richest country in the world, with its great institutions, experts, and learned commissions, have failed to make adequate preparation—when preparation is all—for epidemics with the potential of killing off large segments of its population?"
...
"new facts such as rapid, voluminous, and essential travel and trade; the decline of staffed hospital beds; and a now heavily urbanized and suburbanized American population dependent as never before upon easily disrupted networks of services and supply, lead me to believe that—especially because vaccines, if they could be devised, would not be available en masse until six to nine months after the outbreak of a pandemic—the imminence of such viruses might result in the immensely high death tolls to which I have alluded. It is true that none of these viruses has yet spread geometrically—instantly and irrevocably overcoming health care systems and pulling us backward across thresholds of darkness that we long have believed we would never cross again. And yet this they might do—either entirely on their own or as a result of intentional human intervention."
...
"the inadequacy of what little has been done, but a hint may be accurately conveyed by the fact that the nation’s largest biocontaminant unit with fully adequate quarantine and negative air is a ten-bed facility in Omaha, or by the absurdity of a recent announcement from the Washington Hospital Center that in “implementing plans for handling any disaster that might effect our capital,” and “to deal with the worst in biological, chemical, and natural disasters,” it has built, “a multi-use, 20-bed ready room”
...
"The nature of the threat being mortal and reaction to it heretofore irresponsible and inadequate, I propose—entirely without prejudice to the necessity and absent the diminution of the means to disrupt, defeat, and confound the aggressor by force of arms—an immense and unprecedented effort. I see not an initiative on the scale of the Manhattan Project, but one that would dwarf the Manhattan Project; not the creation of a giant, multi-billion dollar research institution, but the creation of a score of them; not merely the funding of individual lines of inquiry, but of richly supported fundamental research, a supreme effort in hope of universal application; not the fractional augmentation of medical education but its doubling or tripling; not a wan expansion of emergency hospital capacity, but its expansion, as is necessary and appropriate, by orders of magnitude; not to tame or punish the private sector, but to unleash it especially upon this task; not the creation of a forest of bureaucratic organization charts and the repetition of a hundred million Latinate words in a hundred million meetings that substitute for action, but action itself, unadorned by excuse or delay; not the incremental improvement of stockpiles and means of distribution, but the creation of great and secure stores and networks, with every needed building, laboratory, airplane, truck, and vaccination station, no excuses, no exceptions, everywhere, and for everyone."
...
"today I have tried to impress upon you the urgency I feel in the matter of the immediate destiny not only of America but of the world, for pandemics know neither borders, nor race, nor who is rich nor who is poor, they know only what is human, and it is this that they strike, casting aside the vain definitions that otherwise divide us."
-------------------------------------------------------
It goes on, read it all. If not in 2005, do this now.
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain_(film)
of course corona did not come from space
(just a wuhan lab - maybe)
This whole thing also reminds me of War of the Worlds
where in the END of the invasion it was God's littlest creatures that killed the alien invasion.
Now even littler "creatures" mere packets of RNA may wind of being our END
(in the future)
Or how about this :
From Secret Agent Man:
Microsoft will take away our names and give us a number (1s and 0s) put us all in their database and track us with apps from FB AMZN and GOOG.
Of course they will find way to profit from it all.
while they own us.
-
https://reason.com/2020/04/17/in-sweden-will-voluntary-self-isolation-work-better-than-state-enforced-lockdowns-in-the-long-run/
-
a real epidemiologist will
subtract these numbers of death from corona
from total lives lost due to corona :
since most bean counters are leftist data manipulators don't bet on it:
https://www.newsmax.com/health/health-news/car-crash-accident-fatal-stay-at-home/2020/04/17/id/963388/
-
https://www.lifesitenews.com/images/pdfs/The_Possible_Origins_of_the_2019-nCoV_coronavirus.pdf
-
https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/sweden-grapples-with-high-death-toll-after-controversially-refusing-to-lockdown/
-
(https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/04/Screen-Shot-2020-04-17-at-5.55.50-PM.png?ssl=1)
Are we (almost) done with this?
-
(https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/04/Screen-Shot-2020-04-17-at-5.55.50-PM.png?ssl=1)
Are we (almost) done with this?
Almost done with the first wave, maybe.
-
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/not-like-the-flu-not-like-car-crashes-not-like
-
second post
https://unherd.com/thepost/coming-up-epidemiologist-prof-johan-giesecke-shares-lessons-from-sweden/
-
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/swedish-coronavirus-no-lockdown-model-proves-lethal-by-hans-bergstrom-2020-04
-
https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/mit-study-subways-a-major-disseminator-of-coronavirus-in-nyc/
-
https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/mit-study-subways-a-major-disseminator-of-coronavirus-in-nyc/
Another important factor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emyNXZ8v8sY
-
Antibody research indicates coronavirus may be far more widespread than known
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/antibody-research-coronavirus-widespread/story?id=70206121
-----------------------------------------------------
[Doug] If the virus is way more widespread than previously thought, then the death rate from it is far lower than previously calculated. Watch for the overall death rate to drop far below what we have been told, maybe 0.1%, not 3.4% or higher we were told.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/
-----------------------------------------------------
Boston homeless shelter:
Of the 397 people tested, 146 people tested positive. Not a single one had any symptoms.
https://www.boston25news.com/news/cdc-reviewing-stunning-universal-testing-results-boston-homeless-shelter/Z253TFBO6RG4HCUAARBO4YWO64/
-
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3404712/#!po=31.2500
-
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3080771/coronavirus-mutations-affect-deadliness-strains-chinese-study
-
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3080771/coronavirus-mutations-affect-deadliness-strains-chinese-study
could be true but then again is not this information coming from China
interesting "then NY" strain from Europe deadlier then from China........
I do not trust anything coming out of China.
-
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-swedish-experiment-looks-like-it-s-paying-off
-
The Bearer of Good Coronavirus News
Stanford scientist John Ioannidis finds himself under attack for questioning the prevailing wisdom about lockdowns.
By Allysia Finley
April 24, 2020 12:36 pm ET
Defenders of coronavirus lockdown mandates keep talking about science. “We are going to do the right thing, not judge by politics, not judge by protests, but by science,” California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom said this week. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer defended an order that, among other things, banned the sale of paint and vegetable seeds but not liquor or lottery tickets. “Each action has been informed by the best science and epidemiology counsel there is,” she wrote in an op-ed.
But scientists are almost never unanimous, and many appeals to “science” are transparently political or ideological. Consider the story of John Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford’s School of Medicine. His expertise is wide-ranging—he juggles appointments in statistics, biomedical data, prevention research and health research and policy. Google Scholar ranks him among the world’s 100 most-cited scientists. He has published more than 1,000 papers, many of them meta-analyses—reviews of other studies. Yet he’s now found himself pilloried because he dissents from the theories behind the lockdowns—because he’s looked at the data and found good news.
In a March article for Stat News, Dr. Ioannidis argued that Covid-19 is far less deadly than modelers were assuming. He considered the experience of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined Feb. 4 in Japan. Eight of 700 infected passengers and crew died. Based on the demographics of the ship’s population, Dr. Ioannidis estimated that the U.S. fatality rate could be as low as 0.025% to 0.625% and put the upper bound at 0.05% to 1%—comparable to that of seasonal flu.
“If that is the true rate,” he wrote, “locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.”
Dr. Ioannidis, 54, likes metaphors. A New York native who grew up in Athens, he also teaches comparative literature and has published seven literary works—poetry and fiction, the latest being an epistolary novel—in Greek. In his spare time, he likes to fence, swim, hike and play basketball.
Early in his career, he realized that “the common denominator for everything that I was doing was that I was very interested in the methods—not necessarily the results but how exactly you do that, how exactly you try to avoid bias, how you avoid error.” When he began examining studies, he discovered that few headline-grabbing findings could be replicated, and many were later contradicted by new evidence.
Scientific studies are often infected by biases. “Several years ago, along with one of my colleagues, we had mapped 235 biases across science. And maybe the biggest cluster is biases that are trying to generate significant, spectacular, fascinating, extraordinary results,” he says. “Early results tend to be inflated. Claims for significance tend to be exaggerated.”
An example is a 2012 meta-analysis on nutritional research, in which he randomly selected 50 common cooking ingredients, such as sugar, flour and milk. Eighty percent of them had been studied for links to cancer, and 72% of the studies linked an ingredient to a higher or lower risk. Yet three-quarters of the findings were weak or statistically insignificant.
Dr. Ioannidis calls the coronavirus pandemic “the perfect storm of that quest for very urgent, spectacular, exciting, apocalyptic results. And as you see, apparently our early estimates seem to have been tremendously exaggerated in many fronts.”
Chief among them was a study by modelers at Imperial College London, which predicted more than 2.2 million coronavirus deaths in the U.S. absent “any control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behaviour.” The study was published March 16—the same day the Trump administration released its “15 Days to Slow the Spread” initiative, which included strict social-distancing guidelines.
Dr. Ioannidis says the Imperial projection now appears to be a gross overestimate. “They used inputs that were completely off in some of their calculation,” he says. “If data are limited or flawed, their errors are being propagated through the model. . . . So if you have a small error, and you exponentiate that error, the magnitude of the final error in the prediction or whatever can be astronomical.”
“I love models,” he adds. “I do a lot of mathematical modeling myself. But I think we need to recognize that they’re very, very low in terms of how much weight we can place on them and how much we can trust them. . . . They can give you a very first kind of mathematical justification to a gut feeling, but beyond that point, depending on models for evidence, I think it’s a very bad recipe.”
Modelers sometimes refuse to disclose their assumptions or data, so their errors go undetected. Los Angeles County predicted last week that 95.6% of its population would be infected by August if social distancing orders were relaxed. (Confirmed cases were 0.17% of the population as of Thursday.) But the basis for this projection is unclear. “At a minimum, we need openness and transparency in order to be able to say anything,” Dr. Ioannidis says.
Most important, “what we need is data. We need real data. We need data on how many people are infected so far, how many people are actively infected, what is really the death rate, how many beds do we have to spare, how has this changed.”
That will require more testing. Dr. Ioannidis and colleagues at Stanford last week published a study on the prevalence of coronavirus antibodies in Santa Clara County. Based on blood tests of 3,300 volunteers in the county—which includes San Jose, California’s third-largest city—during the first week of April, they estimated that between 2.49% and 4.16% of the county population had been infected. That’s 50 to 85 times the number of confirmed cases and implies a fatality rate between 0.12% and 0.2%, consistent with that of the Diamond Princess.
The study immediately came under attack. Some statisticians questioned its methods. Critics noted the study sample was not randomly selected, and white women under 64 were disproportionately represented. The Stanford team adjusted for the sampling bias by weighting the results by sex, race and ZIP Code, but the study acknowledges that “other biases, such as bias favoring individuals in good health capable of attending our testing sites, or bias favoring those with prior Covid-like illnesses seeking antibody confirmation are also possible. The overall effect of such biases is hard to ascertain.”
Dr. Ioannidis admits his study isn’t “bulletproof” and says he welcomes scrutiny. But he’s confident the findings will hold up, and he says antibody studies from around the world will yield more data. A study published this week by the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health estimated that the virus is 28 to 55 times as prevalent in that county as confirmed cases are. A New York study released Thursday estimated that 13.9% of the state and 21.2% of the city had been infected, more than 10 times the confirmed cases.
Yet most criticism of the Stanford study has been aimed at defending the lockdown mandates against the implication that they’re an overreaction. “There’s some sort of mob mentality here operating that they just insist that this has to be the end of the world, and it has to be that the sky is falling. It’s attacking studies with data based on speculation and science fiction,” he says. “But dismissing real data in favor of mathematical speculation is mind-boggling.”
In part he blames the media: “We have some evidence that bad news, negative news [stories], are more attractive than positive news—they lead to more clicks, they lead to people being more engaged. And of course we know that fake news travels faster than true news. So in the current environment, unfortunately, we have generated a very heavily panic-driven, horror-driven, death-reality-show type of situation.”
The news is filled with stories of healthy young people who die of coronavirus. But Dr. Ioannidis recently published a paper with his wife, Despina Contopoulos-Ioannidis, an infectious-disease specialist at Stanford, that showed this to be a classic man-bites-dog story. The couple found that people under 65 without underlying conditions accounted for only 0.7% of coronavirus deaths in Italy and 1.8% in New York City.
“Compared to almost any other cause of disease that I can think of, it’s really sparing young people. I’m not saying that the lives of 80-year-olds do not have value—they do,” he says. “But there’s far, far, far more . . . young people who commit suicide.” If the panic and attendant disruption continue, he says, “we will see many young people committing suicide . . . just because we are spreading horror stories with Covid-19. There’s far, far more young people who get cancer and will not be treated, because again, they will not go to the hospital to get treated because of Covid-19. There’s far, far more people whose mental health will collapse.”
He argues that public officials need to weigh these factors when making public-health decisions, and more hard data from antibody and other studies will help. “I think that we should just take everything that we know, put it on the table, and try to see, OK, what’s the next step, and see what happens when we take the next step. I think this sort of data-driven feedback will be the best. So you start opening, you start opening your schools. You can see what happens,” he says. “We need to be open minded, we need to just be calm, allow for some error, it’s unavoidable. We started knowing nothing. We know a lot now, but we still don’t know everything.”
He cautions against drawing broad conclusions about the efficacy of lockdowns based on national infection and fatality rates. “It’s not that we have randomized 10 countries to go into lockdown and another 10 countries to remain relatively open and see what happens, and do that randomly. Different prime ministers, different presidents, different task forces make decisions, they implement them in different sequences, at different times, in different phases of the epidemic. And then people start looking at this data and they say, ‘Oh look at that, this place did very well. Why? Oh, because of this measure.’ This is completely, completely opinion-based.”
People are making “big statements about ‘lockdowns save the world.’ I think that they’re immature. They’re tremendously immature. They may have worked in some cases, they may have had no effect in others, and they may have been damaging still in others.”
Most disagreements among scientists, he notes, reflect differences in perspective, not facts. Some find the Stanford study worrisome because it suggests the virus is more easily transmitted, while others are hopeful because it suggests the virus is far less lethal. “It’s basically an issue of whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist. Even scientists can be optimists and pessimists. Probably usually I’m a pessimist, but in this case, I’m probably an optimist.”
Ms. Finley is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
-
https://spectator.org/flattening-the-curve-and-other-lies/?utm_source=whatfinger
-
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-24/sweden-steps-up-covid-19-controls-as-warm-weather-adds-to-risks
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sweden-claims-coronavirus-success-after-keeping-country-open-says-herd-immunity-imminent/ar-BB12T5Rt?ocid=sf
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=55&v=wVs5AyjzwRM&feature=emb_logo
This should clear up any questions.
-
https://www.fastcompany.com/90494160/concerts-will-never-be-the-same-after-covid-19-heres-what-you-could-wear-to-bring-them-back
yeah and they told us 911 was the death of the skyscraper
and no we are not going to see huge exoduses from cities
expect for high costs
:-P
-
https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/why-us-outsourced-bat-virus-research-to-wuhan/
-
". Why US outsourced bat virus research to Wuhan" from above post
"Back in October 2014, the US government had placed a federal moratorium on gain-of-function (GOF) research – altering natural pathogens to make them more deadly and infectious – as a result of rising fears about a possible pandemic caused by an accidental or deliberate release of these genetically engineered monster germs."
"In the face of a moratorium in the US, Dr Anthony Fauci – the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and currently the leading doctor in the US Coronavirus Task Force – outsourced in 2015 the GOF research to China’s Wuhan lab and licensed the lab to continue receiving US government funding."
Finding ways to use viruses as vectors for medicines etc?
or for bioweapons?
all very murky
-
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-lockdown-strategy-intl/index.html
-
Second post--
The Media vs. Flatten the Curve
Despite the dopamine economics of online news, we need to see multiple variables.
WSJ
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
April 28, 2020 6:33 pm ET
I joked the other day that the media doesn’t do multivariate, but it wasn’t a joke. Sometimes it imposes a hard cap on what we can achieve with public policy when the press can’t fulfill its necessary communication function.
This column isn’t about Sweden, but the press now claims Sweden’s Covid policy is “failing” because it has more deaths than its neighbors. Let me explain again: When you do more social distancing, you get less transmission. When you do less, you get more transmission. Almost all countries are pursuing a more-or-less goal, not a reduce-to-zero goal. Sweden expects a higher curve but in line with its hospital capacity. Sweden’s neighbors are not avoiding the same deaths with their stronger mandates, they are delaying them, to the detriment of other values.
The only clear failure for Sweden would come if a deus ex machina of some sort were to arrive to cure Covid-19 in the near future. Then all countries (not just Sweden) might wish in retrospect to have suppressed the virus more until their citizens could benefit from the miracle cure.
Please, if you are a journalist reporting on these matters and can’t understand “flatten the curve” as a multivariate proposition, leave the profession. You are what economists call a “negative marginal product” employee. Your nonparticipation would add value. Your participation subtracts it.
Let’s apply this to the U.S. Americans took steps to counter the 1957 and 1968 novel flu pandemics but nothing like indiscriminate lockdowns. Adjusted for today’s U.S. population (never mind our older average age), 1957’s killed the equivalent of 230,000 Americans today and 1968’s 165,000. So far, Covid has killed 57,000.
Before patting ourselves on the back, however, notice that we haven’t stopped the equivalent deaths, only delayed them while we destroy our economy and the livelihoods of millions of people.
That’s because public officials haven’t explained how to lift their unsustainable lockdowns while most of the public remains uninfected and there’s no vaccine.
Hopefully we will demonstrate our mettle in the next chapter but I have yet to see it.
All this belies another media trope, advanced to make many incoherent points, that the flu is a “nonserious” disease and not to be compared with Covid-19. In fact, the flu kills “only” 35,000 Americans a year because we have vaccines and millions of us have previously acquired immunity. Apply the flu’s estimated 0.1% death rate not to the 10% of the population susceptible to today’s familiar strains but to the 60% likely to be infected by a novel strain. Result: 200,000 deaths in today’s population.
The 1957, 1968 and even 1918 strains are still with us, contributing to an estimated 650,000 flu deaths world-wide every year.
The most up-to-date estimate from the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine predicts the new coronavirus will be fatal in a flu-like 0.1% to 0.36% of cases. This implies 141,000 to 655,800 further deaths in the U.S. over the next year or so. Yes, these deaths will be heavily concentrated among the elderly. Another bit of journalistic virtue-signaling holds that it’s now “ageism” to take this into account, though a disease that kills a newborn is obviously more costly to him or her than one that kills the same person at 95. The regulatory state that liberals idolize has long recognized as much in weighing the value of proposed lifesaving interventions.
Let me commend a plan by Avik Roy and his colleagues at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, which they expressly call a pessimism plan: A vaccine won’t be developed. An effective treatment won’t soon materialize. Universal testing will not quickly scale up. Infection won’t be found to confer lasting immunity.
We can hope for success in these areas but betting our national survival on hitting a hole-in-one is not a strategy.
From my view, the most important thing the government could do now is give people the information they need to resurrect the economy. The World Health Organization’s Maria Van Kerkhove, on return from Wuhan, said flatly the disease was not spread in casual interaction but in close family and institutional settings. Hendrik Streeck, the virologist leading an investigation of a severe outbreak in Germany’s Heinsberg district, found similar results. He saw little evidence that shopping or even touching contaminated surfaces posed a significant risk to a well-advised public.
In China, a study of 318 clusters (involving 1,245 patients) found 80% involved transmission in the home, 34% in public transportation. Only two people were found to have been infected in an outdoor setting. In Hong Kong, where people practice good social distancing, lockdowns haven’t been needed to keep hospitals from overflowing.
Much remains to be found out: aerosols vs. droplets, the effectiveness of masks. Hand washing is probably a good idea but doesn’t have a lot of peer-reviewed science behind it. This is information the public needs as it resumes work and socializing in defiance of those single-variable thinkers who imagine civilization will put itself in a deep freeze until a vaccine materializes.
-
https://bppblog.com/2020/04/23/the-swedish-exception/
-
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/coronavirus-sweden-economy-to-contract-as-severely-as-the-rest-of-europe.html
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/30/dni-says-coronavirus-origin-being-investigated/
Don't know if we have anyone inside China looking at this but presume they would be dealt without ALU lawyers getting them off the hook if caught
-
What Would You Risk for a Faster Cure?
Michael Milken, the billionaire former financier, is boosting Covid treatments. No one knows which will work, but saving lives and the economy will require a mighty gamble.
By Mene Ukueberuwa
May 1, 2020 1:06 pm ET
WSJ
Michael Milken.
PHOTO: KEN FALLIN
Try to remember when you first heard of the new virus sickening thousands in Wuhan, China. After that, how soon did you know that it would be a global pandemic?
If the virus spread faster than you guessed, you’re in some impressive company. Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens USA, says she first grasped the situation in mid-February, at the Munich Security Conference, but adds, “None of us thought twice about going into the grand ballroom.” Peggy Hamburg, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration: “I always said it was a question of when, not if. . . . But I actually have to admit I never really thought I’d be watching it play out in real time.”
Since Covid-19’s world-wide scale became critical in February, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry has ramped up at a pace to outmatch it. “I’d say to you that everyone has heeded this call to action—every single person,” says Michael Milken, referring to Ms. Humpton, Ms. Hamburg and countless others he’s working with. The financier turned full-time philanthropist is impatient in the search for treatments, and he’s committed to speed up the leads.
“It was really in the first part of February that I felt that this was not going to be an isolated case, such as SARS,” says Mr. Milken. “I was in South Africa at one of our medical conferences”—a summit hosted by the think tank he founded, the Milken Institute. After an 18-hour flight home, “I reached out to Jim Allison, ” director of immunotherapy at the University of Texas cancer center. “We began working together in the ’90s, and what we had done in cancer research and immunology had to deal in many cases with this cytokine storm”—an overreaction of the immune system that is a fatal complication in many Covid-19 cases.
Among the many pharmaceutical startups the Milken Institute helps accelerate, one came to mind as having a potential solution. “I was intrigued with an early-stage biotech company working on non-small-cell lung cancer,” Mr. Milken says. To make its treatment effective, Durham, N.C.-based BioMarck “also had to deal with a cytokine storm in the lungs.” Mr. Milken began “pushing the funding of this company and accelerating it going into patients.” On March 23 BioMarck announced a successful trial of its drug for use against acute respiratory distress, and it soon contacted Mr. Milken to help it gain approval to enter the next phase—a wider trial that would make the drug available to gravely ill Covid-19 patients.
The story exemplifies the approach Mr. Milken, 73, takes to public health: “There’s no venture idea, anywhere in the world, that I’m not willing to have one of our teams look at.” Founded in 1991, the Milken Institute encompasses seven centers that research public health with a bias toward action: securing donors and regulatory support for overlooked or underfunded projects.
“What we’re doing now is pushing the funding,” Mr. Milken says. “Philanthropy is about 3% to 5% of all medical research, but it’s often what gets it going.” An example is the Melanoma Research Alliance, which Mr. Milken helped form in 2007 with a group of donors and physicians. Within a decade the alliance had helped fund the development of 12 treatments now approved by the FDA.
The most active Milken Institute center is FasterCures, which has created a public tracker for Covid-19 treatment and vaccine proposals. Mr. Milken charged the team to “update it daily, and monitor more details. Every time there was a venture idea that we heard of, we wanted people to know was it happening, was it being moved along, etc.”
Today all hands are directed toward the pandemic. But the center is highly animated even in more peaceful times, serving as a clearinghouse for treatments that otherwise might not make it to market. “Many drug programs are suspended or not pursued at all—not because of flaws in the science but because of commercial and strategic reasons,” Mr. Milken says. Researchers screen those programs, and he calls in his partners either to fund the ideas or promote their development at other companies if the inventors make them available.
It’s a niche in the pharmaceutical world that public funding can’t fill. Mr. Milken sustains a model “where a person could just give me a five-page summary and get a meeting. Government isn’t going to fund that, but philanthropy does.” “These little companies,” he adds—“they’re not Johnson & Johnson, they’re not Novartis, they’re not Amgen. They need financial capital.”
Mr. Milken also works with Big Pharma and medium-size companies. “We reached out to Moderna,” the Cambridge, Mass.-based company that on March 16 became the first in the world to administer a trial-phase Covid-19 vaccine to a human subject. “They launched an RNA vaccine in eight to nine weeks. Unheard of.”
For Moderna and every other company developing a vaccine, the most difficult work begins after the design phase. “If it’s a relay race,” Mr. Milken says, referring to the many stages of the vaccine approval process, “one of the keys is to start all the runners simultaneously.” That means beginning to mass-produce the vaccine now, in quantities large enough to meet global demand.
“We have the governor of California telling people that maybe 60% of people are going to get the virus. We could argue about whether that’s true. But we cannot wait until we have data to start the runners.” In mid-April, Moderna secured a federal grant of up to $483 million to produce millions of doses a month by year end. On April 24, CEO Stéphane Bancel told Mr. Milken he is seeking additional grants to reach a capacity of one billion doses.
For a sense of the odds around that public-private investment, consider that only about 16% of vaccines that reach clinical trials are eventually approved. Having helped create the market for high-yield corporate bonds in the mid-1970s, Mr. Milken discusses high stakes without understating risk. “We don’t know whether it will work or not,” he says. Regarding treatments, he adds, “There isn’t a day when I don’t get an email from someone saying ‘I have the solution.’ ” He measures the potential return in dollars as well as lives. Of the pandemic crisis, he says: “My view is that this costs the United States at least $1 trillion a month. If you shorten this by a month, you will save at least $1 trillion.”
Two days after Mr. Milken returned from South Africa to his home in Los Angeles, President Trump called saying he would soon expunge the 1990 conviction for securities fraud and other crimes that marked the end of his career as a financier. Mr. Milken’s deals not tinged by controversy, such as his 1983 issuance of bonds to finance telecom company MCI’s long-distance network, show the same preference that shapes his philanthropy: high risk for a high reward. He formed his family foundation to sponsor public health in 1982, but personal encounters with cancer—his father’s death in 1979 from melanoma, and his own diagnosis with prostate cancer in 1993—helped build his tolerance for risk in the search for faster cures.
A perennial struggle for Mr. Milken has been to convince regulators to share that urgency. He says drug trials generally are too rigid: “We send 19-year-olds into war zones knowing that no matter what we do, some number—greater than zero—will lose their lives or their limbs. But we tell a patient who is going to die not to try something because it could be dangerous.” The Milken Institute has four former FDA commissioners on the boards of its centers, including Ms. Hamburg. Their involvement bolsters the institute’s standing to advocate on behalf of companies advancing potentially viable treatments.
Yet Mr. Milken believes the coronavirus crisis has nudged public-health bureaucrats into action: “I would say to you that the CDC, the FDA, HHS, CMS, NIH, the VA—you name it, they are working. Sometimes it takes a while to get them focused, but they are focused.” He declines to criticize the FDA for its initial decision to block state and private labs from developing tests. “To say that you should have done something on Jan. 12 that you didn’t do—so what? I don’t have any time for that—zero. I have no energy, except to understand where we are every day.”
Within a year, treatments and vaccines currently incubating may alleviate the virus’s danger enough to enable a full economic recovery. Meanwhile, Mr. Milken praises the federal government’s economic response as a bitter but necessary tonic. “Once again, we are dependent on the government,” he says, but only because the lockdowns have made necessary “the taking and confiscation, in a sense, of business for the well-being of everyone.” Forgivable federal loans and the Federal Reserve’s lending facilities buy businesses time while the economy is closed. “My view right now is, financial markets are working. They’re providing liquidity.”
He doesn’t worry that easy money will be a moral hazard for borrowers: “This crisis is not at all related to ’08 or ’09. At that time, the financial institutions were overleveraged. You had some things leveraged 60 to 1.” He hopes relief in this case can be directed more narrowly toward smaller businesses. “Jesús, who built a little business in South Central L.A.,” he says, to pick a name, “he didn’t overleverage. It’s not his fault.”
Mr. Milken grants that U.S. industry and governance in recent decades have fallen from their most productive heights, which he attributes in part to his generation’s increasing risk-aversion. “Look at this baby boomer group,” he says—a group he points out includes him along with three presidents also born in 1946: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Mr. Trump. In their youth, Mr. Milken says, his cohort was dynamic. “They were risk takers. They tried new things, because their parents told them that they could do things.”
He credits the free-speech movement he experienced at Berkeley in the mid-1960s with helping inspire his own brash approach to finance. Yet he says aging turned much of his generation away from investment, and demographic change pushes the nation in the same direction: “As the number of people over 60 increases and younger people decrease, money is spent on an aging population.”
Nonetheless, the partners he’s made in his search for cures prove that imagination and activity are still scattered through the country. Discussing the coronavirus with biotech founders and Nobel Prize winners, Mr. Milken says he’s been “thrust back into the 1970s and early ’80s, where any time someone had a new idea—a new company, a passion for something—I had set aside time every day to listen.” On the day a vaccine or effective cure for Covid-19 is finally announced, Americans will owe thanks to such risk takers, who Mr. Milken says “invest in where the world is going, not where it is.”
Mr. Ukueberuwa is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.
-
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/coronavirus/bombshell-dossier-lays-out-case-against-chinese-bat-virus-program/news-story/55add857058731c9c71c0e96ad17da60
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/the_wuhan_virus_escaped_from_a_chinese_lab.html
https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab/
Is this a Chinese bioweapon?
« Reply #162 on: January 25, 2020, 09:35:19 PM »
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/did-china-steal-coronavirus-canada-and-weaponize-it
-
http://dilyana.bg/project-g-2101-pentagon-biolab-discovered-mers-and-sars-like-coronaviruses-in-bats/
-
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/majority-of-us-spy-agencies-believe-coronavirus-escaped-from-wuhan-lab
Well informed friend comments:
"Keep an eye on this, but wait for corroboration. I’ve thought this was likely given the Level 4 facility, but we need more than a single leak."
-
third post
https://nypost.com/2020/04/28/sweden-records-deadliest-week-of-century-after-resisting-lockdowns/
-
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/05/02/smokers-seem-less-likely-than-non-smokers-to-fall-ill-with-covid-19?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/covid19smokersseemlesslikelythannonsmokerstofallillwithcovid19scienceandtechnology
-
https://issuesinsights.com/2020/05/04/Cuomo-Plays-On-Fears-And-Ignorance-About-Reopening-The-Economy/
"there was a huge decline in hospital use nationwide just as the virus was peaking.
Inpatient admissions were down 30% from January, emergency room visits dropped 40%, observation services fell 47%, outpatient ancillary services declined 62%, and outpatient surgery volume plunged 71%, according to a report from Crowe LLP."
------------------
We may never be past the time to be hyper-cautious for the most vulnerable among us, but we are way past the time that it was justified for government to ban all commerce - in any state.
As one NYT dissident wrote, if half the US CV19 deaths were in Montana, would NYC be shut down?
-----------------
Elon Musk tweeted:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EW0RX2nUEAEYy85?format=jpg&name=medium)
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1255678979043778560
----------------
We make public policy based on those forecasts. We over-ride constitutional rights based on those forecasts. [Similar story for Catastrophic human caused global warming. Look how bad it could be if we make these false assumptions!]
-
https://www.newsweek.com/most-us-hospitals-are-empty-soon-they-might-closed-good-opinion-1500028
-
https://israelunwired.com/idf-research-lab-announces-significant-breakthrough-with-corona-antibody/
-
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=537566680274166&ref=watch_permalink
-
Third post
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-05/mutant-coronavirus-has-emerged-more-contagious-than-original
-
Targeted Lockdowns Are Better
A new study finds they save more lives and do less economic damage.
By The Editorial Board
May 4, 2020 6:19 pm ET
SAVE
PRINT
TEXT
205
New Mexico State Police officers checking drivers to determine if they live in Gallup, May 1.
PHOTO: ROBERTO E. ROSALES/ZUMA PRESS
Americans are paying a fearsome price for the government’s strict lockdowns of American life and commerce, and now comes evidence that targeted lockdowns aimed at protecting those who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus would be better for public health and the economy.
That conclusion comes in a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research by MIT economists Daron Acemoglu, Victor Chernozhukov, Iván Werning and Michael Whinston. The authors compared relative risks of infection, hospitalization and death for the young, the middle-aged and those over age 65. They then compared strict lockdowns that treat all age groups the same with a more targeted strategy that protects the old.
“Interestingly, we find that semi-targeted policies that simply apply a strict lockdown on the oldest group can achieve the majority of the gains from fully-targeted policies,” the authors write. “For example, a semi-targeted policy that involves the lockdown of those above 65 until a vaccine arrives can release the young and middle-aged groups back into the economy much more quickly, and still achieve a much lower fatality rate in the population (just above 1% of the population instead of 1.83% with the optimal uniform policy).”
Interesting is right. The universal lockdowns of March and April have been aimed specifically at preventing hospitals from being overrun with Covid-19 patients and thus reducing the death rate. But the paper says a targeted lockdown aimed at seniors combined with other policies like social distancing will reduce the death rate by more.
Targeted lockdowns also reduce economic harm, as you’d expect. “This policy also reduces the economic damage from 24.3% to 12.8% of one year’s GDP. The reason is that, once the most vulnerable group is protected, the other groups can be reincorporated into the economy more quickly,” the authors write.
This is consistent with the economic evidence we told you about last week from the University of Chicago’s Casey Mulligan.
The universal lockdowns are finally easing in many states, and the damage in the last two months can’t be undone. But these studies can inform governors as they consider how and what to reopen in their states. And in particular they should inform government decisions about the kind of lockdowns to reimpose if there are coronavirus flare-ups, as there are likely to be until a vaccine or cure arrive.
Protect the most vulnerable, but don’t put the entire state in economic cold storage in the name of a false choice between saving lives and saving money. On the growing evidence, targeted lockdowns can save more lives and more livelihoods.
-
second post
Weighing Sweden’s Coronavirus Model
The left rushes to condemn an experiment that’s far from over.
By The Editorial Board
May 4, 2020 6:25 pm ET
SAVE
PRINT
TEXT
968
General view of a billboard informing about the importance to keep social distance during the ongoing coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic on a facade in Stockholm, April 29.
PHOTO: FREDRIK SANDBERG/SHUTTERSTOCK
The American left has misunderstood Sweden for years, holding up its significantly liberalized economy as a socialist utopia. Now the misapprehension has moved in the opposite direction, as progressives fret over the country’s supposed economy-over-life approach to Covid-19.
While its neighbors and the rest of Europe imposed strict lockdowns, Stockholm has taken a relatively permissive approach. It has focused on testing and building up health-care capacity while relying on voluntary social distancing, which Swedes have embraced.
The country isn’t a free-for-all. Restaurants and bars remain open, though only for table service. Younger students are still attending school, but universities have moved to remote learning. Gatherings with more than 50 people are banned, along with visits to elderly-care homes. Even with relatively lax rules, travel in the country dropped some 90% over Easter weekend.
Officials say the country’s strategy—which is similar to the United Kingdom’s before it reversed abruptly in March—is to contain the virus enough to not overwhelm its health system. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, said the country isn’t actively trying to achieve broad immunity. But he predicted late last month that “we could reach herd immunity in Stockholm within a matter of weeks.” Some British public-health officials reportedly leaned toward less restrictive measures before the country’s leaders imposed a harsh lockdown.
This is important context as Sweden takes heat for its relatively high infection rate and death toll. The country of 10 million has 22,721 confirmed cases and 2,769 deaths. Compare that to 240 deaths in Finland, 214 in Norway, and 493 in Denmark—countries with populations under six million. The numbers seem much worse, but Swedish officials say they already are stabilizing.
Sweden has been clear it is aiming for a “sustainable” strategy that it can practice until there is a vaccine or cure while also being economically tolerable. The lockdown countries have held the virus in relative check for now, though probably with less broad immunity in the population. They appear to be delaying some deaths but at the risk of a larger outbreak once they open up if there is no cure. In any case we won’t know for months, or years, how Sweden held up by comparison in lives lost.
“The important thing is that you make sure you keep the disease under control so that the health-care system isn’t overloaded,” the director general of Sweden’s public-health agency observed. “So far we’ve managed that.”
We already know the response hasn’t been perfect. Despite its ban on visits to nursing homes, Sweden is grappling with a failure to protect the elderly. Data published last week showed that of 1,406 deaths in Stockholm, 630 had tested positive in elderly-care homes. More than 500 such institutions have had at least one confirmed case, though safely running these homes was a problem in Sweden long before Covid-19 appeared.
Mr. Tengell said the Swedish model assumes Covid-19 won’t be disappearing, and he has some support in unlikely quarters. “If we are to reach a new normal, in many ways Sweden represents a future model,” said World Health Organization official Michael Ryan last week. “If we wish to get back to a society in which we don’t have lockdowns, then society may need to adapt for a medium or potentially a longer period of time.”
Sweden, deeply intertwined in the global economy, unfortunately shows that some pandemic-caused economic pain is inevitable. The country’s central bank predicts gross domestic product will contract 6.9% or 9.7% in 2020, depending on how long the virus lingers. Its neighbors expect similar numbers. Unemployment could rise to 8.8% or 10.1%, up from 7.2% today. The Swedish hope is that its economy may pick up faster after its less damaging restrictions are lifted.
No one knows which mitigation strategy will save the most lives while doing the least economic harm. But the rush to condemn Sweden isn’t helpful. American governors should study the Swedish model as they begin relaxing statewide lockdowns.
-
https://www.dennisprager.com/column/the-worldwide-lockdown-may-be-the-greatest-mistake-in-history/
-
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources/story?id=70031273
-
https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-need-for-healthy-people-to-wear-face-masks-2020-4
-
Apparently the previous headline may have some click bait quality to it. A FB doctor friend advises reading the primary source:
https://www.who.int/publications-detail/advice-on-the-use-of-masks-in-the-community-during-home-care-and-in-healthcare-settings-in-the-context-of-the-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)-outbreak
-
a great gesture:
https://www.westernjournal.com/ap-generous-donor-gives-hospital-1000000-employee-bonuses/
-
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15984/coronavirus-swedish-model
-
https://nypost.com/2020/05/09/new-york-mom-with-coronavirus-saved-by-medical-student-son/
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2TEOnOnHVM&feature=youtu.be
-
https://www.foxnews.com/science/drug-trio-shortens-duration-alleviates-coronavirus-symptoms-study-says
-
it has been a long time since millions of dollars sounded like a lot of money
thinks Louisiana purchase or of Alaska
billions was a lot during WW2
now even trillions get tossed around
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/house-democrats-unveil-3t-relief-bill-aid-states-193100797.html
I won't see a check
all I see is gigantic tax increases on the runway just waiting form DNC controlled control tower to give orders to lift off.
it is coming
-
The Medical Structure and Calculated Risk
By: George Friedman
Geopolitical Futures
Medical research is always involved in the important work of understanding disease and the human body. It is now at the center of a global crisis whose evolution can define the international system, the internal systems of nation-states and the shape of our lives. The medical system is no longer vital only to the management of disease but also to the future of humanity. This statement will seem hyperbolic. I don’t think it is. Unlike other global crises, like the threat of nuclear war or the possibility of global warming, COVID-19 threatens to fundamentally disrupt civilizations, and unlike these other existential crises, how it evolves depends on the successes and failures of medical research.
Like the military or the financial system, the medical system is a social system. It is a substantial establishment, in the United States but also in many other countries. It has fought battles against devastating diseases such as polio, HIV, heart disease and the like. It sometimes succeeds, it sometimes fails and it sometimes falls in between. It conducts its battle with patient research, and expending time in order to prevent doing harm. It is not at the center of society usually, but at the points where many of us will live or die. In the United States, the establishment is part government and part private. In that way, it tracks with other institutions.
The arrival of COVID-19 was unexpected. It arrived in China sometime in early winter and migrated throughout the world, if the current narrative is true. For all we know it may have been lurking in the dark corners for decades. The political system will of course engage in a debate about who should have known what and when, hoping to find a person or country to hold responsible for our misery. The function of the political system is to stabilize all the other systems, and one of its means, odd though it might seem, is to personalize the responsibility for all things. Nothing just happens. Someone had to be responsible. This stabilizes the system because it reassures people that we are in control of our lives. Even if someone failed to do his job and must pay, it is reassuring to know that someone could have been in control. However, the fact is that thinking that an elected official would have any idea of what to do with this disease is preposterous.
It is preposterous because the medical institution, the one that is responsible and knowledgeable in such things, hasn’t been able to come to grips with it. It is said that some have forecast such a pandemic for years. A forecast such as that is useless, which I as a forecaster have the right to say. Without some sense of when and what, no action is possible. But the forecaster can claim prescience, when it is merely the fact that a broken clock is right twice a day.
It is the medical system that was charged with protecting us from this disease. No institution can possibly be infallible, and each is limited by its knowledge and culture. The medical research establishment did not understand the nature of the disease. It still is uncertain whether catching the disease provides immunity or whether we will spend our lives in endless recurrence. It has at the moment no treatment that might mitigate the disease nor any that might prevent it. The culture that medical research has presented and projected to the world is that it is intensely at work, but that its work cannot be time-sensitive. It cannot be hurried, but its process must take its course.
This is not an unreasonable standpoint, but it has consequences. The only solution the medical system had was to prevent the spread of the disease by sequestration, the separation of individuals from each other. This may have had some mitigating effect on the disease, but it is having a disastrous effect on society. It is not hyperbolic to say that we are heading for a depression. The best available medical solution reduced the available labor force, reduced consumption and in many countries forced extravagant government infusions of money, infusions for which we will pay later. A depression is a disease in its own right. Poverty and despair cause their own deaths, but it is the loss of expectations and hopes that is the highest cost. I say we seem to be heading toward depression, not that we are there. Still, the danger is there and it is not trivial.
The mitigation of the spread of the disease has, apart from the social pressures of sequestration, generated a significant economic crisis. The response has been myriad decisions based not on certainty but on calculated risk. The government does not know that the trillions of dollars to stabilize the economy will abort a depression, but it does know that the cost of a depression justifies taking a risk and racking up debt. Each of us, in some small or large way, has engaged in calculated risk.
The moral foundation of medicine is that it must, first of all, do no harm. By “harm” it means that no action of the physician or the researcher should harm the patient. This imposes a meticulous discipline on medicine. No drug is released until it is certain that it will do no harm. This requires meticulous testing and evaluation, and that takes time. Part of the medical research process is imposed by the complexity and mystery of the subject. Part of it is due to the moral aversion to risk. And that aversion to risk can turn a virtue into a vice.
The medical profession cannot eliminate risk, but doing no harm makes it a moral imperative. Other systems operate not on a zero-risk principle but on the principle of calculated risk. Defining this principle is difficult because it is both constantly shifting and different from structure to structure. In finance, calculated risk is the moral norm, although error can have devastating effects on people. Certainty is impossible. Refusing to act carries its own risks and costs. In a military operation, where it is a matter of life and death, the risk is calculated with care, but so is the consequence of inaction. Most important for both is time. The opportunity or danger shifts its shape continually. Time is a precious commodity that has to be measured and spent prudently. Time and risk are intimately linked, and human beings are constantly searching, however imperfectly, for the balance. At certain points, it is a moral or practical imperative that risk must be taken, even if it might cause harm. This dynamic defines our lives.
Medical research is bound not to inflict harm. As a result, there is a constant search for moving “a medication might help” to “a medication will help and won’t cause harm.” The distance between the first and the second can be months or years. The issue is the difference between “probably” and “certainly.” The medical aversion to “probably” will limit the harm done by the researchers and physicians. But the time between probably and certainly carries its own, possibly devastating cost. The longer the pandemic continues, the greater the harm it does. In refusing to incur risk, the medical system imposes heavy costs.
In most structures, there are normal operations and emergency operations. What takes a year in the military in normal times might be done in a week in an emergency. In most structures, an emergency means the acceptance of a degree of failure that would not be acceptable otherwise in order to gain time. In the military, such shortcuts may well cause deaths, even to civilians. But not taken, these risks certainly increase deaths.
Time is of the essence, and no one will claim that the medical profession is wasting time. But by not adopting the principle of calculated risk, by not accepting that sometimes a hoped-for cure will do some harm, it guarantees that the death toll will mount. Some 80,000 Americans, and hundreds of thousands more elsewhere, are dead. More will die. There is a saying that the perfect is the enemy of the good. In a way, that is at the heart of calculated risk, and calculated risk is at the heart of life. Certainty carries with it a cost and uncertainty carries a risk.
Extensive testing of potential treatments is imperative in normal times. These are far from normal times. People will die from a failed medication. But people are dying without a medication. “Do no harm” is an admirable and desirable principle. But moral absolutes may not be as useful right now as the principle of calculated risk.
-
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2020/05/12/senator-rand-paul-questions-dr-fauci-drops-a-bomb-in-senate-hearing-n390185
The doctor in Rand Paul took over for the questioning. He began by challenging Dr. Fauci on the media narrative that there is no evidence that patients who survive coronavirus have immunity. To be helpful Paul pointed out the following:
In experiments, rhesus monkeys infected with COVID-19 can’t be reinfected
Studies have shown plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients neutralizes the virus in lab experiments
The entire premise of convalescent plasma treatment, mentioned by several on the panel as a potential treatment currently in trials, is that recovered patients develop immunity capable of killing the virus
Recovering patients across the board are showing significant antibody response
We know SARS and MERS, coronaviruses with similar clinical presentations, confer immunity for at least 2-3 years
Paul then stated that his view is that the truth is the exact opposite of the media narrative. There is very good evidence that recovered patients will have some durable immunity. And recovered workers, in industries like meatpacking, should be reassured there is a strong likelihood they will not get reinfected. He then referenced that Dr. Fauci had said publicly that he would bet it all that survivors of COVID-19 have some form of immunity and asked him to set the record straight.
Dr. Fauci responded that it is indeed likely. Then he added the standard disclaimers that we won’t know for sure and for how long for years. He did concede you could make a reasonable assumption that recovered patients have some immunity. Paul concluded saying maybe a better way to frame the issue of immunity was to say in all likelihood recovery indicates immunity for some period of time.
-
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/fact-checking-judy-mikovits-controversial-virologist-attacking-anthony-fauci-viral
-
How is it that China can test ten million in ten days and we can't?
https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-city-of-wuhan-orders-virus-testing-on-all-residents-to-contain-spread_3348261.html?__sta=vhg.qblkmhbwphzxphzemdsbg%7CVQV&__stm_medium=email&__stm_source=smartech
-
How is it that China can test ten million in ten days and we can't?
Um, because they've had the genetic code since last October?
-
apparently we don't have any manufacturing here in the US. ...
thanks to globalists like MFST Bloomberg APPL and all the rest of them
along with H bush clinton w bush baraq and the rest of them
-
Scott Gottlieb, MD
@ScottGottliebMD
Important finding. It suggests that herd immunity could be achieved at a lower threshold than what's typically assumed, because the most susceptible people are the ones who get infected first. Some of those who remain uninfected do so because they may be less susceptible.
https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1259194332793446402
-
herd immunity maybe 30 % Gottlieb
again people playing with data squeezing numbers statistics assumptions models more models
Now everyone can see what I have seen with freakin data in the medical field
there is NEVER any end definite conclusion and everyone comes up with different numbers , interpretations of the numbers
and in the end humanity is more crazy then at the start
I noticed the toilet paper in back in stores here
terrific
:-P
-
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/12/leaked-chinese-coronavirus-database-number-cases/
-
I don't want to live in this kind of world
the cat is out of the barn folks
more people will die. reasonable measures like wearing masks hand washing
6 ft distancing is enough
it is too late . the damn virus is all over the place .
but as long as pelosi and the spend happy gang keep paying people to not work
and the gov. employees get their checks there is much less push back on this stuff:
https://pjmedia.com/culture/megan-fox/2020/05/14/contact-tracing-jobs-create-terrifying-army-of-karens-n391962
Getting angrier by the day in NJ
And yes if i got infected I could be one who would die
better dead then "bill gated" (if you please ) ........with this data shit world .
-
Colorado man dies from astounding 0.55 blood alcohol level, coronavirus listed as cause of death
https://disrn.com/news/co-man-dies-from-astounding-055-blood-alcohol-level-coronavirus-listed-as-cause-of-death
-
https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/15/new-york-coronavirus-reporting-nursing-home-deaths-undercounting/
I remember posting I though NH would under report - bad for business
but not the freakin state health department
to cover for perry cuomo.
:-o
When and what did Andy know .
Were are all the dinosaur watergate barristers or for that matter the SDNY partisans?
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/15/rep-liz-cheney-china-deliberately-exported-global-economic-devastation-via-coronavirus/
And I would add the WHO who normally totally panics at any little potential for a pandemic calling it as such in the past ( i recall many times WHO rushing to call every outbreak as being world threatening)
till this one
covering for communist chinese and gladly taking their money
I agree with doc Siegal last night on Tucker saying we should not donate another dime to them unless they oust top leadership
and then only as much as the Chikoms [or in my view only as much as Bill Gates :-D]:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/dr-marc-siegel-blasts-who-thugs-villains
-
How to Expand Your Quarantine Bubble
Tired of isolation, more people are seeing friends and extended family. There are ways to manage the risk.
By Andrea Petersen
May 14, 2020 2:42 pm ET
With some businesses across the country welcoming customers again, the Hecker family of Grosse Pointe, Mich., is planning its own reopening.
Sarah and Todd Hecker have been isolating at home with their two children, ages 8 and 10, since mid-March, except for trips to the grocery store and drugstore and walks in their neighborhood. But as soon as Michigan’s stay-at-home order expires on May 28, the family will visit Ms. Hecker’s parents and mother-in-law, who live nearby. There will be no masks and no social distancing.
“I want to hug my parents again,” says Ms. Hecker, a 43-year-old political and nonprofit fundraiser and event planner.
With many people isolating for more than two months now, the yearning to see friends and extended family is growing. The missed milestones—birthdays, anniversaries—are adding up. Many families are now grappling with whether, when and how to open their pandemic-quarantine bubbles to additional people.
But while companies have received guidelines and safety recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and business organizations like the National Restaurant Association, families and individuals are mostly left to do their own reopening risk-benefit analyses alone. Some areas are still banning all nonessential gatherings. Most states provide only general guidelines for socializing, such as limiting gatherings to 10 people or fewer.
That leaves many families with unanswered questions: Who should we let in? Masks or no masks? And is it safe to visit Grandma?
Thinking through risks
Doctors say there are several factors to weigh as people contemplate their own reopenings, including how many cases of Covid-19 are in the area and whether those numbers are falling.
“People are going to have to be guided by what the situation is locally and who it is they are thinking about getting together with and what the individual risks may be in terms of people’s age and other health conditions,” says Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “If you’re in a state that’s opening up but the number of cases is still on the rise in that state, I would probably be a little less quick to start gathering with family and friends than in a state where the case rates were dropping significantly.”
Public-health experts generally agree that to reopen society safety, communities need widespread testing so officials can be confident that the number of coronavirus cases is low and people who are positive can be isolated. They also need a system to trace people who have come into contact with positive cases, so they can be quarantined, too.
“When I know people are getting tested and contacts are being traced, I’ll feel a lot better about” people opening up their social bubbles, says Donald K. Milton, professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. He notes that most communities in the U.S. still lack adequate testing and tracing.
So, the safest course is to continue to adhere to social-distancing protocols when visiting with people outside your household. That means that everyone wears masks and stays at least 6 feet apart from each other.
“States and companies ending stay-at-home orders doesn’t mean we should stop social distancing,” says Andrew Janowski, an instructor of pediatric infectious diseases at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “Unfortunately, this is going to be the new norm. When we have a vaccine is when we can start relaxing these aspects. That is so far off at this point.”
But that may not be palatable for some. Doctors say that if you do decide to ease up on social distancing, there are ways to mitigate the risks. Avoid “hugging and kissing, as hard as that may be,” says Dr. Kuritzkes.
Everyone should be diligent about “hand hygiene,” washing their hands for at least 20 seconds and not touching their faces to avoid “transmission from shared utensils or everybody dipping into the same dish of guacamole,” he says.
And avoid packing people into small spaces. “The more intimate the setting, the smaller number of people who should be getting together because of the risks of greater likelihood of transmission,” he says. Also, outdoor gatherings are safer than meeting up indoors, since there is more ventilation and air flow, which dilutes the number of virus particles per volume of air.
Expanding the bubble
Scott and Lisa Burkhart, 67 and 64 years old, have been quarantining in their home in Livermore, Calif., since March 21, only making trips to the grocery store and Home Depot and seeing one other couple in their neighborhood. But they are planning a trip to Seattle this weekend to visit their three grown children and their families, including three grandchildren all less than a year old. (The Burkharts will be flying to Seattle in the small plane they own.)
“We’ll risk being a little more exposed just to make sure to be a part of their lives,” says Mr. Burkhart, who owns a grape farm. Two of their children have continued to work on-site at their respective jobs, raising the potential exposure, but Mr. Burkhart says he’s more comfortable widening his circle now.
“We certainly want to avoid catching [Covid-19], but we’re not going to lock ourselves up for 18 months to make sure that happens,” he says. Except for socially distanced outdoor meetups, he and his wife have no plans to expand their social circle any further.
Dr. Milton suggests that people still “keep their contact bubble as small as possible. The more people going to work, going to the grocery store, there’s more opportunity to bring things into the bubble, and more people in the bubble to get infected.”
What if a few families who have truly been isolating want to join together, promising only to socialize with each other? Dr. Janowski says that while this is “low risk, it is not zero.”
Dr. Kuritzkes notes that some research has found that people are most contagious in the two or so days before they exhibit symptoms of Covid-19. And some people never show symptoms but can still transmit the disease.
“Until we know that in the community the rates are really very low, then there is going to be that risk,” Dr. Kuritzkes says. Older people and those with underlying health conditions are more likely to become seriously ill or die from Covid-19. So, they and their families and friends need to be much more cautious about widening their social circles, doctors say.
Sometimes it is the children driving the open-up decision. After nearly two months in lockdown with his parents and brother, 12-year-old Grayson Lalumiere had had enough. “It was boring, and I missed my friends,” says Grayson, who lives in Fairfield, Conn.
He wanted to join some neighbor children who were out riding bikes together, like they had often done prepandemic. But his mother, Brooke Lalumiere, said no. “I’m sorry I’m not there yet,” she told him.
So, Grayson and his buddies came up with a proposal via text messages and presented it to their parents: The boys promised to wear masks and stay 6 feet apart from each other if they could ride their bikes together around town. Ms. Lalumiere says she could see how the isolation and lack of independence were taking a toll on her son. Grayson “had a few kind of sad moments, he just wanted to know, ‘When can I see my friends?’ ” she says. The parents agreed to the new plan.
The first day, Ms. Lalumiere drove by the park where the boys congregated to make sure the children were wearing their masks. “A little healthy fear is good. If you know mom is going to drive by at any minute, you are going to keep the thing on,” says Ms. Lalumiere, a 41-year-old jewelry designer.
Now, Grayson and his friends ride almost every day. “We explore random places and talk about school, how it’s kind of boring but it’s easy,” he says of his online sixth-grade classes. In recent days, the boys have earned new privileges: They are allowed to buy snacks at the local bagel shop and Mobil station. (The parents’ rules: Masks and gloves are required.)
Ms. Lalumiere says the rides have brightened Grayson’s mood.
“He’s content again,” she says.
Tiptoeing around
Family members don’t always agree on reopening plans. So, some people are opening up and not admitting it. Lorraine Durkin, 72, and her husband hadn’t been visiting friends’ houses or having anyone over to their Pittston, Pa., condominium since Covid-19 cases surged and their state’s stay-at-home order came down on April 1. But two weeks ago, the couple had an electrician and craftsman over to install lighting and tilework in their home. “They were all over the house,” says Ms. Durkin, who says the men spent five days working in her home. “I just stayed 6 feet away from them.”
Ms. Durkin says she was careful not to reveal the presence of the visitors to her grown children before or during the work. “I would have been chastised,” she says. “I just don’t need the grief.”
(She says she did finally tell her children recently, and they weren’t upset.)
If you do decide to have a housekeeper or repair person work in your home, “limit it to when it is absolutely necessary,” says Purvi Parikh, an immunologist at NYU Langone Health in New York. “Anytime you invite anyone into your home, there is a risk.” She also recommends asking them to wear masks and gloves. And if you can, leave the house while they are working, which will help “limit exposure to the respiratory droplets,” Dr. Parikh says.
The Hecker family in Michigan has a multiphase plan for their reopening. Ms. Hecker’s parents and mother-in-law are in Phase 1, she says. If all goes well and there isn’t another wave of cases, Ms. Hecker says Phase 2 will involve adding two neighbor children to their circle this summer. That way, her children will have playmates during the long days with no online school or their usual swim team practices.
“We’ll put up the sprinkler or get a small pool,” says Ms. Hecker. “We’ll figure out a way [the children] can play together.”
Ms. Petersen is a Wall Street Journal reporter in New York. She can be reached at andrea.petersen@wsj.com.
-
second post
https://texasscorecard.com/state/physician-says-texas-pharmacy-board-limited-coronavirus-medicine/
-
But China just can’t seem to put the pandemic behind it. The second wave outbreak in the northeastern border provinces appears to be getting worse. Some 108 million people appear to be in lockdown now in Jilin province, for example, and local officials are getting sacked left and right, suggesting Beijing is getting increasingly worried. Notably, Xi on Monday said he supports a World Health Organization-led investigation into the origin of the pandemic, contradicting his foreign minister, who earlier said such a probe would be premature.
-
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sweden/2020-05-12/swedens-coronavirus-strategy-will-soon-be-worlds
-
https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2020/05/covid-19-and-partisan-state-control.html
There are 21 states with Republican governors and where both legislative houses are under Republican control [plus Nebraska, unicameral = 22]. Not one of those state’s deaths per million is over the national average.
Of the top-3 states, with the highest deaths per million, all 3 are under exclusive Democratic control.
-----------------------------
[Doug] Much of it has to do with density, mass transit, the Leftist, urban model compared with places more spread out, private property ownership, the more conservative model.
-
Will a Face Mask Protect You?
Maybe a little, but washing your hands and social distancing are far more effective.
By Marc Siegel
May 18, 2020 7:02 pm ET
SAVE
PRINT
TEXT
548
A pedestrian wears a face mask in Denver, May 13.
PHOTO: DAVID ZALUBOWSKI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Should you wear a face mask? Medical authorities have sent confusing messages. Both the U.S. surgeon general and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exhorted Americans not to wear masks in January and February, then reversed themselves in April. Mask wearing is now mandatory in many workplaces and public spaces, but how much good does it do? The science is inconclusive, but probably not much.
It’s generally understood that surgical and cloth masks—as distinct from N95 masks, designed to filter fine particles—offer little or no protection to the wearer. The purpose of the mandates is to protect others by ensuring the covering of the face of anyone who is infected. A study published in Nature Medicine in April looked at 246 people with acute upper respiratory illness and found that wearing a surgical mask did decrease spread of genetic material from respiratory viruses, including coronaviruses. The researchers concluded: “We also demonstrated the efficacy of surgical masks to reduce coronavirus detection and viral copies in large respiratory droplets and in aerosols. . . . This has important implications for control of COVID-19, suggesting that surgical face masks could be used by ill people to reduce onward transmission.”
Yet another April study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, revealed that the force of sick patients’ coughs propelled droplets through both surgical masks as well as cloth masks.
What about asymptomatic patients? The CDC based its revised mask recommendation on studies that found asymptomatic spread was far more common than had been thought. But there have been no studies on masks’ effectiveness in preventing it. Although the coronavirus is highly contagious, it is much less so than, say, measles, which can linger in the air for two hours after a cough. a sneeze or even speech. By contrast, the Covid-19 virus has not been proved to be aerosolized. Coronaviruses often enter the body through the eyes, and frequent hand and face washing and social distancing is much more effective than masks at preventing that.
Wearing a mask seems harmless, but it could provide a false sense of security, leading people to take fewer precautions. According to the World Health Organization, self-contamination and reuse and or improper disposal of masks can also hinder their effectiveness and turn them into vehicles of spread.
There have even been questions about the effectiveness of N95 masks at protecting medical personnel. They’re considered effective at blocking coronavirus particles only when they’re form fitted and tested to make sure there isn’t any leakage. When I worked on a coronavirus ward, I felt much safer because I also wore a plastic face shield, which blocks viral particles from even reaching the mask.
So wear a mask if you must. But vigilant hand-washing and social distancing will protect you much better.
Dr. Siegel is a clinical professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health and a medical correspondent for Fox News.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eaq9JHKq8CI
-
was it not sean hannity who got the president all mixed up in this?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/the-idiotic-fight-over-hydroxychloroquine/
-
Actually it was a French guy on Tucker IIRC.
-
https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/amid-the-coronavirus-crisis-a-regimen-for-reentry
-
It doesn't mean Sweden was wrong but be careful about saying they had the best strategy.
[I wonder how this splits between what I would call 'Swedish people' and the more recent immigrants who may fly a different flag.]
Sweden becomes country with highest coronavirus death rate per capita
Sweden has 6.08 deaths per million inhabitants, higher than the UK, USA and Italy
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/20/sweden-becomes-country-highest-coronavirus-death-rate-per-capita/
-
What was OUR worthless media covering in 2015? Not THIS.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151110115711.htm
New SARS-like virus can jump directly from bats to humans, no treatment available
Findings provide an opportunity to develop drugs and vaccines for coronaviruses before they emerges from animals to cause a human epidemic
Date:
November 10, 2015
Source:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Summary:
A new bat SARS-like virus has been discovered that can jump directly from its bat hosts to humans without mutation. However, researchers point out that if the SARS-like virus did jump, it is still unclear whether it could spread from human to human.
Share:
FULL STORY
Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered a new bat SARS-like virus that can jump directly from its bat hosts to humans without mutation. However, researchers point out that if the SARS-like virus did jump, it is still unclear whether it could spread from human to human.
The discovery, reported in the Nov. 9 issue of Nature Medicine, is notable not only because there is no treatment for this newly discovered virus, but also because it highlights an ongoing debate over the government's decision to suspend all gain of function experiments on a variety of select agents earlier this year. The move has put a substantial standstill on the development of vaccines or treatments for these pathogens should there be an outbreak.
"Studies have predicted the existence of nearly 5,000 coronaviruses in bat populations and some of these have the potential to emerge as human pathogens," said senior author Ralph Baric, a faculty member at the Gillings School of Global Public Health and expert in coronaviruses. "So this is not a situation of 'if 'there will be an outbreak of one of these coronaviruses but rather when and how prepared we'll be to address it."
SARS first jumped from animals to humans in 2002-2003 and caused a worldwide outbreak, resulting in 8,000 cases, including one case in Chapel Hill. With nearly 800 deaths during that outbreak, SARS-CoV presents much like flu symptoms but then can accelerate, compromise breathing and bring on a deadly form of pneumonia. The outbreak was controlled through public health interventions and the original virus was thought to have been extinct since 2004.
Baric and his team demonstrated that the newly-identified SARS-like virus, labeled SHC014-CoV and found in the Chinese horseshoe bats, can jump between bats and humans by showing that the virus can latch onto and use the same human and bat receptor for entry. The virus also replicates as well as SARS-CoV in primary human lung cells, the preferred target for infection.
"This virus is highly pathogenic and treatments developed against the original SARS virus in 2002 and the ZMapp drugs used to fight Ebola fail to neutralize and control this particular virus," said Baric. "So building resources, rather than limiting them, to both examine animal populations for new threats and develop therapeutics is key for limiting future outbreaks."
-
Well, that sure was prescient!
================================
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-and-states-are-misreporting-covid-19-test-data-pennsylvania-georgia-texas/611935/
-
https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985.pdf
-
As Nate Silver pointed the other day, the seven-day rolling average for deaths is 1,362, down from 1,761 the week prior and a peak of 2,070 on April 21.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0520/lowry052220.php3
Scott Gottlieb of the American Enterprise Institute notes that the positivity rate, or percentage of people testing positive for the virus, has continued to fall throughout May.
----------------------
ICU Covid utilization seems to be dropping in most states; I can't find national figures.
More and more tests means more and more (known) cases, but we are past the peak, or at least the first peak. The exponent of the viral spread has dropped below 1.
-
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-epidemic-waves/
most everyone is on the bobble head nodding yes mode that we are sure to have second or more waves.
SARS 1, a corona virus just petered out
previous epidemics in past 100 yrs are flu viruses not corona
-
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/horowitz-cdc-confirms-remarkably-low-coronavirus-death-rate-media/
-
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/horowitz-cdc-confirms-remarkably-low-coronavirus-death-rate-media/
A small fraction of what they told us before and likely a small fraction of what the real rate is. So stay home everyone. Don't work. Let the government support you while no one is paying in to the government. What could go wrong?
-
Have not watched this yet:
https://vimeo.com/421657568
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8351113/Wuhan-virus-lab-signed-Michel-Barnier-2004-despite-French-intelligence-warnings.html
-
MN Dept of Health, Questions not getting asked or answered:
What share of all deaths attributed to COVID-19 is accounted for by long-term care residents and others with serious medical conditions (as defined elsewhere by the CDC and the governor’s executive orders). The answer was 99.24 percent. It has since fallen to 98.46 percent.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/05/media-access-in-one-state-tom-hausers-complaint.php
-
By Peter Loftus and Drew Hinshaw
May 27, 2020 7:10 am ET
Pharmaceutical companies are bracing for export bans on future coronavirus vaccines and spreading production across different continents, on early signs of a high-stakes geopolitical scramble to secure supplies for a scientific breakthrough that could confer enormous economic and political power.
The resulting picture is what public-health experts call “vaccine nationalism,” as the international pursuit for a desperately needed shot shifts into a contest of which world power can immunize its population first. A coronavirus vaccine would be a monumental prize for the first country able to manufacture it at scale, a civilizational triumph comparable to the moon landing. It would allow the winner to revive its economy months ahead of others and then select which allies get shipments next, centering the global recovery on its medical output.
Race to Vaccine
Where vaccines are being developed, bycountry in which lead institution is based.Number of vaccines in:
Source: World Health Organization
Note: As of May 22
Clinical evaluation
Preclinical evaluation
U.S.
China
Canada
Russia
U.K.
Japan
India
Germany
France
Italy
Belgium
Denmark
Australia
Israel
Netherlands
Brazil
Sweden
Thailand
Kazakhstan
Finland
Malaysia
Vietnam
Taiwan
Slovakia
Switzerland
Spain
0
10
20
30
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
How do you think the distribution of a possible coronavirus vaccine should be coordinated? Join the conversation below.
Governments in Europe and Asia have, at times, sent conflicting messages on how aggressively they will reserve any vaccine produced on their soil. But most of the leading pharmaceutical companies developing front-running candidates anticipate that when a vaccine does prove effective, countries will block exports, just as many did with surgical masks or experimental drugs. Rather than concentrate production that could be trapped inside borders, drugmakers such as Johnson & Johnson and Moderna Inc. are preparing factories on different continents to produce in parallel.
“Everybody’s protecting their own,” said Chief Executive John Chiminski of the New Jersey-based multinational pharmaceutical Catalent Inc. His company provides some of the world’s limited capacity for a vaccine production step called sterile vial filling, and is preparing factories in the U.S. and Italy to produce multiple potential vaccines. “All of a sudden, these are coveted assets.”
The World Health Organization has asked for any future vaccine to be swiftly exported first to hospital workers around the world, then to all people in need, everywhere. “There should not be a divide between the haves and the have-nots,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters last month. Some drugmakers say, left to them, they would prefer to see hospital workers immunized first.
Scientists at U.K. biotech Stabilitech are working on one of the more than 100 different vaccines in development.
PHOTO: BEN STANSALL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
“Unless we immunize essentially the whole world, none of us will be safe,” Merck & Co. Inc. Chief Executive Ken Frazier said in an interview. His company announced two new vaccines in development Tuesday.
But there is no precedent for such a swift and global immunization, and fundamental supplies run short, from medical glass to ultracold freezers. Several candidates use novel technology understood by only a small number of specialists.
European Union leaders, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have helped raise $8 billion to overcome those hurdles. Earlier this month, the European Commission hosted a global videoconference, in which 43 heads of state and government dialed in to work out the thorny details of how a vaccine might be manufactured and supplied to billions of people in poor countries.
Neither the U.S., India, nor Russia joined the event. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was slated to speak, until the schedule changed a few hours beforehand. The Chinese ambassador who replaced him offered few details in a short speech accusing Western nations of playing a “blame game” around the coronavirus pandemic.
“When a country gets a vaccine it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens,” said David Heymann, a distinguished fellow in London’s Chatham House Global Health program, and a former WHO assistant director-general. “Most countries are going to be politically obliged to make sure it goes to their own people if it’s being produced and manufactured in their country.”
Mass graves for coronavirus victims in Manaus, Brazil, on May 19.
PHOTO: ANDRE COELHO/GETTY IMAGES
More than 100 different vaccines are in development, with at least 10 currently being tested on humans. Five of those are in China, whose President Xi Jinping has said any vaccine his country designs will become a “global public good.” At the same time, Wang Hui, the party secretary of Sinopharm Group Co. Ltd., whose subsidiaries are producing three of China’s candidates, suggested to state-run China Central Television that the firm may give first rights to Chinese nationals, including medical staff and those working or studying abroad.
British and American funding for local drugmakers has come with similar stipulations. In India—one of the world’s largest vaccine makers—lobbyists with the local pharmaceutical industry expect the government to curb exports so that Indians can access any doses first, as authorities did with the experimental drug hydroxychloroquine.
On Monday, Maryland-based Novavax Inc. said it had begun clinical trials of its own vaccine, the newest such candidate to reach that stage. The company is hoping to manufacture it in multiple markets—on as many continents as possible, its chief executive, Staley Erck, said in an interview. If all goes well, the company could make up to 100 million doses by the end of the year.
STAY INFORMED
Get a coronavirus briefing six days a week, and a weekly Health newsletter once the crisis abates: Sign up here.
“The question is, where does the first 100 million doses go?” he said. The company is considering the possibility that President Trump will invoke the Defense Production Act to reserve doses produced in the U.S. for Americans, and is looking at how to increase manufacturing outside the U.S. “The potential problem is that borders close,” Mr. Erck said.
In the U.S., the federal government has provided more than $2 billion to finance vaccine manufacturing by four drugmakers, all of which remain months away, at best, from bringing a product to market: Johnson & Johnson, Moderna Inc., AstraZeneca PLC and Sanofi SA . Most of those have committed, either per the terms of their funding, or separately, to manufacturing within the U.S. Some, such as Johnson & Johnson, are also simultaneously pursuing production in Europe.
“We had to get in line first,” said Rick Bright, the former director of the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, testifying before congress last week, explaining why the U.S. prefunded companies that would manufacture their still-unproven vaccines within its borders. “That’s what we did.”
Barda is providing up to $483 million to Moderna to fund development and preparations for mass production of its vaccine. Moderna’s chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, said in an interview that the contract includes no specific requirement on supplies for the U.S.
But Moderna is using some of the Barda funding to establish manufacturing operations at a plant in New Hampshire operated by Lonza Ltd., a Swiss contract manufacturer that Moderna has joined with to expand vaccine production. The company will also separately produce a vaccine at a plant in Switzerland.
Mr. Bancel said he has heard from government leaders around the world who are “worried about allocation of the product.”
“There will be people who will be really upset if they don’t get the vaccine,” Mr. Bancel said. “We’ll have to thread that needle thoughtfully and carefully,”
Beyond the U.S., the British government has given at least $79 million toward a vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. British citizens would be first in line to get access to that vaccine, with 30 million doses expected as soon as September.
Last week, the Trump administration said it would provide up to $1.2 billion in grants to AstraZeneca to manufacture some 300 million doses for the U.S.
“Every vaccine manufacturer will feel obligations to the country where it’s based,” said Richard Hatchett, chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, an Oslo-based nonprofit group that finances coronavirus vaccine projects, including Novavax’s candidate, to help immunize health-care workers globally. It isn’t just the U.S. that might steer vaccine production to its own citizens, he said: “This is a global phenomenon.”
—Jared Hopkins contributed to this article.
MORE
-
https://news.yahoo.com/monkeys-steal-coronavirus-blood-samples-113552022.html
-
https://news.yahoo.com/monkeys-steal-coronavirus-blood-samples-113552022.html
Ah, how very 2020.
-
https://news.yahoo.com/monkeys-steal-coronavirus-blood-samples-113552022.html
Ah, how very 2020.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/ebola-congo-2nd-outbreak-ebola-reported-congo-who-says-n1221226
Seriously? I am getting really tired of 2020.
-
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-virus-idUSKBN2370OQ
-
https://apnews.com/b186c4825ef8fdb67ce62b537ac6073d
Died with equals died of, until now.
-
Now many authorities New England Journal and the Lancet itself are questioning the data from this study put out by "a small company based"
in chicago. (think no bama)
Journals are supposed to assess the validity of such studies BEFORE they publish them . Not after it was publised so sick cuomo can , with his obnoxious face on the screen falsely "debunk " a drug effectiveness because Trump reommended it.
Just another example of the bullshit of so. many of these data "studies":
https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/02/top-medical-journals-raise-concerns-about-data-in-two-studies-related-to-covid-19
Now this does not mean hydroxychloroquine does work. Only we still do not know.
-
Coronavirus appears to be declining in potency and people are contracting it less easily, US doctors reveal
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8390849/University-Pittsburgh-doctors-say-coronavirus-appears-declining-potency.html
-
".Coronavirus appears to be declining in potency and people are contracting it less easily, US doctors reveal"
FWIW from my vantage point the calls related to illness are a lot less
and many now are for people looking for the antibody test to see if they had in past
-
".Coronavirus appears to be declining in potency and people are contracting it less easily, US doctors reveal"
FWIW from my vantage point the calls related to illness are a lot less
and many now are for people looking for the antibody test to see if they had in past
(https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-05-at-1.58.18-PM.png)
-
https://nypost.com/2020/06/04/nyc-reports-no-new-coronavirus-deaths-for-first-time-since-mid-march/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=pasteboard_app
-
Coronavirus Good News
Science and medical trial and error are keeping more patients alive.
By Editorial Board
June 5, 2020 7:24 pm ET
SAVE
PRINT
TEXT
30
Research associate Sachi Johnson works at Sorrento Therapeutics where efforts are underway to develop an antibody, STI-1499, to help in prevention of the coronavirus disease in San Diego, May 2.
PHOTO: BING GUAN/REUTERS
Good news: A new study finds that the novel coronavirus has become less lethal over the past few months. While there’s no evidence that mutations are making the virus less deadly, treatments have improved enormously as scientists have learned more.
Doctors have observed that the coronavirus case-fatality rate seems to have decreased considerably since the early days of the pandemic. But a pre-publication study from Italian universities and local public-health authorities comparing the case-fatality rates in two provinces (Ferrara and Pescara) during March and April is the first to show this might be true.
After adjusting for age and comorbidities, the study found the overall death rate declined by some 40% from March to April with huge reductions in those over age 80 (from 36.3% to 16.1%), and subjects with hypertension (23% to 12.1%), diabetes (30.3% to 8.4%), cardiovascular disease (31.5% to 12.1%), COPD (29.7% to 11.4%) and renal disease (32.3% to 11.5%).
The study’s findings need to be confirmed by more studies of fatality rates over time in other places. But the researchers note that the decline in death rates is unlikely to be due to less crowded hospitals since infection rates were low in the two provinces and never exceeded the intensive care unit capacity. Hospital utilization could confound results in other hot spots.
They say their study confirms anecdotes from expert physicians that “the early administration of more tailored medications, is considerably improving the clinical course of COVID-19.” Doctors are using a cocktail of targeted therapies including repurposed HIV antivirals, anticoagulants and monoclonal antibodies like tocilizumab that lower inflammatory cytokine attacks on organs.
A European Journal of Internal Medicine study last month found that two of 62 patients receiving tocilizumab died compared to 11 of 23 in a group with similar characteristics. Randomized clinical trials are needed to draw solid conclusions about the efficacy of drug treatments, but they usually take months. So doctors have been experimenting and learning on the fly.
We now know, for instance, that deaths among severely ill patients often result from an overreactive immune response known as “cytokine storms” as well as systemic blood clots. The Food and Drug Administration this week approved a new blood test by Roche that measures levels of the inflammatory-causing protein interleukin-6 and can help predict patients at risk for cytokine storms. Using drugs to break up blood clots and calm down the immune system earlier can prevent severe cases from turning deadly.
Doctors have also observed that some patients with fatally low oxygen levels aren’t gasping for air or losing consciousness and their symptoms resemble altitude sickness—dizziness, nausea and headaches—more than pneumonia or acute respiratory distress. As a result they are using less intensive ventilation such as nasal cannulas and sleep-apnea machines.
Mechanical ventilators can cause long-term brain and respiratory damage as well as secondary infections. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that a shockingly high 80% of those between ages 18 and 65 who were placed on ventilators in New York City died while just 2.4% were discharged alive during the study period. More targeted therapeutics can reduce the need for ventilators.
The FDA last month approved Gilead’s antiviral remdesivir for emergency use after a phase-one trial found that the drug reduced recovery times in hospitalized patients on average to 11 days compared to 15 days for those in a control group. Remdesivir stops the virus from replicating, so it may be even more beneficial if administered earlier in the illness.
The treatment learning curve has been as steep as the infection curve. But even if there’s a second Covid-19 wave, it is likely to be less deadly than the first.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/hundreds-of-virus-patients-test-positive-again-after-initial-recovery-in-china-leaked-internal-documents_3371534.html
-
feels so absurd now
what a joke
the LEFT has a better narrative to shove it down our throats
-
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/08/satellite-images-packed-wuhan-hospitals-suggest-coronavirus/
Satellite images of packed Wuhan hospitals suggest coronavirus outbreak began earlier than thought
Harvard Medical School study comparing hospital car parks in 2019 to 2018 finds spike in October
------------------------
China lied, people died, and the world suffered the worst economic lockdown in history.
-
The W.H.O. walks back an earlier assertion that asymptomatic transmission is ‘very rare.’
A top expert at the World Health Organization on Tuesday walked back her earlier assertion that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare.”
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, who made the original comment at a W.H.O. briefing on Monday, said that it was based on just two or three studies and that it was a “misunderstanding” to say asymptomatic transmission was rare globally.
“I was just responding to a question; I wasn’t stating a policy of W.H.O. or anything like that,” she said.
Dr. Van Kerkhove said that estimates of transmission from people without symptoms come primarily from models, which may not provide an accurate representation. “That’s a big open question, and that remains an open question,” she said.
Scientists had sharply criticized the W.H.O. for creating confusion on the issue, given the far-ranging public policy implications. Governments around the world have recommended face masks and social-distancing measures because of the risk of asymptomatic transmission.
A range of scientists said Dr. Van Kerkhove’s comments did not reflect the current scientific research.
“All of the best evidence suggests that people without symptoms can and do readily spread SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19,” scientists at the Harvard Global Health Institute said in a statement on Tuesday. “Communicating preliminary data about key aspects of the coronavirus without much context can have tremendous negative impact on how the public and policymakers respond to the pandemic.”
A widely cited paper published in April suggested that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms.
Dr. Van Kerkhove and other W.H.O. experts reiterated the importance of physical distancing, personal hygiene, testing, tracing, quarantine and isolation to control the pandemic.
Editors’ Picks
A Manhattan Couple Heads for the Jersey Suburbs. Which Home Would You Choose?
The Hardest Part of Having a Nonbinary Kid Is Other People
Serving in the Army as a Queer Black Man Opened My Eyes to Racism in America
Continue reading the main story
The debate over transmission erupted a day after the W.H.O. said that cases had reached a new single-day global high: 136,000 on Sunday, with three-quarters in just 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia. The virus has already sickened more than 7 million people worldwide and killed at least 405,400, according to a New York Times database.
The Pan American Health Organization said on Tuesday that 3.3 million people in the Americas had been infected with the virus. Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, the agency’s director, said that many areas were experiencing exponential growth in infections and death.
In India, health experts are warning of a looming shortage of hospital beds and doctors to treat patients as the country grapples with a sharp surge of infections. India reported 10,000 new infections in the last 24 hours, for a total of at least 266,500, and has surpassed Spain to become one of the five countries with the highest caseloads.
Rajnish Sinha, the owner of an event management company in Delhi, struggled to find a hospital bed for his 75-year-old father-in-law, who tested positive for the virus on Tuesday.
“This is just the beginning of the coming disaster,” Mr. Sinha said. “Only God can save us.”
-
He must not be a Democrat:
-----------------------------------------
Researcher involved in retracted Lancet study has faculty appointment terminated, as details in scandal emerge
By MATTHEW HERPER @matthewherper and KATE SHERIDAN @sheridan_kateJUNE 7, 2020Reprints
hydroxychloroquine pills & bottle
JOHN LOCHER/AP
The University of Utah has “mutually agreed” to terminate the faculty appointment of Amit Patel, who was among the authors of two retracted papers on Covid-19 and who appears to have played a key role in involving a little-known company that has ignited a firestorm of controversy.
“The terminated position was an unpaid adjunct appointment with the Department of Biomedical Engineering,” a university spokesperson told STAT. Patel had listed the affiliation on both papers, published in the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. The spokesperson declined to comment on whether the decision was related to the retractions.
“The University of Utah does not comment on reasons surrounding termination of academic appointments,” the spokesperson said.
Late Sunday, after publication of this story, Patel tweeted he had “verbally terminated” his affiliation with the University of Utah a week ago, and that the relationship had ended formally this past Friday. “There is a much bigger story for which I still do not have the information,” he wrote.
Related: After retractions of two Covid-19 papers, scientists ask what went wrong
The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine both announced the retraction of papers on which Patel was a co-author within hours on Thursday. The paper in the Lancet, in particular, received widespread attention because it raised safety concerns about the drug hydroxychloroquine based on what was purported to be a huge amount of data collected from health records from hundreds of hospitals all around the world.
ADVERTISEMENT
Among other consequences of the paper, the World Health Organization paused enrollment of part of a clinical trial meant to test the drug.
The lead author was Mandeep Mehra, the medical director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Heart and Vascular Center and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation. Along with his co-authors, he had received the data from a small company known as Surgisphere, run by CEO Sapan Desai.
How did Mehra meet Desai, and become connected to Surgisphere? “Dr. Patel introduced them,” a spokesperson for the Brigham told STAT. The spokesperson said Mehra knew Patel “through academic and medical circles.”
In his tweets on Sunday, Patel said that he was related to Dr. Desai by marriage. “That’s old news,” he wrote. “Many people from the Brigham were at that wedding, and media knew about it.” The bigger story, he wrote, was that despite requests from other authors for data, he does not have information from Surgisphere, he wrote. On Friday, STAT had asked Mehra if Patel and Desai were brothers-in-law. “Dr. Mehra indicated that he learned of that relationship today,” Mehra’s spokesperson said.
After independent researchers raised questions about the papers, Surgisphere issued a statement defending its work. Both the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine reviewed the papers, and then issued expressions of concern. The retractions were issued after Surgisphere said it could not share its data with an independent institute Mehra had contacted to audit the data.
Related: Moderna released scant Covid-19 data to prevent a leak, CEO says
Mehra said through the spokesperson that Surgisphere claimed to possess certification for data acquisition, data warehousing, data analytics, and data reporting from the International Standards Organization.
“I did not do enough to ensure that the data source was appropriate for this use,” Mehra said in a statement. “For that, and for all the disruptions — both directly and indirectly — I am truly sorry.”
Surgisphere has not issued a statement since the retractions were made. Desai did not immediately return an emailed request for comment.
rints
-
The Second Wave Covid Scare
The numbers are better than the headlines, and reopening is necessary.
By The Editorial Board
June 11, 2020 7:47 pm ET
Stocks sold off Thursday amid investor worries that a “second wave” of coronavirus infections could cause countries and states that are reopening to lock down again. But headlines about a coronavirus resurgence in the U.S. are overblown so far, and the bigger threat is keeping the economy in a coma.
“We know as a fact that reopening other states we’re seeing significant problems,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday. “Twelve states that reopened are now seeing spikes. This is a very real possibility.” This is Mr. Cuomo’s excuse for keeping New York City in lockdown purgatory for 12 weeks as other states reopen and their economies rebound.
***
Democrats cite a spike in cases in Florida, Arizona and Texas as evidence of a virus resurgence. But more testing, especially in vulnerable communities, is naturally turning up more cases. Cases in Texas have increased by about a third in the last two weeks, but so have tests. About a quarter of the new cases are in counties with large prisons and meatpacking plants that were never forced to shut down.
Tim Scott Leads On A GOP Policing Bill
SUBSCRIBE
Tests have increased by about 37% in Florida in two weeks, but confirmed cases have risen 28%. Cases were rising at a faster clip during the last two weeks of April (47%) when much of the state remained locked down. Now restaurants, malls, barbershops and gyms are open if they follow social-distancing guidelines.
In Arizona, cases have increased by 73% in the last two weeks though tests have increased by just 53%. But a quarter of all cases in the state are on Indian reservations, which have especially high-risk populations. The rate of diabetes is twice as high among Native Americans as whites and the rate of obesity is 50% higher.
Liberals and the media demanded more testing before states could reopen, yet now are criticizing states because more testing has turned up more cases. Keep in mind that New York has reported about the same number of new cases in the last two weeks as Florida, though it ramped up testing earlier so the relative increase appears less significant.
A more important metric is hospitalizations. In Arizona the weekly rolling average for new Covid-19 hospitalizations has been flat for a month. Emergency-room visits for Covid-19 have spiked this week, but the number of ER beds in use hasn’t changed since late April. Hospitals in Arizona (and California) have reported an increase in cases from U.S. citizens and green-card holders returning from Mexico where hospitals are overwhelmed. But with 22% of ICU beds and 62% of ventilators available, Arizona hospitals should have capacity to manage an increase in patients as it reopens.
Texas has also recently reported an uptick in Covid-19 hospitalizations, mostly in the Houston and Austin areas. Current Covid-19 hospitalizations are up about 20% since the state began to reopen, but Gov. Greg Abbott says hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and much of the increase is tied to nursing homes. The number of currently hospitalized patients per capita is still about 80% higher in New York City than in Texas. Mr. Abbott started reopening six weeks ago while Mr. Cuomo began letting manufacturing and construction resume in the Big Apple this week.
Fatalities are a lagging epidemic indicator since most people who die have been in the hospital for two to three weeks. But deaths also aren’t surging. Texas has recorded 151 deaths this past week versus 221 in the last week of April. Florida has reported 239 deaths, 72 fewer than in the last week of April.
Deaths are probably declining in part from better and earlier treatment, but this means there’s less to fear from reopening. While Arizona has reported 114 deaths—43 more than in the last week of April—its deaths per capita are similar to the 325 that New York has reported in the past week.
Mr. Cuomo over the weekend boasted that New York “did the impossible” and “crushed” the coronavirus curve. New York has made enormous progress since the early days of the pandemic, which hit the state harder and earlier because of its population density, mass transit and international travel. We aren’t among the revisionists who say Mr. Cuomo should have locked down New York earlier.
But other states that didn’t impose strict lockdowns and have been gradually reopening have kept the epidemic under control and not paid as high an economic price. Some 7.3% of workers in Arizona and Florida and 11.4% in Texas were collecting unemployment benefits in late May compared to 18.7% in New York.
***
More infections are inevitable as states reopen, and there will be much trial and error. States need to be vigilant for outbreaks and protect high-risk areas and the vulnerable. But the costs of shutting down the economy are so great, in damage to lives and livelihoods, that there is no alternative to opening for the broader public good.
-
Thanks PP for your thoughts
here are some of mine:
I nominate your for Derek's defense attorney
that said he clearly killed the guy
that said he was reckless
no one can look at that video and hear people calling for the cop to let up hearing Floyd beg for his life call his mother at point of crossing over to unconsciousness and still with cop crushing his neck against pavement even while he was not moving breathing and the rest.
but of course the LEFT and BLM etc are all playing this up big time exaggerating the significance of these very rare events
totally ignoring purposely the problems of blacks and crime black on black crime
despite black privilege of which there is some evidence of etc etc
and like Ben Carson says (real racism is past)
for power grab
gin up the black vote
and combining. with socialists illegals america haters like the squad
to eradicate trump the republican party and conservatism
and open the flood gates in free this and that until we default and go bankrupt and the whole system falls apart
-
"that said he clearly killed the guy
that said he was reckless"
If so, that leaves us with a manslaughter conviction and 5 Not Guilty verdicts.
I would say the hold chosen clearly contributed to his cause of death.
So much we don't know and what appear to be contradicting autopsies and so many other factors give the defense much to work with within a (former?) standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/oxford-researchers-identify-first-drug-proven-to-reduce-covid-fatalities/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=20634376
-
I prefer shields
https://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-2020/shields-compared-to-masks.html?cmp=SNO-ICM-FB-COVID-HLTH&socialid=3432276850
-
I prefer shields
https://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-2020/shields-compared-to-masks.html?cmp=SNO-ICM-FB-COVID-HLTH&socialid=3432276850
I don't like AARP but I do like this article and idea. Looking at the photo I thought there is one more thing you can't buy anymore during coronavirus. Then they show how to easily make one!
I wonder if that will work in 'mask required' locations.
-
Will the Coronavirus Forge a Brave New World?
Lockdowns and social distancing are unlikely to survive for long.
By: Alex Berezow
Of all the major geopolitical players on the planet, Mother Nature may be the toughest adversary. Nature has neither imperatives nor constraints to guide its behavior. Rather, it operates off general patterns that occur under various conditions. While the patterns provide broad strokes of expected behavior, it strikes mostly randomly. Even predictable phenomena, such as the Atlantic hurricane season, tell us nothing about the magnitude and target of, or potential for, economic damage. A catastrophic Category 5 hurricane that misses major population centers is quickly forgotten; a milder Category 3 hurricane that decimates New Orleans has long-lasting consequences.
Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by a novel coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2, was a predictable phenomenon.
Modern disease outbreaks allow scientists to detect patterns, even if they cannot precisely predict what, when, where and how an outbreak might occur. For decades, microbiologists and epidemiologists have warned about an influenza pandemic. These occur with some regularity; the previous four were in 1918, 1957, 1968 and 2009. But while public health officials were fixated on the flu, a deadly new virus was percolating in China. By the time the biomedical community fully grasped the severity of the disease, it was too late. It had already circled the globe.
But scientists are neither fortunetellers nor miracle workers. The seasonal flu infects up to 1 billion people every year, despite the fact that we all know it’s coming and a vaccine and antiviral exist. The scientific method is also inherently conservative – that is, it operates deliberately and is slow to adopt a new consensus. Typically, this serves the scientific enterprise well, as exciting new findings often end up being wrong after they undergo further scrutiny. Prematurely declaring the coronavirus to be a global threat if it turned out not to be one would have damaged the credibility of public health officials. It seems that, having failed to identify the threat in time, they subsequently over-compensated by endorsing harsh social distancing measures – which, ironically, ended up damaging their credibility anyway.
In an attempt to keep abreast of the ever-changing data on coronavirus infections, public health officials then began providing contradictory advice – which often changed by the week if not the day – and further exacerbated their credibility problem. In the U.K., a prominent scientist who endorsed the lockdown was caught breaking quarantine, cavorting with his lover; in the U.S., public health officials condemned anti-lockdown protests, only to then support anti-racism protests. Such contradictions are bad in and of themselves, but in these cases, they carried the extra burden of hypocrisy: Lockdown is for thee, but not for me. By this point, much of the public had concluded that biomedical professionals were no longer behaving like objective scientific advisers and instead were behaving like political actors.
Worse, by declaring that “the science” demands a strict lockdown – and that anyone who raises concerns about unintended side effects on the economy, mental health or social cohesion is a COVID-denying scourge on the public good – scientists eagerly prioritized severe coronavirus containment measures with little regard for collateral damage. The result was the suppression of debate and dissent as millions of people were put out of work. The damage all this has done to the credibility of the public health profession is incalculable.
Whither the Second Wave?
Knowledge of previous pandemics combined with infectious disease modeling allow scientists to make very credible predictions about the coming of a second wave. Though the coronavirus is biologically distinct from influenza, they share many epidemiological similarities, which in turn allows for comparisons in behavior. A study published by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy found that, in seven of eight previous influenza pandemics, the virus returned about six months later, and the second wave was often worse than the first. There are already reports that the coronavirus is making a comeback, from Beijing to California. Once again, we may not know the exact timing or scope of the second wave, but Mother Nature’s patterns tell us that we should be planning for one.
Assuming, then, that a second wave will hit sometime in the fall, what should we expect to happen? One large segment of the population will have grown weary of the lockdown and will be disinclined to adhere to further restrictions. Besides, in the wake of the economic damage caused by the first lockdown, many national and local economies will be hesitant to impose such strict measures again. Another large segment of the population – namely, the elderly and immunocompromised – will be fearful and may choose to voluntarily self-isolate.
Governments will be in the unenviable position of deciding if they must enforce a second lockdown and, if so, to what extent. These decisions will be complicated by the fact that governments will be facing political battles and economic questions that emerged from the first round of the pandemic. These battles may get extreme, most notably in the United States, which will hold elections in November. Regardless of what governments ultimately decide to do, economic activity and all that it entails – including the unemployment rate – will not fully return to pre-pandemic levels. A quick bounce-back or “V-shaped” recovery is the least likely scenario because the vast amount of economic damage in the past three months cannot be repaired in the same amount of time, especially if a substantial portion of the population remains partially inactive.
Will a Medical Solution Matter?
Those placing their hope in a medical solution in the short term will be disappointed. The antiviral drug remdesivir and the anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone are legitimate medical advances, but they are hardly game-changers. For instance, the latter has generated some excitement because it decreases the death rate of patients on ventilators to 28 percent from 40 percent. That’s good news, but the death rate is still quite high. (To put these numbers into perspective, the overall infection fatality rate from the coronavirus is debated but thought to be roughly 0.28 percent, which is about three times worse than the rate for the seasonal flu.) The drug also cannot be taken prophylactically or given too early in the course of an infection because, as an immunosuppressant, it could just make a person more vulnerable. Though an apple a day might keep the doctor away, as of now, there is no pill that will keep the coronavirus away – and it’s likely there never will be.
The best prophylactic hope we have is a vaccine. These have the highest success rate of all drugs that enter clinical trials, so it is extremely likely that at least one vaccine (if not several) will earn regulatory approval. But there are two caveats. First, as is the case with antiviral or anti-inflammatory drugs, approval doesn’t mean that the vaccines will be particularly effective.
Second, approval standards have been relaxed, which may come at the expense of not just efficacy but safety. Also, regulatory bodies routinely give the nod to drugs that are only minimally effective if there is nothing better on the market, a possible outcome given the immense pressure on pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine as quickly as possible. And even if a drug is highly effective, it still takes time to develop, test and distribute it. The British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca says that it will start shipping its vaccine to the U.S. and U.K. by around September. It plans to have distributed 400 million doses by the end of the year and a total of 2 billion by early next year. As impressive and likely record-breaking as this accomplishment is, its timing does little to solve the economic dilemmas posed by the approaching second wave. Besides, the CEO says the vaccine will protect a person for only one year.
The Post-COVID World
Are those who claim, then, that life will never go back to normal after the coronavirus correct? Are we condemned to live in a Brave New World, governed by social distancing and disinfection protocols, in which perfect hygiene is the greatest good?
Surely not, for three reasons. Humans are social animals. Humans like to be entertained. And humans are inclined to choose the path of least resistance. These three facts will shape the post-COVID world far more than the virus will. Because we like to spend time with others, like to maximize fun and prefer to do whatever is easiest (such as eat out rather than cook at home, provided one can afford it), restaurants and sporting events will return to normal eventually. The only question is when.
What won’t return to normal are the things we don’t really like doing, such as commuting, going to the office or buying supplies at the supermarket. It’s much easier to work from home and to click a button on Amazon, so we should expect a decline in the value of commercial real estate as office space and traditional brick-and-mortar retail are no longer in high demand. But these trends were already occurring prior to the pandemic. The coronavirus simply accelerated them.
Global geopolitics will also be affected. The manufacture of certain products deemed essential to national security, like medicine and personal protective equipment, will be repatriated, at least in part. For the next pandemic, many countries will not want to be so heavily dependent on a single supplier like China. Politicians will have an extra incentive to endorse this policy as it involves repatriating some manufacturing and economic activity.
So yes, things will change. The ultimate long-term legacy of the coronavirus will be a more sanitized world of more self-reliant countries.
-
second post
https://www.theepochtimes.com/least-restrictive-states-have-lower-ccp-virus-death-rates-most-closed-states-have-highest_3399045.html?utm_source=CCPVirusNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-06-24
-
Texas Pauses Reopening, as CDC Says Millions More May Have Had Coronavirus
The government estimates 20 million Americans were infected, significantly higher than official case counts, as Texas sees surge
Contact tracers at the Harris County Public Health contact-tracing facility in Houston Thursday.
PHOTO: DAVID J. PHILLIP/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Jennifer Calfas, Brianna Abbott and Andrew Restuccia
Updated June 25, 2020 10:19 pm ET
Texas paused reopening plans Thursday, as new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations increased in many U.S. states, and a government estimate showed more than 20 million Americans may have contracted the virus, far exceeding diagnosed infections.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that only about 1 in every 10 Covid-19 cases in the U.S. has been identified, Director Robert Redfield said during a briefing with reporters Thursday. He also noted that most Americans are still susceptible to the virus.
“This outbreak is not over. This pandemic is not over,” Dr. Redfield said. “Greater than 90% of the American public hasn’t experienced this virus yet.”
A number of states, including Arizona, Texas, South Carolina and Florida, saw confirmed cases rise by more than 30% over the past week, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
On Thursday evening, the White House announced that Vice President Mike Pence will host a briefing Friday afternoon with members of the coronavirus task force at the Health and Human Services Department. It will be the first such briefing in nearly two months.
The rapid increase is prompting some governors to enact sweeping new measures, while others in states with diminishing case counts press on with reopening.
Coronavirus Update: Companies’ Reopening Plans, Delegates to Stay Home
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
UP NEXT
Coronavirus Update: Companies’ Reopening Plans, Delegates to Stay Home
Coronavirus Update: Companies’ Reopening Plans, Delegates to Stay Home
Companies from Disney to Apple are grappling with whether to reopen or close as coronavirus cases surge; the Democratic Party urges delegates to skip the summer convention; demand for a steroid has surged six-fold since the University of Oxford released positive study results. WSJ’s Jason Bellini has the latest on the pandemic. Photo: David Mcnew/AFP
California Gov. Gavin Newsom warned a potential influx of coronavirus-related hospitalizations could impact reopening plans. Coronavirus-related hospitalizations in the state increased by 32% in the last 14 days, with more than 4,200 people in hospitals, he said Thursday. As testing expands across the state, the rate of positive tests has increased to 5.6% in the last seven days, the Democratic governor said.
On Thursday he declared a budget emergency to allow the state to provide more funding and medical resources for more vulnerable populations in case of a potential surge in hospitalizations.
The proclamation allows legislature access to the state’s rainy day fund, as California faces a $54.3 billion budget deficit.
On the other side of the country, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday the total number of coronavirus-related hospitalizations stood at 996, the first time the tally has dropped below 1,000 since mid-March and another sign of progress against the disease.
Will the Economic Recovery Slow With New Coronavirus Cases?
SUBSCRIBE
Mayor Bill de Blasio said New York City was on track to enter its third phase of reopening July 6.
Connecticut meanwhile became one of the first states to declare that public, K-12 schools would open for full-time, in-person instruction this fall.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order requiring hospitals in several counties to halt nonessential surgeries to increase hospital capacity for more coronavirus patients.
“The last thing we want to do as a state is go backwards and close down businesses,” Mr. Abbott said in a statement. “This temporary pause will help our state corral the spread until we can safely enter the next phase of opening our state for business.”
RELATED
Texas Orders Some Hospitals to Halt Surgeries
New Jersey’s Covid-19 Death Toll Rises 14% When Probable Fatalities Added
Trump Administration Tries to Temper Fears of Coronavirus Resurgence
Mexico City Tames Covid-19 in One of World’s Largest Food Markets
Europe Now Looks Ahead With Hope
Sports Comebacks’ Biggest Foe? Night Clubs
U.S. Initial Unemployment Benefits Steady at 1.5 Million in June
Heard on the Street: Jobs Recovery Risks Stalling Out
Coronavirus-related hospitalizations in Texas grew to 4,389 Wednesday, another record-high in the state, according to data from the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. More than 10% of those tested for coronavirus Tuesday had a positive result, an increase from a low of 4.27% on May 26.
As coronavirus cases surge in parts of the country, the Trump administration is making the case that the U.S. isn’t experiencing a repeat of the outbreak’s darkest moments.
Senior administration officials are distributing data to lawmakers and governors meant to show that the increases are concentrated rather than widespread and that many of the new cases are being diagnosed in less vulnerable populations.
“We are looking at a very different environment right now in terms of these new cases than at the point in late March and early April,” a senior administration official told a group of reporters Wednesday.
But administration officials are increasingly concerned about the large number of Covid-19 cases among young people, many of whom may not know they have the disease and could spread it to more at-risk individuals.
Monitoring the U.S. Outbreak
Confirmed cases for each state, listed in order from most total cases to fewest
Daily confirmed cases per 100,000 residents
Trend
Overall
0
25
50
75
06/05
06/12
06/19
N.Y.
Calif.
N.J.
Ill.
Texas
Fla.
Mass.
Pa.
Ga.
Mich.
Md.
Ariz.
Va.
N.C.
La.
Ohio
Conn.
Ind.
Tenn.
Minn.
Ala.
Colo.
Wash.
S.C.
Iowa
Wis.
Miss.
Mo.
Utah
Neb.
Ark.
R.I.
Nev.
Ky.
Kan.
Okla.
N.M.
Del.
D.C.
Ore.
S.D.
N.H.
Idaho
N.D.
Maine
W.Va.
Wyo.
Vt.
Hawaii
Alaska
Mont.
▼
▲
▼
▲
▲
▲
▼
▲
▲
▲
▼
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▼
▼
▲
▼
▼
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▼
▲
▼
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▼
▲
▼
▼
▲
▼
▼
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
390,415
197,589
170,196
139,434
134,464
114,018
107,837
88,141
71,100
69,006
65,777
63,281
59,946
57,472
53,415
47,651
45,994
43,655
38,034
33,763
33,206
31,463
30,367
29,022
27,296
26,227
24,516
19,616
19,374
18,346
18,062
16,640
14,859
14,617
13,101
11,948
11,192
10,980
10,159
7,568
6,479
5,638
4,738
3,393
3,070
2,663
1,326
1,191
851
813
805
Note: Trend indicates whether a state had an increase or decrease in total number of cases in the past seven days compared to previous seven days. Last updated June 25, at 8:37 p.m.
Sources: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering; the Lancet; Associated Press; U.S. Census
The CDC’s estimate that more than 20 million Americans may have had the coronavirus reflects the large number of individuals who either exhibit mild or no symptoms or previously couldn’t get tested. The estimates are based on national serological surveys that looked at samples collected via blood banks or for non-Covid-19-associated tests, Dr. Redfield of the CDC said. The sample collection, which determines the presence of antibodies indicating a person had the disease, is still ongoing.
Public-health experts have been eager to see results from large antibody testing surveys to better understand just how many people have been infected with the virus.
Earlier studies showed that prevalence varies based on location. Roughly 22.7% of people tested in New York City had positive results, whereas roughly 4.1% of people tested in Los Angeles County did so, say officials in those cities. In other parts of the country, the prevalence is likely less.
The estimated more than 20 million U.S. case counts suggest that the death rate from the virus is lower than previously understood. More than 122,000 people have died in the U.S. from Covid-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Mississippi reported single-day records for new confirmed coronavirus cases and related hospitalizations, with 1,092 new infections and 536 people with confirmed cases in hospitals Wednesday.
STAY INFORMED
Get a coronavirus briefing six days a week, and a weekly Health newsletter once the crisis abates: Sign up here.
UNDERSTANDING CORONAVIRUS
What We Know About the Virus
Covid-19 Tests and Treatment
Navigating Your Life
The Facts on Coronavirus (en Español)
In South Carolina, 16.9% of people tested for the new coronavirus Wednesday had positive results—up from 7% on May 28, according to the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control. Total coronavirus-related hospitalizations in Arizona hit another high, with 2,453 patients in the hospital Wednesday, according to the state’s Department of Health Services.
Florida reported more than 5,000 new coronavirus cases Thursday, as the percentage of those who tested positive for the virus continued to climb.
Overall, the U.S. accounts for more than 25% of the more than 9.45 million cases world-wide, according to data from Johns Hopkins. The World Health Organization says it expects total global cases to pass 10 million next week.
U.S. stocks were mixed Thursday as the rise in cases forced some businesses to re-examine their plans. Walt Disney Co. said it would indefinitely delay the reopening of its Disneyland Resort, previously scheduled for July 17.
Economists say a surge of new infections could impede the job market’s slow recovery. The number of workers seeking jobless benefits has eased from a peak in March of nearly 7 million, but remained at a historically high 1.5 million, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
India logged another record day Thursday, while South Korea reported 28 new cases clustered throughout Seoul. Iran passed 10,000 deaths from Covid-19 Thursday, as the daily death toll continued to climb after lockdown restrictions were eased.
Daily reported Covid-19 cases in the U.S.
March 1
March 1
June 25
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
cases
National emergency declared
March 13
34,203
April 23
Seven-day rolling average
Note: For all 50 states and D.C., U.S. territories and cruises. Last updated June 25, at 8:37 p.m.
Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering
Daily reported Covid-19 deaths in the U.S.
March 1
March 1
June 25
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
deaths
National emergency declared
March 13
2,150
May 5
Seven-day rolling average
Note: For all 50 states and D.C., U.S. territories and cruises. Last updated June 25, at 8:37 p.m.
Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering
-
second post
By Andrew Restuccia
Updated June 25, 2020 5:23 pm ET
SAVE
PRINT
TEXT
WASHINGTON—The Trump administration is trying to temper fears about a surge in coronavirus cases in some parts of the country, making the case that the U.S. isn’t experiencing a repeat of the outbreak’s darkest moments.
Senior administration officials are distributing data to lawmakers and governors meant to show that the increases are concentrated rather than widespread across the country and that many of the new cases are being diagnosed in less vulnerable populations.
Companies from Disney to Apple are grappling with whether to reopen or close as coronavirus cases surge; the Democratic Party urges delegates to skip the summer convention; demand for a steroid has surged six-fold since the University of Oxford released positive study results. WSJ’s Jason Bellini has the latest on the pandemic. Photo: David Mcnew/AFP
“We are looking at a very different environment right now in terms of these new cases than at the point in late March and early April,” a senior administration official told a group of reporters on Wednesday.
Cases of the new coronavirus are accelerating. Thirty-three states, from Oklahoma to South Carolina and Washington, had a seven-day average of new cases on Tuesday that was higher than their average during the past two weeks, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. In response, state and local officials have warned the public to take extra precautions.
But administration officials have said they have no plans to call for broad shutdowns of states in light of the new figures, adding that they will defer to governors.
President Trump’s critics have accused the administration of trying to play down the threat of the pandemic
President Trump, at his rally June 20 in Tulsa, Okla.
PHOTO: LEAH MILLIS/REUTERS
The pandemic should be evaluated on a county-by-county basis instead of a state-by-state basis, the officials said, distributing a map showing that 3% of counties in the U.S. have seen new positive results over the last three days. Vice President Mike Pence cited the figure during a meeting Wednesday with Senate Republicans.
“There’s limited value in slapping a map up on the wall and saying, your whole state is red,” another official said. “People are living in parts of Texas and watching TV and saying, there’s nothing going on here.”
Some of the most at-risk counties have large populations. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top public official in a Texas county with roughly 4.7 million people, said on MSNBC Wednesday that the hospital system there could be overwhelmed “without severe action on the part of the community.”
“The projections show we would run out of all [hospital] beds in anywhere between the next 10 and 40 days,” she said.
MORE ON THE CORONAVIRUS IN AMERICA
As Coronavirus Cases Rise in Arizona, New Mask Rules Spark a Fight
Administration officials said they were focused on 12 states that have shown rising cases and rising percentages of positive cases, including Texas, Arizona and Florida. The administration has sent teams from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to Alabama, Mississippi and North Carolina, and officials said they subsequently have seen improvement in the case numbers there.
As Mr. Trump has shifted focus to other issues, members of the White House’s coronavirus task force have made fewer public appearances. Mr. Pence, White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx and others are expected to speak publicly more often about the resurgence in cases in the coming days and weeks, officials said. Dr. Birx will accompany Mr. Pence on a Sunday trip to Dallas.
Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, urged Mr. Trump in a speech in Lancaster, Pa., to drop his effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, referring to Mr. Trump’s “twin legacies: his failure to protect the American people from the coronavirus, and his heartless crusade to take health care protections away from American families.”
Citing increases in coronavirus cases, Mr. Biden said Mr. Trump had failed to grasp the notion that “to fix the economy, we have to get control over the virus. He’s like a child who can’t believe this has happened to him, all his whining and self-pity.”
Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh responded: “Joe Biden has no credibility on health care since he sold Obamacare under the lie of ‘If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.’ His support for a government-run ‘public option’ for health care, which drives people into government-controlled plans and kills rural hospitals, is an admission that Obamacare was fatally flawed.”
—Ken Thomas contributed to this article.
-
third
Last week, we introduced our ongoing series, Your Lead, where we answer readers’ questions about how the pandemic is changing daily life in California.
Today we are tackling our first question: Why have face shields not yet caught on as an alternative to masks in California?
Lori Holt, a neuropsychologist in Encino, posed this question. Ms. Holt conducts in-office assessments on patients using plexiglass barriers, air purifiers and disinfectants to protect herself and her patients from Covid-19. However, her efforts to conduct an accurate assessment are often stymied by patients who come in wearing masks.
“One of the thorniest issues we had to overcome involved the use of face coverings,” she wrote in an email.
Ms. Holt evaluates patients using a battery of tests to gauge things like a patient’s memory, attention and language. Face masks can sometimes muffle speech, posing communication challenges and potentially affecting the patient’s comprehension of the tests.
“If the patient doesn’t fully understand even a word or two of a paragraph or a word list that I’m asking them to remember for a verbal memory test, the entire test is ‘spoiled’ and unusable,” she said.
Continue reading the main story
ADVERTISEMENT
Ms. Holt has found that clear plastic face shields are a good alternative to masks for her patients, who are given their own face shields that they can take home afterward.
“It is much easier to test the patients when they wear the face shield,” she said. “Their speech is much more intelligible than when they wear a mask. Also, we can see the patient’s face and thus do not lose critical data with respect to facial expression that can help us understand the patient’s emotional state of mind.”
Ms. Holt wondered about the popularity of face shields because, she said, despite the shield casting a minor glare, it is so comfortable that she sometimes forgets to take it off at the end of the day.
John Anderson, who lives in Penn Valley, Calif., asked a similar question about face shields. Mr. Anderson is hearing-impaired and prefers that others use face shields so that he can read lips. During a recent health checkup, his doctor wore a mask and his wife wore a face shield. He read his wife’s lips as she interpreted the doctor’s words.
Continue reading the main story
ADVERTISEMENT
Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all Californians to wear face coverings, like cloth masks, when out in public. The state’s Department of Public Health recommends wearing a plastic face shield with a cloth draped along the bottom only if the wearer has a medical condition that prevents them from wearing a cloth mask.
Face shields are also commonly used by front-line health workers, but more people are looking at face shields as an added layer of protection.
The Palo Alto Unified teachers’ union requested that the district supply teachers with face shields and other personal protective equipment when they return to school. And the state’s Department of Education recommends that everyone on school campuses wear masks or face shields with a drape across the bottom when schools reopen.
My colleague Knvul Sheikh wrote about the use of face shields, which can be easily wiped down and reused. Face shields also have the benefit of stopping people from touching their faces, and can be easier and more comfortable than masks.
Continue reading the main story
ADVERTISEMENT
However, experts say face shields have limits to the amount of protection they can offer. They seem to be most effective in protecting against cough droplets for people in close range of one another. And droplets can seep in through the back and sides of a face shield, which is why draping a piece of cloth along the bottom is recommended. But their efficacy has not yet been widely studied. For now, face masks are the better option for most people.
Regardless, we may be seeing a lot more of them in the coming weeks.
The City of Long Beach issued a health order last month requiring servers in restaurants to wear both cloth masks and face shields when working. Los Angeles issued a similar order this month.
Because the face shields were cost prohibitive for some businesses, Long Beach began a free distribution program for face shields that it sourced from donations and from state and city resources. Last weekend, it distributed 4,800 masks in just a few hours.
Sandy Wedgeworth, the city’s public health emergency management director, estimates that the city still had around 25,000 face shields that it planned to give away to restaurants, bars and salons in future distribution events.
“We want them out there in the community. We want the folks that need them to have them,” she said. “They are no good to anyone sitting in boxes.”
-
The Jews are at it again , , ,
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/israeli-designed-instant-coronavirus-breathalyser-could-be-rolled-out-globally/
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/fauci-says-swine-flu-from-china-could-cause-another-pandemic_3407103.html?utm_source=CCPVirusNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-07-01
-
second post
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/06/the-rabbit-outbreak?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_063020&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9d3fa3f92a40469e2d85c&cndid=50142053&hasha=52f016547a40edbdd6de69b8a7728bbf&hashb=e02b3c0e6e0f3888e0288d6e52a57eccde1bfd75&hashc=9aab918d394ee25f13d70b69b378385abe4212016409c8a7a709eca50e71c1bc&esrc=bounceX&utm_term=TNY_Daily
-
third post
https://stream.org/why-you-shouldnt-panic-about-spikes-and-surges-in-new-coronavirus-cases/
-
fourth post
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-lefts-coronavirus-narrative-is-a-myth/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=corner&utm_term=third
-
https://cis.org/Bensman/Mounting-Evidence-Points-Covid-Refugees-Mexico-Major-Factor-BorderState-Spikes
https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/01/marc-siegel-coronavirus-texas-hospital-surge/?utm_source&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=13094
-
second
https://www.theepochtimes.com/authorities-covered-up-severity-of-virus-resurgence-in-beijing-and-nearby-province-leaked-documents_3407399.html?utm_source=CCPVirusNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-07-02
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=87&v=lLdhV1emHmo&feature=emb_logo
-
https://truepundit.com/deadly-cover-up-fauci-approved-hydroxychloroquine-15-years-ago-to-cure-coronaviruses-nobody-needed-to-die/
-
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-dhs-china-cyberattacks-us-organizations-coronavirus
-
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brains/scientists-warn-of-potential-wave-of-covid-linked-brain-damage-idUSKBN24837S
-
https://apnews.com/52e57911691a332630a3c93a6e76612a
-
I am licensed in 18 states
though not Texas
and testing generally is easy for everyone to get now.
however it is taking 5 and sometimes up to 7 days to get results
it is rather frustrating to be asking people to quarantine from work and family members
when at the same time anyone can pull up picture of or go to a beach and see no one with a mask
Why Trump just can't simply say "wear a goddam mask " and continue trying to keep 6 feet away from everyone is just ridiculous and beyond simple common sense:
https://apnews.com/52e57911691a332630a3c93a6e76612a
-
https://fee.org/articles/3-states-account-for-42-percent-of-all-covid-19-deaths-in-america-why/
-
https://www.ftportfolios.com/Common/ContentFileLoader.aspx?ContentGUID=5cb7d973-25cf-4995-82c9-f58a0d81dc93
-
"The Spanish" flu of 1918
may based on many historians research be more aptly named the "Kansas" flu.
An obscure doctor from an obscure location noticed a very virulent outbreak of flu in his county and reported
it to public health officials. No one pain any attention to it.
this is the location of first recorded outbreak:
" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_County,_Kansas "
As mostly farmers people lived side by side with farm animals, chickens , pigs , horses , cattle etc.
****
J Transl Med. 2004; 2: 3.
Published online 2004 Jan 20. doi: 10.1186/1479-5876-2-3
PMCID: PMC340389
PMID: 14733617
The site of origin of the 1918 influenza pandemic and its public health implications
John M Barrycorresponding author1
Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.
The 1918–1919 influenza pandemic killed more people than any other outbreak of disease in human history. The lowest estimate of the death toll is 21 million, while recent scholarship estimates from 50 to 100 million dead. World population was then only 28% what is today, and most deaths occurred in a sixteen week period, from mid-September to mid-December of 1918.
It has never been clear, however, where this pandemic began. Since influenza is an endemic disease, not simply an epidemic one, it is impossible to answer this question with absolute certainty. Nonetheless, in seven years of work on a history of the pandemic, this author conducted an extensive survey of contemporary medical and lay literature searching for epidemiological evidence – the only evidence available. That review suggests that the most likely site of origin was Haskell County, Kansas, an isolated and sparsely populated county in the southwest corner of the state, in January 1918 [1]. If this hypothesis is correct, it has public policy implications.
But before presenting the evidence for Haskell County it is useful to review other hypotheses of the site of origin. Some medical historians and epidemiologists have theorized that the 1918 pandemic began in Asia, citing a lethal outbreak of pulmonary disease in China as the forerunner of the pandemic. Others have speculated the virus was spread by Chinese or Vietnamese laborers either crossing the United States or working in France.
More recently, British scientist J.S. Oxford has hypothesized that the 1918 pandemic originated in a British Army post in France, where a disease British physicians called "purulent bronchitis" erupted in 1916. Autopsy reports of soldiers killed by this outbreak – today we would classify the cause of death as ARDS – bear a striking resemblance to those killed by influenza in 1918 [2].
But these alternative hypotheses have problems. After the 1918–1919 pandemic, many investigators searched for the source of the disease. The American Medical Association sponsored what is generally considered the best of several comprehensive international studies of the pandemic conducted by Dr. Edwin Jordan, editor of The Journal of Infectious Disease. He spent years reviewing evidence from all over the world; the AMA published his work in 1927.
Since several influenza pandemics in preceding centuries were already well-known and had come from the orient, Jordan first considered Asia as the source. But he found no evidence. Influenza did surface in early 1918 in China, but the outbreaks were minor, did not spread, and contemporary Chinese scientists, trained by Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University) investigators, stated they believed these outbreaks were endemic disease unrelated to the pandemic [3]. Jordan also looked at the lethal pulmonary disease cited by some historians as influenza, but this was diagnosed by contemporary scientists as pneumonic plague. By 1918 the plague bacillus could be easily and conclusively identified in the laboratory [3]. So after tracing all known outbreaks of respiratory disease in China, Jordan concluded that none of them "could be reasonably regarded as the true forerunner" of the pandemic [3].
Jordan also considered Oxford's theory that the "purulent bronchitis" in British Army camps in 1916 and 1917 was the source. He rejected it for several reasons. The disease had flared up, true, but had not spread rapidly or widely outside the affected bases; instead, it seemed to disappear [3]. As we now know a mutation in an existing influenza virus can account for a virulent flare-up. In the summer of 2002, for example, an influenza epidemic erupted in parts of Madagascar with an extremely high mortality and morbidity; in some towns it sickened an outright majority – in one instance sixty-seven percent – of the population. But the virus causing this epidemic was an H3N2 virus that normally caused mild disease. In fact, the epidemic affected only thirteen of 111 health districts in Madagascar before fading away [4]. Something similar may have happened in the British base.
Jordan considered other possible origins of the pandemic in early 1918 in France and India. He concluded that it was highly unlikely that the pandemic began in any of them [3].
That left the United States. Jordan looked at a series of spring outbreaks there. The evidence seemed far stronger. One could see influenza jumping from Army camp to camp, then into cities, and traveling with troops to Europe. His conclusion: the United States was the site of origin.
A later equally comprehensive, multi-volume British study of the pandemic agreed with Jordan. It too found no evidence for the influenza's origin in the Orient, it too rejected the 1916 outbreak among British troops, and it too concluded, "The disease was probably carried from the United States to Europe [5]."
Australian Nobel laureate MacFarlane Burnet spent most of his scientific career working on influenza and studied the pandemic closely. He too concluded that the evidence was "strongly suggestive" that the disease started in the United States and spread with "the arrival of American troops in France [6]."
Before dismissing the conclusions of these contemporary investigators who lived through and studied the pandemic, one must remember how good many of them were. They were very good indeed.
The Rockefeller Institute, whose investigators were intimately involved in the problem, alone included extraordinary people. By 1912 its head Simon Flexner – his brother wrote the "Flexner report" that revolutionized American medical education – used immune serum to bring the mortality rate for meningococcal meningitis down from over 80% to 18%; by contrast, in the 1990s at Massachusetts General Hospital a study found a 25% mortality rate for bacterial meningitis. Peyton Rous won the Nobel Prize in 1966 for work he did at the institute in 1911; he was that far ahead of the scientific consensus. By 1918 Oswald Avery and others at Rockefeller Institute had already produced both an effective curative serum and a vaccine for the most common pneumococcal pneumonias. At least partly because of the pandemic, Avery would spend the rest of his career studying pneumonia. That work led directly to his discovery of the "transforming principle" – his discovery that DNA carries the genetic code.
The observations of investigators of this quality cannot be dismissed lightly. Jordan was of this quality.
More evidence against Oxford's hypothesis comes from Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger, well-known for his work extracting samples of the 1918 virus from preserved tissue and sequencing its genome. He initially believed, based on statistical analysis of the rate of mutation of the virus that it existed for two or three years prior to the pandemic. But further work convinced him that the virus emerged only a few months prior to the pandemic (personal communication with the author from J Taubenberger, June 5th 2003).
So if the contemporary observers were correct, if American troops carried the virus to Europe, where in the United States did it begin?
Both contemporary epidemiological studies and lay histories of the pandemic have identified the first known outbreak of epidemic influenza as occurring at Camp Funston, now Ft. Riley, in Kansas. But there was one place where a previously unknown – and remarkable – epidemic of influenza occurred.
Haskell County, Kansas, lay three hundred miles to the west of Funston. There the smell of manure meant civilization. People raised grains, poultry, cattle, and hogs. Sod-houses were so common that even one of the county's few post offices was located in a dug-out sod home. In 1918 the population was just 1,720, spread over 578 square miles. But primitive and raw as life could be there, science had penetrated the county in the form of Dr. Loring Miner. Enamored of ancient Greece – he periodically reread the classics in Greek – he epitomized William Welch's comment that "the results [of medical education] were better than the system." His son was also a doctor, trained in fully scientific ways, serving in the Navy in Boston.
In late January and early February 1918 Miner was suddenly faced with an epidemic of influenza, but an influenza unlike any he had ever seen before. Soon dozens of his patients – the strongest, the healthiest, the most robust people in the county – were being struck down as suddenly as if they had been shot. Then one patient progressed to pneumonia. Then another. And they began to die. The local paper Santa Fe Monitor, apparently worried about hurting morale in wartime, initially said little about the deaths but on inside pages in February reported, "Mrs. Eva Van Alstine is sick with pneumonia. Her little son Roy is now able to get up... Ralph Lindeman is still quite sick... Goldie Wolgehagen is working at the Beeman store during her sister Eva's sickness... Homer Moody has been reported quite sick... Mertin, the young son of Ernest Elliot, is sick with pneumonia... Pete Hesser's children are recovering nicely... Ralph McConnell has been quite sick this week (Santa Fe Monitor, February 14th, 1918)."
The epidemic got worse. Then, as abruptly as it came, it disappeared. Men and women returned to work. Children returned to school. And the war regained its hold on people's thoughts.
The disease did not, however, slip from Miner's thoughts. Influenza was neither a reportable disease, nor a disease that any state or federal public health agency tracked. Yet Miner considered this incarnation of the disease so dangerous that he warned national public health officials about it. Public Health Reports (now Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report), a weekly journal produced by the U.S. Public Health Service to alert health officials to outbreaks of communicable diseases throughout the world, published his warning. In the first six months of 1918, this would be the only reference in that journal to influenza anywhere in the world.
Historians and epidemiologists have previously ignored Haskell most likely because his report was not published until April and it referred to deaths on March 30, after influenza outbreaks elsewhere. In actuality, by then the county was free of influenza. Haskell County, Kansas, is the first recorded instance anywhere in the world of an outbreak of influenza so unusual that a physician warned public health officials. It remains the first recorded instance suggesting that a new virus was adapting, violently, to man.
If the virus did not originate in Haskell, there is no good explanation for how it arrived there. There were no other known outbreaks anywhere in the United States from which someone could have carried the disease to Haskell, and no suggestions of influenza outbreaks in either newspapers or reflected in vital statistics anywhere else in the region. And unlike the 1916 outbreak in France, one can trace with perfect definiteness the route of the virus from Haskell to the outside world.
All Army personnel from the county reported to Funston for training. Friends and family visited them at Funston. Soldiers came home on leave, then returned to Funston. The Monitor reported in late February, "Most everybody over the country is having lagrippe or pneumonia (Santa Fe Monitor, February 21st 1918)." It also noted, "Dean Nilson surprised his friends by arriving at home from Camp Funston on a five days furlough. Dean looks like soldier life agrees with him." He soon returned to the camp. Ernest Elliot left to visit his brother at Funston as his child fell ill. On February 28, John Bottom left for Funston. "We predict John will make an ideal soldier," said the paper (Santa Fe Monitor February 28th, 1918).
These men, and probably others unnamed by the paper, were exposed to influenza and would have arrived in Funston between February 26 and March 2. On March 4 the first soldier at the camp reported ill with influenza at sick call. The camp held an average of 56,222 troops. Within three weeks more than eleven hundred others were sick enough to require hospitalization, and thousands more – the precise number was not recorded – needed treatment at infirmaries scattered around the base.
Whether or not the Haskell virus did spread across the world, the timing of the Funston explosion strongly suggests that the influenza outbreak there did come from Haskell. Meanwhile Funston fed a constant stream of men to other American locations and to Europe, men whose business was killing. They would be more proficient at it than they knew.
Soldiers moved uninterrupted between Funston and the outside world, especially to other Army bases and France. On March 18, Camps Forrest and Greenleaf in Georgia saw their first cases of influenza and by the end of April twenty-four of the thirty-six main Army camps suffered an influenza epidemic [3]. Thirty of the fifty largest cities in the country also had an April spike in excess mortality from influenza and pneumonia [7]. Although this spring wave was generally mild – the killing second wave struck in the fall – there were still some disturbing findings. A subsequent Army study said, "At this time the fulminating pneumonia, with wet hemorrhagic lungs, fatal in from 24 to 48 hours, was first observed [8]." (Pathology reports suggest what we now call ARDS.) The first recorded autopsy in Chicago of an influenza victim was conducted in early April. The pathologist noted, "The lungs were full of hemorrhages." He found this unusual enough to ask the then-editor of The Journal of Infectious Diseases "to look over it as a new disease" [3].
By then, influenza was erupting in France, first at Brest, the single largest port of disembarkation for American troops. By then, as MacFarlane Burnet later said, "It is convenient to follow the story of influenza at this period mainly in regard to the army experiences in America and Europe [6]."
The fact that the 1918 pandemic likely began in the United States matters because it tells investigators where to look for a new virus. They must look everywhere.
In recent years the World Health Organization and local public health authorities have intervened several times when new influenza viruses have infected man. These interventions have prevented the viruses from adapting to man and igniting a new pandemic. But only 83 countries in the world – less than half – participate in WHO's surveillance system (WHO's flunet website http://rhone.b3e.jussieu.fr/flunet/www/docs.html). While some monitoring occurs even in those countries not formally affiliated with WHO's surveillance system, it is hardly adequate. If the virus did cross into man in a sparsely populated region of Kansas, and not in a densely populated region of Asia, then such an animal-to-man cross-over can happen anywhere. And unless WHO gets more resources and political leaders move aggressively on the diplomatic front, then a new pandemic really is all too inevitable.
Go to:
References
Barry JM. The Great Influenza: the Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. First. New York: Viking; 2004. [Google Scholar]
Oxford JS. The so-called Great Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918 may have originated in France in 1916. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2001;356:1857–1859. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2001.1012. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
Jordan E. Epidemic influenza. First. Chicago: AMA; 1927. [Google Scholar]
Outbreak of influenza, Madagascar, July-August 2002. Euro Surveill. 2002;7:172–174. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Thomson D, Thomson R. Influenza Annals of the Pickett-Thomson Research Laboratory. First. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkens; 1934. [Google Scholar]
Burnet FM, Clark E. Influenza: a survey of the last fifty years. Melbourne.: Macmillan Co; 1942. [Google Scholar]
Collins SD, Frost WH, Gover M, Sydenstricker E. Mortality from influenza and pneumonia in the 50 largest cities of the United States. First. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1930. [Google Scholar]
Ireland MW. Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War – Communicable diseases. First. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1928. [Google Scholar]****
-
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/sweden-become-worlds-cautionary-tale-121752098.html?.tsrc=fauxdal
-
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stephen-green/2020/07/13/hcq-helps-contain-covid-19-cases-new-evidence-and-a-major-retraction-n636361
-
very interesting GM
thanks
we were just discussing hydroxyC on our internal system.
-
https://money.yahoo.com/coronavirus-contact-tracing-new-york-imposes-2000-fine-for-certain-outofstate-travelers-193449643.html?guccounter=1
-
A FB doctor friend writes in response to some questions of mine:
"Containment and extinction' have been possible, described in multiple models, and either has occurred or is occurring in numerous countries. The US is failing at this because of its lack of central and coordinated response, and the reason the first wave of this outbreak continues to crest here is because of profound mismanagement. The places that have been successful used a lockdown to drop R0, while implementing universal masking, ramping up testing, and putting the infrastructure in to contact trace and isolate. South Korea is an excellent example of this.
"There are at the very least tens of thousands of deaths this administration is responsible and there will likely be north of 100,000 avoidable deaths by 2021, how far we have yet to see.
"Our outcomes are bad, and about to get much worse."
-
Leftist talking point garbage.
A FB doctor friend writes in response to some questions of mine:
"Containment and extinction' have been possible, described in multiple models, and either has occurred or is occurring in numerous countries. The US is failing at this because of its lack of central and coordinated response, and the reason the first wave of this outbreak continues to crest here is because of profound mismanagement. The places that have been successful used a lockdown to drop R0, while implementing universal masking, ramping up testing, and putting the infrastructure in to contact trace and isolate. South Korea is an excellent example of this.
"There are at the very least tens of thousands of deaths this administration is responsible and there will likely be north of 100,000 avoidable deaths by 2021, how far we have yet to see.
"Our outcomes are bad, and about to get much worse."
-
very interesting GM
thanks
we were just discussing hydroxyC on our internal system.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2020/07/15/media-should-do-a-mea-culpa-as-french-analysis-offers-a-stunning-observation-about-hydroxychloroquine-use-n643181
-
https://www.theblaze.com/news/florida-department-of-health-exposed-for-massively-over-reporting-positive-covid-cases
corruption or incompetence
both lead to confusion
and people being Pissed off
-
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/july/16/the-false-positive-fueled-panic-over-covid-19/
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wegZJI6NvpU
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wegZJI6NvpU
That doesn't make sense to me that there is no difference between mask N95 and no mask.
-
:-o
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0714-americans-to-wear-masks.html
for now I would recommend mask
for me I would wait for the infectious disease people to, en mass, state masks are of no help
not a cardiologist who is a frequent guest on Laura Ingraham.
-
If I have it right this guy either doesn't read for comprehension or is dishonest.
For example read the text at 03:03. The lack of difference is not between masks and no masks, it is between N95s and medical masks.
He makes the same mistake/deception elsewhere in the video.
-
https://www.ftportfolios.com/Common/ContentFileLoader.aspx?ContentGUID=54784fdd-2b3e-4a9d-87ff-d553fb9a6c3d
-
Third post
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/07/america-should-prepare-double-pandemic/166924/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
-
Assess:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/07/01/research-determines-protests-did-not-cause-spike-in-coronavirus-cases/
-
good charts from Wesbury
as for protests not causing increase in corona
if true , lucky for the leftist media mob
the pricks
-
Assess:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/07/01/research-determines-protests-did-not-cause-spike-in-coronavirus-cases/
https://patriactionary.wordpress.com/2020/07/18/wuflu-testing-so-powerful-that-you-dont-even-need-to-take-it-to-be-ruled-positive-you-just-need-to-be-registered-to-take-it/
Totally trustworthy!
-
====================================
Behind the HHS-CDC Disagreement
An interagency feud over key data demonstrates the inadequacy of U.S. efforts to prepare for a pandemic.
By Scott Gottlieb
July 19, 2020 5:24 pm ET
The Covid epidemic in the South has strained the country’s capacity to keep up with the demand for testing. Six months into the pandemic, we still don’t have enough supplies, equipment or lab services. There’s no national plan for effectively allocating the capacity that does exist or providing a sufficient surge where it’s needed suddenly.
The system is overwhelmed. Major commercial labs are reporting turnaround times of around seven days, and patients say it’s often longer. Without a confirmed diagnosis, many infected patients don’t isolate themselves or get treatments.
The intelligence community has warned for years that pandemic disease was a national-security threat on par with that of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and cyberattacks. It’s essential to increase American capacity to detect these events, contain them, and manufacture reliable countermeasures.
The Health and Human Services Department acknowledged some of these challenges last week when it announced a change in how hospitals report Covid data to the government. HHS bypassed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the lead agency for collecting, analyzing and sharing data on emerging infectious threats. The move reflected frustration with the CDC’s capacity to analyze and share information, which relies on systems so antiquated that some hospitals had to fax in results.
According to my sources, the final straw came when the CDC told administration officials that it was unable to report the age breakdowns for those being hospitalized for Covid until the end of August. But rather than reform the CDC’s system, HHS is trying to re-create the data set using private contractors, a less than ideal strategy. In what appears to be a moment of pique, the CDC said it would stop posting its analysis altogether—a move it later recanted.
On testing, we largely depend on commercial labs. But screening demand has increased sharply, and when the epidemics emerged in the South, there was little capacity for a surge into these states. We still don’t have enough reagents, pipettes and test tubes to run the PCR tests that form the basis of most drive-through testing sites. Demand for Covid testing will surge as flu season arrives.
The country is betting on vaccines that look increasingly probable based on clinical data, but are unlikely to be available for widespread distribution this year. Meanwhile, therapeutic antibodies, which are in advanced development by four different manufacturers, could serve as both a treatment and a prophylaxis to prevent infection in those at highest risk. But there isn’t enough U.S. manufacturing capacity to produce these drugs in the quantities needed to use them as a stopgap if a vaccine is delayed, and it’s probably too late to ramp supply significantly for this year.
These gaps highlight the need to treat health security with the same gravity as other threats of national importance. We need to invest in a domestic supply chain for diagnostic testing equipment and laboratory services and develop some mothballed capacity to handle a surge in demand.
Also important: developing new capabilities and technologies for monitoring and responding to emerging infections. My colleague Caitlin Rivers of Johns Hopkins has proposed a national modeling and forecasting service, fashioned after the National Weather Service, which would keep tabs on emerging pathogens, assess the risk that travelers would import cases into the U.S., and map out responses to different scenarios of spread.
Finally, we need incentives to bring manufacturing capacity back to the U.S. We need the ability to make large quantities of vaccines and biologics domestically. The ability of some nations to respond more effectively than the U.S. has created a public-health, economic and security risk. A pandemic has long been feared, and the U.S. wasn’t ready when it finally arrived.
Dr. Gottlieb is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, 2017-19. He serves on the boards of Pfizer and Illumina and is a partner at the venture-capital firm New Enterprise Associates.
-
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/uk-to-buy-90-million-doses-of-coronavirus-vaccine-ts5lqx5pk
Journal)
A coronavirus vaccine could be available this year, Oxford University researchers said yesterday after a “milestone” clinical trial produced encouraging results. The vaccine stimulated “robust immune responses” and there were no serious side-effects in a phase-one trial involving about 1,100 healthy volunteers. The subjects displayed sufficient levels of neutralizing antibodies, thought to be critical in protecting against viral infection, to give researchers grounds for optimism. A second important aspect of the immune system, T-cells, were also mobilized, according to a study in The Lancet. (via Times of London,
-
“Florida and Texas are on track to have the same number of confirmed cases as the state of New York — which has more cases than anywhere in the country. Yet, Texas and Florida will have 1/10th of the death rate of New York.”
https://www.outkick.com/coronavirus-data-in-texas-florida-prove-how-disastrous-new-york-handled-pandemic/
-
".Yet, Texas and Florida will have 1/10th of the death rate of New York.”
Yet Fauci has nothing but praise for Mario's kid.
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/21/donald-trump-wear-a-mask-they-have-an-impact/
that wasn't so hard was it?
he could have mentioned distancing tho .
If only 8 weeks ago............
Now the damage is done.....
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/covid-19-why-you-cant-compare-us-stats-to-other-countries-2_3432794.html?utm_source=CCPVirusNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-07-23
-
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/
-
second
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/07/study-covid-19-antibodies-decay-quickly-after-mild-illness
-
third
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jul/23/federal-prison-had-75-coronavirus-infection-rate/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=20171227&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning&bt_ee=v%2FauUcVp7DjB7qGdkvqSEt5twBpB8fm%2Bpbf3CHIHihtc4BiNBfzJliri1Fm9R73l&bt_ts=1595611710138
-
https://www.ftportfolios.com/Common/ContentFileLoader.aspx?ContentGUID=e02800d4-0d6f-4367-8534-6c223cb1e0eb
-
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases-50-states
Johns Hopkins finds recent new cases are falling in Iowa and Utah and falling faster and longer in FLORIDA, ARIZONA AND SOUTH CAROLINA.
-
https://www.popsci.com/story/science/preparing-for-next-pandemic/?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=email&tp=i-1NGB-Et-Pfc-13dJ8g-1c-gcVB-1c-13dGfe-l4toYGskJB-7YID7
-
second
Good morning. Hong Kong, Japan and Australia have all reported new highs for daily infections, showing how difficult it can be to keep Covid-19 at bay—even in places lauded for taking early and decisive action. Meanwhile, in parts of the world where the virus is spreading fastest, the higher transmission rate may speed up the race to prove whether experimental vaccines work.
-
third
https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-shows-the-need-for-a-diagnostic-stockpile-11595795375?mod=opinion_lead_pos7
Covid Shows the Need for a Diagnostic Stockpile
Congress can meet the current surge in demand for testing and be ready for the next pandemic.
By Scott Gottlieb and Mark McClellan
July 26, 2020 4:29 pm ET
SAVE
PRINT
TEXT
30
Health-care workers prepare a Covid-19 test sample in Miami, July 23.
PHOTO: DAVID SANTIAGO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A surge in demand for Covid-19 tests is straining supplies, and patients have to wait too long for results. LabCorp, which handles about 25% of U.S. Covid testing, is adding more machines and employees and is running 180,000 tests a day, up from a few thousand a week in March. Quest and BioReference Laboratories are also overextended.
The ability to coordinate a surge in testing capacity is essential in a medical crisis. This isn’t the first time an epidemic has put stress on capabilities. In 2015, the mosquito-borne Zika infection strained the ability of public-health and commercial labs to develop and deploy tests, including for asymptomatic patients. Covid is much more widespread, and more testing is required since many with the virus show no symptoms.
Over the next few weeks, Congress will consider legislation to help get through the next phase of the pandemic. Lawmakers can alleviate the current shortages and shore up the ability to respond to future pandemics with adequate testing.
Like ensuring supplies of pharmaceuticals and personal protective gear such as masks, this is a matter of national security. The government already pays manufacturers to ensure a permanent supply of certain medical products. One example is Neupogen, a drug used to reconstitute white blood cells in chemotherapy patients. In a dirty bomb attack, it can treat people whose bone marrow has been poisoned by radiation. The drug’s manufacturer, Amgen, built a network of hardened domestic manufacturing sites. Amgen’s contracts with the feds bake in a margin to support guarantees that supply will always be available.
Similarly, Washington could contract with commercial labs and point-of-care test manufacturers to develop and maintain diagnostic capacity for a crisis. Think of it as part of the national stockpile. Under such contracts, companies would build more labs and sprinkle them throughout the country so capacity could be available wherever it’s needed. Labs usually run very efficiently at 70% or 80% of capacity. Under this arrangement, a facility with 5,000 testing machines might run each of them at 60% capacity, building in room for a surge. The federal government would pay the labs for maintaining the extra equipment and materials.
The federal government could also offer capacity contracts to manufacturers of point-of-care tests to maintain sufficient platforms to use in screening settings, such as workplaces and schools.
For now, Congress should allocate money to buy screening capacity in bulk for the next year. Unlike diagnostic tests ordered by a physician based on symptoms or a known exposure, screening tests are used in broad populations such as workers or students. Such tests generally aren’t covered by insurance. The White House, professional sports leagues, and some businesses can afford to cover the costs, but that isn’t a viable option for public transit systems, schools or other essential businesses. More such screening is also needed in low-income neighborhoods, where infection and death rates are often higher.
Providing advance funding for such large-scale screening would complement the “prizes” offered by National Institutes of Health for developing better and cheaper rapid tests. It would send a strong signal to the companies investing in these areas that there will be demand for their products. More investment in rapid screening options would also reduce the burden on labs. These options might be readily available and as accurate as lab tests by the time the next pandemic arrives.
There’s also unused research-lab capacity that could be converted to run screening tests. These labs aren’t certified to diagnose patients but could be recruited to run pooled tests of a large number of people. Universities are using research facilities to test students. With proper oversight and quality control, these tests could be used in settings where the risk of spread is high but screening asymptomatic people is unrealistic because there isn’t enough capacity to test even those with symptoms.
America’s lack of preparation for the pandemic had devastating health and economic consequences. We can build the capacities to prevent this from happening again.
Dr. Gottlieb, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and partner at New Enterprise Associates, was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, 2017-19. Dr. McClellan is the director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University and was FDA commissioner, 2002-04. They are board members and advisers for several health-care companies.
-
By: Alex Berezow
Twelve Diseases That Changed Our World
By Irwin Sherman
Modern society is far removed from the reality of death. That was not the case for the vast majority of human history, when parents would produce multiple offspring in the hope that a few might survive to adulthood. Well into the 20th century, infectious diseases cut lives tragically short, often in gruesome ways, radically transforming the course of human history in ways that are underappreciated in textbooks.
This is the focus of a book written by emeritus biology professor Irwin Sherman called "Twelve Diseases That Changed Our World," which was originally published in 2007 but has taken on renewed relevance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sherman masterfully interweaves explanations of the biology and epidemiology of the diseases with accounts, taken from historians or eyewitnesses, that are nauseatingly descriptive.
For instance, a passage describes yellow fever, a viral infection transmitted by mosquitoes, thus: “Slowly, the patient’s skin turned yellow and patches of the inside of his mouth began to ooze blood.” A pan was kept by the bedside to “catch the black vomit, a mixture of blood and digestive juices.” Fevers could spike as high as 105 degrees Fahrenheit.
This horrifying disease greatly influenced the geopolitics of the Western Hemisphere on at least two occasions. On the first, it scuttled Napoleon Bonaparte’s plan for a North American empire after the virus felled perhaps 50,000 French troops in Haiti who were deployed to put down a slave rebellion. Because an invasion of the continent was contingent on an established presence in Haiti, Napoleon gave up and sold Louisiana to the United States. On the second occasion, France again was victimized by the virus. Unable to complete the Panama Canal after about 22,000 workers died, mainly from yellow fever, the French sold everything to the United States. Colombia opposed the deal, but the Panamanians did not, so the U.S. and France encouraged the Panamanians to revolt. Panama declared independence, and the U.S. signed a treaty with Panama instead of Colombia.
Other infectious diseases that have left an indelible mark on history include cholera, which led to the development of national public health systems and to organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross, and malaria, which protected Rome from foreign invaders and played a role in major wars throughout world history. Many infectious diseases were blamed on foreigners. The French and Italians blamed each other for syphilis, the Russians blamed the Poles, the Japanese blamed the Chinese, and the English blamed the Spanish. Americans blamed Jews for tuberculosis.
Of the 12 diseases Sherman discusses, two are genetic: hemophilia and porphyria. Both affect the blood, and both caused problems for monarchies across Europe. Porphyria, for example, may have been responsible for the “madness” of King George III. Though it probably didn’t cause him to lose the American colonies, it likely played a role in the (Protestant) king’s oppression of Irish Catholics, and a mutual animosity exists between them to this day.
Intriguingly, toward the end of the book, Sherman predicts a major pandemic and describes the fallout: “t will seriously impact our lives: hospital facilities will be overwhelmed because medical personnel will also become sick … reserves of vaccines and drugs will soon be depleted, leaving most people vulnerable to infection. There will be social and economic disruptions.”
Prophetic, yes. But he was speaking of influenza, not of COVID-19. Correct prognosis, wrong virus.
Alex Berezow, analyst
-
Temper Those Early Vaccine Expectations
Nearly $6 billion has been allocated. Clinical trials are entering a crucial third phase. And Operation Warp Speed is getting closer to the goal of delivering 300 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine by January.
But when Americans line up for their immunizations, the vaccine they receive might not be what they expect. The popular notion of a vaccine — a shot in the arm that prevents diseases such as measles, polio or shingles for years or a lifetime — may not apply.
Under recently released federal guidelines, a COVID-19 vaccine can be authorized for use if it is safe and proves effective in as few as 50% of those who receive it. And “effective” doesn’t necessarily mean stopping people from getting sick from COVID-19. Much like a flu shot, it means minimizing its most serious symptoms, experts say.
Although there is no way to predict what lies ahead, the first round of COVID-19 vaccines will probably not eliminate the need for other public health measures such as masks and social distancing.
-
In my email yeterday:
Requirements for Dispensing or Selling Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine in Ohio
July 30, 2020
As a result of the feedback received by the medical and patient community and at the request of Governor DeWine, the State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy has withdrawn proposed rule 4729:5-5-21 of the Administrative Code. Therefore, prohibitions on the prescribing of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in Ohio for the treatment of COVID-19 will not take effect at this time.
This will allow the Pharmacy Board to reexamine the issue with the assistance of the State Medical Board of Ohio, clinical experts, and other stakeholders to determine appropriate next steps.
Licensees should be aware that emergency rule 4729-5-30.2 is no longer effective and the requirements of that rule, including the inclusion of a diagnosis code on any prescription for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, are no longer applicable.
-
https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/31/covid-19-vaccine-amazingly-close-why-am-i-so-worried/
I don't know if risk is "quite likely" as this author states
but it is possible in my view as a nonacademic not specialist primary doctor.
remember swine flu vaccine that causes neurologic disorder called Guillian Barre?
that said I feel Trump's support of a vaccine as soon as possible has unlocked American ingenuity
I would trust a vaccine from China less........
-
https://scottgrannis.blogspot.com/2020/07/highly-recommended-reading.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FtMBeq+%28Calafia+Beach+Pundit%29
-
https://scottgrannis.blogspot.com/2020/07/highly-recommended-reading.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FtMBeq+%28Calafia+Beach+Pundit%29
Interesting stuff including troll comments. I don't think comparing ourselves to Sweden or comparing Sweden to two neighbors is the key, but all the trends give us things to ponder.
What if we did the initial 14-15 day lockdown, really. Wouldn't that isolate every known case? far better yet, what if we did a real 14 day lockdown every time a facilities capacity crisis hit in each locality. Interrupt the spread. What if we did a lockdown of the vulnerable, voluntarily. What if Trump's predecessor hadn't used up the masks or at least told his successor in transition to order those before it's too late. What if the Chinese hadn't lied, if the WHO wasn't a criminal enterprise, if the FDA didn't work constantly against the best interests of the people? What if we had tried to cure the common cold instead of going to the moon or whatever, and been better, earlier with virus treatments? What if we at least had hand sanitizers plentiful, everywhere. What if we hadn't exploded the deficit and devalued the country?
What if we said that if you shut down revenues to the Treasury we will shut down disbursements? What if we had listened to Sen Bill Frist 15 years ago??
https://americanmind.org/essays/a-storm-for-which-we-were-unprepared/
What are the death numbers if you take away state-run long term care facilities?
Shutting down the economy in places and times that were essentially at zero risk yielded essentially zero gain with enormous cost.
(https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/images/nvss/KeyStats2018_Table-002.png)
This is 2018. What is it now?
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/images/nvss/KeyStats2018_Table-002.png
United States - Historical Death Rate Data Pre-Covid
Year Death Rate Growth Rate
2019 8.782 1.120%
2018 8.685 1.220%
2017 8.580 1.240%
'Experts say' death rate (overall) has grown under coronavirus more than is attributable to coronavirus. But no one will say lockdowns kill?
-
https://www.ftportfolios.com/Common/ContentFileLoader.aspx?ContentGUID=401e10ae-8d93-4576-bf9e-dad298f0e060
-
second post
I'm pro-mask, but this article raises legit questions:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hidden-danger-of-masks-11596561689?mod=opinion_lead_pos5
Face masks have become a cultural symbol. To resist them “is nothing more than selfish, libertarian nonsense masquerading as a comic-book defense of freedom,” Thomas Friedman of the New York Times proclaims. Yet the science is far less certain than the moralism.
The question of how well masks prevent transmission and infection requires far more study. The decision to wear a mask would seem to be cost-free, apart from minor discomfort. But absolutism about masks and disregard for scientific uncertainties may promote a false sense of security that encourages risky behavior—including massive political protests.
In February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended against wearing face masks and instead urged Americans to “take everyday preventive actions” like staying home when sick and washing hands. These recommendations were guided by the government’s desire to conserve medical masks for health-care workers.
The CDC changed its recommendation in April based on lab tests showing that cloth masks reduce the distance that large respiratory droplets travel after a cough. Like the flu, Covid-19 is believed to be transmitted mainly through these large droplets.
Media figures and public-health officials have also observed that countries where face-mask use is more prevalent have lower infections. In June, the New York Times ran a story with the headline “Is the Secret to Japan’s Virus Success Right in Front of Its Face?” Its answer: Yes. But this piece drew conclusions based on mere correlations. According to a YouGov survey in late June, face-mask use was higher in the U.S. (59%) than in countries with fewer infections, including Taiwan (57%), France (54%), Canada (35%), Netherlands (9%) and Denmark (2%). And Japan (77%) and Hong Kong (83%) have experienced recent infection spikes.
A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association this month reported that a universal mask policy for health-care workers and patients at the Mass General Brigham hospital system reduced Covid-19 infections. The positive test rate among health-care workers peaked at 21.32% in March, declined to 14.65% after masks were mandated for workers, and dropped further, to 11.46%, in late April after the mask mandate extended to patients.
But these numbers roughly track the overall positive test rate in the state. The study notes that the improvements “could be confounded by other interventions inside and outside of the health care system, such as restrictions on elective procedures, social distancing measures, and increased masking in public spaces, which are limitations of this study.”
The only way to ascertain the efficacy of face masks in the real world is to do randomized trials. So far there have been only a dozen examining the efficacy of masks in preventing respiratory illnesses, and conclusions have been difficult to draw because of poor compliance by study participants. None of the six trials published over the past decade found that masks alone had a significant effect on the spread of the flu or similar illnesses in health-care workers or the general population.
The only trial with reusable cloth masks suggested they’re ineffective. They could even increase the risk. In the 2015 study, hospital workers in Vietnam who were given cloth masks were 13 times as likely to develop influenza-like illnesses as those given surgical masks. Face masks are speculated to be more useful in preventing Covid-19 because many infected people are asymptomatic. But some three-fourths of flu cases are also asymptomatic, and most people who develop symptoms are infectious for a couple of days first.
A new independent analysis of cloth masks’ efficacy on the CDC website notes that the mask in the Vietnam trial was “a locally manufactured, double-layered cotton mask”—similar to what many Americans buy today—and that higher infection rates among wearers “may have been because the masks were not washed frequently enough or because they became moist and contaminated.”
“Cloth masks may give users a false sense of protection because of their limited protection against acquiring infection,” the researchers write. “Taking a mask off is a high-risk process because pathogens may be present on the outer surface of the mask and may result in self-contamination during removal.”
This is an important caveat: Fiddling with masks can be more dangerous than not wearing one at all. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that “elementary students should wear face coverings if the risk of touching their mouth or nose is not greater than the benefit of reducing the spread of COVID-19.” But the point is lost amid simplistic moralizing about selfish libertarians.
While mask mandates provide a comfort level that is needed to get people back to work and resume economic activity, they may also induce a false sense of security. In early April, as the Trump administration was debating whether to change its guidance on masks, Deborah Birx of the White House virus task force warned that “we don’t want people to get an artificial sense of protection because they’re behind a mask” or “send a signal that we think a mask is equivalent” to social distancing and good hygiene.
Liberal politicians—who railed against antilockdown protests in the spring—have dismissed concerns that leftist demonstrations could spread infection, because participants are wearing masks. But not all are, and many masks aren’t fitted correctly. Protesters probably don’t wash them regularly. And masks don’t eliminate the risk of contagion when large numbers of people are crowded for long periods while talking loudly and breathing heavily.
Masks have benefits, but moralism can be harmful to public health.
Ms. Finley is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
-
https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-which-never-had-lockdown-sees-covid-19-cases-plummet-rest-europe-suffers-spike-1521626
-
Masks are just a placeholder until the tracking beacons are ready for surgical implantation on a large scale.
Only half joking.
second post
I'm pro-mask, but this article raises legit questions:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hidden-danger-of-masks-11596561689?mod=opinion_lead_pos5
Face masks have become a cultural symbol. To resist them “is nothing more than selfish, libertarian nonsense masquerading as a comic-book defense of freedom,” Thomas Friedman of the New York Times proclaims. Yet the science is far less certain than the moralism.
The question of how well masks prevent transmission and infection requires far more study. The decision to wear a mask would seem to be cost-free, apart from minor discomfort. But absolutism about masks and disregard for scientific uncertainties may promote a false sense of security that encourages risky behavior—including massive political protests.
In February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended against wearing face masks and instead urged Americans to “take everyday preventive actions” like staying home when sick and washing hands. These recommendations were guided by the government’s desire to conserve medical masks for health-care workers.
The CDC changed its recommendation in April based on lab tests showing that cloth masks reduce the distance that large respiratory droplets travel after a cough. Like the flu, Covid-19 is believed to be transmitted mainly through these large droplets.
Media figures and public-health officials have also observed that countries where face-mask use is more prevalent have lower infections. In June, the New York Times ran a story with the headline “Is the Secret to Japan’s Virus Success Right in Front of Its Face?” Its answer: Yes. But this piece drew conclusions based on mere correlations. According to a YouGov survey in late June, face-mask use was higher in the U.S. (59%) than in countries with fewer infections, including Taiwan (57%), France (54%), Canada (35%), Netherlands (9%) and Denmark (2%). And Japan (77%) and Hong Kong (83%) have experienced recent infection spikes.
A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association this month reported that a universal mask policy for health-care workers and patients at the Mass General Brigham hospital system reduced Covid-19 infections. The positive test rate among health-care workers peaked at 21.32% in March, declined to 14.65% after masks were mandated for workers, and dropped further, to 11.46%, in late April after the mask mandate extended to patients.
But these numbers roughly track the overall positive test rate in the state. The study notes that the improvements “could be confounded by other interventions inside and outside of the health care system, such as restrictions on elective procedures, social distancing measures, and increased masking in public spaces, which are limitations of this study.”
The only way to ascertain the efficacy of face masks in the real world is to do randomized trials. So far there have been only a dozen examining the efficacy of masks in preventing respiratory illnesses, and conclusions have been difficult to draw because of poor compliance by study participants. None of the six trials published over the past decade found that masks alone had a significant effect on the spread of the flu or similar illnesses in health-care workers or the general population.
The only trial with reusable cloth masks suggested they’re ineffective. They could even increase the risk. In the 2015 study, hospital workers in Vietnam who were given cloth masks were 13 times as likely to develop influenza-like illnesses as those given surgical masks. Face masks are speculated to be more useful in preventing Covid-19 because many infected people are asymptomatic. But some three-fourths of flu cases are also asymptomatic, and most people who develop symptoms are infectious for a couple of days first.
A new independent analysis of cloth masks’ efficacy on the CDC website notes that the mask in the Vietnam trial was “a locally manufactured, double-layered cotton mask”—similar to what many Americans buy today—and that higher infection rates among wearers “may have been because the masks were not washed frequently enough or because they became moist and contaminated.”
“Cloth masks may give users a false sense of protection because of their limited protection against acquiring infection,” the researchers write. “Taking a mask off is a high-risk process because pathogens may be present on the outer surface of the mask and may result in self-contamination during removal.”
This is an important caveat: Fiddling with masks can be more dangerous than not wearing one at all. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that “elementary students should wear face coverings if the risk of touching their mouth or nose is not greater than the benefit of reducing the spread of COVID-19.” But the point is lost amid simplistic moralizing about selfish libertarians.
While mask mandates provide a comfort level that is needed to get people back to work and resume economic activity, they may also induce a false sense of security. In early April, as the Trump administration was debating whether to change its guidance on masks, Deborah Birx of the White House virus task force warned that “we don’t want people to get an artificial sense of protection because they’re behind a mask” or “send a signal that we think a mask is equivalent” to social distancing and good hygiene.
Liberal politicians—who railed against antilockdown protests in the spring—have dismissed concerns that leftist demonstrations could spread infection, because participants are wearing masks. But not all are, and many masks aren’t fitted correctly. Protesters probably don’t wash them regularly. And masks don’t eliminate the risk of contagion when large numbers of people are crowded for long periods while talking loudly and breathing heavily.
Masks have benefits, but moralism can be harmful to public health.
Ms. Finley is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
-
https://mises.org/wire/lockdowns-great-reset
Masks are just a placeholder until the tracking beacons are ready for surgical implantation on a large scale.
Only half joking.
second post
I'm pro-mask, but this article raises legit questions:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hidden-danger-of-masks-11596561689?mod=opinion_lead_pos5
Face masks have become a cultural symbol. To resist them “is nothing more than selfish, libertarian nonsense masquerading as a comic-book defense of freedom,” Thomas Friedman of the New York Times proclaims. Yet the science is far less certain than the moralism.
The question of how well masks prevent transmission and infection requires far more study. The decision to wear a mask would seem to be cost-free, apart from minor discomfort. But absolutism about masks and disregard for scientific uncertainties may promote a false sense of security that encourages risky behavior—including massive political protests.
In February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended against wearing face masks and instead urged Americans to “take everyday preventive actions” like staying home when sick and washing hands. These recommendations were guided by the government’s desire to conserve medical masks for health-care workers.
The CDC changed its recommendation in April based on lab tests showing that cloth masks reduce the distance that large respiratory droplets travel after a cough. Like the flu, Covid-19 is believed to be transmitted mainly through these large droplets.
Media figures and public-health officials have also observed that countries where face-mask use is more prevalent have lower infections. In June, the New York Times ran a story with the headline “Is the Secret to Japan’s Virus Success Right in Front of Its Face?” Its answer: Yes. But this piece drew conclusions based on mere correlations. According to a YouGov survey in late June, face-mask use was higher in the U.S. (59%) than in countries with fewer infections, including Taiwan (57%), France (54%), Canada (35%), Netherlands (9%) and Denmark (2%). And Japan (77%) and Hong Kong (83%) have experienced recent infection spikes.
A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association this month reported that a universal mask policy for health-care workers and patients at the Mass General Brigham hospital system reduced Covid-19 infections. The positive test rate among health-care workers peaked at 21.32% in March, declined to 14.65% after masks were mandated for workers, and dropped further, to 11.46%, in late April after the mask mandate extended to patients.
But these numbers roughly track the overall positive test rate in the state. The study notes that the improvements “could be confounded by other interventions inside and outside of the health care system, such as restrictions on elective procedures, social distancing measures, and increased masking in public spaces, which are limitations of this study.”
The only way to ascertain the efficacy of face masks in the real world is to do randomized trials. So far there have been only a dozen examining the efficacy of masks in preventing respiratory illnesses, and conclusions have been difficult to draw because of poor compliance by study participants. None of the six trials published over the past decade found that masks alone had a significant effect on the spread of the flu or similar illnesses in health-care workers or the general population.
The only trial with reusable cloth masks suggested they’re ineffective. They could even increase the risk. In the 2015 study, hospital workers in Vietnam who were given cloth masks were 13 times as likely to develop influenza-like illnesses as those given surgical masks. Face masks are speculated to be more useful in preventing Covid-19 because many infected people are asymptomatic. But some three-fourths of flu cases are also asymptomatic, and most people who develop symptoms are infectious for a couple of days first.
A new independent analysis of cloth masks’ efficacy on the CDC website notes that the mask in the Vietnam trial was “a locally manufactured, double-layered cotton mask”—similar to what many Americans buy today—and that higher infection rates among wearers “may have been because the masks were not washed frequently enough or because they became moist and contaminated.”
“Cloth masks may give users a false sense of protection because of their limited protection against acquiring infection,” the researchers write. “Taking a mask off is a high-risk process because pathogens may be present on the outer surface of the mask and may result in self-contamination during removal.”
This is an important caveat: Fiddling with masks can be more dangerous than not wearing one at all. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that “elementary students should wear face coverings if the risk of touching their mouth or nose is not greater than the benefit of reducing the spread of COVID-19.” But the point is lost amid simplistic moralizing about selfish libertarians.
While mask mandates provide a comfort level that is needed to get people back to work and resume economic activity, they may also induce a false sense of security. In early April, as the Trump administration was debating whether to change its guidance on masks, Deborah Birx of the White House virus task force warned that “we don’t want people to get an artificial sense of protection because they’re behind a mask” or “send a signal that we think a mask is equivalent” to social distancing and good hygiene.
Liberal politicians—who railed against antilockdown protests in the spring—have dismissed concerns that leftist demonstrations could spread infection, because participants are wearing masks. But not all are, and many masks aren’t fitted correctly. Protesters probably don’t wash them regularly. And masks don’t eliminate the risk of contagion when large numbers of people are crowded for long periods while talking loudly and breathing heavily.
Masks have benefits, but moralism can be harmful to public health.
Ms. Finley is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
-
https://www.popsci.com/story/health/clear-masks-options-accessibility/?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=email&tp=i-1NGB-Et-PvF-14Rg9Q-1c-gcVB-1c-14Rdmk-l4wljAjYRI-1np0Gu
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4HSET82w9Y&feature=share
-
what is the Chinese Comms excuse for closing all flights to Beijing but allowing Chinese to fly around the world bringing the virus to Europe, etc?
-
what is the Chinese Comms excuse for closing all flights to Beijing but allowing Chinese to fly around the world bringing the virus to Europe, etc?
THIS is the smoking gun.
-
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-china-compete-us-sources
Sources believe coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan lab as part of China's efforts to compete with US
Bret Baier By Bret Baier, Gregg Re
EXCLUSIVE: There is increasing confidence that the COVID-19 outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory, though not as a bioweapon but as part of China's attempt to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States, multiple sources who have been briefed on the details of early actions by China's government and seen relevant materials tell Fox News.
This may be the "costliest government cover-up of all time," one of the sources said.
The sources believe the initial transmission of the virus – a naturally occurring strain that was being studied there – was bat-to-human and that "patient zero" worked at the laboratory, then went into the population in Wuhan.
The “increasing confidence” comes from classified and open-source documents and evidence, the sources said. Fox News has requested to see the evidence directly. Sources emphasized -- as is often the case with intelligence -- that it’s not definitive and should not be characterized as such. Some inside the administration and the intelligence and epidemiological communities are more skeptical, and the investigation is continuing.
What all of the sources agree about is the extensive cover-up of data and information about COVID-19 orchestrated by the Chinese government.
-
I'm so old, I remember when this was a crazy conspiracy theory.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-china-compete-us-sources
Sources believe coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan lab as part of China's efforts to compete with US
Bret Baier By Bret Baier, Gregg Re
EXCLUSIVE: There is increasing confidence that the COVID-19 outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory, though not as a bioweapon but as part of China's attempt to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States, multiple sources who have been briefed on the details of early actions by China's government and seen relevant materials tell Fox News.
This may be the "costliest government cover-up of all time," one of the sources said.
The sources believe the initial transmission of the virus – a naturally occurring strain that was being studied there – was bat-to-human and that "patient zero" worked at the laboratory, then went into the population in Wuhan.
The “increasing confidence” comes from classified and open-source documents and evidence, the sources said. Fox News has requested to see the evidence directly. Sources emphasized -- as is often the case with intelligence -- that it’s not definitive and should not be characterized as such. Some inside the administration and the intelligence and epidemiological communities are more skeptical, and the investigation is continuing.
What all of the sources agree about is the extensive cover-up of data and information about COVID-19 orchestrated by the Chinese government.
-
This might have been my favorite scene from the movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2q0UPc1LhU4
when I see people on cable who like to blow off the epidemic
i feel like telling them
"there are people DYIN' up that road"
-
This might have been my favorite scene from the movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2q0UPc1LhU4
when I see people on cable who like to blow off the epidemic
i feel like telling them
"there are people DYIN' up that road"
And the vast majority are 85+ with serious health problems.
-
https://www.redstate.com/alexparker/2020/08/12/man-hotel-brazil-temperature-coronavirus-fight-desk-clerk-video-beaten-up-varginha/
-
A Deadly Coronavirus Was Inevitable. Why Was No One Ready?
Scientists warned of a pandemic for decades, yet when Covid-19 arrived, the world had few resources and little understanding
By Betsy McKay and Phred Dvorak
Aug. 13, 2020 9:29 am ET
Hunkered around conference tables at the World Health Organization’s Geneva headquarters, a group of scientists debated which of the world’s most frightening epidemic diseases deserved the greatest attention.
Ebola, a ferocious killer that drains its victims of bodily fluids, made the list. So did Nipah, which makes the brain swell before most of its victims die. So, too, did severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which burrows into the lungs, leaving the sick gasping for air.
At the end of the two-day gathering in February 2018, the group topped the list off with the most terrifying entry of all: Disease X.
It was meant to capture what scientists had warned about for decades: an unknown pathogen with no known treatment or cure that would likely originate in animals, jump to humans and start spreading silently and quickly.
Scientists couldn’t predict the precise genetic makeup of the pathogen, or when it would strike. But they knew it would come. A succession of outbreaks and near misses since the late 1990s, along with increasingly sophisticated scientific research, made clear a major pandemic was inevitable.
Researchers pinpointed hot spots, including southern China, where such a virus might originate. They had ideas about how it might begin infecting people and how easily transmissible it could be. They even had plans for how to detect and stop it.
When Disease X actually arrived, as Covid-19, governments, businesses, public-health officials and citizens soon found themselves in a state of chaos, battling an invisible enemy with few resources and little understanding—despite years of work that outlined almost exactly what the virus would look like and how to mitigate its impact.
Governments had ignored clear warnings and underfunded pandemic preparedness. They mostly reacted to outbreaks, instead of viewing new infectious diseases as major threats to national security. And they never developed a strong international system for managing epidemics, even though researchers said the nature of travel and trade would spread infection across borders.
The real-world Disease X has killed more than 750,000 and sickened more than 20 million. The virus and the response have wrecked economies, destroyed families and altered the fabric of daily life across the world.
Officials made mistakes earlier this year when the severity of the outbreak became clear. Some were understandable blunders made during a panic; others were simply blunders. Underlying it all was a failure that stretches back decades. Most everyone knew such an outcome was possible. And yet no one was prepared.
“They said we need strategies for ‘Disease X’ and gave it a cool name,” said Peter Daszak, a disease ecologist and virus hunter in New York who was at the 2018 WHO meeting. “The problem is, we never did anything about it.”
Two recent epidemics—SARS in 2002-03 and its viral cousin, Middle East respiratory syndrome, which emerged in 2012—made clear that coronaviruses were dangerous. Researchers including Dr. Daszak identified evidence of hundreds more coronaviruses that could strike, including one very similar to the virus causing the current pandemic.
“Essentially, SARS-CoV is alive and well in bats in Yunnan Province!” Dr. Daszak emailed officials at the WHO in 2015.
They found evidence over years of research that villagers in southern China were being exposed to coronaviruses. “They actually are infecting people,” Dr. Daszak said he told the WHO meeting in 2018, adding that with no pipeline for drugs or vaccines for the viruses, it was “a clear and present danger.”
Last year, a Chinese scientist he worked with published a specific forecast: “It is highly likely that future SARS- or MERS-like coronavirus outbreaks will originate from bats, and there is an increased probability that this will occur in China.”
Number of human infectious disease outbreaks by host type
Source: Journal of the Royal Society Interface
Originating in humans
Originating in animals
1981
'85
'90
'95
2000
'05
'10
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
Annual funding from America’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, for research on coronaviruses peaked after SARS and then fell for years, according to NIAID.
“The political and economic community took it for granted that everything could be dealt with,” said Malik Peiris, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong who has been on the front lines of epidemics for two decades.
More and more outbreaks
Humans today are exposed to more deadly new pathogens than ever. They typically come from animals, as global travel, trade and economic development, such as meat production and deforestation, push people, livestock and wildlife closer together. The human population has more than quadrupled since the 1918 flu pandemic.
Scientists knew infectious disease outbreaks were becoming more common, with 2010 having more than six times the outbreaks of pathogens from animal origins than in 1980, according to data in a study by Brown University researchers.
Dr. Daszak, who is president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit that studies connections between human and animal health and the environment, said three-quarters of the new diseases afflicting humans since 1960 have originated in animals.
In some ways, government leaders and scientists are far more prepared and smarter about pandemic risks than they were 20 years ago. Billions of dollars have been spent on technologies to make drugs and vaccines more quickly and to prevent and train for pandemics. Advances in genomics have made it easier to identify viruses quickly and track how they evolve.
Governments have plowed money into tracking new forms of influenza, which public-health leaders long considered the greatest pandemic risk. Influenza viruses are constantly circulating in animals and people, spread easily and can mix and mutate fast into forms potentially lethal to humans.
Ad hoc funding
Yet plenty was left undone, in areas including funding, early-warning systems, the role of the WHO and coordination with China. A big chunk of U.S. funding went toward protecting Americans against a bioterror attack. Government funding for pandemics has come largely in emergency, one-time packages to stop an ongoing outbreak.
Vaccine development has been hard to fund. Some might never earn profits for manufacturers because they are often distributed at low prices and are given less often than new drugs to treat lung cancer or diabetes.
Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID and a point man for the U.S. government on the Covid-19 response, put it plainly in an interview: “We undershot in our preparedness.”
Federal money to help U.S. states and cities prepare for pandemics and other emergencies fell 35% between fiscal 2003 and fiscal 2020.
Federal funds to prepare for emergencies, including pandemics
For U.S. states and local
public-health departments*
For U.S. hospital preparedness†
$1.0
billion
$1.0
billion
0.8
0.8
0.6
0.6
0.4
0.4
0.2
0.2
0
0
FY2003
’05
’07
’09
’11
’13
’15
’17
’19
’21
FY2003
’05
’07
’09
’11
’13
’15
’17
’19
’21
*CDC Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement Funding
†ASPR Hospital Preparedness Program Funding
Note: FY2020 figures are estimates; FY2021 are budgets.
Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
“We have a cycle of crisis, and then we become complacent, and [then] the tendency is for the focus and the investment to be repurposed for other issues,” said Julie Gerberding, who was director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2002 to 2009 and is now chief patient officer at Merck & Co.
She said a better solution would be to fund public health more like national defense, with much more guaranteed money, year in, year out.
A half-century ago, many scientists thought fearsome infectious scourges might be a thing of the past. Antibiotics and vaccines snuffed out outbreaks of polio, measles and other diseases. Smallpox was eradicated in 1980.
Funding for coronavirus research from NIAID
$500
million
After Covid-19
400
300
200
Surge
after SARS
Small pickup
after MERS
100
0
FY2000
’05
’10
’15
’20
Note: FY2020 figures are obligated supplemental funds.
Source: U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
But a new generation of viruses began to emerge in the late 1970s and early 1980s, such as HIV and Ebola. A 1992 report by a U.S. Institute of Medicine committee warned that infectious diseases were evolving and posed a global threat.
Prominent scientists, including influenza expert Robert Webster at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., rang alarm bells, and warned that pandemics like the 1918 flu—which killed an estimated 50 million people—would happen again.
A New Zealander, Dr. Webster, now 88 and considered an elder statesman of pandemic preparedness, had studied birds—ducks in Canada, penguins in Antarctica—showing how deadly viruses might hop from animals to humans, causing devastating disease. He commissioned a stained-glass window for his home showing that process.
“Will there be another human influenza pandemic?” Dr. Webster asked in a paper presented at an NIH meeting in 1995. “The certainty is that there will be.”
Over the next decades, a series of outbreaks would show how that scenario could unfold and how the official reaction was found wanting.
‘Spillover’ infections
In May 1997, a 3-year-old Hong Kong boy named Lam Hoi-ka came down with a sore throat, stomach pains, cough and fever. A week later, the boy was hospitalized, struggling for air. He developed double pneumonia, blood clots and kidney failure. Five days after being admitted, Hoi-ka died.
“We all thought it was something mild,” Hoi-ka’s father told the South China Morning Post. “They sent my son to the intensive care unit, and he never came back.”
When doctors identified what killed him, the answer was a shock. It was a strain of influenza virus, named H5N1 after the mix of proteins on its surface, that was often deadly in birds but had never been known to infect humans.
Suddenly, Dr. Webster’s scenario of a lethal pandemic spreading from animals to people, through a process called “spillover,” looked more plausible.
Spillover happens when viruses living in one animal host, often harmlessly, come into contact with a new one. Often, the virus may not be able to infect the new host, or it may not cause illness or spread further. But viruses are always mutating and exchanging genes, and every now and then the result is lethal, as with rabies, which can hop from bats to other animals, including people.
Experts including Dr. Webster were particularly concerned about the potential for spillover in southern China, where large, densely populated cities were expanding rapidly into forests and agricultural lands, bringing people into closer contact with animals. Two of the three influenza pandemics of the 20th century are thought to have originated in China.
Food-market vendors sold chickens, pigeons and ducks, with different types of birds sometimes sharing cages. Often markets were full of bird droppings. When a sale was made, stall proprietors would typically kill the bird, pluck it and gut it on the spot—throwing out a spray of blood and fluids that could carry viruses.
Right before Hoi-ka’s death, researchers at the University of Hong Kong had been following a virulent outbreak of H5N1 influenza in chickens they suspected came from southern China—a “chicken Ebola,” as Dr. Webster described it, with thousands of birds keeling over gasping for breath, blood oozing from their insides.
In November came a burst of new infections, including a 13-year-old girl, a 37-year-old bank worker and a 54-year-old dentist. Two young cousins who had lived together in the same apartment were infected and a third came down with symptoms, raising fears the virus was spreading between humans.
“All hell broke loose,” recalled Dr. Peiris, the HKU researcher, whose lab became a hub for testing.
Dr. Webster flew to Hong Kong and found that 20% of the chickens his team examined had the virus. The government dispatched officials to markets to kill more than a million birds, initially using carbon-dioxide gas, and then slitting the animals’ throats when the gas ran out. A group of 80 monks led a chant for the birds’ souls.
In all, 18 people were infected with H5N1 before it disappeared, with six dying.
The 1997 bird flu turned out not to spread easily between people and was snuffed out with the infected chickens.
Dr. Webster and others warned it could re-emerge or mutate into something more contagious. With U.S. funding, he set up an animal influenza surveillance center in Hong Kong. The WHO, which hadn’t planned for pandemics before, started compiling protocols for a large-scale outbreak, including contingency plans for vaccines.
Yet outside of the scientific community, few people took the possibility of a pandemic seriously, said Keiji Fukuda, an American epidemiologist then at the CDC who had gone to investigate the Hong Kong outbreak. At a dinner back in the U.S., he remembers one guest saying, “Oh, you really needed to have someone in the U.S. to be impacted to really galvanize the government.”
New look at coronaviruses
At the end of 2002, a mysterious and deadly new pneumonia began tearing through hospitals in southern China.
Dr. Webster and his colleagues in Hong Kong thought it was bird flu again. The symptoms were similar: Patients had high fevers, coughs and trouble breathing as the virus attacked their lungs. Some suffered from terrible muscle aches, exhaustion and diarrhea. The decline was rapid.
The disease would be named SARS, and it overturned much of the world’s thinking about epidemics. It was caused by a lethal new bug that jumped to humans from animals, but to everyone’s surprise, it wasn’t an influenza virus.
It was a coronavirus—a pathogen thought so negligible at the time that it didn’t even rate a chapter in the classic Manual of Clinical Microbiology, recalled Kwok-Yung Yuen, a microbiologist and physician at HKU, who with Dr. Peiris identified the virus.
A SARS patient in Guangzhou in 2003.
PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
It also spread more easily and widely, mostly through respiratory droplets, than the 1997 flu. At one point, 213 people in a Hong Kong apartment complex were diagnosed with SARS in five days.
A doctor visiting Hong Kong from mainland China gave the disease to his brother-in-law, wife, sister and daughter and eventually hundreds of others. Visitors staying at the same hotel as the doctor carried it back home, leading to 71 cases in Singapore, 29 in Canada, 58 in Vietnam, and one each in the U.S. and Ireland by the end of March alone.
That “drove home the reality in my own mind of globalization,” said Dr. Fukuda. SARS showed that viruses can crisscross the globe by plane in hours, making a local epidemic much more dangerous.
China was in the midst of a leadership change, and many officials initially covered up the extent of the outbreak, reluctant to rock the boat. Chinese hospitals didn’t share medical specimens, making it hard for scientists to investigate.
The WHO’s director-general, Gro Harlem Brundtland, publicly criticized China.
The government under new leaders reversed course. It implemented draconian quarantines and sanitized cities, including a reported 80 million people enlisted to clean streets in Guangdong.
China suspended trade in wild-animal markets, where barking deer, Himalayan palm civets and other animals were sold, often as novelty items on local menus or ingredients in traditional medicines. At one market, researchers found evidence of the SARS virus in three civets, a Chinese badger and a fox-like animal called a raccoon dog.
In Guangdong, authorities in “Operation Green Sword” confiscated more than 30,000 animals from markets, hotels and restaurants. Eventually, some 10,000 civets would be drowned, electrocuted or incinerated. Shanghai ordered the slaughter of more than a million pheasants, mallards and partridges.
By May 2003, the number of new SARS cases was dwindling. It infected around 8,000 people world-wide, killing nearly 10%.
After SARS, China expanded epidemiologist training and increased budgets for new laboratories.
It started working more closely in public health with the U.S., the world’s leader. The U.S. CDC opened an office in Beijing to share expertise and make sure coverups never happened again. U.S. CDC officials visiting a new China CDC campus planted a friendship tree.
But cooperation between the U.S. and Beijing would fray.
New controls on the wild-animal trade in China were eased in August 2003, after pressure from businesses. What restrictions remained were loosely enforced, conservationists say. The risk of viral spillovers remained.
An awakening U.S.
In Washington in 2005, a powerful player started driving U.S. efforts to become more prepared. President George W. Bush had read author John M. Barry’s “The Great Influenza,” a history of the 1918 flu pandemic, over a long August vacation at his Texas ranch.
The 2004 book recounted the social and economic devastation a pandemic could cause. Mr. Bush had already had to lead the country out of 9/11, and more recently had seen the damage wrought overseas by SARS. Then, Hurricane Katrina struck, and his administration was criticized for a slow and disorganized response.
The H5N1 virus, which first jumped to humans in Hong Kong in 1997, had resurfaced in poultry flocks across Southeast Asia, causing more than 40 human infections in 2004. It had killed nearly 70% of the people it infected.
Dr. Webster, the Memphis-based flu expert, had published a paper saying the virus had been found at a major migration stop for wild geese in China, warning that the birds could carry it to India and Europe next.
Up to that point, Washington had poured billions of dollars into measures to protect Americans against smallpox, anthrax and other biological threats, a legacy of 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks. It had apportioned relatively small amounts for animal-virus pandemics.
At an Oval Office meeting on the morning of Oct. 14, 2005, Rajeev Venkayya, Mr. Bush’s special assistant for biodefense, summarized what the government was doing to respond to the latest H5N1 threat.
Mr. Bush leaned toward the group of 10 or so officials and said, “I want to see a plan,” according to Dr. Venkayya.
“He had been asking questions and not getting answers,” recalled Dr. Venkayya, now president of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. ’s global vaccine business unit. “He wanted people to see this as a national threat.”
By the end of that month, health leaders pulled together a 12-page strategy involving stockpiling vaccines and antiviral drugs, expanding outbreak detection and otherwise improving pandemic responses. Mr. Bush launched the strategy in November, and Congress approved $6.1 billion in one-time funding.
President Bush launched a pandemic preparedness plan in 2005.
A fleshed-out plan had more than 300 action points, including responsibilities for the heads of each federal agency and teleworking guidelines for businesses.
The CDC began exercises enacting pandemic scenarios and expanded research. The government created the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to fund companies to develop diagnostics, drugs and vaccines.
A team of researchers also dug into archives of the 1918 pandemic to develop guidelines for mitigating the spread when vaccines aren’t available. The tactics included social distancing, canceling large public gatherings and closing schools—steps adopted this year when Covid-19 struck, though at the time they didn’t include wide-scale lockdowns.
A year after the plan was released, a progress report called for more real-time disease surveillance and preparations for a medical surge to care for large numbers of patients, and stressed strong, coordinated federal planning.
The WHO also updated its pandemic preparedness plan in 2005 and revised longstanding International Health Regulations to require member countries to report diseases like SARS and new types of influenza.
A European vaccine makers’ association said its members had spent around $4 billion on pandemic vaccine research and manufacturing adjustments by 2008.
Dangerous gaps
Most of the work on pandemics focused on influenza—a big threat, but not the only one. Funding for research on coronaviruses, which rose after the SARS epidemic, started declining. SARS hadn’t come back, and other coronaviruses known to infect humans caused only common colds.
In 2004, NIAID awarded $104.7 million in funding for coronavirus-related research. Funding fell to $14.9 million by 2010, but climbed after another coronavirus, MERS, emerged. By 2019 it was $27.7 million, according to NIAID.
Global hotspots of emerging diseases originating in animals
Europe,
Middle East and Africa
Asia Pacific
Americas
JAPAN
U.S.
CHINA
EGYPT
MEXICO
INDIA
BANGLADESH
PHILIPPINES
NIGERIA
INDONESIA
BRAZIL
Risk of disease spillover*
Lower
Higher
*Indexed by taking variables into account, such as human population density, wildlife biodiversity, climate and land-use changes.
Source: EcoHealth Alliance
Researchers made some progress after SARS toward vaccines against the disease, which could have paid dividends later when Covid-19 emerged. While the two diseases are different, having a vaccine for another coronavirus could have made it easier to create a new one for Covid-19.
One potential SARS vaccine didn’t get beyond the early stages, because NIAID couldn’t find a pharmaceutical company willing to take it on, according to Dr. Fauci. Vaccines for epidemic diseases are “a risky business,” he said. Demand is sporadic and an epidemic can end before researchers finish testing it.
The $6.1 billion Congress appropriated for Mr. Bush’s pandemic plan was spent mostly to make and stockpile medicines and flu vaccines and to train public-health department staff. The money wasn’t renewed.
“The reality is that for any leader it’s really hard to maintain a focus on low-probability high-consequence events, particularly in the health arena,” Dr. Venkayya said.
Plan is tested
In early 2009, two children in southern California fell ill with fever and coughs. Both recovered, but tests by the CDC showed they had been infected by a new strain of the H1N1 influenza virus, the type that caused the 1918 pandemic. Mexican health authorities then disclosed an outbreak there had killed at least 20 people. Soon, the virus popped up in Europe and elsewhere.
On the night of April 23, Nancy Cox, then the CDC’s flu chief, called Dr. Fukuda, the former CDC official, from her car. Her Atlanta home had been struck by lightning in a thunderstorm and burned while she was at work. But she was determined to reach her colleague, who had left the CDC for the WHO four years earlier, in order to activate an emergency response.
Dr. Cox was alarmed that the new flu appeared to be a mix of pig, bird and human viruses, was appearing in multiple locations and was spreading rapidly from person to person—all hallmarks of a potential pandemic.
By 4 a.m., Dr. Fukuda had set up an emergency response center and the WHO started implementing its pandemic influenza preparedness plan, which outlined steps from handling surging demand for hospital beds to preparing vaccines.
In the U.S., President Barack Obama’s administration put Mr. Bush’s new plan into action for the first time.
By mid-June, swine flu, as it was dubbed, had jumped to 74 countries. The WHO officially labeled it a pandemic, despite some evidence suggesting the sickness was pretty mild in most people.
That put in motion a host of measures, including some “sleeping” contracts with pharmaceutical companies to begin vaccine manufacturing—contracts that countries like the United Kingdom had negotiated ahead of time so they wouldn’t have to scramble during an outbreak.
In August, a panel of scientific advisers to Mr. Obama published a scenario in which as many as 120 million Americans, 40% of the population, could be infected that year, and up to 90,000 people could die.
H1N1 turned out to be much milder. Although it eventually infected more than 60 million Americans, it killed less than 13,000. In Europe, fewer than 5,000 deaths were reported.
Cried ‘wolf’?
The WHO came under fire for labeling the outbreak a pandemic too soon. European lawmakers, health professionals and others suggested the organization may have been pressured by the pharmaceutical industry.
The vaccine took so long to manufacture that the virus was ebbing when it was finally ready. In Europe, especially, governments had ordered huge numbers of doses, often at high cost, then tried to cancel them when it became clear they weren’t needed.
France ordered 94 million doses, but had logged only 1,334 serious cases and 312 deaths as of April 2010. It managed to cancel 50 million doses and sell some to other countries, but it was still stuck with a €365 million tab, or about $520 million at the time, and 25 million extra doses.
The WHO had raised scares for SARS, mad-cow disease, bird flu and now swine flu, and it had been wrong each time, said Paul Flynn, a member of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly and a British lawmaker, at a 2010 health committee hearing in Strasbourg. The Council of Europe has 47 member-states and was set up in 1949 to protect human rights and the rule of law.
“I thought you might have uttered a word of regret or an apology,” Mr. Flynn told Dr. Fukuda, who as a representative of the WHO had been called to testify.
Vaccine policy has to be decided early, before anyone knows how severe a disease will be, Dr. Fukuda replied.
Privately, he was seething, remembering all the efforts scientists and public-health officials had put into trying to tame outbreaks.
“To have that thrown back to you that you’re trying to make money for somebody is really offensive,” Dr. Fukuda said. Being accused of creating the idea of a pandemic is still one of the most painful experiences in his career, said the doctor, who is now at HKU’s School of Public Health.
Ultimately, an investigation by the council’s committee accused the WHO and public-health officials of jumping the gun, wasting money, provoking “unjustified fear” among Europeans and creating risks through vaccines and medications that might not have been sufficiently tested.
Dr. Keiji Fukuda, a WHO official at the time, discussed MERS at a press conference in 2014.
PHOTO: FABRICE COFFRINI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
“There is a real danger of now having cried ‘wolf,’ ” the report concluded.
Scientific leaders
Many scientists were more convinced than ever that a devastating pandemic was coming. A handful believed there was a big threat in addition to the most obvious one, influenza, and they put their energies into studying coronaviruses.
One was Dr. Daszak, the New York-based virus hunter, a self-described reptile fanatic who kept pet vipers in his bedroom as a boy in the U.K. He grew interested in how human activities moved dangerous viruses around the world.
By 2004, Dr. Daszak had joined with two other scientists in a search for the source of SARS, the deadly coronavirus, in hopes of preventing its return. Linfa Wang, a Shanghai-born virologist, had spent years at a lab in Australia studying pathogens in bats. He suspected SARS resided in bats too—not in civets, as was initially thought.
For help in China the pair brought in Shi Zhengli, then a shrimp-disease researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who had considered becoming a singer instead of a scientist. Dr. Shi would eventually publish the paper warning that a new coronavirus outbreak linked to bats was likely.
Dr. Shi has recently become known after U.S. officials and others suggested, without evidence, the coronavirus that caused Covid-19 emerged from her lab in Wuhan, which she has denied. International scientists generally believe the pathogen crossed into humans from animals.
Drs. Daszak, Shi and Wang, now at Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School, sampled throughout China, including an area near Guangzhou, where limestone hills full of caverns, some the size of airplane hangars, housed thousands of bats.
Dr. Shi and researchers stretched nets on bamboo poles to capture the bats, placing each into cloth bags. After collecting and analyzing swabs, fecal pellets and blood samples, the scientists found SARS-like viruses.
It was among the first indications that SARS originated in bats, and a key part of the evolving understanding of the risk from coronaviruses.
Back in Washington, scientist Dennis Carroll, at the U.S. Agency for International Development, was also convinced that flu wasn’t the only major pandemic threat.
In early 2008, Dr. Carroll was intrigued by Dr. Daszak’s newly published research that said viruses from wildlife were a growing threat, and would emerge most frequently where development was bringing people closer to animals.
If most of these viruses spilled over to humans in just a few places, including southern China, USAID could more easily fund an early warning system.
“You didn’t have to look everywhere,” he said he realized. “You could target certain places.”
He launched a new USAID effort focused on emerging pandemic threats. One program called Predict had funding of about $20 million a year to identify pathogens in wildlife that have the potential to infect people.
Dr. Carroll, who once worked in a leprosy colony in India, dove into tropical jungles and wildlife markets with Predict-funded researchers. The program operated in 30 countries, including China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
He frequently met with decision makers in Washington and urged them to expand the virus-hunting work. Accompanying him on one visit to the White House was Dr. Daszak, dressed in a suit, while Dr. Carroll, known for his unique style, wore purple John Lennon-style glasses, white-and-blue saddle shoes and a fedora.
Drs. Daszak, Shi and Wang, supported by funds from Predict, the NIH and China, shifted their focus to Yunnan, a relatively wild and mountainous province that borders Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.
In one site known as the Shitou Cave, Dr. Shi’s researchers found a huge variety of SARS-like coronavirus strains among horseshoe bats.
One key discovery: a coronavirus resembling SARS that lab tests showed could infect human cells. It was the first proof that SARS-like coronaviruses circulating in southern China could hop from bats to people.
The scientists warned of their findings in a study published in the journal Nature in 2013.
In another project, Dr. Shi found a coronavirus that was later determined to closely match SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
Evidence grew that showed people in the area were being exposed to coronaviruses. One survey turned up hundreds of villagers who said they recently showed symptoms such as trouble breathing and a fever, suggesting a possible viral infection.
In some caves, researchers found bottles, plastic bags or other signs that people had been there. Dr. Daszak said he was told a sign went up on one of the caves saying “Do not enter.” Little else changed.
Plans fall short
Over the next several years, governments in the U.S. and elsewhere found themselves constantly on the defensive from global viral outbreaks. Time and again, preparedness plans proved insufficient.
One, which started sickening people in Saudi Arabia and nearby countries in 2012, was dubbed MERS. It was a new coronavirus, carried by camels, and it killed about 34% of those it infected. It turned out to be relatively hard to spread, infecting only about 2,500 people over several years.
On a weekend morning in January 2013, more than a dozen senior Obama administration officials met in a basement family room in the suburban home of a senior National Security Council official. They were brainstorming how to help other countries upgrade their epidemic response capabilities, fueled by bagels and coffee.
Emerging disease threats were growing, yet more than 80% of the world’s countries hadn’t met a 2012 International Health Regulations deadline to be able to detect and respond to epidemics.
The officials jotted ideas on flip charts: The CDC, Department of Defense, USAID and other U.S. agencies would use their expertise to help other nations improve disease surveillance, build better laboratories and train epidemiologists.
The session led to the Global Health Security Agenda, launched by the U.S., the WHO and about 30 partners in early 2014, to help nations improve their capabilities within five years.
Money was tight. The U.S. was recovering from the 2008-09 financial crisis, and federal funding to help U.S. states and cities prepare and train for health emergencies was declining. Public-health departments had cut thousands of jobs, and outdated data systems weren’t replaced.
U.S. funding for the new GHSA relied initially on existing money in budgets, including $40 million for CDC activities in priority countries.
“It was a Hail Mary pass,” said Tom Frieden, who was director of the CDC from 2009 to 2017 and a force behind the creation of the GHSA. “We didn’t have any money.”
Ebola wake-up call
Around then, Ebola was breaking out in West Africa, and the deadly consequences of an underfunded, patchwork approach to global health became apparent.
At the WHO, Dr. Fukuda was in charge of health security. When the Ebola outbreak was found in March 2014, he and his colleagues were already stretched, after budget cuts and amid other crises.
After a few weeks, new Ebola cases appeared to be declining. But fearful families had hidden their sick loved ones. They were afraid of the Ebola treatment centers, where many who were taken in never came out, with the death rate soaring over 70% at times, and they chased away health workers.
It took the WHO until August to raise an international alarm about Ebola. By then, the epidemic was raging. It would become the largest Ebola epidemic in history, with at least 28,600 people infected, and more than 11,300 dead in 10 countries. The largest outbreak before that, in Uganda, had involved 425 cases.
The United Nations created a special Ebola response mission that assumed the role normally played by the WHO. Mr. Obama sent the U.S. military to Liberia, underscoring the inability of international organizations to fully handle the problem.
Congress passed a $5.4 billion package in supplemental funds over five years, with about $1 billion going to the GHSA. The flood of money, along with aggressive contact tracing and other steps, helped bring the epidemic to a halt, though it took until mid-2016.
Global health experts and authorities called for changes at the WHO to strengthen epidemic response, and it created an emergencies program. The National Security Council warned that globalization and population growth “will lead to more pandemics,” and called for the U.S. to do more.
Dr. Carroll of USAID, who had visited West Africa during the crisis, and saw some health workers wrap themselves in garbage bags for protection, started conceiving of a Global Virome Project, to detect and sequence all the unknown viral species in mammals and avian populations on the planet.
Billionaire Bill Gates warned in a TED talk that an infectious disease pandemic posed a greater threat to the world than nuclear war, and urged world leaders to invest more in preparing for one. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation helped form a new initiative to finance vaccines for emerging infections, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
Yet when the next epidemic, Zika, came to the Americas in 2015, the CDC needed more supplemental funding to fight the epidemic, which caused severe birth defects in the unborn children of infected women. It took Congress so long to approve it that the agency had to divert funds from other public-health needs, including $38 million from operations in West African countries recovering from Ebola.
Congress established a permanent Infectious Diseases Rapid Response Fund for the CDC in fiscal 2019, with $50 million for that year and $85 million in fiscal 2020.
Distractions and missteps
The Trump administration supported some pandemic-related programs, and worked with Congress to add funds to the GHSA when Ebola money ran out.
But many efforts were weakened by a revolving door of officials, among other distractions and missteps.
In May 2018, John Bolton, then President Trump’s national security adviser, dismantled an NSC unit that had focused on global health security and biodefense, with staff going to other units. The senior director of the unit left.
Mr. Bolton and others have said the step was designed to improve NSC operations and that global health remained a priority.
It pushed emerging disease threats down one level in the NSC hierarchy, making pandemics compete for attention with issues such as North Korea, said Beth Cameron, a previous senior director of the unit. She is now vice president for global biological policy and programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Deteriorating relations with China reduced Washington’s activities there just as researchers were becoming more certain of the threat from coronaviruses.
Primary drivers of past disease emergence*
Source: Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases
*Between 1940 and 2004Note: Figures don't add up to 100 due to rounding.
31%
15
13
11
7
6
4
3
3
2
4
Land use changes
Agricultural industry changes
International travel and commerce
Medical industry changes
War and famine
Climate and weather
Human demography and behavior
Breakdown of public health
Bushmeat (meat from wild animals)
Food industry change
Other
The CDC cut personnel in China from 44 to 14 and said it expects to have 10 U.S. and local staff by the end of this year. The agency said it reallocated programs to other countries with greater needs.
EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Daszak’s group, has wrangled this year with NIH over its bat-research grant, which has also supported some Chinese researchers, Dr. Daszak said.
Dr. Carroll had earlier been ordered to suspend his emerging pandemic threats program in China.
Dr. Carroll pitched to USAID his Global Virome Project. USAID wasn’t interested, he said. He left USAID last year. A meeting that Dr. Carroll planned for last August with the Chinese CDC and Chinese Academy of Sciences to form a Chinese National Virome Project was postponed due to a bureaucratic hang-up. Plans to meet are now on hold, due to Covid-19.
—Illustration by Angie Wang
Write to Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com and Phred Dvorak at phred.dvorak@wsj.com
-
second post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=WjhbexLtYts&feature=emb_logo
-
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/connecticut-fines-residents-3000-for-violating-coronavirus-travel-advisory
-
The Treatment That Could Crush Covid
Early trials show signaling cells eliminate the virus, calm the immune response and repair tissue damage.
By Kevin Kimberlin
Aug. 13, 2020 7:18 pm ET
More than 500 clinical trials are under way world-wide in the race to find an effective treatment for Covid-19. Everybody wants it; nobody has it—yet. But one of the most promising therapies for Covid-19 patients uses “medicinal signaling cells,” or MSCs, which are found on blood vessels throughout the body.
In preliminary studies, these cells cut the death rate significantly, particularly in the sickest patients. With a powerful 1-2-3 punch, these cells eliminate the virus, calm the immune overreaction known as a cytokine storm, and repair damaged lung tissue—a combination offered by no other drug. This type of regenerative medicine could be as revolutionary as Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine.
OPINION: POTOMAC WATCH
Trump Sidesteps Congress on Virus Relief
SUBSCRIBE
In one pilot study in March, doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York treated a dozen severely ill Covid-19 patients on ventilators with MSCs. Two infusions modulated their hyperactive immune systems, and 83% of those patients survived. With such promising results, the team at Mount Sinai and the supplier of the cells, Mesoblast Ltd., won Food and Drug Administration clearance and National Institutes of Health funding to conduct a randomized trial on 300 patients. The first patients in the trial received the treatment in early May.
A July 10 article in the Lancet reported on 13 critically ill Covid-19 patients also treated with MSCs. Eleven of the 13 patients lived—an 85% survival rate, which mirrors the results from Mount Sinai. The number of virus-fighting T-cells rose even as inflammation fell, suggesting that these cells can control the immune response as needed. In addition, chest X-rays showed that the drug repaired lung tissue, in some cases within 48 hours.
Healing tissue is essential because the cytokine battle with the Covid-19 virus is so vicious that it punches holes in the delicate lung membranes, allowing the virus to flood into the bloodstream and body cavities. These holes must be repaired, as virus leaks create some of the complications not usually associated with respiratory infections—blood clotting, heart attacks, stroke and multiple organ failure, which cause about 40% of Covid-19-related deaths. Blood-vessel density, and thereby the number of MSCs, decreases as we age, gain weight or develop diseases, which may explain why the elderly and those with chronic health conditions are faring worst.
In other words, this disease appears to be both a respiratory and a vascular infection. That is why the ability to fight infection, control the immune response and repair damaged tissue is such a valuable combination.
How can one drug do all this? MSCs were first identified and named by Prof. Arnold Caplan and colleagues at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio nearly 30 years ago. To translate this discovery into therapies, Mr. Caplan and I in 1993 launched Osiris Therapeutics, Inc. which developed this MSC into the world’s first approved systemically delivered cell therapy. During early years of scientific inquiry, Mr. Caplan and colleagues discovered that MSCs monitor and protect virtually every vessel in our bodies—the 60,000 miles of vessels that transport oxygen, nutrition and waste to and from every one of our cells.
When a MSC detects an infection or an injury to those vessels, it transforms into a factory to recruit and pump out immune-modulating and vessel-repair agents. These cells ameliorate crippling and deadly conditions when traditional chemical or biochemical drugs fail. The number of potential uses is enormous. MSCs are being tested on more than 900 different human ailments. Mr. Caplan describes these cells not as a “wonder drug,” but as a wonder drugstore.
Consider the results from trials conducted by Mesoblast on graft-versus-host Disease. Children with this horrible affliction suffer such a violent immune reaction that the skin and the lining of their intestines peel off. Up to 80% of children die if steroids don’t stop the inflammation. But in one trial, 160 of 239 patients (67%) who didn’t respond to steroids and other treatments survived after infusion with MSCs. Their cytokine storm disappeared. Injured tissues normalized. Based on these results, the FDA agreed to expedite its review and grant a decision by Sept. 30.
This is exactly the type of cell being tested for Covid-19 in the May trial. If the cells perform as they did at Mount Sinai in March and elsewhere, the results should be available before the end of September. A positive finding could help those most at risk of the disease’s worst effects. But the medical community and wider public are largely unaware of the potential for using MSCs to treat Covid.
Amid so much darkness, MSCs are a ray of hope—not only for the most desperate coronavirus patients, but all of us ready to end the pandemic and discover new ways to fix the body’s broken systems.
Mr. Kimberlin is chairman of Spencer Trask & Co. and a co-founder of Osiris Therapeutics, Myriad Genetics and Ciena Corp
-
So now we know: Sweden got it largely right, and the British establishment catastrophically wrong. Anders Tegnell, Stockholm’s epidemiologist-king, has pulled off a remarkable triple whammy: far fewer deaths per capita than Britain, a maintenance of basic freedoms and opportunities, including schooling, and, most strikingly, a recession less than half as severe as our own.
Our arrogant state “experts” should hang their heads in shame: their reaction to coronavirus was one of the greatest public policy blunders in modern history, more severe even than Iraq, Afghanistan, the financial crisis… Millions will lose their jobs when furlough ends; tens of thousands of small businesses are failing; schooling is in chaos, vast numbers are likely to die from untreated or undetected illnesses.
Allister Heath, editor of Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, comparing his country’s response to the coronavirus to that of Sweden.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/12/swedens-success-shows-true-cost-arrogant-failed-establishment/
-
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/08/is-covid-19-racist.php
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/pandemic-appears-have-spared-africa-so-far-scientists-are-struggling-explain-why?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=b6db6ce366-briefing-dy-20200813&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-b6db6ce366-42575255
Although Africa reported its millionth official COVID-19 case last week, it seems to have weathered the pandemic relatively well so far, with fewer than one confirmed case for every thousand people and just 23,000 deaths so far. Yet several antibody surveys suggest far more Africans have been infected with the coronavirus—a discrepancy that is puzzling scientists around the continent. “We do not have an answer,” says immunologist Sophie Uyoga at the Kenya Medical Research Institute–Wellcome Trust Research Programme.
----------------
Africa has seen wide exposure to COVID, but few serious cases or deaths.
'Let me speculate on one factor that might explain the discrepancy.'
You don’t see very many obese Africans.
-
https://www.ftportfolios.com/Common/ContentFileLoader.aspx?ContentGUID=4b4f71bf-88e4-48ed-9d83-839a68d12920
-
https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2020/08/22/learning_our_lessons_from_asymptomatic_covid-19.html
-
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-to-announce-emergency-authorization-of-convalescent-plasma-as-covid-19-treatment/ar-BB18hG1R
that's funny - scratching my head
I just read results of one study that said the convalescent plasma had no benefit though now I don't remember where
:-o :|
-
but the study results I did read concluded no untoward affects of treatment were found
as does this:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/13/large-study-suggests-convalescent-plasma-can-help-treat-covid-19-with-caveats/
-
"Those who received transfusions within three days of diagnosis had a seven-day death rate of 8.7%, while patients who got plasma after four or more days had a mortality rate of 11.9%. The difference met the standard for statistical significance.
But without a placebo group for comparison, it’s unclear just how valuable the treatment might be."
can't disagree with this from a scientific point of view :
Steven Nissen, a noted clinical trialist at the Cleveland Clinic, agreed: “The lack of high-quality trials in making clinical decisions about how to treat patients with coronavirus infection is a national embarrassment. Here we have another non-randomized study, NIH-funded, and uninterpretable.”
Of important note:
Randomized, placebo-control studies of convalescent plasma are ongoing
[I wish Trump would pump some of my biotech stocks................or soon to come pumpers Ingraham and Hannity]
-
Abbott launches $5 coronavirus test that yields results in 15 minutes, without needing any laboratory equipment. This will significantly speed testing efforts. 50 million tests a months, headed our way.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-26/abbott-gets-ok-on-5-15-minute-covid-test-that-avoids-lab-delay
-
FAR OUT!!!
-
https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-19-and-an-interesting-new-theory-has-emerged-31cb8eba9d63
-
https://www.henryakissinger.com/articles/the-coronavirus-pandemic-will-forever-alter-the-world-order/
-
97 yo Kissinger could kick 77 yo Biden's tuchus in a a debate .
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWN1CAD5P_g&feature=share
-
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02506-y
Coronavirus reinfections: three questions scientists are asking
Second infections raise questions about long-term immunity to COVID-19 and the prospects for a vaccine.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP001Dum-Ps
-
https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/whistleblower-dr-yan-releases-report-suggesting-coronavirus-was-lab-modified/
-
Face masks could be giving people Covid-19 immunity, researchers suggest
Mask wearing might also be reducing the severity of the virus and ensuring that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic
12 September 2020
Face masks may be inadvertently giving people Covid-19 immunity and making them get less sick from the virus,
...
Wearing masks could therefore reduce the infectious dose that the wearer is exposed to and, subsequently, the impact of the disease, as masks filter out some virus-containing droplets.
New England Journal of Medicine
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/face-masks-could-giving-people-covid-19-immunity-researchers/
---------------------------
So the leak of the mask and around the mask is exposing you to covid and saving your life. (?)
-
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine scientists have isolated the smallest biological molecule to date that completely and specifically neutralizes the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is the cause of COVID-19. This antibody component, which is 10 times smaller than a full-sized antibody, has been used to construct a drug—known as Ab8—for potential use as a therapeutic and prophylactic against SARS-CoV-2. The researchers on Monday reported in the journal Cell that Ab8 is highly effective in preventing and treating SARS-CoV-2 infection in mice and hamsters. Its tiny size not only increases its potential for diffusion in tissues to better neutralize the virus, but also makes it possible to administer the drug by alternative routes, including inhalation. Importantly, it does not bind to human cells—a good sign that it won’t have negative side-effects in people. (via pittwire.pitt.edu, Cell.com)
-
1) WOW!
2) In a separate vein, some deep serious excrement!
https://patriotpost.us/articles/73462-did-china-create-and-intentionally-distribute-covid-2020-09-16?mailing_id=5311&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.5311&utm_campaign=digest&utm_content=body
-
https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/09/15/covid-no-coronavirus-wasnt-created-laboratory-genetics-shows-why-15029?referringSource=articleShare
-
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/china-pakistan-enter-secret-deal-to-expand-bio-warfare-tools-says-an-australian-investigative-journalist/articleshow/77164486.cms
-
https://scottgrannis.blogspot.com/2020/09/recommended-reading-covid-is-no-longer.html
https://docs4opendebate.be/en/open-letter/
-
". “This is an unprecedented feat for the scientific community made possible by decades of progress in vaccine technology and a coordinated, strategic approach across government, industry and academia,"
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/coronavirus-update-johnson-johnson-vaccine-enters-phase-3-as-fauci-heads-to-senate-125219576.html
but , of course , he just CAN'T get himself to name President Trump in his statement,
without whom this NEVER would have happened
-
NO WONDER BIDEN POO-POOED SWINE FLU: Issues & Insights points out this morning the reasons why former Veep Joe Biden didn’t want to go there when President Donald Trump brought up the H1N1 epidemic:
“According to the Centers for Disease Control’s latest numbers, out of the more than 200,000 people who died with COVID-19, only 92 were under age 18.
“But 1,282 children died from the H1N1 pandemic of 2009-2010, when Barack Obama was in the White House and Joe Biden was vice president.
“The number of children hospitalized from COVID has been around 8,000. The number hospitalized because of H1N1 – 86,813.
“The swine flu was particularly worrisome because, unlike COVID and the seasonal flu – this one targeted the young more than the elderly. In fact, fully 10% of the deaths from H1N1 were age 17 or younger, while just 13% were over age 65.”
https://issuesinsights.com/2020/09/30/the-pandemic-on-bidens-watch-killed-13-times-as-many-children-as-covid/
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/no-wonder-biden-poo-pooed-swine-flu-issues-insights-points-out-this-morning-the-reasons-why-f/#respond
-
".NO WONDER BIDEN POO-POOED SWINE FLU"
good point
problem is undecideds do not read this forum
and Trump unable to articulate the facts well
without getting emotional and hurling adjectives and names basically diminishing the good points he does make
-
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/mccarthy-covid-relief-coronavirus/2020/10/01/id/989816/
-
***The rate of false negative nucleic acid tests, a type of viral test, after exposure have been reported as: day 1: 100%; day 4: 67%; day 5: 38%; day 8: 20%; day 9: 21%; and then rising to 66% on day 21. See: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-1495external icon***
so the 98% sensitive rate is misleading
sure it is that good IF there is covid 19 at that site at that moment
but we see people all the time who test negative who do indeed have it.
testing every day is NOT fool proof as we now see
-
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2020/10/joint-chiefs-isolation-after-coast-guard-vice-commandant-tests-positive-covid/169055/
-
if corona spreads like flu it probably can't be contained:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/video-dept/a-historians-view-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-the-influenza-of-1918
well it turns out it does :
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm
unless we shut everything down .........
-
https://www.ftportfolios.com/Common/ContentFileLoader.aspx?ContentGUID=acbc7404-5049-45e8-abd8-6f6fa3a0808f
-
https://nypost.com/2020/10/09/covid-19-outbreak-kills-thousands-of-minks-in-utah/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/space-helmet-muzzle-launched-just-time-new-normal-travel?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/10/08/921609669/in-rare-step-esteemed-medical-journal-urges-americans-to-vote-trump-out-of-offic
Perhaps it is unusual that the editors would all band together to make an explicit political statement
but I cancelled my subscriptions yrs ago , as i am sure I mentioned on this board, due to political bias in many publications
I don't recall up till then ever seeing anything published that was complimentary to any Republican - ever.
But as a doctor I do have to agree that Trump's response to the pandemic was at the very best, mixed
it is history - it can't be changed
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/who-official-urges-world-leaders-to-stop-using-lockdowns-as-primary-method-against-ccp-virus_3534230.html?utm_source=CCPVirusNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-10-12
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/regeneron-treatment-likely-provides-a-few-months-of-covid-19-immunity-ceo_3535304.html?utm_source=CCPVirusNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-10-12
-
https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/new-cdc-study-finds-majority-of-those-infected-with-covid-19-always-wore-masks/
-
https://alachuachronicle.com/calculating-the-chance-of-a-false-positive-covid-19-test/
-
but if only Trump had simply promoted masks, the social distancing instead of mocking them, and did everything else like he did
then his response to corona would have been far less open to criticism:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/chris-christie-says-he-was-icu-7-days-battling-covid-n1243589
The only way to truly stop its spread is to shut the economy down which is worse then the illness.
otherwise the "contact tracing " with testing might help contain it early ona
but once the cat is out of the bag forgetaboutit.
-
March 31, 2020: Dr. Birx predicts up to 200,000 U.S. coronavirus deaths 'if we do things almost perfectly'.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dr-deborah-birx-predicts-200-000-deaths-if-we-do-n1171876
Hmmm.
What she didn't say: This would be zero if Joe Biden were President - doing exactly the same things.
-
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/gottlieb-coronavirus-vaccine/2020/10/25/id/993677/
you can't contact trace millions of people
I do agree with distancing and masks
but what else?
destroy the economy ?
-
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/sensible-compassionate-anti-covid-strategy/?utm_term=emailclicks&utm_campaign=imprimis&utm_medium=housefile-email&_hsmi=98690753&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9H8L3gy8kE7foxYafqLt5a8bpYpB3zF2gyl5lxKi5_mstB5ZYr3AEfi5BwQfn7jYORz53O_HrghdtFM5Jn4IaWyK-cdQ&utm_content=SensibleAntiCOVIDStrategyOCT&utm_source=email
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/people-leaving-xinjiang-city-forced-into-quarantine-fed-unknown-drugs_3560074.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2020-11-01
-
https://nypost.com/2020/10/31/gov-cuomo-says-all-travelers-must-get-tested-for-covid-19/
testing not perfect
case in point DJT .
-
https://www.chron.com/news/article/Fauci-warns-of-covid-19-surge-offers-blunt-15691371.php
it would be very sad if his inability to admit he could have been more forceful at at least appearing recommend some common sense distancing and masks
causes him to lose but very likely it will
It is hard to say with cases continuing to mount he keeps telling us "nothing there" it does not look idiotic
-
"he could have been more forceful at at least appearing recommend some common sense distancing and masks... "
Fair enough but hard to say people weren't warned of the danger or advised of the precautions to take.
Everyone on this board knew by Jan 23 before WHO said anything:
https://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=1148.msg122641#msg122641
By the end of January, Trump had closed the flights from China. In February I was selling my stocks. By March 12th everyone was scrambling for hand sanitizers and afraid to walk through airports. By March 16th we had lockdowns. It was the medical people that played down the masks. President Trump put his very top person at the top of the task force and with the top professionals in the field they talk to the nation everyday. The network said newspapers were fixated on false stories of millions of deaths, we thought everyone might die.
We hit the number of deaths they said what happen if we did everything perfectly. But it's all Trump's fault. Good grief.
Before coronavirus there was a joke, e can put a man on the moon but we can't cure the common cold. Maybe we should have put a few resources into that. I still think cold viruses are spread by the cold remedy companies.
I posted the Bill Frist speech to the Harvard Medical School from 2005? A crisis for which we were unprepared. In 2020, we were still unprepared.
Obama Biden depleted the mask supply. Since it's year four of trump, it's now Trump's fault. Why weren't they warning him of that instead of wiretapping and setting perjury traps.
When it broke out in China, Democrats and media, I repeat myself, we're fixated on fabricated impeachment. Trump's fault.
So the answer must be socialism. That oughta fix it.
-
i am just saying if he did not go around exclaiming corner is turned with huge rallies while I keep anyone with a cough or sniffle out of work for 10 days even when I don't even know if what they have is nothing more than a common cold ......
etc, we would not see headlines of him telling he is the greatest President juxtaposed with increasing corona case numbers every day
nothing to see folks...........
" We hit the number of deaths they said what happen if we did everything perfectly. But it's all Trump's fault. Good grief."
In all honesty , I don't know. But the Left certainly is raising the question every minute of every day .
.
-
https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/28/democrats-no-ban-act-coronavirus-china/
i am just saying if he did not go around exclaiming corner is turned with huge rallies while I keep anyone with a cough or sniffle out of work for 10 days even when I don't even know if what they have is nothing more than a common cold ......
etc, we would not see headlines of him telling he is the greatest President juxtaposed with increasing corona case numbers every day
nothing to see folks...........
" We hit the number of deaths they said what happen if we did everything perfectly. But it's all Trump's fault. Good grief."
In all honesty , I don't know. But the Left certainly is raising the question every minute of every day .
.
-
who ran a biotech newsletter and served as head of FDA for a short time
https://www.newsmax.com/us/scott-gottlieb-covid-19-pandemic-deaths/2020/11/03/id/995038/
-
US hospital occupancy at normal levels. Covid share of hospital capacity: 6%.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SWAtlasHoover/status/1322949799939919885?utm_campaign=Unleash%20Prosperity%20Hotline%20%23151&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Mail
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pandemic-over-liberals-rally-celebrate-media-projecting-bidens-victory
The pandemic has ended! Everything can open!
-
Fauci and all the other scientists that said it could not be done
but of Fauci is the one they interview not Trump!
https://apnews.com/article/pfizer-vaccine-effective-early-data-4f4ae2e3bad122d17742be22a2240ae8
This would not have happened without Trump !
-
true to cuomo's
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/11/09/andrew-cuomo-vaccine-is-good-news-but-bad-news-because-trump-still-in-office/
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8930195/Joe-Biden-coronavirus-adviser-Dr-Zeke-Emanuel-argued-not-worth-living-past-75.html
-
https://www.wired.com/story/proning-covid-patients-seems-to-save-lives-but-how-many/
The method is thought to work by using gravity to pull fluids away from the back of the body, where there’s generally more lung tissue, thereby clearing up more space in the lungs for oxygen.
-
https://www.aier.org/article/even-a-military-enforced-quarantine-cant-stop-the-virus-study-reveals/
It's about control.
-
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0300891620974755
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3110088/covid-19-virus-hunters-pick-another-piece-trail-italy
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/391334.php
Obey serfs! Pay no mind to what your betters are doing.
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/11/coronavirus-death-rate-third-surge/617150/?fbclid=IwAR0IdtNjVNr6-gAWww7mc8r7e_20fQM1ANHvudACXeOg2tedQp9fiO2r3L4
-
"Exponential growth of the coronavirus"
For better or worse that exponent has been at approximately 1 (no growth) since March. The recent "seasonal" uptick measures at 1.14.
https://mobile.twitter.com/trvrb/status/1327437346065694721/photo/1
https://mobile.twitter.com/trvrb/status/1327437338834702337
-
https://web.archive.org/web/20201122214034/https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19
“Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.”
-
whoops not this data:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/11/27/johns-hopkins-study-saying-covid-19-has-relatively-no-effect-on-deaths-in-u-s-deleted-after-publication-n1178930
Someone at the publishing department got a call from Vivek.
what is really obnoxious
is the reason even admitted for the removal from their site - IT DOES NOT FIT THEIR PREFERRED narrative
so truth and honesty is NOT the issue ; free press must be censored - it is their version of events
only
-
https://gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/060/255/812/original/ce19e42735129328.png
(https://gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/060/255/812/original/ce19e42735129328.png)
-
(link below)
Censored: How Many People Are Really Dying Of This Pandemic?
by Charles "Sam" Faddis November 28, 2020
John Hopkins University Assistant Program Director censored for her analysis of CDC data.
According to the legacy media, there have been more than 250,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the so-called pandemic began. That means to the average American that there are 250,000 plus Americans who are dead today who would otherwise still be with us. Those people were killed by the virus.
That seems a matter of common sense. Is it true?
Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Johns Hopkins University, recently critically analyzed the effect of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in her webinar titled “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data.” Her conclusion? COVID-19 is having no significant impact on deaths in the United States.
Briand explained that the significance of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths can be fully understood only through comparison to the number of total deaths in the United States. Briand conducted a detailed review of the available data, relying upon the exact same numbers CDC uses in its calculations. Specifically, she delved deeply into the causes of death listed. What she found, not surprisingly, was that there was a sudden spike in 2020 for deaths linked to COVID-19. That makes sense, since COVID-19 only emerged as a major threat this year.
What she found next, though, was more surprising. While deaths attributed to COVID-19 dramatically increased, deaths attributed to all other causes suddenly plummeted. Most notable perhaps was the decrease in deaths attributed to heart disease. Somehow, suddenly, according to the data, in the midst of worldwide pandemic, Americans were much less likely to have heart attacks or strokes.
The same held true for deaths from diabetes, respiratory ailments, Alzheimer’s and every other disease that had plagued the United States for a generation. COVID-19 might be killing us but it was somehow magically curing us of a wide range of other diseases. And, miraculously, the decrease in deaths from all other causes seemed to match almost exactly the number of deaths reported to be attributable to COVID-19.
https://andmagazine.com/talk/2020/11/28/how-many-people-are-really-dying-in-this-pandemic/
-
November 30, 2020
View On Website
Open as PDF
The Geopolitics of Vaccine Distribution
Inoculations are a welcome development, but the public should temper its excitement.
By: Alex Berezow
The American pharmaceutical firm Pfizer, in collaboration with German firm BioNTech, surprised the world when it announced that its coronavirus vaccine showed 90 percent efficacy in preventing COVID-19. Days later, another American firm called Moderna announced that its vaccine was nearly 95 percent effective. And shortly after that, AstraZeneca announced that its vaccine was 62 percent to 90 percent effective. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration dictates that vaccines be at least 50 percent effective to earn emergency use authorization, and most observers weren’t expecting vaccine candidates to perform much better than that. The reported results, therefore, were a pleasant surprise that excited governments and markets alike.
The magnitude of this accomplishment cannot be overstated. Typically, the timeline from inception to regulatory approval of a new drug is about 10 years. After receiving approval, pharmaceutical firms then prepare for mass manufacturing, which itself could take another decade. However, thanks to a combination of factors – government programs like Operation Warp Speed, expedited regulatory approval and unprecedented global cooperation – the first batches of a COVID-19 vaccine from a trustworthy source will be delivered in less than a year. (China and Russia also claim to have created vaccines, but insufficient data and transparency make most Western scientists skeptical of their efficacy and safety.)
Even so, public excitement is premature. There are months to go before the vast majority of people, including Americans, can expect to receive the jab in their arms. The immediate hurdle is obtaining FDA approval. Though approval should take roughly three weeks as government experts pore over the data, the process could take longer. According to Dr. Henry Miller, a fellow at the Pacific Research Institute and the founding director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology, the FDA has concerns about consistency in the production of the vaccine. In other words, the FDA wants to know if companies can manufacture batch after batch that meets certain quality control measures, such as potency and purity. By the end of December, Moderna plans to have 20 million doses, Pfizer 50 million doses, and AstraZeneca 200 million doses. So, some people should be receiving jabs before the end of 2020. (The regimen requires two shots one month apart, which means the number of people immunized is half the number of doses.) By the end of 2021, there should be billions of doses available from all companies combined.
The Race to a Coronavirus Vaccine
(click to enlarge)
But manufacturing is just one headache. Another is distribution, which is actually a two-fold problem: (1) Moderna’s vaccine must be kept frozen during long-term storage and shipment, but Pfizer’s vaccine must be kept at a whopping -94 degrees Fahrenheit (-70 degrees Celsius) during shipment; and (2) It’s neither ethically nor strategically clear who should receive the vaccines first.
The Distribution Dilemma
The reason your local grocery store contains relatively fresh food from the other side of the planet is because of something known as the “cold chain,” a series of refrigerated containers that allow perishable food to be shipped without spoiling. Many drugs and especially vaccines require the same thing. However, Pfizer’s vaccine, which consists of an unstable information-containing molecule called RNA encased within an equally unstable bubble of fat, requires storage at -94 F (-70 C). Generally, only research laboratories possess deep freezers that cold; pharmacies and hospitals do not. Pfizer’s solution is to provide special containers that can be packed with dry ice to maintain the requisite temperature, but once the vaccine has been removed and placed inside a regular refrigerator, the shelf life is five days. The Moderna vaccine can be stored and shipped at -4 F and has a shelf-life of 30 days in regulator refrigerators, so it poses a much smaller logistical challenge. AstraZeneca’s vaccine is the easiest to distribute, since it can be shipped at the regular refrigeration temperature of 36-46 F and kept on the shelf for six months.
(click to enlarge)
The question of who gets the vaccine first will play out initially at the international level. Countries that have made purchase orders will be the first to receive them. For example, according to Mint, the European Union has secured 200 million doses (with an option for 100 million more) for Pfizer’s vaccine, Japan 120 million doses, the United States 100 million doses (with an option for 500 million more), and the U.K. 30 million doses. If all options are exercised, Pfizer simply cannot meet that demand even by the end of 2021, which could mean that rich countries will fight among themselves over who gets what batch when. The U.S. already has a tense relationship with Europe, and a fight over vaccine batches would put more stress on a fragile trans-Atlantic relationship, especially since the country that receives the most vaccine doses has a likelier chance of improving its economy the quickest. Because Moderna, AstraZeneca and other companies will also produce vaccines, these tensions can be eased somewhat, though whichever country serves as a company’s “home” likely will be under substantial pressure to deliver vaccines to compatriots first. This latter point is complicated by the fact that some of these companies are multinational entities and have “homes” in several countries around the globe.
While rich countries duke it out, the rest of the world will have to wait. Money doesn’t solve everything. The logistical challenges posed by the cold chain make it nearly impossible to deliver a vaccine to a region with poor infrastructure and unreliable electricity. Gaps in the cold chain – that is, periods in which the vaccine is not stored at the proper temperature – would destroy the vaccine. (This is to say nothing of criminal activity. Everyone is a potential target of criminal enterprises that offer fake vaccines, of course, but poorer countries are most susceptible since delivery of legitimate vaccines may be months if not years away.)
Internally, countries will be faced with domestic political concerns over vaccine allocation. In the United States, there is tension between federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state governments over the number of doses each state will receive. The incoming Biden administration will be under tremendous pressure to deliver vaccines to Americans first, regardless of any contractual obligations that companies may have. If necessary, the president and Congress may get involved, overriding pharmaceutical companies’ contracts in the name of national security.
After that, there are ethical and strategic decisions to be made over who receives the vaccine first. The state of Washington, for example, has proposed three phases of distribution: First, frontline health care providers, first responders, and vulnerable populations (such as those with underlying health conditions or residents of long-term care facilities); second, the general community; and third, filling any “gaps” in vaccine access (such as in poorer communities). It is likely that many other states will employ a similar strategy.
There’s also the matter of vaccine efficacy. Simply put, some vaccines are better than others. Remember that the vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna are 95 percent effective, but AstraZeneca’s is merely 62 percent to 90 percent effective. Who gets the less effective vaccine? And who makes that decision?
The Amazing Race
The poorest nations are likeliest to get a coronavirus vaccine last. But there’s room for optimism as many other companies will continue developing coronavirus vaccines. Most, like the one made by AstraZeneca, will not require the extreme cold chain that Pfizer’s vaccine needs. In addition, AstraZeneca has pledged to forgo profits until the pandemic is over. The company is also working with nongovernmental organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide vaccines to developing countries.
The question about global vaccine distribution has therefore shifted from if to when. But will the vaccine(s) come in time to prevent further economic damage and social unrest? Vaccine delays could create or aggravate default risks in poorer countries, with financial contagion spreading to richer countries. Many people are no longer willing to tolerate lockdowns. All across Europe citizens are protesting additional safety measures, with demonstrations in Italy turning violent last week.
Ancillary effects of lockdowns have created other grievances against governments too. In many places, families and spouses have been separated because of border closures and arbitrary immigration policies. In Indonesia, for example, binational unmarried couples are not allowed to reunite, but elderly foreigners are allowed in as tourists despite the fact that elderly people are the likeliest to die from coronavirus. These policies have resulted in the Indonesian government being inundated with complaints by angry citizens. They reveal the tension between concerns over public health, the economy and the social fabric, and it’s not clear that they can be improved until a vaccine is fully deployed.
Indeed, few societies are willing to control the virus at the cost of ripping the social fabric. The coronavirus has revealed an immense tension between the economic and social pillars of our society. Governments have no good options. Some will be tempted to reimpose lockdowns, justifying them with the claim that they will be eased as soon as a vaccine is available. But this is a false reassurance. For citizens of rich countries, widespread vaccination is still months away. For citizens of poor countries, widespread vaccination may be years away. A restless public is not going to tolerate indefinite lockdowns through 2021, and governments that try to impose them should be prepared for civil unrest.
-
Very interesting article Doug.
-
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4586
from Spectator to demigod Zuckerberg
-
(https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/img_3342.jpg)
-
https://www.captainsjournal.com/2020/12/03/mandatory-vaccination-cards/
-
December 4, 2020
View On Website
Open as PDF
New Avian Flu Outbreak
The virus has had the biggest impact in Russia and Europe.
By: Geopolitical Futures
New Avian Flu Outbreak
(click to enlarge)
Over the past few weeks, there has been an increasing number of reports of a new strain of avian influenza, H5N8. The rapid spread has been attributed in part to overlapping migratory patterns across Europe and Asia. The strain is highly contagious and pathogenic, meaning birds that have been infected can experience severe symptoms and a high mortality rate can result. The virus has affected both wild birds and commercial poultry, and farmers across the globe have already culled millions of chickens. In Russia and Europe, producers culled at least 3.4 million chickens by the end of November.
There are two main concerns with the outbreak. The first is the effect on food supplies. The level of food insecurity globally is already rising due to the coronavirus pandemic and climatic events. According to the latest U.N. figures, global food prices reached a six-year high in November. The Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Price Index rose 3.9 points from October to November to 105 points, a 6.5 percent increase year over year. The second concern is the possibility that the flu can be transferred to humans through a mutation in the virus. Such mutations are rare but not impossible, and given the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, we are keeping an eye on how this outbreak develops.
-
(https://gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/060/450/792/original/4f54f7ba1a3e569c.jpeg)
-
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00835-2?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=commission_junction&utm_campaign=3_nsn6445_deeplink_PID100038822&utm_content=deeplink
-
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/12/08/cornell-u-offers-exemption-to-mandatory-flu-vaccine-policy-for-bipoc-students/
it just gets worse every day
-
https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/08/lockdowns-have-caused-more-children-to-drop-out-of-school-than-americans-have-died-of-covid/
Also, public school enrollment down significantly. Doesn't that hurt funding and teachers?
-
All giving no credit to Trump for vaccine
and all playing PR games
over the distribution (Pfizer guy on CNBC just a while ago stating vaccines will not be available till Feb due to Trump not answering them on distribution
This is all planned by then to make it looks like joe Biden rode in on his white horse with his team of grifters
to fix a problem (that does not exist)
and claim credit to getting the vaccines to "Americans"
And tapper lo cuomo and the rest all in on it to start in few weeks giving Biden and the rest all the credit
for all being full of hot air.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/12/08/joe-biden-pledges-to-distribute-100-million-covid-vaccines-in-first-100-days/
-
"What we found is that, actually, the more in-person credit hours a student had, the less likely they were to test positive for COVID-19," said Dr. Lana Dbeibo, assistant professor of clinical medicine and medical director of infection prevention at the IU School of Medicine, and a key member of the IU Medical Response Team.
https://news.iu.edu/stories/2020/11/iu/releases/20-analysis-supports-safety-of-in-person-courses.html
The New York Times reports similar results from Syracuse:
“We have not had a single case that we can trace to a classroom,” said Mike Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation at Syracuse University. “It happened in communal living situations and in gatherings that took place off campus.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/06/us/colleges-covid-spring-semester.html
-
https://news.virginia.edu/content/exercise-may-protect-against-deadly-covid-19-complication-research-suggests?fbclid=IwAR3XZZZq9YUhsUp4b86_4x5Ur_maoIK-8R9ixaeJ4wHEPwRBEJ14mvxEr-M
-
https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2020/12/09/video-ca-hhs-secretary-admits-outdoor-dining-ban-is-about-control-not-science-n291984
-
https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2020/12/09/video-ca-hhs-secretary-admits-outdoor-dining-ban-is-about-control-not-science-n291984
When a Republican makes a gaffe, he or she says something that is false or stupid.
When a Democrat males a gaffe, he or she speaks a truth openly about what they believe or want for us, but don't want us to know.
It's not about science. It's about control. Like G M said, we knew that.
Barack Obama was confronted with the fact that higher capital gains tax rates don't raise revenues for the government. Rather than deny that or change his policy, he responded it was about fairness meaning political gain, not economics. We knew that, but for one very short moment he spoke the truth.
-
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3113720/peru-halts-chinese-coronavirus-vaccine-trials-after-volunteer
-
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/flawed-analysis-leads-to-false-claim-of-no-excess-deaths-in-2020/?fbclid=IwAR17OsZcdeOxduyDRef5nyFos6_K3MePjl_SapycViQiyL0rB16ygvkWSGk
-
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/flawed-analysis-leads-to-false-claim-of-no-excess-deaths-in-2020/?fbclid=IwAR17OsZcdeOxduyDRef5nyFos6_K3MePjl_SapycViQiyL0rB16ygvkWSGk
So her study was in fact true, just not as good as their study.
-
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/amid-fears-overwhelmed-medical-systems-us-appears-have-ample-hospital
-
https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/02/masks-are-as-much-a-religious-symbol-as-a-health-precaution/
-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x_f6-jhbsR4&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=MTV
-
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpNWGgxXYAM3O8i?format=jpg&name=small)
-
https://cms.zerohedge.com/medical/new-chinese-study-confirms-covid-19-attacks-testicles-may-affect-male-fertility?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter :-)
-
(https://gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/060/725/347/original/0739e34df16c79f3.jpeg)
https://gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/060/725/347/original/0739e34df16c79f3.jpeg
-
https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/10/the-story-of-mrna-how-a-once-dismissed-idea-became-a-leading-technology-in-the-covid-vaccine-race/
-
Internet friends opine:
===========================
But I will now paste the quotes from Dr. Ray Peat himself. The forum is dedicated to understanding the work of Dr. Peat.
It is loaded with scientists, biologists, MD’s, nutritionists. (and goofballs like me).
Here is what Peat has said below:
Focus on the induction of antibodies by vaccines to define immunity has led to a dangerous disregard for the basic facts of health. The present testing of a vaccine containing the RNA that specifies the most destructive spike protein of the corona virus, the part that inactivates our protective ACE2 enzyme, is being done in a culture that avoids consideration of the meaning of our massive endogenous system of RNA-responsive reverse transcriptases and retroelements. The consequences of incorporating the spike protein of the virus into our genetic repertoire are hard to imagine. The mindless activation of our huge epigenetic system of retroelements, with no knowable benefits, should be stopped. - Ray Peat
The spike protein causes inflammation by inactivating the enzyme (ACE2) that inactivates angiotensin, so the spike protein essentially turns on our inflammatory system, the angiotensin system, and the RNA allows our own cells to manufacture spike protein, so we are being prepared to manufacture the activator of our own inflammatory system which is basically the only thing that causes people to die from Covid, if they die from it, mostly none of that diagnosis or determination of the cause of death, none of that has been done in a traditional scientific manner but to the extent that virus is harmful to weak people, then is causing our body to produce the agent that kills people, and they ignore the fact that we have reverse transcriptase that can turn RNA to DNA and integrated it into our genes so that we can pass on the ability to destroy our defenses against inflammation. - Ray Peat
For years, corona viruses have been known to bind to the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), and that enzyme has been known to have protective effects, destroying angiotensin, and losartan, an angiotensin receptor blocker, has been known to be protective against corona viruses. Angiotensin increases intracellular calcium, and losartan lowers intracellular calcium. In reaction to the new corona virus, a few groups responded quickly, treating successfully with antiinflammatory things—losartan, cinanserin (a serotonin antagonist), aspirin, and azithromycin or erythromycin, which lower intracellular calcium. Aspirin’s effects overlap those of losartan, and it downregulates the angiotensin receptor, ATR1 (Mitra, et al., 2012). - Ray Peat
The problem is that our bodies can copy foreign RNA and DNA and incorporate the copies into our chromosomes. If they are genes for viral proteins, it’s possible that during a future stress, those foreign genes could be expressed throughout our body, creating overwhelming amounts of those toxic proteins. The copies could be inserted into sperm cells and eggs as well as body cells, forming part of future generations. No sane person would consider doing it, if they understood how our cells respond to alien nucleic acids.
- Ray Peat
=======================
The vaccine is pure genius. It is, in effect, messenger RNA. After it gets injected, it enters the cells and “makes them” produce an antigen - which is a protein identical to the one in the spikes of Coronavirus. Our immune mechanisms notice that protein - and produce antibodies to it. Voila! That’s immunity. Once the real CoViD virus shows up, those antibodies bind to the viral spike proteins - and the game is up. The virus is neutralized.
So, rather than use millions of eggs to grow a weakened “real” virus, or the antigenic parts of it - our own cells do all the manufacturing.
A.
-
https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/12/15/grand-county-covid-deaths/
Makes total sense!
-
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2019/08/12/world-must-prepare-biological-weapons-target-ethnic-groups-based/?fbclid=IwAR01hWypY4EAJ0woebSwCc4rzmMhgwGIistiVIBXYavgsK761zjHf3N5Trs
-
A Dem friend sends me the following:
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=kKaMAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA163&dq=virus+pandemic+national+security&ots=mYKfEXAJ0I&sig=MUZbEt6Ek3Y_0X9OMTAqbD4TpVU#v=onepage&q=virus%20pandemic%20national%20security&f=false
https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203859483
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5468112/ (Trump budget cuts included $333 million to CDC programs to fight infectious diseases, $136 million to CDC Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, $76.3 million to CDC Center for Global Health)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-ebola-coronavirus-trump-congress-tea-party-a9469186.html
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Pandemics-and-National-Security-Evans/36f9799a7392aa77bc92dcc343332107761a465f?p2df
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971215001836
-
https://gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/060/830/758/original/6567013222c463e8.jpg
(https://gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/060/830/758/original/6567013222c463e8.jpg)
Funny, I don't remember the dems being concerned about illegal aliens with infectious diseases or HIV being spread by a certain voting base of theirs.
A Dem friend sends me the following:
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=kKaMAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA163&dq=virus+pandemic+national+security&ots=mYKfEXAJ0I&sig=MUZbEt6Ek3Y_0X9OMTAqbD4TpVU#v=onepage&q=virus%20pandemic%20national%20security&f=false
https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203859483
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5468112/ (Trump budget cuts included $333 million to CDC programs to fight infectious diseases, $136 million to CDC Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, $76.3 million to CDC Center for Global Health)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-ebola-coronavirus-trump-congress-tea-party-a9469186.html
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Pandemics-and-National-Security-Evans/36f9799a7392aa77bc92dcc343332107761a465f?p2df
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971215001836
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9071191/Will-learn-truth-China-pandemic-writes-IAN-BIRRELL.html
-
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/covid-vaccine-side-effects-compensation-lawsuit.html
What could go wrong?
-
https://www.yahoo.com/news/overdose-deaths-far-outpace-covid-190713845.html
-
"Music
In March 2019, a novel study finds that the electronic song "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" by Skrillex is effective in delaying host attack, blood feeding, and disrupting the mating process of Aedes aegypti. This research provides new avenues for the development of music-based personal protective and control measures for mosquitoes.[21] Do note that the research compares the presence of said music, not the influence of differing songs."
This songs pisses off the mosquito:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY97gfGUFR0
(it certainly gives me a headache!)
-
there was a time i liked him:
https://hollywoodlife.com/feature/who-is-dr-anthony-fauci-3977043/
watch; he will be making cameo appearances now in film
sitcoms
-
he just luvvvvvv s that limelight doesn't he .
the very short man is now a celebrity more than a scientist
according to Ann he actually said this:
But the runaway winner for patronizing black people is ... director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci! This media darling recently announced: "So, the first thing you might want to say to my African American brothers and sisters is that the vaccine that you're going to be taking was developed by an African American woman. And that is just a fact."
like I said there was a time a liked and respected him
now he sounds like a politically correct prop for the left
the blacks are right to fear they may get aids from the vaccine
didn't reagan spread aids to them to keep them suppressed in the 80s
just ask revs jesse and al
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/dec/24/anthony-fauci-says-hes-been-intentionally-moving-g/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=w4Jw4bFLDpcjjiqDgAIUTCEybjPA7daLf99rAbZNoSXGNiVRWXSNAUyQpRHrVzga&bt_ts=1608831096620
-
I don't like it.
he seems to enjoy his role as big shot spokesman and of course Democrat go to boy too much
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/dec/24/anthony-fauci-says-hes-been-intentionally-moving-g/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=w4Jw4bFLDpcjjiqDgAIUTCEybjPA7daLf99rAbZNoSXGNiVRWXSNAUyQpRHrVzga&bt_ts=1608831096620
Lying to the public is Feral Gov SOP.
-
https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-comprehensive-analysis-of-50-states-shows-greater-spread-with-mask-mandates
-
https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-comprehensive-analysis-of-50-states-shows-greater-spread-with-mask-mandates
It's not about controlling the virus, it's about controlling the public.
-
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/unexplained_explosion_and_fire_destroy_worlds_second_largest_pharmaceutical_factory_producing_precursors_for_hydroxychloroquine_.html
-
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/unexplained_explosion_and_fire_destroy_worlds_second_largest_pharmaceutical_factory_producing_precursors_for_hydroxychloroquine_.html
Good thing the PRC doesn't have covert operatives all over Taiwan!
-
https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/fertility-covid-vaccine/
-
https://gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/061/030/951/original/ad65ca9528d977c5.jpg
(https://gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/061/030/951/original/ad65ca9528d977c5.jpg)
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/major-covid-vaccine-glitch-emerges-most-europeans-including-hospital-staff-refuse-take-it?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
https://www.nysenate.gov//legislation/bills/2021/A416
-
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-journalist-idUSKBN2920EI
-
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-journalist-idUSKBN2920EI
The regime of China is evil. Anyone who helps them enforce totalitarianism on their people, zoom, Google,etc is evil.
We don't know that the release of this pandemic on the world was intentional. But if it was intentional, how it did play out is exactly how China would have behaved.
-
Wuhan’s COVID-19 cases may have been 10 times higher
https://nypost.com/2020/12/29/wuhans-covid-19-cases-may-have-been-ten-times-higher-chinas-cdc-says/
Almost 500,000 residents in Wuhan, where the coronavirus pandemic originated, may have been infected with the deadly bug — nearly 10 times the recorded tally, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
A study by the agency used a sample of 34,000 people in the central China metropolis of some 1 million residents and other cities in Hubei province, as well as Beijing, Shanghai and several other provinces to estimate the infection rates
-
https://nypost.com/2020/12/29/who-warns-covid-19-pandemic-is-not-necessarily-the-big-one/
Despite the severe global toll of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization warns that the outbreak is “not necessarily the big one” – and urges the world to get “serious” about preparedness.
“This is a wakeup call,” WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan said at a press conference Monday marking a year since the UN agency first learned of the new bug spreading in China.
--------------------------------------------
No. THIS was the wake up call:
https://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=1148.msg124876;topicseen#msg124876
https://americanmind.org/essays/a-storm-for-which-we-were-unprepared/
Senator William Frist, M.D. is a nationally acclaimed heart and lung transplant surgeon and the former Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. In 2005, during his tenure in Congress, he delivered the Marshall J. Seidman Lecture for the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard University. In this strikingly prescient speech, he foretells the possibility of a viciously deadly pandemic and calls for action to defend against that eventuality on a vast scale. (at the link)
---
His warnings went unheeded. Instead we chased every other shiny object from wind turbine subsidies to transexual bathroom rights while depleting and not replenishing our emergency mask supply and our ability to manufacture something as basic as hand sanitizer.
-
Yes Dr Frist is a prominent person who knew the threat in past
amazing credentials - heart surgeon - then when he got bored decided to run for Senate then gets to majority leader.
though I have to say he was one of the quietist background majority leaders I can think of ....... ( we really needed a better political spokesperson in my HO)
Historians , doctors , professors who studied 1918
have long known that it will happen again.
In ~ 1992 ish I wrote small article published in the Palm Beach Post about 1918 after reading up on it .
The conclusion was always - not if - but when will it happen again .
One thing for sure is corona has put viral research onto war status that will lead to other treatments maybe even for the common cold.
And Trump deserves bit credit for pushing the government private enterprise complex to get this done in a time so fast it smashes all records
now we have all the naysayers from Fauci on down and other Democrat partisans , Murthy and (Mr never let.a disaster go to waste's brother) Zeke Emanuel
in charge ..........
And Gates
the man who promotes devices that track our corona status and put on display ........ ( made by MFST of course)
all DEMO crats.....
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9090847/Only-377-people-aged-60-no-underlying-health-conditions-died-Covid-UK.html
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/deception-and-suppression-a-year-of-beijings-virus-coverup_3635476.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2020-12-31
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/391923.php
Better than you.
-
So much data thrown around, so much not exactly accurate, but let's look at the math - just before the effect of the Trump vaccine kicks in.
Media wants to talk about total cases and total deaths, two things we cannot measure accurately. Most cases we don't know about because they aren't that severe in young, fit, healthy people. The death count in the US does not distinguish died if you had covid from died because you had covid. Remember, George Floyd was a covid death.
I think the hospitalization rate is the best measure of the virus since the main concern from the start was the possibility of overwhelm our healthcare system. But if the measures are consistent, they run on the same trend lines:
(https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/12282020/images/national-activity-indicators.gif)
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
Observations from the data:
Testing availability goes up, that is a good thing, and number of cases goes up. The positivity rate of the test is going down.
An exponent less than one, meaning decreasing hospitalizations, deaths etc. is not what they mean by exponential growth. Look at these curves all now going down. Depending on where you live in North America, we just lived through the season where people go inside and where people get together even in smaller groups for the holidays, yet the numbers are already going down.
Inflection points, rate of change, and changes in the rate of change: No matter how you look at these numbers, they are not getting worse. Your risk now is similar to your risk earlier. Yet the airlines and airports are open. We don't have to close everything and turn our economy into a bankrupt welfare state, treating all the same whether they are at risk or not. We need to use our noggin, keep innovating and exercising the right amount of caution for the circumstances we face. This is not the first or the last dangerous outbreak of virus or anything else.
"The viral strain that drove the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa kills up to 90% of the people it infects"
https://www.livescience.com/56598-deadliest-viruses-on-earth.html
Bill Frist: "A Storm for Which We Were Unprepared".
https://americanmind.org/salvo/a-storm-for-which-we-were-unprepared/
Let's be prepared. We won't get there by bankrupting our nation or shutting down at every sign of trouble.
-
https://www.city-journal.org/lockdowns-must-end
-
https://sharylattkisson.com/2020/12/cdc-more-than-5000-covid-19-vaccine-recipients-have-reportedly-suffered-health-impact-event/
-
https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Disputed-French-Nobel-winner-Luc-Montagnier-says-Covid-19-was-made-in-a-lab-laboratory?fbclid=IwAR3-Cl434_VBxJ1sRBupahIa-VFO8pNZOZqLytqSsWV5VKGCdGUqL4a4SWs
-
Second post
The Next Wave of COVID-19 Lockdowns Emerges in Europe
5 MINS READ
Jan 5, 2021 | 19:34 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
The United Kingdom’s decision to tighten its COVID-19 lockdown measures and introduce a new relief package for businesses is a preview of similar decisions that governments in continental Europe will introduce in the coming days. The lockdown measures will result in low, or even negative, economic growth in Europe in the first quarter of 2021, which will worsen governments’ fiscal deficit and sovereign debt levels. On Jan. 4, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced stricter social distancing measures for England and Scotland, respectively, to cope with the rising number of COVID-19 infections. Then, on Jan. 5, the U.K. government announced a 4.6 billion pound ($6.2 billion) aid package for companies hardest hit by the tighter lockdown measures across the country. ...
The United Kingdom’s decision to tighten its COVID-19 lockdown measures and introduce a new relief package for businesses is a preview of similar decisions that governments in continental Europe will introduce in the coming days. The lockdown measures will result in low, or even negative, economic growth in Europe in the first quarter of 2021, which will worsen governments’ fiscal deficit and sovereign debt levels. On Jan. 4, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced stricter social distancing measures for England and Scotland, respectively, to cope with the rising number of COVID-19 infections. Then, on Jan. 5, the U.K. government announced a 4.6 billion pound ($6.2 billion) aid package for companies hardest hit by the tighter lockdown measures across the country.
Under the new lockdown measures in England and Scotland, people will be required to work from home whenever possible and all nonessential shops will be closed. Schools and universities will also remain closed.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, said that some 600,000 companies in the United Kingdom’s retail, leisure and hospitality sectors will receive grants of up to 9,000 pounds.
The U.K. government also announced that a further 594 million pounds will be available for local councils to assist businesses that are not eligible for the new payments but have also been affected by the lockdown.
The European Union and the United Kingdom’s output may already have stalled in the fourth quarter of 2020 due to previous lockdown measures.
Governments in continental Europe are considering extensions and, in some cases, the tightening of their own lockdown measures amid a slower-than-expected vaccination campaign. Infection rates are also on the rise in continental Europe, which will force governments to tighten their lockdown measures in similar ways to the United Kingdom. While most EU members started their vaccination campaigns in late December, the process has been slower than expected due to logistical issues. Some of the problems include the lack of the necessary equipment (from protective equipment for nurses to syringes of the right capacity), the logistical difficulties of vaccinating old people in care homes, and the fact that the vaccination campaign began during the Christmas period, when some hospitals were working with reduced staff while the residents of care homes were not there.
On Jan. 5, Germany announced that the lockdown measures that were introduced in mid-December will be extended until the end of January. Additional extensions are possible.
Some of Spain’s most populated regions (including Madrid and Catalonia) have recently announced stricter lockdown measures.
On Jan 5., the Italian government approved a decree that prohibits travel between regions except for health or work reasons. Bars and restaurants will only be allowed to provide takeout services.
The French government admitted on Jan. 4 that roughly 500 people were vaccinated during the first week of the campaign, which prompted Health Minister Olivier Veran to promise that the pace of vaccinations will be accelerated.
In Germany, the government is considering delaying the administration of the second dose of the vaccine by several weeks, so that a greater amount of people can receive the first dose.
In Spain, densely populated regions such as Madrid and Catalonia admitted that they have vaccinated a much lower number of people than originally planned. According to the Catalan government, only 13 percent of the people who should have been vaccinated during the first week of the campaign have actually received their dose.
So far, the European Union has only authorized the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which is leading to distribution problems. On Jan. 4 the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it needed a few more days to approve the Moderna vaccine.
As long as lockdown measures are kept in place, the European Union and the United Kingdom will struggle to return to economic growth after experiencing deep recessions in 2020. In the meantime, governments will probably announce new rounds of stimulus measures to help sectors hit hardest by the lockdowns, such as retail, restaurants and hospitality. The European Commission suspended the bloc’s debt and deficit limits in 2020, which means that EU governments will not be under immediate pressure to reduce public spending and borrowing. In addition, the European Central Bank’s asset-purchasing programs are keeping borrowing costs for the eurozone at very low levels. But in the long run, financial markets and investors could become nervous about the sustainability of the bloc’s fiscal policies, especially in heavily indebted southern European countries — opening the door to debt crises.
According to EU rules, which were suspended in 2020, member states should not have a fiscal deficit above 3 percent of GDP and sovereign debt above 60 percent of GDP.
The 27 members of the European Union ran fiscal deficits in 2020 due to higher public spending to cope with the COVID-19 crisis. Belgium, Spain, France, Italy and Romania’s fiscal deficits all exceeded 10 percent of GDP last year.
Seven of the 19 countries in the eurozone also had debt-to-GDP ratios above 100 percent in 2020. In Greece’s case, that ratio was above 200 percent.
In 2020, the European Union approved a 750 billion euro relief package for the bloc, but the disbursement of funds is only expected later this year.
-
The Road to Global COVID-19 Vaccination Will Be Rife With Risks and Setbacks
6 MINS READ
Jan 7, 2021 | 23:00 GMT
A pharmacist receives her first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in Miramar, Florida, on Dec. 14, 2020.
A pharmacist receives her first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in Miramar, Florida, on Dec. 14, 2020.
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
The United States and Europe will overcome the slow and problematic rollout of COVID vaccination campaigns in the coming months, but concerns about new strains of the virus will likely push governments to adjust protocols in order to speed up distribution. Changing the timing of doses, skipping a dose or combining vaccines are all high-risk endeavors in that they would disrupt data collection and analysis of vaccine efficacy in ongoing studies. But such vaccine protocol changes may nonetheless be deemed necessary to increase vaccination rates as policymakers scramble to quickly secure herd immunity and bring an end to the pandemic. Vaccination rates, however, will still likely hit a roadblock once skeptics from broader swaths of the population begin to defer immunization in successive vaccination waves. ...
The United States and Europe will overcome the slow and problematic rollout of COVID vaccination campaigns in the coming months, but concerns about new strains of the virus will likely push governments to adjust protocols in order to speed up distribution. Changing the timing of doses, skipping a dose or combining vaccines are all high-risk endeavors in that they would disrupt data collection and analysis of vaccine efficacy in ongoing studies. But such vaccine protocol changes may nonetheless be deemed necessary to increase vaccination rates as policymakers scramble to quickly secure herd immunity and bring an end to the pandemic. Vaccination rates, however, will still likely hit a roadblock once skeptics from broader swaths of the population begin to defer immunization in successive vaccination waves.
A review of the global H1N1 vaccination campaign in 2009 suggests that logistical issues, along with communicating with and mobilizing healthcare workers, will be key in determining the pace of COVID-19 vaccination rollouts. Like the current COVID-19 campaign, the H1N1 vaccine campaign also began in the developed world as a result of an accelerated development effort spurred by the World Health Organization’s declaration of a pandemic. It took months for the H1N1 campaign to overcome initial delays in supply and confusion about who was eligible to first receive the vaccine. An after-action review of the H1N1 campaign in the United States stressed the need for future campaigns to “underpromise, overdeliver” vaccine doses, along with better communication across the board. But even with these lessons learned, dress rehearsals and dry runs can only prepare so much. Indeed, disjointed regional and federal guidelines, staff shortages, logistical difficulties and the phased administration process have already caused the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to be doled out much slower in the United States and Europe than initially promised.
Reasons for delays in vaccine distribution have so far included accidental disposal of doses due to confusion about labeling; the need to ensure a second dose would be available before administering the first; the very limited pool of people in the first round of vaccinations, limited numbers of trained individuals to administer the vaccine due to the pandemic’s current stress on healthcare systems; and the need to stagger the administration of the vaccine to viable candidates to ensure potential side effects don’t take too many healthcare workers offline at once.
The United States initially promised 20 million doses by the end of the year, but ended up only vaccinating 2.79 million before the calendar year ended. As of Jan. 7, 5.31 million people have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, according to Our World in Data. The U.S. Center for Disease and Control (CDC) has also reported that more than 17 million doses of the vaccine have so far been distributed.
Israel has been cited as a standard for a successful vaccination campaign. Israel’s high per capita vaccination rate, however, is due to several unique factors, including the country’s relatively small population, centralized healthcare system and decision not to limit the initial viable candidates for the vaccine.
Ongoing uncertainty surrounding the new rapidly spreading variants of COVID-19 may tempt policymakers to find non-traditional ways to accelerate vaccination rollouts, even if it risks reducing vaccine effectiveness and eroding public trust. Typically, changing the protocol for delivery of a vaccine would be a non-starter. However, the recent emergence of two new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the United Kingdom and South Africa has increased calls to expedite vaccine rollouts in order to guard against the continued spread of the disease and, in turn, the potential for further mutations. To quickly immunize broader swaths of their populations, government officials may authorize lengthening the time between doses and/or allowing COVID-19 vaccines from different developers to be mixed. Governments could even forgo administering the second dose altogether. Such moves, however, would likely come back to bite.
The B.1.1.7 strain that has quickly become the dominant COVID-19 strain in much of the United Kingdom does not appear to subvert the current standard of treatment or the vaccine. There is more uncertainty surrounding the 501.V2 variant from South Africa, whose mutations appear to impact the effectiveness of some treatments, though the currently approved vaccines may still provide some protection.
The United Kingdom has already stated its intent to lengthen the amount of time between initial doses. Government officials have also stated that they may mix vaccines (i.e. giving someone a dose of the Moderna vaccine, even if their first dose was the Pfizer vaccine) if the correct second dose is not available.
Because the current vaccines have been authorized through emergency approvals, the full testing and trials are still ongoing. The impact of changing protocols mid-study cannot be known and, under typical conditions, would go under months (if not years) of additional study. But there is a high risk of diminishing the effectiveness of the vaccine by changing the dose concentration or timing.
As logistical issues are resolved, population resistance will persist as the primary factor limiting vaccination rates, lengthening the amount of time it takes to reach herd immunity. This could, in turn, provide the virus more time to disrupt the global economy, as well as potentially mutate to render current treatments and vaccines ineffective, forcing the process to start all over again. Numerous polls across the United States and Europe indicate that there is a high level of skepticism toward COVID-19 vaccinations. Experts believe that somewhere between 50-85% of the population needs to be vaccinated or immune to COVID-19 before the world will achieve herd immunity. Unforeseen consequences of changing protocols could further damage already low public trust in COVID-19 vaccines. Even when governments succeed in overcoming initial hurdles to distribution, vaccination rates will likely plateau over the next six months in the developed world, hindering efforts to end the pandemic. This could force governments to consider compulsory vaccination requirements, which would be a risky and difficult political move in many countries, including the United States.
A YouGov poll conducted in November indicated that only 41% percent of France’s citizens were unwilling to get the COVID-19 vaccination, Spain and Sweden also saw similarly low acceptance rates. Confidence in the United States has risen in recent weeks, but 40% of Americans are still either unwilling or hesitant to get the vaccine, according to Pew Research Center Polls.
Using basic epidemiological formulas, Dr. Zach Nayer with Stat News estimated it will take until May 2021 to achieve herd immunity in the United States, assuming that herd immunity can be achieved at 75%. But reaching herd immunity by May 2021 also assumes 64% of the U.S. population is vaccinated, and estimates that reducing U.S. vaccinations by just 3% to 61% of the population would extend the clock to July 2021. And if only 39% of Americans get vaccinated, herd immunity would take until Dec 2022.
-
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/the-unborn-babies-used-for-vaccine-development-were-alive-at-tissue-extraction?utm_source=top_news&utm_campaign=standard
-
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/the-unborn-babies-used-for-vaccine-development-were-alive-at-tissue-extraction?utm_source=top_news&utm_campaign=standard
We live in dark times.
-
Fk , , ,
-
Daily Memo: China's Latest COVID-19 Wave, More Airstrikes in Syria
Millions are already in lockdown after the largest outbreak since July.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Another wave in China. In Hebei province, which borders Beijing, Chinese authorities have put some 23 million people in three cities on lockdown following discovery of at least 100 new cases of COVID-19, the largest outbreak since July. China’s northeastern border province of Heilongjiang, meanwhile, has declared a state of emergency after reporting 16 new locally transmitted cases. Local governments are banning weddings and funerals and pleading with people to stay put during the upcoming Lunar New Year festivities – what typically amounts to the world’s largest annual human migration. By Western standards, the size of the latest “wave” would be wonderful news. But if we’ve learned nothing else over the past year, it’s that plagues can get out of control quickly – and the Chinese Communist Party has increasingly staked its legitimacy on its relatively successful management of the virus since the late spring.
-
Too bad we just took a valuable year off their life...
https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/early/2021/01/06/peds.2020-048090.full.pdf
Anew peer-reviewed study has found that the spread of COVID-19 in surveyed elementary schools is "extremely limited," potentially lending hope to advocates who are pushing to reopen schools that have been shuttered in some cases for roughly a year.
The study, published in the medical journal Pediatrics by the American Academy of Pediatrics, followed "11 participating school districts" with "more than 90,000 students and staff" present for in-person instruction.
"Across the 11 school districts," the researchers write, "773 community-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections were documented by molecular testing; however, there were only 32 adjudicated cases of secondary transmission across the 11 districts combined in 9 weeks of instruction."
Within the surveyed populations over the nine-week period, "we found extremely limited within-school secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2, determined by contact tracing," the authors write.
The researchers, affiliated with the University of North Carolina and Duke University, also wrote that they observed "no cases of child-to-adult within-school transmission."
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/peer-reviewed-study-finds-spread-covid-19-schools-extremely-limited
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/norway-sounds-alarm-over-vaccine-risks-elderly-frail-after-23-deaths?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
https://www.revolver.news/2021/01/biden-takes-office-drops-lockdown-sham/
-
as it ALREADY IS:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=~USA
check the vaccine date
look at the vaccine rate
it is a straight line going up daily
so Joe
takes credit for a trajectory that is already on course to break all records
and all his scientist partisan friends will be smiling on all the talk shows patting themselves on the back
-
“On January 19th, two preprint research papers were published. One had good news: the Pfizer vaccine (and because it is highly similar, probably the Moderna one) was just as effective in blocking the B.1.1.7 variant as the virus that originated in Wuhan. The other paper contained findings that (the CDC) and others have been dreading: the South African variant, B.1.351, has shown that it can escape the antibodies in the blood of previously infected persons. This suggests that the therapies that use what are called monoclonal antibodies—such as what President Trump received—could fail. The authors of the study, led by Kurt Wibmer, at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, in Johannesburg, underscored the implications for the effectiveness of sars-CoV-2 vaccines, which are based on immune responses to the spike protein. “These data highlight the prospect of reinfection with antigenically distinct variants and may foreshadow reduced efficacy of current spike-based vaccines.” As Stéphane Bancel, the C.E.O. of Moderna, a maker of one of the covid-19 vaccines, said last week, “We are going to live with this virus, we think, forever.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/can-the-covid-19-vaccine-beat-the-proliferation-of-new-virus-mutations
-
https://www.conservativereview.com/200-national-guardsmen-test-positive-for-coronavirus-following-deployment-to-dc-for-inauguration-2650072268.html
where is cuomo's sick face on the screen telling us how bad she is ?
-
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/01/25/steve-hilton-finds-stunning-covid-19-evidence-specific-activity-that-dr-fauci-funded-and-it-is-terrifying-1020943/
my first thought
this is the first time I see the US NIH funding research in foreign country
I didn't know we did that
unless funds go to American company that does trials overseas maybe
second thought
this is just another reason officials would be anxious to cover up a Wuhan link
-
State Lessons in Vaccine Rollouts
Federalism is again proving its value in getting shots in arms.
By The Editorial Board
Updated Jan. 24, 2021 8:06 pm
President Biden is vowing to meet a goal of 100 million Covid-19 vaccines in 100 days, and if anything that is too modest given the pace of production. One way to do better is to heed lessons in flexibility from the states with the most successful vaccine rollouts.
Some six weeks after the first shipments, the U.S. has administered some 53% of distributed vaccines. The gap continues to grow between states that are getting shots into arms, and those arguing over who gets what and when. North Dakota had administered some 84% of its supply as of Jan. 23, and West Virginia about 83%—far better than states like California (45%) or Alabama (47%). Federalism is showing what works—and what doesn’t.
The federal government’s main role is the production and distribution of vaccine doses, and the Biden Administration is fortunate to inherit Operation Warp Speed. Mr. Biden says he’ll trigger the Defense Production Act to expand vaccine production, albeit without details on how he’d build on the existing plan.
One step forward would be to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine on an emergency basis, as the U.K. did last month. It may not prove as effective as the mRNA shots from Pfizer and Moderna, but it would add to supply, is easier to transport, and would be a particularly good candidate for younger, healthy Americans.
The risk is that Team Biden tries to micromanage state administration of the vaccine, especially now that the media, Democrats and some public-health officials are blaming slow state rollouts on a “vacuum” of federal leadership. But vaccine administration was always intended to be state-led, and too many jurisdictions squandered the ample time they had for preparation.
This criticism is also wrong because the biggest state mistakes so far have been adhering too much to the federal government’s initial guidance to limit the first batches to health-care workers and long-term care residents, followed by front-line employees and those over age 75. States couldn’t find enough takers, and precious doses ended up in the trash.
The most successful state rollouts have departed from overly prescriptive federal rules. North Dakota stuck with the initial recommendations on health-care workers and nursing-care residents, but then threw open its program to anyone age 65 and up, as well as to adults with underlying health risks. South Dakota added law enforcement and corrections staff to its initial tiers, and then also moved quickly to inoculate 65-and-older adults and school workers. The states with the highest per capita vaccination rates are all rule-breakers—Alaska (12,885 per 100,000), West Virginia (11,321), and North Dakota (9,602) as of Jan. 23.
Top performers also thought creatively about how best to distribute and administer the vaccine, even if that meant departing from federal advice. North Dakota began planning its vaccine rollout last summer and chose to distribute vaccine supplies to health-care providers statewide—not only to hospitals or public-health systems.
West Virginia opted out of a federal program that puts CVS and Walgreens in charge of vaccinating most nursing homes, an initiative that is moving at a turtle’s pace. The state used a network of 250 local pharmacies—most of which had existing relationships with patients, which sped up scheduling and paperwork. It also enlisted its National Guard to lead on logistics, with the Guard delivering vaccines to the state’s long-term care facilities and hosting vaccination clinics that are now becoming common elsewhere.
The most successful states also rolled out technology to ease appointments, many with online dashboards to allow residents to fill out eligibility questionnaires and locate vaccine providers. Some states, like South Dakota, are using electronic medical records to figure out who qualifies for the vaccine.
These states have smaller populations. But they are also rural with more logistical challenges to get vaccines to less-populated towns. (Alaska used bush planes and snow machines.) Some denser states like Connecticut have also had strong rollouts, thanks to large clinics, planning and communication between state government and hospitals. The federal government’s Jan. 12 decision to follow states and throw open eligibility to anyone over 65 is an admission that the feds were wrong.
Mr. Biden is under pressure from the left to infuse the vaccine rollout with “equity” politics. As California (5,568 per 100,000) and New York (5,816 per 100,000) show, such bickering is a recipe for fewer vaccines and more deaths. States are proving again that they can show a better way than orders from Washington.
-
That Steve Hilton piece is terrifying in its implications!
-
And had to up the date to Peter Ducey today to 1.5 million
when someone whispered in his hearing aid we are already at a mill per day and climbing daily
as the chart I posted last week shows.
slow Joe trying to keep mojo....
like Clinton rapid response team
every day got to make announcement to quell the criticism
BS or not
-
Or, indeed, are
NH or hospitals over reporting ?
the NH would rather under report
hospitals love to over report
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ny-nursing-home-virus-deaths-155409236.html
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/did-china-steal-coronavirus-canada-and-weaponize-it
https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/covid-made-in-lab/
-
Some local figures in this article:
Coronavirus Pandemic death rate in the under 40 range = 0.002% *
Minnesotans under 40: 72 deaths out of 2,871,000 people
https://healthy-skeptic.com/2021/02/02/a-few-numbers-and-some-minnesota-nonsense/
* These numbers are exaggerated, not all died of covid. Real numbers are lower.
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9219379/Why-coronavirus-cases-falling-fast-New-infections-drop-44-three-weeks.html
Now More Americans have now been vaccinated for COVID-19 than infected
https://nypost.com/2021/02/01/more-americans-have-now-been-vaccinated-for-covid-than-infected/
Thank you Pres. Trump. )
-
while purposely letting it spread around the world:
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/government-coronavirus-social-murder/2021/02/04/id/1008591/
and comparing a small island country like Taiwan or N Zealand or the US
is not apples and apples
-
(https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/eXVVE5-dn0uw7Nlu1KuJg6dkGLl040JSVlZGx9FbygJebO7ymop77OeURzSkiWvUBhWstR4f5xCJjMpjqM9ok4-YyiA3JIHndAGlmnEHV8Wc3zF4nudgO-3lORnZk3-6MGAa5ALPHTY5_G6Wt2oo7V19cljx7Q=s0-d-e1-ft#https://mcusercontent.com/dc8d30edd7976d2ddf9c2bf96/images/197fcda3-eee8-4558-9ca8-468b793f8a9a.jpg)
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/who-team-finds-it-extremely-unlikely-covid-19-virus-started-in-lab/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=22891476
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/064/905/169/original/54343d76c1a3e26b.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/064/905/169/original/54343d76c1a3e26b.png)
-
US: From their peaks about a month ago, cases are down 56%; positive percentage is down 51%; hospital census is down 35%; ICU census is down 28%; deaths are down 16%. Every region of the country is falling in every metric now, and sharply.
Alabama football victory celebration photo. New cases numbers dropped in Alabama since then just like the US as a whole. The virus spreads poorly outside.
(https://mcusercontent.com/dc8d30edd7976d2ddf9c2bf96/images/4874217a-92f7-47a5-9e10-3753e41584ed.jpg)
Have we gone too far? Video from Canada. Nice rant.
https://twitter.com/berniespofforth/status/1358683733822423046
https://mailchi.mp/a67f172f6ac1/unleash-prosperity-hotline-863938?e=17d44a0477
-
Sharing here what I received yesterday from a friend, tech entrepreneur Phil Soran.
[https://mntech.org/phil-soran-to-receive-lifetime-achievement-award-at-2019-tekne-awards/]
I have ordered these masks. Watch the news video linked.
We have been required to wear masks to resume sports and breathability is a big issue. I see people pulling their mask down a little to breathe, defeating the purpose. I've been wearing double mask for travel. This mask should kill, not just filter the virus, and should work against other and future viruses and bacteria, not just the current coronavirus strain. Assuming your mask works, do you want the coronavirus alive and trapped in it?
--------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Anti Viral Masks
Attachments
Wed, Feb 10, 3:49 PM (16 hours ago)
A year ago, Jim Leslie (Flipgrid fame) and I got involved as board members and investors in a U of Minnesota spinout, Claros Technologies. www.clarostechnologies.com
Claros is an advanced materials company that leverages its proprietary technologies to functionalize materials (gives them characteristics they don’t naturally possess). It does this by growing nanoparticles permanently into the material. Original applications were for challenges such as pollution cleanup and remediation (Mercury, PFAS, Phosphorus, etc.). It also imbeds functionality in textiles for uses such as UV resistance and-anti odor among other characteristics.
With the onset of the pandemic, Claros focused on protecting people from the deadly virus. It applied for, and received, a grant from the CDC to develop its nanotechnology process to create anti-microbial masks that not only kill COVID-19 (and other viruses, bacteria) on contact, but to retain that functionality longer than the 5-10 washes typical of treated fabrics. Well, they did it!
The Claros Log3 mask is now complete and in the market. The Log3 has been third-party tested and certified to kill (not just filter) over 99.9% of contacted viruses and bacteria, which means touching the mask doesn’t risk your or others’ health. It also is dermatology/hypoallergenic approved. Claris offers several models, from activity masks that are easier to breathe through and wick moisture out faster than standard cloth masks, to versions that filter with the effectiveness of an surgical mask and then leverage its antiviral capabilities to kill the filtered virus. All mask models are certified by independent labs to retain effectively all of their functionality up to 100 washes. Pretty impressive.
Check out this piece that was aired on KSTP this past week:
https://kstp.com/coronavirus/this-is-a-game-changer-u-of-m-spinoff-company-launches-face-mask-it-says-can-kill-the-coronavirus-february-3-2021/6000735/
In full disclosure, I am in investor in Claros. Mask sales are a small part of the company’s business plan, but a big part of the ethos of the company. So, my goal with this note is not sales, but rather to inform you of a potentially more effective and healthy mask alternative.
Take a look at the Log3 site - www.log3mask.com I encourage you to look at some of the technical certifications and reports on the technology.
If you like what you see - spread the word with family and friends - forward this note.
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/02/11/more-than-20000-in-u-s-died-from-coronavirus-in-bidens-third-week-in-office/
Not sure CNN ever mentions Joe's name though
or his crack corona crushing team .
-
https://gatesofvienna.net/2021/02/31-reasons-why-i-wont-take-the-vaccine/
-
"It’s not a vaccine. A vaccine by definition provides immunity to a disease. This does not provide immunity to anything. In a best-case scenario, it merely reduces the chance of getting a severe case of a virus if one catches it. Hence, it is a medical treatment, not a vaccine. I do not want to take a medical treatment for an illness I do not have."
Wrong.
It most certainly is a vaccine .
It is not perfect or 100% effective but it most certainly does stimulate formation of antibodies
and for most some immunity agains the virus
flu shots are vaccines and. so is this
as for many of the other reasons not to get
the author is welcome to decide not to get it
and sit home and take vitamins
if they choose
i have not gotten vaccine
I have been nursing broken foot for 3.5 months
so have not gotten around to it
as for unknown longer term risks - yes that is true - we don't know.
-
I will wait until I know it's safe. Maybe 10 or 15 years...
"It’s not a vaccine. A vaccine by definition provides immunity to a disease. This does not provide immunity to anything. In a best-case scenario, it merely reduces the chance of getting a severe case of a virus if one catches it. Hence, it is a medical treatment, not a vaccine. I do not want to take a medical treatment for an illness I do not have."
Wrong.
It most certainly is a vaccine .
It is not perfect or 100% effective but it most certainly does stimulate formation of antibodies
and for most some immunity agains the virus
flu shots are vaccines and. so is this
as for many of the other reasons not to get
the author is welcome to decide not to get it
and sit home and take vitamins
if they choose
i have not gotten vaccine
I have been nursing broken foot for 3.5 months
so have not gotten around to it
as for unknown longer term risks - yes that is true - we don't know.
-
https://www.pandemicletter.com/letters
I took a quick look at the first and last of the letters. Seems promising.
-
https://dailycaller.com/2021/02/13/jake-sullivan-china-world-health-organization-coronavirus/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2906&pnespid=i_VvtPlSG12NNE0Eptd5dzb582TpipXcVzKmzTOm
-
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=241577
-
Running it by a doctor friend.
-
He says it is deranged drivel.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/one-third-of-troops-turning-down-ccp-virus-vaccine-pentagon_3700771.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-02-18
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/392817.php
-
https://www.wsj.com/articles/well-have-herd-immunity-by-april-11613669731
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/feb/21/pottinger-circumstantial-evidence-points-to-chines/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=GEcBdydXIEfIUwb318NVrfPbMR1HEFw0aCqHWET%2BRzx3kzlLu%2FjE03PsCiAcYZNB&bt_ts=1613940585847
-
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/02/21/fauci-americans-may-need-to-wear-masks-into-2022/
finished second better book on 1918 flu
author has been on cable at times
in September of 1919 the flu seemed to simply vanish
but on closer later evaluation of the records
indicate it likely sputtered with smaller outbreaks in pockets till 1922
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Influenza
I am going to take an arm chair guess - I think corona will mostly disappear as suggested recently as posted here by summer
with maybe fewer outbreaks scattered about
it is just as likely to mutate back to milder forms
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/02/21/very-interesting-2/
-
https://www.who.int/news/item/08-05-2015-who-issues-best-practices-for-naming-new-human-infectious-diseases?fbclid=IwAR3_nCXvuoAfsO-2zqPt9VLBk5nq_llO_AoMJdBo7R1GYChKknuTznxOYKw
-
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/01/25/dr-anthony-fauci-the-highest-paid-employee-in-the-entire-us-federal-government/?sh=e66dc6b386f0
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/24/gop-calls-for-investigation-into-nih-connection-to-wuhan-lab/
-
https://acpinternist.org/weekly/archives/2021/02/23/1.htm?utm_campaign=FY20-21_NEWS_INTERNIST_DOMESTIC_022321_EML&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua
-
https://principia-scientific.com/the-american-journal-of-medicine-now-recommends-hcq-for-covid19/
How many people died because ORANGE MAN BAD?
-
https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/the-american-journal-of-medicine-didnt-recommend-hydroxychloroquine-as-a-treatment-for-covid-19-scientific-evidence-doesnt-show-hydroxychloroquine-is-effective-against-covid-19/?fbclid=IwAR0an7FaWXt_xwt4xyiS3hK3h7hJOSx0xVE3NjdHXUdaKnhmOyircLOaROw
-
I get the American Journal of Medicine
it is called the "green" journal because it has green on its cover
it is sent to me for free - not sure why - for many yrs
It is ok but not especially highly regarded
I don't remember the article you mention
Alpert is a cardiologist editor who always has a blurb in the beginning of the journal
we get patients calling and requesting meds for Corona infection
hydroxychloroquine not much anymore but we did
had one patient recently insisting he get ivermectin
colchicine is another drug that some claim has efficacy
-
BEIJING—A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of Covid-19 is planning to scrap an interim report on its recent mission to China amid mounting tensions between Beijing and Washington over the investigation and an appeal from one international group of scientists for a new probe.
The group of two dozen scientists is calling in an open letter on Thursday for a new international inquiry. They say the WHO team that last month completed a mission to Wuhan—the Chinese city where the first known cases were found—had insufficient access to adequately investigate possible sources of the new coronavirus, including whether it slipped from a laboratory.
Their appeal comes as the U.S.—which recently reversed a decision to leave the WHO—lobbies for greater transparency in the investigation, saying it is waiting to scrutinize the report on the Wuhan mission, and urging China to release all relevant data, including on the first confirmed infections in December 2019, and potential earlier ones.
Beijing, meanwhile, is pressing for similar WHO-led missions to other countries, including the U.S., to investigate whether the virus could have originated outside China and spread to Wuhan via frozen food packaging.
(MARC: Who could have seen that coming?!?)
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Feb. 12 that the team would release an interim report briefly summarizing the Wuhan mission, possibly the following week, with a full report coming weeks later. But that summary report has yet to be published and the WHO team is now scrapping that plan, said Peter Ben Embarek, the food-safety scientist who led the team. The WHO team plans to publish a summary along with the full, final report, he said. That final report “will be published in coming weeks and will include key findings,” a WHO spokesman said.
“By definition a summary report does not have all the details,” said Dr. Ben Embarek. “So since there [is] so much interest in this report, a summary only would not satisfy the curiosity of the readers.”
Peter Ben Embarek, who led the WHO team, visited Wuhan’s Huanan food market on Jan. 31.
PHOTO: THOMAS PETER/REUTERS
The delay in publishing the findings and recommendations from the Wuhan mission, conducted jointly with Chinese scientists and officials who will have to approve any report, comes against a backdrop of continued political and scientific controversy surrounding the search for the origins of the pandemic.
China’s foreign ministry described the open letter as “old wine in new bottles” that assumed guilt and lacked scientific credibility, and said the Wuhan mission concluded that a laboratory origin was “extremely unlikely” and not worth further research. Neither the foreign ministry nor China’s national health commission responded to requests for comment on the Wuhan mission report.
READ THE OPEN LETTER
“Call for a Full and Unrestricted International Forensic Investigation into the Origins of COVID-19”
According to an advance copy of the open letter, the group of 26 scientists and other experts in areas including virology, zoology and microbiology said that it was “all but impossible” for the WHO team to conduct a full investigation, and that any report was likely to involve political compromises as it had to be approved by the Chinese side.
Related Video
Lab Theory ‘Extremely Unlikely’: What WHO Team Learned in Wuhan
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
UP NEXT
Lab Theory ‘Extremely Unlikely’: What WHO Team Learned in Wuhan
Lab Theory ‘Extremely Unlikely’: What WHO Team Learned in Wuhan
The World Health Organization’s mission to Wuhan said the coronavirus most likely spread naturally to humans through an animal. WSJ’s Jeremy Page reports on what scientists learned during their weekslong investigation. Photo: Thomas Peter/Reuters
A credible investigation required, among other things, confidential interviews and fuller access to hospital records of confirmed and potential Chinese coronavirus cases in late 2019, when the outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, said the letter signed by experts from France, the U.S., India, Australia and other countries.
Investigators should also be allowed to view records including maintenance, personnel, animal breeding and experiment logs from all laboratories working with coronaviruses, the letter said.
“We cannot afford an investigation into the origins of the pandemic that is anything less than absolutely thorough and credible,” the letter said. “Efforts to date do not constitute a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation.”
Guards stand in front of Wuhan’s Jinyintan Hospital during a visit by members of the WHO team on Jan. 30.
PHOTO: HECTOR RETAMAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The appeal is unlikely to gain traction, as any future probes would require Beijing’s cooperation. Moreover, many leading infectious-disease experts are skeptical that a lab accident could plausibly explain the origins of the pandemic.
Still, it expresses what has become a more widely shared dissatisfaction, voiced by the U.S. and U.K. governments and many scientists world-wide, that China has provided too little information and data to the WHO to guide researchers trying to determine where the virus originated and how it jumped to humans.
“China has not been fully and effectively transparent either at the start of this crisis, when it mattered most, or even today as investigations are going forward trying to get to the bottom of what happened,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview with PBS on Wednesday.
China has repeatedly said that it is cooperating fully with the WHO and denied assertions, including from Trump administration officials, that the virus might have come from a research facility in Wuhan, at least one of which specializes in bat coronaviruses.
During the mission last month, the WHO team said its members and their Chinese counterparts analyzed the leading hypotheses to determine where future research should focus. At the mission’s end, team leaders said they would urge studies of ways the virus could have spread from different small mammals, and wouldn’t recommend further research on a potential lab accident, a theory it deemed “extremely unlikely.”
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
How do you think a proposed new inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic should be structured and governed? Join the conversation below.
That conclusion was hailed by Beijing, as well as by scientists in various countries who argue that the virus spread naturally—most likely from bats, then possibly through another animal, to humans—and dismiss the laboratory hypothesis as a politically motivated smear.
Since returning from China, however, some of the WHO investigators have qualified their conclusions, saying they didn’t have the mandate, expertise or data for a full audit of any laboratory. The team also lacked important data on the first confirmed cases, or on patients hospitalized with similar symptoms beforehand.
A laboratory accident is “definitely not off the table,” Dr. Ben Embarek told a seminar last week. Dr. Tedros said in February after the team’s trip that “all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis.”
The signatories of the open letter are mostly members of a broader group, spearheaded by French scientists, who have been sharing research papers and other information on Covid-19 since around December. None are associated with the WHO investigation.
Signatories of the open letter are calling for a new probe after the WHO team’s mission, which included a visit to Hubei province’s center for disease control.
PHOTO: THOMAS PETER/REUTERS
Among the signatories are Etienne Decroly and Bruno Canard, molecular virologists at AFMB Lab, which belongs to Aix-Marseille University and the French National Centre for Scientific Research, France’s state research agency.
Dr. Decroly said he became involved after concluding that on the basis of available data, it was impossible to determine whether SARS-CoV-2 “is the result of a zoonosis from a wild viral strain or an accidental escape of experimental strains.”
The letter was co-organized by Gilles Demaneuf, a French data scientist based in New Zealand, and Jamie Metzl, a U.S.-based senior fellow for the Atlantic Council and adviser to the WHO on human genome editing.
Prominent critics of the laboratory hypothesis have in recent weeks published new research on bat coronaviruses found in Southeast Asia and Japan that they say shows that SARS-CoV-2 most likely evolved naturally to infect humans.
Investigating the Origin of Covid-19
MARCH 6, 2020
How It All Started: China’s Early Coronavirus Missteps
MAY 12, 2020
On the Ground in Wuhan, Signs of China Stalling Probe of Coronavirus Origins
FEB. 10, 2021
Possible Early Covid-19 Cases in China Emerge During WHO Mission
FEB. 12, 2021
China Refuses to Give WHO Raw Data on Early Covid-19 Cases
FEB. 18, 2021
In Hunt for Covid-19 Origin, WHO Team Focuses on Two Animal Types in China
FEB. 19, 2021
Covid-19 Was Spreading in China Before First Confirmed Cases, Fresh Evidence Suggests
FEB. 26, 2021
Patient Zero Points to Second Wuhan Market
MARCH 1, 2021
Covid-19 Virus Studies Yield New Clues on Pandemic’s Origin
Robert Garry, a virologist at the Tulane University School of Medicine who was involved in that research, said he and other colleagues had initially considered the possibility of a leak or accident from a laboratory, but ultimately deemed it “nearly impossible.”
The Biden administration hasn’t publicly repeated its predecessor’s specific assertions regarding Wuhan laboratories.
Signatories of the open letter say they don’t back any one hypothesis but think it is premature to exclude the possibility of a leak or accident at or connected with a research facility such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, which runs high-security laboratories and has conducted extensive research on bat coronaviruses.
WIV scientists deny the virus came from there, saying they neither stored nor worked on SARS-CoV-2 before the pandemic and none of their staff tested positive for the virus.
Signatories said investigators should look at several possible scenarios, including whether a laboratory employee became infected with a naturally evolving virus while sampling bats in the wild, during transport of infected animals, or during disposal of lab waste.
They also said investigators should probe whether SARS-CoV-2 could have stemmed from “gain-of-function” experiments, in which viruses found in the wild are genetically manipulated to see if they can become more infectious or deadly to humans.
MORE ON THE PANDEMIC
-
https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=4594
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/adverse-incident-reports-show-966-deaths-following-vaccination-for-covid-19_3723384.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-03-07
-
I did some pharmaceutical studies back in very early 90s
we used to have to report adverse events or deaths
and had to report if we thought adverse was maybe or not due to drug
or more likely coincidental
the above stats make no clarification of that
-
I did some pharmaceutical studies back in very early 90s
we used to have to report adverse events or deaths
and had to report if we thought adverse was maybe or not due to drug
or more likely coincidental
the above stats make no clarification of that
No attempt to get at truth.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin: 'after this, therefore because of this')
Untimely thinking: George Floyd was a Covid death according CDC and MN Dept of Health. He had covid and then he died in a short time. We'll see what the jury says.
The vaccine might be nasty to put in your system. That needs to be compared with putting real covid in your system.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/068/105/031/original/6caac9b9f0b41124.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/068/105/031/original/6caac9b9f0b41124.png)
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
covid 19 moving up
but of course who knows how many died in the past epi/pandemics
estimates are widely all over the place
-
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/scott-gottlieb-thinks-heated-exchange-200048880.html
-
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/scott-gottlieb-thinks-heated-exchange-200048880.html
Rand Paul is exactly right about the original covid=19 and Fauci doesn't seem to dispute that.
Fauci is saying, look at these new variants, not protected by the vaccine.
That does sound like reason not to take the vaccine. The vaccine doesn't cover you for the biggest threats coming and you still have to wear a mask.
I wonder, are these new variants going global on at least the same pace and scale as covid-19?
Are we going to stop everything (again) and basically have martial law every time there is a new virus in the world?
If this virus is a product of germ warfare - and even if it wasn't - doesn't our over-reaction to each outbreak encourage that.
-
Proof of concept-- yes.
-
Proof of concept-- yes.
China has only enjoyed gains from this, no penalties of consequence, so we can reasonably expect...
-
https://nypost.com/2021/03/03/flights-from-countries-with-ebola-to-be-funneled-to-jfk-newark/
-
maybe I will get call back
worked at newark the last outbreak
-
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2021/03/29/joint-w-h-o-china-report-clears-wuhan-lab-of-coronavirus-blame/
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/393398.php
-
April 2, 2021
View On Website
Open as PDF
The Problem With Face Masks and Vaccinations
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
On Thursday, my wife and I got our second COVID-19 vaccination. I would like to go to a bar, strike up a conversation with a stranger, and share some lies with him. I assume this isn’t going to happen. The vaccine is incredibly successful, we’re told, which I would expect given the amount of money spent by my government in developing it. But my government is telling me that in spite of the vaccine nothing will change. I must maintain social distance, wear a face mask and so on. The vaccine’s creators say it’s unclear if the virus can still infect someone. That would seem pretty easy to find out: I could breathe on a healthy young doctor and see if he gets sick. I’m obviously missing something. It’s got to be possible to figure out if I’m still infectious. I would have thought they would have checked this out on a gerbil or a lab rat. More seriously, though, the continuous usage of masks can have unintended consequences.
As I’ve noted before, face masks and social distancing were the only solutions the medical community could devise when COVID-19 first struck with all its fury. It continues to be a favored adjunct to vaccination. It is often said that wearing a mask and maintaining distance is a trivial burden to pay for safety. But I take issue with that argument. When human beings meet for the first time, they tend to face each other when they speak. Hell, so do people who have known each other for a while. Talking is far more complex than merely hearing words. Humans communicate much with facial expressions. Take the statement: “George, you wrote a great book.” (This is something I can’t hear often enough.) That statement can mean many things. It might be meant sarcastically, with a curl of the lip. It might be genuine praise, with the mouth framed in a respectful fashion. Or it might be a comment by someone who never read the book who wants something from me, with the smile framed in an obsequious manner.
Humans use the face to identify threats; criminals wear masks as much to hide their intentions as they do to conceal their identities. Someone enraged at you or planning to harm you looks a certain way, someone delighted to see you another. It is not only the mouth that speaks to you. The muscles in the face can reveal tension or pleasure. The nose moves. The eyes reveal much. Facial expressions are much harder to interpret behind a mask. If you are very bored, ask your spouse to put on a mask and interpret their true feelings by the eyes alone. It can be done, but without context the probability of being wrong soars. The mouth, nose and lower half of the face are the checksums on what is said, and the mask impedes that greatly.
Consider this. I spent most of my high school career trying to kiss girls – admittedly with minimal success. My failure drove home the importance of kissing as part of the process of coming to terms with the fact that there are boys and girls and that from the first kiss you will be living with that awareness as it teaches you to deal with lust and its relationship to love, one of the most important passages of the human soul. How do you do that with a mask on?
Consider social distancing. It makes impossible the fights boys must have to learn how to settle matters later without fights. I recall girls putting their heads together and giggling. I was never sure about what, but the old rule is: If you can’t spot the jerk at the poker table, it’s probably you.
You can text or phone, but the ability to see those you speak to, or stand close to a stranger you just met, is indispensable to being human. So by definition, masks and distancing disrupt the process of being human. Ironically, if someone is speaking with a well-made mask, they are frequently incomprehensible unless you are a lot closer than six feet apart. The mask and social distancing tend to be mutually destructive.
Now, if these measures are the only ways to avoid mass death, then obviously they are necessary. But the assertion that these measures protect without cost is untrue. On multiple levels they impose costs that we may not yet understand. Learning how to play as a child, exploring the limits of tactile interaction, is essential to adulthood. My argument is not against these measures, if they are truly vital, but the cost-benefit must be addressed, and if the measures involve real costs, they should be imposed cautiously. Finding out if the vaccine makes me not infectious must be figured out quickly, as I fear the costs of a year of massive social and economic disruption are mounting. If the mask is essential to prevent another surge, so be it. But do not treat social distancing and masking as a trivial matter.
-
https://twitter.com/KyleKashuv/status/1377739020315193344
Ooooops!
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/dr-fauci-cant-explain-why-texas-covid-cases-keep-dropping-despite-reopening
-
https://www.patreon.com/posts/49751407
-
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyZ0WWRWEAI6q4Q?format=jpg&name=large
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyZ0WWRWEAI6q4Q?format=jpg&name=large)
-
https://www.patreon.com/posts/49923752
-
https://www.patreon.com/posts/49923752
He makes good points, but it doesn't seem as rushed now that the vaccines have been out for maybe 6 months. No long term studies on the effects - seems to be the last objection. It's true, but that is true the first few decades of anything, and would be true if the FDA took a few years to get this through.
The vaccine, if bad for you, is not as bad as the real covid (in my view) which is said to have long term effect on organs. We will see.
Let's take a poll here on getting the vaccine. I plan to get it. Thinking I will get Pfizer. I thought I wouldn't rush to the front of the line, that I would be eligible at least by my birthday. Now it's widely available and I'm still trying to let all the people who are in a bigger hurry go first. I don't like shots but if forced into a yes or no, I plan to say yes. If the effectiveness turns out to be short-lived, I am less persuaded.
-
Not getting it unless/until it's proven safe.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/49923752
He makes good points, but it doesn't seem as rushed now that the vaccines have been out for maybe 6 months. No long term studies on the effects - seems to be the last objection. It's true, but that is true the first few decades of anything, and would be true if the FDA took a few years to get this through.
The vaccine, if bad for you, is not as bad as the real covid (in my view) which is said to have long term effect on organs. We will see.
Let's take a poll here on getting the vaccine. I plan to get it. Thinking I will get Pfizer. I thought I wouldn't rush to the front of the line, that I would be eligible at least by my birthday. Now it's widely available and I'm still trying to let all the people who are in a bigger hurry go first. I don't like shots but if forced into a yes or no, I plan to say yes. If the effectiveness turns out to be short-lived, I am less persuaded.
-
just get scheduled for Thursday to get numero uno
happened to stop by my old work office to pick up a report
and they asked if I get it
"Why didn't you call
we can get it for you at the local hospital"
so I signed up
if you don't see my post for a while you will know why .......
-
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/man-74-gets-rare-severe-rash-all-over-body-and-says-his-skin-peeled-off-after-johnson-johnson-vaccine/news-story/d24c4a8fb02d91dcac92f596cd2668f1
just get scheduled for Thursday to get numero uno
happened to stop by my old work office to pick up a report
and they asked if I get it
"Why didn't you call
we can get it for you at the local hospital"
so I signed up
if you don't see my post for a while you will know why .......
-
https://www.patreon.com/posts/49923752
He makes good points, but it doesn't seem as rushed now that the vaccines have been out for maybe 6 months. No long term studies on the effects - seems to be the last objection. It's true, but that is true the first few decades of anything, and would be true if the FDA took a few years to get this through.
The vaccine, if bad for you, is not as bad as the real covid (in my view) which is said to have long term effect on organs. We will see.
Let's take a poll here on getting the vaccine. I plan to get it. Thinking I will get Pfizer. I thought I wouldn't rush to the front of the line, that I would be eligible at least by my birthday. Now it's widely available and I'm still trying to let all the people who are in a bigger hurry go first. I don't like shots but if forced into a yes or no, I plan to say yes. If the effectiveness turns out to be short-lived, I am less persuaded.
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/catholic-leaders-warn-that-johnson-johnson-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccines-are-made-from-the-tissue-of-dead-mutilated-fetuses/
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9465679/Health-Swimming-pool-water-inactivate-COVID-19-virus-just-30-SECONDS-study-finds.html
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9465935/Scottish-grandmother-82-given-60-anti-social-Covid-fine.html
-
populist press
which is over the top publication IMHO
https://populist.press/expert-cardiologist-warns-covid-vaccines-could-cause-mad-cow-disease/
but before we all get terrified read this next:
https://retractionwatch.com/2018/11/13/a-convicted-felon-writes-a-paper-on-hotly-debated-diets-what-could-go-wrong/
I am not sure how he makes the claim that there is no benefit to the vaccine ;
there is a lot of documented measurable benefit
as to long term side effects
yes we don't know but to claim a vaccine would cause mad cow which is a prion disease is really
not supported by anything
pop press does not. help our cause putting this on top of their page
-
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2021/04/15/the_latest_cdc_admission_demands_comment_from_anthony_fauci_772820.html
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/071/902/731/original/30d2742314fa0a24.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/071/902/731/original/30d2742314fa0a24.jpeg)
-
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/mask-madness-even-as-scientists-confirm-once-again-their-uselessness/
Harmful.
-
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/mask-madness-even-as-scientists-confirm-once-again-their-uselessness/
Harmful.
Especially harmful in situations where there is truly no reason for them to be worn.
We have been required to wear masks for indoor tennis this winter, because the Governor cannot make a distinction between a sport that has 2 or 4 players at an average distance of 30 to 80 feet apart sharing 300,000 cubic feet and a sweaty YMCA gym or a full airline cabin. How close would you stand to return a 90-100 mph serve? We have joked in doubles that if you are standing within 6 feet of your partner for 20 minutes continuously as you together defend an area of 1400 square feet of court on your side of the net, large enough to build a house on, you're probably not winning.
Compounding the not funny silliness is that we are talking at this point about 4 people who are either vaccinated or have chosen not to be.
People play tennis well into their 80s, enjoying the health benefit of a great sport until their hearts or joints can't take it. Even more so with all the replacement hips, knees and shoulders going around. Exertion can reveal a heart issue at any age. At some point, someone is going to have a cardio incident on the court, and the useless, harmful, asphyxiating ("I can't breathe") mask mandate is going to be found to be a contributing factor. Same goes for all kinds of other activities.
-
South America’s Response to the P1 COVID-19 Threat
To contain the fast-spreading P1 variant of COVID-19, South American countries with politically secure governments like Chile and Uruguay will likely impose stricter lockdowns but experience faster economic rebounds, while countries with upcoming elections like Brazil and Argentina enforce softer restrictions but struggle to fully restart their economies amid ongoing outbreaks. In December 2020, the P1 variant was detected in the Brazilian city of Manaus and eventually spread across the country. The variant now accounts for half of new COVID-19 cases in Brazil. Brazil has subsequently experienced over 3,000 deaths a day for several weeks and is on track to see 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 in April. While the variant has primarily affected Brazil, it has been detected in 15 countries across Latin America, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay.
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/22/why-im-not-getting-the-vaccine/
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/22/why-im-not-getting-the-vaccine/
He's not getting any of the vaccines for a year because he's young and there are no long term studies but doesn't state his age or what will be different in a year. Staying home if you feel ill hasn't stopped the spread.
-
I applied for vaccine at NJ vaccine site
and clearly qualified as health care provider from day one
it took a month to get notified of locations to get the shots
everywhere else I called did not answer the phone or directed me to a worthless voicemail
then I happened to go back to my former group's office for another reason
and was told they could get me the vaccine at one of the hospitals I used to go to
I went there got the first injection was told they are not busy and at times quite slow
no one knows they are giving out the vaccines it appears except through word of mouth
I was lucky with first shot - no side effects at all
though of course I could be in for a rude awakening the second time around in 3 weeks
I have dealt with many calls from patients with real but not life threatening side effects
one woman had fever to 102-103 with severe headache muscle aches and fatigue - exclaimed to me there is no way in hell she is getting second shot
though she may not have reaction with second one
Overall I always recommend they get vaccine but only as. recommendation
and not in pushy way and do not argue if they tell me they will not get it or are still thinking about it.
yes
quarantines have not stopped the spread very well
-
Wasn't it 15 years before medical science figured out the problems with DES?
I applied for vaccine at NJ vaccine site
and clearly qualified as health care provider from day one
it took a month to get notified of locations to get the shots
everywhere else I called did not answer the phone or directed me to a worthless voicemail
then I happened to go back to my former group's office for another reason
and was told they could get me the vaccine at one of the hospitals I used to go to
I went there got the first injection was told they are not busy and at times quite slow
no one knows they are giving out the vaccines it appears except through word of mouth
I was lucky with first shot - no side effects at all
though of course I could be in for a rude awakening the second time around in 3 weeks
I have dealt with many calls from patients with real but not life threatening side effects
one woman had fever to 102-103 with severe headache muscle aches and fatigue - exclaimed to me there is no way in hell she is getting second shot
though she may not have reaction with second one
Overall I always recommend they get vaccine but only as. recommendation
and not in pushy way and do not argue if they tell me they will not get it or are still thinking about it.
yes
quarantines have not stopped the spread very well
-
quote author=G M
"Wasn't it 15 years before medical science figured out the problems with DES?"
---------------------
To be fair, it is not only the long term effects of the vaccine that can't be fully known right now. The full extent of the long term damage on the organs and body of declining the vaccine and getting the virus are also not known.
-
I am bravely volunteering to be the control group on this human testing program.
quote author=G M
"Wasn't it 15 years before medical science figured out the problems with DES?"
---------------------
To be fair, it is not only the long term effects of the vaccine that can't be fully known right now. The full extent of the long term damage on the organs and body of declining the vaccine and getting the virus are also not known.
-
:-)
Yes and you are younger than me and some others.
I am delaying and procrastinating...
-
:-)
Yes and you are younger than me and some others.
I am delaying and procrastinating...
Would you get on a plane that wasn't even a blueprint this time last year?
-
If Covid in its first year killed off people a little too soon that were vulnerable to die from the next nasty bug they faced, like flu, pneumonia etc, then we might expect the overall death rate to fall in the immediately following years, and it is:
(https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/04/Screen-Shot-2021-04-22-at-6.16.14-PM.png?resize=768%2C375&ssl=1)
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/covid-is-now-saving-lives.php
-
flu season did not make corona epidemic worse
indeed we had virtually no flu this season
yet as alway , experts find reason to worry
https://www.yahoo.com/news/flu-vanished-during-covid-return-184431295.html
-
for political purposes:
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/deaths-excess-covid-record/2021/04/23/id/1018815/
If I recall ~ 650,000 died in 1918 flu with the US population around 110,000,000 ( easily 1/3 the size)
If I recall ~ 750,000 estimated (now) died in Civil War when US population North + South = 33,000,000.
Even if one takes into account it was over close to 4 yrs
this would still be more
Somehow they come up with per capita deaths
What the hell is that -
well it is some way they could come up with numbers to make the corona epidemic #1.
-
https://nationalfile.com/mit-study-suggests-six-foot-social-distancing-limited-occupancy-rules-are-completely-pointless/
-
did not we recently hear that masks don't help
now they do if in closed room :
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/iran-foreign-minister-john-kerry-javad-zarif-israel
This is why reading medical studies is a pain in the ass
At the end of nearly every one
the conclusion includes :
more study is needed
I almost think it is on purpose just to get more money for more studies
to start the circle all over again
-
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/french-drug-assessment-center-demands-removal-of-all-four-widely-used-covid-vaccines
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9507749/How-scientists-Wuhan-lab-helped-Chinese-army-secret-project-animal-viruses.html
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/the_wuhan_virus_escaped_from_a_chinese_lab.html
https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab/
Is this a Chinese bioweapon?
« Reply #162 on: January 25, 2020, 09:35:19 PM »
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/did-china-steal-coronavirus-canada-and-weaponize-it
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/04/report-pfizer-moderna-covid-vaccines-trigger-alzheimers-als-neurological-degenerative-diseases/
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/26/america-its-time-to-unmask/
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/04/report-pfizer-moderna-covid-vaccines-trigger-alzheimers-als-neurological-degenerative-diseases/
https://www.acsh.org/news/2021/02/19/no-covid-mrna-vaccine-wont-cause-alzheimers-or-prion-disease-15357
-
Have seen patients or their loved ones who have prolonged cognitive defects after having corona
it would be too soon to say from vaccine
that said I am getting second on in 2 wks
-
"Have seen patients or their loved ones who have prolonged cognitive defects after having corona"
- I would like to hear more on this.
-
Watch Obamas side kick take credit for this one:
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-biden-gives-permission-for-vaccinated-americans-to-go-outside-without-a-mask
:wink:
Oh thank you, Jo.
-
They announced there would be an announcement, and this is it? Is this a parody? Government imitated for comic effect?
Did anyone know yesterday they were supposed to have a mask on, outside, when no one is near you?
-
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/04/27/sharyl_attkisson_investigates_covid_19.html
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/evidence-reveals-that-military-team-collaborated-with-lab-where-covid-pandemic-originated_3798920.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-05-04&mktids=70d7e48ee298ee1a92a11645db08b3f8&est=YWjOMOCgen4x0a2z6PWmVg85mpzpXIe%2B17wvHjm%2F1UaSCM9%2FRAKI87ymWw59aaoWPS0j
-
https://www.theblaze.com/news/top-secret-study-coronavirus-lab-leak
Another
thing that is in plain sight and obvious to the right labelled the BIG LIE by the LEFT
We should change the name from Wuhan virus to
*WUHAN LAB VIRUS*
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/04/hey-la-times-dont-tread-on-hillsdale-college/
-
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/05/01/indias-second-covid-wave-new-variant-and-what-we-know/4895091001/
https://www.ibtimes.com/how-dangerous-b1617-coronavirus-variant-heres-what-we-know-3190148
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/tucker-carlsons-faulty-complaint-about-coronavirus-vaccines/
-
Coincidentally I posted that on the Media thread.
Anyway, here is this:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/bill-gates-funded-company-releases-genetically-modified-mosquitoes-in-us_3806432.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-05-08&mktids=ecb6f3c427c9c6980d9d0e22fae7a5ae&est=YxN%2BzsQbNC%2FNXi34o95vnGd0akQyIY%2FmgPqXuVCU7ggyR2H1FYBW41%2F5sClWMAziPZfN
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/chinese-military-discussed-weaponizing-covid-2015-cause-enemys-medical-system-collapse?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/chinese-military-discussed-weaponizing-covid-2015-cause-enemys-medical-system-collapse?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuKPBur_TiI
-
Second post
Hat tip to Scott Grannis for this one:
The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?
By Nicholas Wade | May 5, 2021
Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus arrive by car at the Wuhan Institute of Virology on February 3. (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images) Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus arrive by car at the Wuhan Institute of Virology on February 3. (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives the world over for more than a year. Its death toll will soon reach three million people. Yet the origin of pandemic remains uncertain: The political agendas of governments and scientists have generated thick clouds of obfuscation, which the mainstream press seems helpless to dispel.
In what follows I will sort through the available scientific facts, which hold many clues as to what happened, and provide readers with the evidence to make their own judgments. I will then try to assess the complex issue of blame, which starts with, but extends far beyond, the government of China.
By the end of this article, you may have learned a lot about the molecular biology of viruses. I will try to keep this process as painless as possible. But the science cannot be avoided because for now, and probably for a long time hence, it offers the only sure thread through the maze.
The virus that caused the pandemic is known officially as SARS-CoV-2, but can be called SARS2 for short. As many people know, there are two main theories about its origin. One is that it jumped naturally from wildlife to people. The other is that the virus was under study in a lab, from which it escaped. It matters a great deal which is the case if we hope to prevent a second such occurrence.
I’ll describe the two theories, explain why each is plausible, and then ask which provides the better explanation of the available facts. It’s important to note that so far there is no direct evidence for either theory. Each depends on a set of reasonable conjectures but so far lacks proof. So I have only clues, not conclusions, to offer. But those clues point in a specific direction. And having inferred that direction, I’m going to delineate some of the strands in this tangled skein of disaster.
A tale of two theories. After the pandemic first broke out in December 2019, Chinese authorities reported that many cases had occurred in the wet market — a place selling wild animals for meat — in Wuhan. This reminded experts of the SARS1 epidemic of 2002, in which a bat virus had spread first to civets, an animal sold in wet markets, and from civets to people. A similar bat virus caused a second epidemic, known as MERS, in 2012. This time the intermediary host animal was camels.
The decoding of the virus’s genome showed it belonged a viral family known as beta-coronaviruses, to which the SARS1 and MERS viruses also belong. The relationship supported the idea that, like them, it was a natural virus that had managed to jump from bats, via another animal host, to people. The wet market connection, the major point of similarity with the SARS1 and MERS epidemics, was soon broken: Chinese researchers found earlier cases in Wuhan with no link to the wet market. But that seemed not to matter when so much further evidence in support of natural emergence was expected shortly.
Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses. So the possibility that the SARS2 virus had escaped from the lab could not be ruled out. Two reasonable scenarios of origin were on the table.
From early on, public and media perceptions were shaped in favor of the natural emergence scenario by strong statements from two scientific groups. These statements were not at first examined as critically as they should have been.
“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” a group of virologists and others wrote in the Lancet on February 19, 2020, when it was really far too soon for anyone to be sure what had happened. Scientists “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,” they said, with a stirring rallying call for readers to stand with Chinese colleagues on the frontline of fighting the disease.
Contrary to the letter writers’ assertion, the idea that the virus might have escaped from a lab invoked accident, not conspiracy. It surely needed to be explored, not rejected out of hand. A defining mark of good scientists is that they go to great pains to distinguish between what they know and what they don’t know. By this criterion, the signatories of the Lancet letter were behaving as poor scientists: They were assuring the public of facts they could not know for sure were true.
It later turned out that the Lancet letter had been organized and drafted by Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance of New York. Daszak’s organization funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. If the SARS2 virus had indeed escaped from research he funded, Daszak would be potentially culpable. This acute conflict of interest was not declared to the Lancet’s readers. To the contrary, the letter concluded, “We declare no competing interests.”
Peter Daszak, a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus, talks on his cellphone at the Hilton Wuhan Optics Valley in Wuhan. (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images) Peter Daszak, a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus, talks on his cellphone at the Hilton Wuhan Optics Valley in Wuhan. (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)
Virologists like Daszak had much at stake in the assigning of blame for the pandemic. For 20 years, mostly beneath the public’s attention, they had been playing a dangerous game. In their laboratories they routinely created viruses more dangerous than those that exist in nature. They argued that they could do so safely, and that by getting ahead of nature they could predict and prevent natural “spillovers,” the cross-over of viruses from an animal host to people. If SARS2 had indeed escaped from such a laboratory experiment, a savage blowback could be expected, and the storm of public indignation would affect virologists everywhere, not just in China. “It would shatter the scientific edifice top to bottom,” an MIT Technology Review editor, Antonio Regalado, said in March 2020.
A second statement that had enormous influence in shaping public attitudes was a letter (in other words an opinion piece, not a scientific article) published on 17 March 2020 in the journal Nature Medicine. Its authors were a group of virologists led by Kristian G. Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute. “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” the five virologists declared in the second paragraph of their letter.
Unfortunately, this was another case of poor science, in the sense defined above. True, some older methods of cutting and pasting viral genomes retain tell-tale signs of manipulation. But newer methods, called “no-see-um” or “seamless” approaches, leave no defining marks. Nor do other methods for manipulating viruses such as serial passage, the repeated transfer of viruses from one culture of cells to another. If a virus has been manipulated, whether with a seamless method or by serial passage, there is no way of knowing that this is the case. Andersen and his colleagues were assuring their readers of something they could not know.
The discussion part of their letter begins, “It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.” But wait, didn’t the lead say the virus had clearly not been manipulated? The authors’ degree of certainty seemed to slip several notches when it came to laying out their reasoning.
The reason for the slippage is clear once the technical language has been penetrated. The two reasons the authors give for supposing manipulation to be improbable are decidedly inconclusive.
First, they say that the spike protein of SARS2 binds very well to its target, the human ACE2 receptor, but does so in a different way from that which physical calculations suggest would be the best fit. Therefore the virus must have arisen by natural selection, not manipulation.
If this argument seems hard to grasp, it’s because it’s so strained. The authors’ basic assumption, not spelt out, is that anyone trying to make a bat virus bind to human cells could do so in only one way. First they would calculate the strongest possible fit between the human ACE2 receptor and the spike protein with which the virus latches onto it. They would then design the spike protein accordingly (by selecting the right string of amino acid units that compose it). Since the SARS2 spike protein is not of this calculated best design, the Andersen paper says, therefore it can’t have been manipulated.
But this ignores the way that virologists do in fact get spike proteins to bind to chosen targets, which is not by calculation but by splicing in spike protein genes from other viruses or by serial passage. With serial passage, each time the virus’s progeny are transferred to new cell cultures or animals, the more successful are selected until one emerges that makes a really tight bind to human cells. Natural selection has done all the heavy lifting. The Andersen paper’s speculation about designing a viral spike protein through calculation has no bearing on whether or not the virus was manipulated by one of the other two methods.
The authors’ second argument against manipulation is even more contrived. Although most living things use DNA as their hereditary material, a number of viruses use RNA, DNA’s close chemical cousin. But RNA is difficult to manipulate, so researchers working on coronaviruses, which are RNA-based, will first convert the RNA genome to DNA. They manipulate the DNA version, whether by adding or altering genes, and then arrange for the manipulated DNA genome to be converted back into infectious RNA.
Only a certain number of these DNA backbones have been described in the scientific literature. Anyone manipulating the SARS2 virus “would probably” have used one of these known backbones, the Andersen group writes, and since SARS2 is not derived from any of them, therefore it was not manipulated. But the argument is conspicuously inconclusive. DNA backbones are quite easy to make, so it’s obviously possible that SARS2 was manipulated using an unpublished DNA backbone.
And that’s it. These are the two arguments made by the Andersen group in support of their declaration that the SARS2 virus was clearly not manipulated. And this conclusion, grounded in nothing but two inconclusive speculations, convinced the world’s press that SARS2 could not have escaped from a lab. A technical critique of the Andersen letter takes it down in harsher words.
Science is supposedly a self-correcting community of experts who constantly check each other’s work. So why didn’t other virologists point out that the Andersen group’s argument was full of absurdly large holes? Perhaps because in today’s universities speech can be very costly. Careers can be destroyed for stepping out of line. Any virologist who challenges the community’s declared view risks having his next grant application turned down by the panel of fellow virologists that advises the government grant distribution agency.
The Daszak and Andersen letters were really political, not scientific, statements, yet were amazingly effective. Articles in the mainstream press repeatedly stated that a consensus of experts had ruled lab escape out of the question or extremely unlikely. Their authors relied for the most part on the Daszak and Andersen letters, failing to understand the yawning gaps in their arguments. Mainstream newspapers all have science journalists on their staff, as do the major networks, and these specialist reporters are supposed to be able to question scientists and check their assertions. But the Daszak and Andersen assertions went largely unchallenged.
Doubts about natural emergence. Natural emergence was the media’s preferred theory until around February 2021 and the visit by a World Health Organization (WHO) commission to China. The commission’s composition and access were heavily controlled by the Chinese authorities. Its members, who included the ubiquitous Daszak, kept asserting before, during, and after their visit that lab escape was extremely unlikely. But this was not quite the propaganda victory the Chinese authorities may have been hoping for. What became clear was that the Chinese had no evidence to offer the commission in support of the natural emergence theory.
This was surprising because both the SARS1 and MERS viruses had left copious traces in the environment. The intermediary host species of SARS1 was identified within four months of the epidemic’s outbreak, and the host of MERS within nine months. Yet some 15 months after the SARS2 pandemic began, and after a presumably intensive search, Chinese researchers had failed to find either the original bat population, or the intermediate species to which SARS2 might have jumped, or any serological evidence that any Chinese population, including that of Wuhan, had ever been exposed to the virus prior to December 2019. Natural emergence remained a conjecture which, however plausible to begin with, had gained not a shred of supporting evidence in over a year.
And as long as that remains the case, it’s logical to pay serious attention to the alternative conjecture, that SARS2 escaped from a lab.
Why would anyone want to create a novel virus capable of causing a pandemic? Ever since virologists gained the tools for manipulating a virus’s genes, they have argued they could get ahead of a potential pandemic by exploring how close a given animal virus might be to making the jump to humans. And that justified lab experiments in enhancing the ability of dangerous animal viruses to infect people, virologists asserted.
With this rationale, they have recreated the 1918 flu virus, shown how the almost extinct polio virus can be synthesized from its published DNA sequence, and introduced a smallpox gene into a related virus.
These enhancements of viral capabilities are known blandly as gain-of-function experiments. With coronaviruses, there was particular interest in the spike proteins, which jut out all around the spherical surface of the virus and pretty much determine which species of animal it will target. In 2000 Dutch researchers, for instance, earned the gratitude of rodents everywhere by genetically engineering the spike protein of a mouse coronavirus so that it would attack only cats.
The spike proteins on the coronavirus’s surface determine which animal it can infect. Image credit: CDC.gov
Virologists started studying bat coronaviruses in earnest after these turned out to be the source of both the SARS1 and MERS epidemics. In particular, researchers wanted to understand what changes needed to occur in a bat virus’s spike proteins before it could infect people.
Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, led by China’s leading expert on bat viruses, Shi Zheng-li or “Bat Lady,” mounted frequent expeditions to the bat-infested caves of Yunnan in southern China and collected around a hundred different bat coronaviruses.
Shi then teamed up with Ralph S. Baric, an eminent coronavirus researcher at the University of North Carolina. Their work focused on enhancing the ability of bat viruses to attack humans so as to “examine the emergence potential (that is, the potential to infect humans) of circulating bat CoVs [coronaviruses].” In pursuit of this aim, in November 2015 they created a novel virus by taking the backbone of the SARS1 virus and replacing its spike protein with one from a bat virus (known as SHC014-CoV). This manufactured virus was able to infect the cells of the human airway, at least when tested against a lab culture of such cells.
The SHC014-CoV/SARS1 virus is known as a chimera because its genome contains genetic material from two strains of virus. If the SARS2 virus were to have been cooked up in Shi’s lab, then its direct prototype would have been the SHC014-CoV/SARS1 chimera, the potential danger of which concerned many observers and prompted intense discussion.
“If the virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,” said Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
Baric and Shi referred to the obvious risks in their paper but argued they should be weighed against the benefit of foreshadowing future spillovers. Scientific review panels, they wrote, “may deem similar studies building chimeric viruses based on circulating strains too risky to pursue.” Given various restrictions being placed on gain-of function (GOF) research, matters had arrived in their view at “a crossroads of GOF research concerns; the potential to prepare for and mitigate future outbreaks must be weighed against the risk of creating more dangerous pathogens. In developing policies moving forward, it is important to consider the value of the data generated by these studies and whether these types of chimeric virus studies warrant further investigation versus the inherent risks involved.”
That statement was made in 2015. From the hindsight of 2021, one can say that the value of gain-of-function studies in preventing the SARS2 epidemic was zero. The risk was catastrophic, if indeed the SARS2 virus was generated in a gain-of-function experiment.
Inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Baric had developed, and taught Shi, a general method for engineering bat coronaviruses to attack other species. The specific targets were human cells grown in cultures and humanized mice. These laboratory mice, a cheap and ethical stand-in for human subjects, are genetically engineered to carry the human version of a protein called ACE2 that studs the surface of cells that line the airways.
Shi returned to her lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and resumed the work she had started on genetically engineering coronaviruses to attack human cells. How can we be so sure?
A May 20, 2020, photo of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, where research on bat coronaviruses was conducted. (Photo by Kyodo News via Getty Images)
Because, by a strange twist in the story, her work was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). And grant proposals that funded her work, which are a matter of public record, specify exactly what she planned to do with the money.
The grants were assigned to the prime contractor, Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, who subcontracted them to Shi. Here are extracts from the grants for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. (“CoV” stands for coronavirus and “S protein” refers to the virus’s spike protein.)
“Test predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. Predictive models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) will be tested experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments across a range of cell cultures from different species and humanized mice.”
“We will use S protein sequence data, infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential.”
What this means, in non-technical language, is that Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. Her plan was to take genes that coded for spike proteins possessing a variety of measured affinities for human cells, ranging from high to low. She would insert these spike genes one by one into the backbone of a number of viral genomes (“reverse genetics” and “infectious clone technology”), creating a series of chimeric viruses. These chimeric viruses would then be tested for their ability to attack human cell cultures (“in vitro”) and humanized mice (“in vivo”). And this information would help predict the likelihood of “spillover,” the jump of a coronavirus from bats to people.
The methodical approach was designed to find the best combination of coronavirus backbone and spike protein for infecting human cells. The approach could have generated SARS2-like viruses, and indeed may have created the SARS2 virus itself with the right combination of virus backbone and spike protein.
It cannot yet be stated that Shi did or did not generate SARS2 in her lab because her records have been sealed, but it seems she was certainly on the right track to have done so. “It is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice,” says Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and leading expert on biosafety.
“It is also clear,” Ebright said, “that, depending on the constant genomic contexts chosen for analysis, this work could have produced SARS-CoV-2 or a proximal progenitor of SARS-CoV-2.” “Genomic context” refers to the particular viral backbone used as the testbed for the spike protein.
The lab escape scenario for the origin of the SARS2 virus, as should by now be evident, is not mere hand-waving in the direction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It is a detailed proposal, based on the specific project being funded there by the NIAID.
Even if the grant required the work plan described above, how can we be sure that the plan was in fact carried out? For that we can rely on the word of Daszak, who has been much protesting for the last 15 months that lab escape was a ludicrous conspiracy theory invented by China-bashers.
On December 9, 2019, before the outbreak of the pandemic became generally known, Daszak gave an interview in which he talked in glowing terms of how researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been reprogramming the spike protein and generating chimeric coronaviruses capable of infecting humanized mice.
“And we have now found, you know, after 6 or 7 years of doing this, over 100 new SARS-related coronaviruses, very close to SARS,” Daszak says around minute 28 of the interview. “Some of them get into human cells in the lab, some of them can cause SARS disease in humanized mice models and are untreatable with therapeutic monoclonals and you can’t vaccinate against them with a vaccine. So, these are a clear and present danger….
RELATED:
Uncanceled: Banned from Facebook, Trump reaches millions on TV
“Interviewer: You say these are diverse coronaviruses and you can’t vaccinate against them, and no anti-virals — so what do we do?
“Daszak: Well I think… coronaviruses — you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily. Spike protein drives a lot of what happen with coronavirus, in zoonotic risk. So you can get the sequence, you can build the protein, and we work a lot with Ralph Baric at UNC to do this. Insert into the backbone of another virus and do some work in the lab. So you can get more predictive when you find a sequence. You’ve got this diversity. Now the logical progression for vaccines is, if you are going to develop a vaccine for SARS, people are going to use pandemic SARS, but let’s insert some of these other things and get a better vaccine.” The insertions he referred to perhaps included an element called the furin cleavage site, discussed below, which greatly increases viral infectivity for human cells.
In disjointed style, Daszak is referring to the fact that once you have generated a novel coronavirus that can attack human cells, you can take the spike protein and make it the basis for a vaccine.
One can only imagine Daszak’s reaction when he heard of the outbreak of the epidemic in Wuhan a few days later. He would have known better than anyone the Wuhan Institute’s goal of making bat coronaviruses infectious to humans, as well as the weaknesses in the institute’s defense against their own researchers becoming infected.
But instead of providing public health authorities with the plentiful information at his disposal, he immediately launched a public relations campaign to persuade the world that the epidemic couldn’t possibly have been caused by one of the institute’s souped-up viruses. “The idea that this virus escaped from a lab is just pure baloney. It’s simply not true,” he declared in an April 2020 interview.
The safety arrangements at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Daszak was possibly unaware of, or perhaps he knew all too well, the long history of viruses escaping from even the best run laboratories. The smallpox virus escaped three times from labs in England in the 1960’s and 1970’s, causing 80 cases and 3 deaths. Dangerous viruses have leaked out of labs almost every year since. Coming to more recent times, the SARS1 virus has proved a true escape artist, leaking from laboratories in Singapore, Taiwan, and no less than four times from the Chinese National Institute of Virology in Beijing.
One reason for SARS1 being so hard to handle is that there were no vaccines available to protect laboratory workers. As Daszak mentioned in the December 19 interview quoted above, the Wuhan researchers too had been unable to develop vaccines against the coronaviruses they had designed to infect human cells. They would have been as defenseless against the SARS2 virus, if it were generated in their lab, as their Beijing colleagues were against SARS1.
A second reason for the severe danger of novel coronaviruses has to do with the required levels of lab safety. There are four degrees of safety, designated BSL1 to BSL4, with BSL4 being the most restrictive and designed for deadly pathogens like the Ebola virus.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology had a new BSL4 lab, but its state of readiness considerably alarmed the State Department inspectors who visited it from the Beijing embassy in 2018. “The new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” the inspectors wrote in a cable of January 19, 2018.
The real problem, however, was not the unsafe state of the Wuhan BSL4 lab but the fact that virologists worldwide don’t like working in BSL4 conditions. You have to wear a space suit, do operations in closed cabinets, and accept that everything will take twice as long. So the rules assigning each kind of virus to a given safety level were laxer than some might think was prudent.
Before 2020, the rules followed by virologists in China and elsewhere required that experiments with the SARS1 and MERS viruses be conducted in BSL3 conditions. But all other bat coronaviruses could be studied in BSL2, the next level down. BSL2 requires taking fairly minimal safety precautions, such as wearing lab coats and gloves, not sucking up liquids in a pipette, and putting up biohazard warning signs. Yet a gain-of-function experiment conducted in BSL2 might produce an agent more infectious than either SARS1 or MERS. And if it did, then lab workers would stand a high chance of infection, especially if unvaccinated.
Much of Shi’s work on gain-of-function in coronaviruses was performed at the BSL2 safety level, as is stated in her publications and other documents. She has said in an interview with Science magazine that “[t]he coronavirus research in our laboratory is conducted in BSL-2 or BSL-3 laboratories.”
“It is clear that some or all of this work was being performed using a biosafety standard — biosafety level 2, the biosafety level of a standard US dentist’s office — that would pose an unacceptably high risk of infection of laboratory staff upon contact with a virus having the transmission properties of SARS-CoV-2,” Ebright says.
“It also is clear,” he adds, “that this work never should have been funded and never should have been performed.”
This is a view he holds regardless of whether or not the SARS2 virus ever saw the inside of a lab.
Concern about safety conditions at the Wuhan lab was not, it seems, misplaced. According to a fact sheet issued by the State Department on January 15, 2021, “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.”
David Asher, a fellow of the Hudson Institute and former consultant to the State Department, provided more detail about the incident at a seminar. Knowledge of the incident came from a mix of public information and “some high end information collected by our intelligence community,” he said. Three people working at a BSL3 lab at the institute fell sick within a week of each other with severe symptoms that required hospitalization. This was “the first known cluster that we’re aware of, of victims of what we believe to be COVID-19.” Influenza could not completely be ruled out but seemed unlikely in the circumstances, he said.
Comparing the rival scenarios of SARS2 origin. The evidence above adds up to a serious case that the SARS2 virus could have been created in a lab, from which it then escaped. But the case, however substantial, falls short of proof. Proof would consist of evidence from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or related labs in Wuhan, that SARS2 or a predecessor virus was under development there. For lack of access to such records, another approach is to take certain salient facts about the SARS2 virus and ask how well each is explained by the two rival scenarios of origin, those of natural emergence and lab escape. Here are four tests of the two hypotheses. A couple have some technical detail, but these are among the most persuasive for those who may care to follow the argument.
1) The place of origin. Start with geography. The two closest known relatives of the SARS2 virus were collected from bats living in caves in Yunnan, a province of southern China. If the SARS2 virus had first infected people living around the Yunnan caves, that would strongly support the idea that the virus had spilled over to people naturally. But this isn’t what happened. The pandemic broke out 1,500 kilometers away, in Wuhan.
Beta-coronaviruses, the family of bat viruses to which SARS2 belongs, infect the horseshoe bat Rhinolophus affinis, which ranges across southern China. The bats’ range is 50 kilometers, so it’s unlikely that any made it to Wuhan. In any case, the first cases of the COVID-19 pandemic probably occurred in September, when temperatures in Hubei province are already cold enough to send bats into hibernation.
What if the bat viruses infected some intermediate host first? You would need a longstanding population of bats in frequent proximity with an intermediate host, which in turn must often cross paths with people. All these exchanges of virus must take place somewhere outside Wuhan, a busy metropolis which so far as is known is not a natural habitat of Rhinolophus bat colonies. The infected person (or animal) carrying this highly transmissible virus must have traveled to Wuhan without infecting anyone else. No one in his or her family got sick. If the person jumped on a train to Wuhan, no fellow passengers fell ill.
It’s a stretch, in other words, to get the pandemic to break out naturally outside Wuhan and then, without leaving any trace, to make its first appearance there.
For the lab escape scenario, a Wuhan origin for the virus is a no-brainer. Wuhan is home to China’s leading center of coronavirus research where, as noted above, researchers were genetically engineering bat coronaviruses to attack human cells. They were doing so under the minimal safety conditions of a BSL2 lab. If a virus with the unexpected infectiousness of SARS2 had been generated there, its escape would be no surprise.
2) Natural history and evolution. The initial location of the pandemic is a small part of a larger problem, that of its natural history. Viruses don’t just make one time jumps from one species to another. The coronavirus spike protein, adapted to attack bat cells, needs repeated jumps to another species, most of which fail, before it gains a lucky mutation. Mutation — a change in one of its RNA units — causes a different amino acid unit to be incorporated into its spike protein and makes the spike protein better able to attack the cells of some other species.
Through several more such mutation-driven adjustments, the virus adapts to its new host, say some animal with which bats are in frequent contact. The whole process then resumes as the virus moves from this intermediate host to people.
In the case of SARS1, researchers have documented the successive changes in its spike protein as the virus evolved step by step into a dangerous pathogen. After it had gotten from bats into civets, there were six further changes in its spike protein before it became a mild pathogen in people. After a further 14 changes, the virus was much better adapted to humans, and with a further four, the epidemic took off.
But when you look for the fingerprints of a similar transition in SARS2, a strange surprise awaits. The virus has changed hardly at all, at least until recently. From its very first appearance, it was well adapted to human cells. Researchers led by Alina Chan of the Broad Institute compared SARS2 with late stage SARS1, which by then was well adapted to human cells, and found that the two viruses were similarly well adapted. “By the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV,” they wrote.
Even those who think lab origin unlikely agree that SARS2 genomes are remarkably uniform. Baric writes that “early strains identified in Wuhan, China, showed limited genetic diversity, which suggests that the virus may have been introduced from a single source.”
A single source would of course be compatible with lab escape, less so with the massive variation and selection which is evolution’s hallmark way of doing business.
The uniform structure of SARS2 genomes gives no hint of any passage through an intermediate animal host, and no such host has been identified in nature.
Proponents of natural emergence suggest that SARS2 incubated in a yet-to-be found human population before gaining its special properties. Or that it jumped to a host animal outside China.
All these conjectures are possible, but strained. Proponents of a lab leak have a simpler explanation. SARS2 was adapted to human cells from the start because it was grown in humanized mice or in lab cultures of human cells, just as described in Daszak’s grant proposal. Its genome shows little diversity because the hallmark of lab cultures is uniformity.
Proponents of laboratory escape joke that of course the SARS2 virus infected an intermediary host species before spreading to people, and that they have identified it — a humanized mouse from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
3) The furin cleavage site. The furin cleavage site is a minute part of the virus’s anatomy but one that exerts great influence on its infectivity. It sits in the middle of the SARS2 spike protein. It also lies at the heart of the puzzle of where the virus came from.
The spike protein has two sub-units with different roles. The first, called S1, recognizes the virus’s target, a protein called angiotensin converting enzyme-2 (or ACE2) which studs the surface of cells lining the human airways. The second, S2, helps the virus, once anchored to the cell, to fuse with the cell’s membrane. After the virus’s outer membrane has coalesced with that of the stricken cell, the viral genome is injected into the cell, hijacks its protein-making machinery and forces it to generate new viruses.
But this invasion cannot begin until the S1 and S2 subunits have been cut apart. And there, right at the S1/S2 junction, is the furin cleavage site that ensures the spike protein will be cleaved in exactly the right place.
The virus, a model of economic design, does not carry its own cleaver. It relies on the cell to do the cleaving for it. Human cells have a protein cutting tool on their surface known as furin. Furin will cut any protein chain that carries its signature target cutting site. This is the sequence of amino acid units proline-arginine-arginine-alanine, or PRRA in the code that refers to each amino acid by a letter of the alphabet. PRRA is the amino acid sequence at the core of SARS2’s furin cleavage site.
Viruses have all kinds of clever tricks, so why does the furin cleavage site stand out? Because of all known SARS-related beta-coronaviruses, only SARS2 possesses a furin cleavage site. All the other viruses have their S2 unit cleaved at a different site and by a different mechanism.
How then did SARS2 acquire its furin cleavage site? Either the site evolved naturally, or it was inserted by researchers at the S1/S2 junction in a gain-of-function experiment.
Consider natural origin first. Two ways viruses evolve are by mutation and by recombination. Mutation is the process of random change in DNA (or RNA for coronaviruses) that usually results in one amino acid in a protein chain being switched for another. Many of these changes harm the virus but natural selection retains the few that do something useful. Mutation is the process by which the SARS1 spike protein gradually switched its preferred target cells from those of bats to civets, and then to humans.
Mutation seems a less likely way for SARS2’s furin cleavage site to be generated, even though it can’t completely be ruled out. The site’s four amino acid units are all together, and all at just the right place in the S1/S2 junction. Mutation is a random process triggered by copying errors (when new viral genomes are being generated) or by chemical decay of genomic units. So it typically affects single amino acids at different spots in a protein chain. A string of amino acids like that of the furin cleavage site is much more likely to be acquired all together through a quite different process known as recombination.
Recombination is an inadvertent swapping of genomic material that occurs when two viruses happen to invade the same cell, and their progeny are assembled with bits and pieces of RNA belonging to the other. Beta-coronaviruses will only combine with other beta-coronaviruses but can acquire, by recombination, almost any genetic element present in the collective genomic pool. What they cannot acquire is an element the pool does not possess. And no known SARS-related beta-coronavirus, the class to which SARS2 belongs, possesses a furin cleavage site.
Proponents of natural emergence say SARS2 could have picked up the site from some as yet unknown beta-coronavirus. But bat SARS-related beta-coronaviruses evidently don’t need a furin cleavage site to infect bat cells, so there’s no great likelihood that any in fact possesses one, and indeed none has been found so far.
The proponents’ next argument is that SARS2 acquired its furin cleavage site from people. A predecessor of SARS2 could have been circulating in the human population for months or years until at some point it acquired a furin cleavage site from human cells. It would then have been ready to break out as a pandemic.
If this is what happened, there should be traces in hospital surveillance records of the people infected by the slowly evolving virus. But none has so far come to light. According to the WHO report on the origins of the virus, the sentinel hospitals in Hubei province, home of Wuhan, routinely monitor influenza-like illnesses and “no evidence to suggest substantial SARSCoV-2 transmission in the months preceding the outbreak in December was observed.”
So it’s hard to explain how the SARS2 virus picked up its furin cleavage site naturally, whether by mutation or recombination.
That leaves a gain-of-function experiment. For those who think SARS2 may have escaped from a lab, explaining the furin cleavage site is no problem at all. “Since 1992 the virology community has known that the one sure way to make a virus deadlier is to give it a furin cleavage site at the S1/S2 junction in the laboratory,” writes Steven Quay, a biotech entrepreneur interested in the origins of SARS2. “At least 11 gain-of-function experiments, adding a furin site to make a virus more infective, are published in the open literature, including [by] Dr. Zhengli Shi, head of coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
4) A question of codons. There’s another aspect of the furin cleavage site that narrows the path for a natural emergence origin even further.
As everyone knows (or may at least recall from high school), the genetic code uses three units of DNA to specify each amino acid unit of a protein chain. When read in groups of 3, the 4 different kinds of DNA can specify 4 x 4 x 4 or 64 different triplets, or codons as they are called. Since there are only 20 kinds of amino acid, there are more than enough codons to go around, allowing some amino acids to be specified by more than one codon. The amino acid arginine, for instance, can be designated by any of the six codons CGU, CGC, CGA, CGG, AGA or AGG, where A, U, G and C stand for the four different kinds of unit in RNA.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Different organisms have different codon preferences. Human cells like to designate arginine with the codons CGT, CGC or CGG. But CGG is coronavirus’s least popular codon for arginine. Keep that in mind when looking at how the amino acids in the furin cleavage site are encoded in the SARS2 genome.
Now the functional reason why SARS2 has a furin cleavage site, and its cousin viruses don’t, can be seen by lining up (in a computer) the string of nearly 30,000 nucleotides in its genome with those of its cousin coronaviruses, of which the closest so far known is one called RaTG13. Compared with RaTG13, SARS2 has a 12-nucleotide insert right at the S1/S2 junction. The insert is the sequence T-CCT-CGG-CGG-GC. The CCT codes for proline, the two CGG’s for two arginines, and the GC is the beginning of a GCA codon that codes for alanine.
There are several curious features about this insert but the oddest is that of the two side-by-side CGG codons. Only 5 percent of SARS2’s arginine codons are CGG, and the double codon CGG-CGG has not been found in any other beta-coronavirus. So how did SARS2 acquire a pair of arginine codons that are favored by human cells but not by coronaviruses?
Proponents of natural emergence have an up-hill task to explain all the features of SARS2’s furin cleavage site. They have to postulate a recombination event at a site on the virus’s genome where recombinations are rare, and the insertion of a 12-nucleotide sequence with a double arginine codon unknown in the beta-coronavirus repertoire, at the only site in the genome that would significantly expand the virus’s infectivity.
“Yes, but your wording makes this sound unlikely — viruses are specialists at unusual events,” is the riposte of David L. Robertson, a virologist at the University of Glasgow who regards lab escape as a conspiracy theory. “Recombination is naturally very, very frequent in these viruses, there are recombination breakpoints in the spike protein and these codons appear unusual exactly because we’ve not sampled enough.”
RELATED:
Why choose a career in art over nuclear policy? The money
Robertson is correct that evolution is always producing results that may seem unlikely but in fact are not. Viruses can generate untold numbers of variants but we see only the one-in-a-billion that natural selection picks for survival. But this argument could be pushed too far. For instance, any result of a gain-of-function experiment could be explained as one that evolution would have arrived at in time. And the numbers game can be played the other way. For the furin cleavage site to arise naturally in SARS2, a chain of events has to happen, each of which is quite unlikely for the reasons given above. A long chain with several improbable steps is unlikely to ever be completed.
For the lab escape scenario, the double CGG codon is no surprise. The human-preferred codon is routinely used in labs. So anyone who wanted to insert a furin cleavage site into the virus’s genome would synthesize the PRRA-making sequence in the lab and would be likely to use CGG codons to do so.
“When I first saw the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence, with its arginine codons, I said to my wife it was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus,” said David Baltimore, an eminent virologist and former president of CalTech. “These features make a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for SARS2,” he said. [1]
A third scenario of origin. There’s a variation on the natural emergence scenario that’s worth considering. This is the idea that SARS2 jumped directly from bats to humans, without going through an intermediate host as SARS1 and MERS did. A leading advocate is the virologist David Robertson who notes that SARS2 can attack several other species besides humans. He believes the virus evolved a generalist capability while still in bats. Because the bats it infects are widely distributed in southern and central China, the virus had ample opportunity to jump to people, even though it seems to have done so on only one known occasion. Robertson’s thesis explains why no one has so far found a trace of SARS2 in any intermediate host or in human populations surveilled before December 2019. It would also explain the puzzling fact that SARS2 has not changed since it first appeared in humans — it didn’t need to because it could already attack human cells efficiently.
One problem with this idea, though, is that if SARS2 jumped from bats to people in a single leap and hasn’t changed much since, it should still be good at infecting bats. And it seems it isn’t.
“Tested bat species are poorly infected by SARS-CoV-2 and they are therefore unlikely to be the direct source for human infection,” write a scientific group skeptical of natural emergence.
Still, Robertson may be onto something. The bat coronaviruses of the Yunnan caves can infect people directly. In April 2012 six miners clearing bat guano from the Mojiang mine contracted severe pneumonia with COVID-19-like symptoms and three eventually died. A virus isolated from the Mojiang mine, called RaTG13, is still the closest known relative of SARS2. Much mystery surrounds the origin, reporting and strangely low affinity of RaTG13 for bat cells, as well as the nature of 8 similar viruses that Shi reports she collected at the same time but has not yet published despite their great relevance to the ancestry of SARS2. But all that is a story for another time. The point here is that bat viruses can infect people directly, though only in special conditions.
So who else, besides miners excavating bat guano, comes into particularly close contact with bat coronaviruses? Well, coronavirus researchers do. Shi says she and her group collected more than 1,300 bat samples during some eight visits to the Mojiang cave between 2012 and 2015, and there were doubtless many expeditions to other Yunnan caves.
Imagine the researchers making frequent trips from Wuhan to Yunnan and back, stirring up bat guano in dark caves and mines, and now you begin to see a possible missing link between the two places. Researchers could have gotten infected during their collecting trips, or while working with the new viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The virus that escaped from the lab would have been a natural virus, not one cooked up by gain of function.
The direct-from-bats thesis is a chimera between the natural emergence and lab escape scenarios. It’s a possibility that can’t be dismissed. But against it are the facts that 1) both SARS2 and RaTG13 seem to have only feeble affinity for bat cells, so one can’t be fully confident that either ever saw the inside of a bat; and 2) the theory is no better than the natural emergence scenario at explaining how SARS2 gained its furin cleavage site, or why the furin cleavage site is determined by human-preferred arginine codons instead of by the bat-preferred codons.
Where we are so far. Neither the natural emergence nor the lab escape hypothesis can yet be ruled out. There is still no direct evidence for either. So no definitive conclusion can be reached.
That said, the available evidence leans more strongly in one direction than the other. Readers will form their own opinion. But it seems to me that proponents of lab escape can explain all the available facts about SARS2 considerably more easily than can those who favor natural emergence.
It’s documented that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were doing gain-of-function experiments designed to make coronaviruses infect human cells and humanized mice. This is exactly the kind of experiment from which a SARS2-like virus could have emerged. The researchers were not vaccinated against the viruses under study, and they were working in the minimal safety conditions of a BSL2 laboratory. So escape of a virus would not be at all surprising. In all of China, the pandemic broke out on the doorstep of the Wuhan institute. The virus was already well adapted to humans, as expected for a virus grown in humanized mice. It possessed an unusual enhancement, a furin cleavage site, which is not possessed by any other known SARS-related beta-coronavirus, and this site included a double arginine codon also unknown among beta-coronaviruses. What more evidence could you want, aside from the presently unobtainable lab records documenting SARS2’s creation?
Proponents of natural emergence have a rather harder story to tell. The plausibility of their case rests on a single surmise, the expected parallel between the emergence of SARS2 and that of SARS1 and MERS. But none of the evidence expected in support of such a parallel history has yet emerged. No one has found the bat population that was the source of SARS2, if indeed it ever infected bats. No intermediate host has presented itself, despite an intensive search by Chinese authorities that included the testing of 80,000 animals. There is no evidence of the virus making multiple independent jumps from its intermediate host to people, as both the SARS1 and MERS viruses did. There is no evidence from hospital surveillance records of the epidemic gathering strength in the population as the virus evolved. There is no explanation of why a natural epidemic should break out in Wuhan and nowhere else. There is no good explanation of how the virus acquired its furin cleavage site, which no other SARS-related beta-coronavirus possesses, nor why the site is composed of human-preferred codons. The natural emergence theory battles a bristling array of implausibilities.
The records of the Wuhan Institute of Virology certainly hold much relevant information. But Chinese authorities seem unlikely to release them given the substantial chance that they incriminate the regime in the creation of the pandemic. Absent the efforts of some courageous Chinese whistle-blower, we may already have at hand just about all of the relevant information we are likely to get for a while.
So it’s worth trying to assess responsibility for the pandemic, at least in a provisional way, because the paramount goal remains to prevent another one. Even those who aren’t persuaded that lab escape is the more likely origin of the SARS2 virus may see reason for concern about the present state of regulation governing gain-of-function research. There are two obvious levels of responsibility: the first, for allowing virologists to perform gain-of-function experiments, offering minimal gain and vast risk; the second, if indeed SARS2 was generated in a lab, for allowing the virus to escape and unleash a world-wide pandemic. Here are the players who seem most likely to deserve blame.
Chinese virologists. First and foremost, Chinese virologists are to blame for performing gain-of-function experiments in mostly BSL2-level safety conditions which were far too lax to contain a virus of unexpected infectiousness like SARS2. If the virus did indeed escape from their lab, they deserve the world’s censure for a foreseeable accident that has already caused the deaths of three million people. True, Shi was trained by French virologists, worked closely with American virologists and was following international rules for the containment of coronaviruses. But she could and should have made her own assessment of the risks she was running. She and her colleagues bear the responsibility for their actions.
I have been using the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a shorthand for all virological activities in Wuhan. It’s possible that SARS2 was generated in some other Wuhan lab, perhaps in an attempt to make a vaccine that worked against all coronaviruses. But until the role of other Chinese virologists is clarified, Shi is the public face of Chinese work on coronaviruses, and provisionally she and her colleagues will stand first in line for opprobrium.
2. Chinese authorities. China’s central authorities did not generate SARS2, but they sure did their utmost to conceal the nature of the tragedy and China’s responsibility for it. They suppressed all records at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and closed down its virus databases. They released a trickle of information, much of which may have been outright false or designed to misdirect and mislead. They did their best to manipulate the WHO’s inquiry into the virus’s origins, and led the commission’s members on a fruitless run-around. So far they have proved far more interested in deflecting blame than in taking the steps necessary to prevent a second pandemic.
3. The worldwide community of virologists. Virologists around the world are a loose-knit professional community. They write articles in the same journals. They attend the same conferences. They have common interests in seeking funds from governments and in not being overburdened with safety regulations.
Virologists knew better than anyone the dangers of gain-of-function research. But the power to create new viruses, and the research funding obtainable by doing so, was too tempting. They pushed ahead with gain-of-function experiments. They lobbied against the moratorium imposed on Federal funding for gain-of-function research in 2014, and it was raised in 2017.
The benefits of the research in preventing future epidemics have so far been nil, the risks vast. If research on the SARS1 and MERS viruses could only be done at the BSL3 safety level, it was surely illogical to allow any work with novel coronaviruses at the lesser level of BSL2. Whether or not SARS2 escaped from a lab, virologists around the world have been playing with fire.
Their behavior has long alarmed other biologists. In 2014 scientists calling themselves the Cambridge Working Group urged caution on creating new viruses. In prescient words, they specified the risk of creating a SARS2-like virus. “Accident risks with newly created ‘potential pandemic pathogens’ raise grave new concerns,” they wrote. “Laboratory creation of highly transmissible, novel strains of dangerous viruses, especially but not limited to influenza, poses substantially increased risks. An accidental infection in such a setting could trigger outbreaks that would be difficult or impossible to control.”
When molecular biologists discovered a technique for moving genes from one organism to another, they held a public conference at Asilomar in 1975 to discuss the possible risks. Despite much internal opposition, they drew up a list of stringent safety measures that could be relaxed in future — and duly were — when the possible hazards had been better assessed.
When the CRISPR technique for editing genes was invented, biologists convened a joint report by the US, UK and Chinese national academies of science to urge restraint on making heritable changes to the human genome. Biologists who invented gene drives have also been open about the dangers of their work and have sought to involve the public.
You might think the SARS2 pandemic would spur virologists to re-evaluate the benefits of gain-of-function research, even to engage the public in their deliberations. But no. Many virologists deride lab escape as a conspiracy theory, and others say nothing. They have barricaded themselves behind a Chinese wall of silence which so far is working well to allay, or at least postpone, journalists’ curiosity and the public’s wrath. Professions that cannot regulate themselves deserve to get regulated by others, and this would seem to be the future that virologists are choosing for themselves.
4. The US role in funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology. From June 2014 to May 2019, Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance had a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, to do gain-of-function research with coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Whether or not SARS2 is the product of that research, it seems a questionable policy to farm out high-risk research to unsafe foreign labs using minimal safety precautions. And if the SARS2 virus did indeed escape from the Wuhan institute, then the NIH will find itself in the terrible position of having funded a disastrous experiment that led to death of more than 3 million worldwide, including more than half a million of its own citizens.
The responsibility of the NIAID and NIH is even more acute because for the first three years of the grant to EcoHealth Alliance, there was a moratorium on funding gain-of-function research. Why didn’t the two agencies therefore halt the federal funding, as apparently required to do so by law? Because someone wrote a loophole into the moratorium.
The moratorium specifically barred funding any gain-of-function research that increased the pathogenicity of the flu, MERS, or SARS viruses. But then a footnote on page 2 of the moratorium document states that “[a]n exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of the USG funding agency determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or national security.”
This seems to mean that either the director of the NIAID, Anthony Fauci, or the director of the NIH, Francis Collins, or maybe both, would have invoked the footnote in order to keep the money flowing to Shi’s gain-of-function research.
“Unfortunately, the NIAID director and the NIH director exploited this loophole to issue exemptions to projects subject to the Pause—preposterously asserting the exempted research was ‘urgently necessary to protect public health or national security’ — thereby nullifying the Pause,” Ebright said in an interview with Independent Science News.
When the moratorium was ended in 2017, it didn’t just vanish but was replaced by a reporting system, the Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight (P3CO) Framework, which required agencies to report for review any dangerous gain-of-function work they wished to fund.
According to Ebright, both Collins and Fauci “have declined to flag and forward proposals for risk-benefit review, thereby nullifying the P3CO Framework.”
In his view, the two officials, in dealing with the moratorium and the ensuing reporting system, “have systematically thwarted efforts by the White House, the Congress, scientists, and science policy specialists to regulate GoF [gain-of-function] research of concern.”
Possibly the two officials had to take into account matters not evident in the public record, such as issues of national security. Perhaps funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is believed to have ties with Chinese military virologists, provided a window into Chinese biowarfare research. But whatever other considerations may have been involved, the bottom line is that the National Institutes of Health was supporting gain-of-function research, of a kind that could have generated the SARS2 virus, in an unsupervised foreign lab that was doing work in BSL2 biosafety conditions. The prudence of this decision can be questioned, whether or not SARS2 and the death of 3 million people were the result of it, which emphasizes the need for some better system of control.
In conclusion. If the case that SARS2 originated in a lab is so substantial, why isn’t this more widely known? As may now be obvious, there are many people who have reason not to talk about it. The list is led, of course, by the Chinese authorities. But virologists in the United States and Europe have no great interest in igniting a public debate about the gain-of-function experiments that their community has been pursuing for years.
Nor have other scientists stepped forward to raise the issue. Government research funds are distributed on the advice of committees of scientific experts drawn from universities. Anyone who rocks the boat by raising awkward political issues runs the risk that their grant will not be renewed and their research career will be ended. Maybe good behavior is rewarded with the many perks that slosh around the distribution system. And if you thought that Andersen and Daszak might have blotted their reputation for scientific objectivity after their partisan attacks on the lab escape scenario, look at the second and third names on this list of recipients of an $82 million grant announced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in August 2020.
The US government shares a strange common interest with the Chinese authorities: Neither is keen on drawing attention to the fact that Shi’s coronavirus work was funded by the US National Institutes of Health. One can imagine the behind-the-scenes conversation in which the Chinese government says, “If this research was so dangerous, why did you fund it, and on our territory too?” To which the US side might reply, “Looks like it was you who let it escape. But do we really need to have this discussion in public?”
Fauci is a longtime public servant who served with integrity under President Trump and has resumed leadership in the Biden Administration in handling the COVID-19 epidemic. Congress, no doubt understandably, may have little appetite for hauling him over the coals for the apparent lapse of judgment in funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan.
To these serried walls of silence must be added that of the mainstream media. To my knowledge, no major newspaper or television network has yet provided readers with an in-depth news story of the lab escape scenario, such as the one you have just read, although some have run brief editorials or opinion pieces. One might think that any plausible origin of a virus that has killed three million people would merit a serious investigation. Or that the wisdom of continuing gain-of-function research, regardless of the virus’s origin, would be worth some probing. Or that the funding of gain-of-function research by the NIH and NIAID during a moratorium on such research would bear investigation. What accounts for the media’s apparent lack of curiosity?
The virologists’ omertà is one reason. Science reporters, unlike political reporters, have little innate skepticism of their sources’ motives; most see their role largely as purveying the wisdom of scientists to the unwashed masses. So when their sources won’t help, these journalists are at a loss.
Anothe
-
PART TWO
The virologists’ omertà is one reason. Science reporters, unlike political reporters, have little innate skepticism of their sources’ motives; most see their role largely as purveying the wisdom of scientists to the unwashed masses. So when their sources won’t help, these journalists are at a loss.
Another reason, perhaps, is the migration of much of the media toward the left of the political spectrum. Because President Trump said the virus had escaped from a Wuhan lab, editors gave the idea little credence. They joined the virologists in regarding lab escape as a dismissible conspiracy theory. During the Trump administration, they had no trouble in rejecting the position of the intelligence services that lab escape could not be ruled out. But when Avril Haines, President Biden’s director of national intelligence, said the same thing, she too was largely ignored. This is not to argue that editors should have endorsed the lab escape scenario, merely that they should have explored the possibility fully and fairly.
People round the world who have been pretty much confined to their homes for the last year might like a better answer than their media are giving them. Perhaps one will emerge in time. After all, the more months pass without the natural emergence theory gaining a shred of supporting evidence, the less plausible it may seem. Perhaps the international community of virologists will come to be seen as a false and self-interested guide. The common sense perception that a pandemic breaking out in Wuhan might have something to do with a Wuhan lab cooking up novel viruses of maximal danger in unsafe conditions could eventually displace the ideological insistence that whatever Trump said can’t be true.
And then let the reckoning begin.
Notes
[1] This quotation was added to the article after initial publication.
Acknowledgements
The first person to take a serious look at the origins of the SARS2 virus was Yuri Deigin, a biotech entrepreneur in Russia and Canada. In a long and brilliant essay, he dissected the molecular biology of the SARS2 virus and raised, without endorsing, the possibility that it had been manipulated. The essay, published on April 22, 2020, provided a roadmap for anyone seeking to understand the virus’s origins. Deigin packed so much information and analysis into his essay that some have doubted it could be the work of a single individual and suggested some intelligence agency must have authored it. But the essay is written with greater lightness and humor than I suspect are ever found in CIA or KGB reports, and I see no reason to doubt that Deigin is its very capable sole author.
In Deigin’s wake have followed several other skeptics of the virologists’ orthodoxy. Nikolai Petrovsky calculated how tightly the SARS2 virus binds to the ACE2 receptors of various species and found to his surprise that it seemed optimized for the human receptor, leading him to infer the virus might have been generated in a laboratory. Alina Chan published a paper showing that SARS2 from its first appearance was very well adapted to human cells.
One of the very few establishment scientists to have questioned the virologists’ absolute rejection of lab escape is Richard Ebright, who has long warned against the dangers of gain-of-function research. Another is David A. Relman of Stanford University. “Even though strong opinions abound, none of these scenarios can be confidently ruled in or ruled out with currently available facts,” he wrote. Kudos too to Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who told CNN on March 26, 2021 that the “most likely” cause of the epidemic was “from a laboratory,” because he doubted that a bat virus could become an extreme human pathogen overnight, without taking time to evolve, as seemed to be the case with SARS2.
Steven Quay, a physician-researcher, has applied statistical and bioinformatic tools to ingenious explorations of the virus’s origin, showing for instance how the hospitals receiving the early patients are clustered along the Wuhan №2 subway line which connects the Institute of Virology at one end with the international airport at the other, the perfect conveyor belt for distributing the virus from lab to globe.
In June 2020 Milton Leitenberg published an early survey of the evidence favoring lab escape from gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Many others have contributed significant pieces of the puzzle. “Truth is the daughter,” said Francis Bacon, “not of authority but time.” The efforts of people such as those named above are what makes it so.
-
See especially #7:
https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/recommendations.html
https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/
But wait! There is more! Coming soon!
https://jhsphcenterforhealthsecurity.s3.amazonaws.com/spars-pandemic-scenario.pdf?fbclid=IwAR38wZ1Zb4pWyj_mxcBhraM0zfnCpyiaMdiFIRmejmj9gvIuWf1DcoZbXr0
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/ccp-virus-pandemic-was-preventable-disaster-and-terrible-wake-up-call-who-commissioned-panel_3814136.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-05-14&mktids=bf964c01f1f4b0d0ef68ca0052815b47&est=pVtgV0HBImJ3Kotq487exKSA2yAGXEjD2MiorMlSa7y14Zw1qFAfAC6%2FcHG%2BoXkkU3jL
-
Photo ID and immunization passport? I don't think so. I identify as "vaccinated".
-
US inflection point for covid 'herd' immunity happened in mid-April.
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/have-we-reached-a-vaccination-tipping-point-for-covid-19
-
Just as Dr. Markary of John Hopkins predicted on the editorial page of the WSJ about six weeks prior!
-
Weird that after following the science all this time, one bad jobs and inflation report under a Dem administration and the pandemic is over.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/05/mask-mandates-slipping-away-swiftly-throughout-the-us/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=41abcd0d-3aca-48c4-9f16-d58aaa335e41
-
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/05/19/did-a-house-gop-report-prove-dr-fauci-lied-to-congress-n1448290
-
Did Covid-19 originate in a Chinese laboratory funded in part by a grantee of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases? The world is waiting for an answer, and on Thursday several Republican members of the House and Senate asked Dr. Fauci’s boss to help provide one. A related question is whether the deadly pandemic was the result of “gain-of-function” research, in which scientists genetically engineer deadly viruses which do not exist in nature in order to understand potential future threats.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky lead the signers of the new letter to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. The letter contains various footnotes and relies on both government and media reports to assert the following history:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained elusive. Recently, in response to the World Health Organization’s study of SARS-CoV-2’s origins, a group of eighteen scientists published a letter in Science Magazine stating that a leak of the virus from a lab is a “viable” theory and should be thoroughly investigated. Yet, obtaining information about the research on bat coronaviruses conducted at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology has been very difficult. Such information, including if and when gain of function experiments occurred at the lab, is crucial in determining the viability of the laboratory introduction theory. In light of the many unanswered questions regarding the origins of the SARS-CoV-2, we write to seek information regarding the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) 2014 funding pause on gain of function research (also referred to as the moratorium), exceptions NIH may have granted from that pause to allow gain of function research to continue, and the lifting of that pause in 2017.
In October 2014, following several high profile biosafety incidents at labs, as well as public scrutiny of gain of function research studies, the Department of Health and Human Services and NIH instituted a pause on funding research of gain of function experiments “involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses.” The U.S. government (USG) noted, though, that “[a]n exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of the USG funding agency determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or national security.” This pause did not apply to currently-funded research at the time, but the moratorium did urge “the USG and non-USG funded research community to join in adopting a voluntary pause.”
One of the notable NIH-funded studies that was already underway prior to the funding moratorium was Dr. Ralph Baric’s work on a “lab-made coronavirus related to SARS.” In this 2015 study, researchers reportedly created a chimeric virus “related to SARS [that] can infect human cells.” Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, “China’s leading expert on bat viruses” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, contributed to this research. An article noted that NIH allowed this study “to proceed while it was under review by the agency.” Baric reportedly added that “NIH eventually concluded that the work was not so risky as to fall under the [gain of function] moratorium.” It is unclear why NIH apparently concluded that this study was not “risky” enough to fall under the moratorium.
In addition to Baric’s apparent gain of function research in 2015, NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) also reportedly funded similar coronavirus research conducted by EcoHealth Alliance, which subcontracted with Shi. Because of Shi’s research and her connection to the Wuhan lab, Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and infectious disease expert, stated, “t is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice.” In fact, Dr. Peter Dasazk, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, spoke about changing coronaviruses in a lab. In an interview Dasazk stated, “Well I think . . . coronaviruses — you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily.”
In December 2017, NIH lifted the funding pause and established a multi-disciplinary review process, known as the P3CO Framework, to ensure that federally funded gain of function experiments are “conducted responsibly.” It is unclear whether EcoHealth Alliance or any of its subcontractors was granted an exception to the moratorium or whether NIH reviewed those studies in connection with the P3CO Framework.
The lawmakers then ask a series of questions intended to find out exactly what Americans funded and what exactly happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has denied being the source of the pandemic, as has Dr. Shi.
The letter also seeks to clarify whether the NIH, in denying responsibility to this point, has adopted a more narrow definition of gain-of-function research than non-government scientists.
After a recent inquiry from this column, Dr. Fauci’s public-relations team took its time to craft a statement about the U.S. taxpayer money that ended up at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Fauci institute claims that it never funded gain-of-function research “to be conducted” at the Wuhan Institute of Virology—an interesting phrasing for research conducted in the past. The NIAID also asserted, “It is impossible for us to be aware of nor can we account for all of their activities.”
Let’s hope that Dr. Collins can help provide a full accounting and answers to all the key questions, because he should certainly know the territory. In 2011 he served as one of Dr. Fauci’s co-authors on a Washington Post op-ed entitled, “A flu virus risk worth taking.” The government officials wrote:
Working carefully with influenza viruses they have engineered in isolated biocontainment laboratories, scientists in Europe and the United States have identified several mechanisms by which the virus might evolve to transmit efficiently in the ferret, the best animal model for human influenza infection. This research has allowed identification of genetic pathways by which such a virus could better adapt to transmission among people. This laboratory virus does not exist in nature. There is, however, considerable concern that such a virus could evolve naturally. We cannot predict whether it or something similar will arise naturally, nor when or where it might appear.
Given these uncertainties, important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory.
In 2020, did the world receive a whole lot more than information and insights from such research?
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/074/785/580/original/9dafa95cba3244b4.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/074/785/580/original/9dafa95cba3244b4.png)
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/074/785/580/original/9dafa95cba3244b4.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/074/785/580/original/9dafa95cba3244b4.png)
https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/21/medical-experts-raise-alarm-over-safety-of-covid-19-vaccines-in-children-pregnant-women-and-those-who-already-have-antibodies/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/caught-red-handed-cdc-changes-test-thresholds-virtually-eliminate-new-covid-cases-among
-
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/politifact-retracts-wuhan-lab-theory-fact-check
Also, three Wuhan Institute of Virology lab workers hospitalized at exactly that time.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/05/24/covid-cdc-vaccine-variant-mask-fda/5234282001/
China still blocking release of information never gave their vaccine technology to us, while Biden hands them ours.
-
some in media walking back their fact checks.......from the denials of
the OBVIOUS likelihood that the virus leaked from Wuhan viral lab
(to all those who can read, think, reason , and come to conclusions)
BUT it was that
ORANGE MAN who called it the China virus wuhan virus
MSM ->
he is racist bigot pig
he is deflecting blame from himself
no evidence for his wild claims
and citing
the viral research scientists (protecting their own asses in) saying not from lab
So what is plainly obvious did not happen
like no election fraud
lying media
lying democrats
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of being lied to
(the first part was line from Katherine who got it from me - not Alan Jackson)
everything, all things, due to the "fascist, Nazi threat to Democracy " ORANGE MAN
-
One of those walking it back:
Anthony Fauci
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/05/23/faucis-latest-covid-19-flip-flop-may-be-his-most-disturbing-yet-n1449008
Most trusted man in America.
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/welcome-to-the-party-dr-fauci/
remember last yr this Democrat
said his
Chinese colleagues told him it was naturally occurring and of course he knows they are honest and telling the truth
he needs to go away
retire for God's sake if not ours!
just go away
no one is listening
-
He funded the Wuhan lab. He has known all along.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/welcome-to-the-party-dr-fauci/
remember last yr this Democrat
said his
Chinese colleagues told him it was naturally occurring and of course he knows they are honest and telling the truth
he needs to go away
retire for God's sake if not ours!
just go away
no one is listening
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/394005.php
China Joe Shut Down State Department Probe Into Covid's Origins
FAUCI: IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A "DERELICTION OF DUTY" TO NOT FUND THE WUHAN LAB
He funded the Wuhan lab. He has known all along.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/welcome-to-the-party-dr-fauci/
remember last yr this Democrat
said his
Chinese colleagues told him it was naturally occurring and of course he knows they are honest and telling the truth
he needs to go away
retire for God's sake if not ours!
just go away
no one is listening
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/johns-hopkins-prof-half-americans-have-natural-immunity-dismissing-it-biggest-failure?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/i-dont-know-bigger-story-world-right-now-ivermectin-nytimes-best-selling-author
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/nodoubt.jpg
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/nodoubt.jpg)
-
He predicted it while he funded the lab that gave it birth. Eery coincidence, like a mobster saying 'it'd be a shame if something happened to that nice family of yours', and then it did.
-
He predicted it while he funded the lab that gave it birth. Eery coincidence, like a mobster saying 'it'd be a shame if something happened to that nice family of yours', and then it did.
Deep State, Mad Scientist Division.
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/28/new-study-shows-masks-did-not-slow-covid-spread/
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/28/new-study-shows-masks-did-not-slow-covid-spread/
I think we knew from the start that a regular cloth mask is stupid, like putting square wheels on a car or a chain link fence around your yard to stop mosquitoes.
Now that the crisis is over, maybe they could ease up on the fascist industry restrictions and allow the manufacture and sale to the public of masks that do stop viruses.
A friend is an investor and board member of this company, Claros Technologies. They bought a technology developed at the University of Minnesota that infuses zinc that kills viruses into the fabric of the masks.
https://kstp.com/coronavirus/this-is-a-game-changer-u-of-m-spinoff-company-launches-face-mask-it-says-can-kill-the-coronavirus-february-3-2021/6000735/
"A proprietary zinc solution is infused into a fabric, then heated to form zinc nanoparticles 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. The company said the particles, now trapped in the fabric, won't leach out, even after 100 washes. The zinc is harmless to humans but deadly to the virus."
------------------------------------------------------
$25 each (at least when I bought it), free shipping, no minimum purchase. Spendy but the technology, unlike the vaccine, will kill this one and other viruses. I recommend buying (at least) one per person for those you want to protect from the next Wuhan, Nile or Congo virus.
I switched from N95 to this mask a few months ago and found it a little more breathable, comfortable and washable. We have been required for the past year to wear masks for indoor USTA matches (tennis). Breathability is a big deal in sports.
https://www.log3mask.com/
-
https://fee.org/articles/rand-paul-has-won-every-single-round-against-fauci/
Schools
Masking
Covid Origins
[Doug] Strange that the Senator is exploring the science and the 'Dr.' is practicing politics. (Rand Paul is also a doctor.)
More here:
https://nypost.com/2021/05/26/enough-of-faucis-lies-devine/
“Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund ‘gain of function’ research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Fauci said in the fiery Senate hearing on May 11.
He couldn’t have been more certain.
Until he wasn’t certain a few hours later.
That very afternoon, Fauci admitted to “a very minor collaboration as part of a subcontract of a grant we had a collaboration with some Chinese scientists,” during an appearance at Poynter.org’s “festival of fact checking.”
It’s like being a little bit pregnant. The NIH either funded so-called gain-of-function research to juice up bat coronaviruses in China, or it didn’t. Turns out it did. And it did it by exploiting a loophole in an Obama-administration ban on the Frankenstein research put in place in 2014.
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/394045.php
https://fee.org/articles/rand-paul-has-won-every-single-round-against-fauci/
Schools
Masking
Covid Origins
[Doug] Strange that the Senator is exploring the science and the 'Dr.' is practicing politics. (Rand Paul is also a doctor.)
More here:
https://nypost.com/2021/05/26/enough-of-faucis-lies-devine/
“Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund ‘gain of function’ research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Fauci said in the fiery Senate hearing on May 11.
He couldn’t have been more certain.
Until he wasn’t certain a few hours later.
That very afternoon, Fauci admitted to “a very minor collaboration as part of a subcontract of a grant we had a collaboration with some Chinese scientists,” during an appearance at Poynter.org’s “festival of fact checking.”
It’s like being a little bit pregnant. The NIH either funded so-called gain-of-function research to juice up bat coronaviruses in China, or it didn’t. Turns out it did. And it did it by exploiting a loophole in an Obama-administration ban on the Frankenstein research put in place in 2014.
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/394047.php
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9629563/Chinese-scientists-created-COVID-19-lab-tried-cover-tracks-new-study-claims.html?fbclid=IwAR1HH7xACKw4Vn512Z_vc9IzsnkIi20EWwOhCmmnM1j94EibB1NScOPDcSA
-
https://i1.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/angry-lady-cat-smudge-i-trust-science-you-trust-tv.jpg?resize=577%2C406&ssl=1
(https://i1.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/angry-lady-cat-smudge-i-trust-science-you-trust-tv.jpg?resize=577%2C406&ssl=1)
-
Former FDA Commissioner: There’s One Piece Of Evidence Needed To Determine Pandemic’s Origin
https://www.dailywire.com/news/former-fda-commissioner-theres-one-piece-of-evidence-needed-to-determine-pandemics-origin
When asked if he believes that the Chinese know the answer about the pandemic’s origins, Gottlieb responded, “They would know the answer to the question because they would have blood samples from the workers in that lab.”
“And that’s the evidence that they haven’t made public,” Gottlieb continued. “If, in fact, the blood samples show that a high prevalence of people in that lab have been exposed to this virus, that’s pretty definitive proof that this coursed through that lab. And they would also have the samples from the time that they were first drawn, which was the time when they had those illnesses. There’s no question that when they had an outbreak of an illness in that lab that they would have done routine blood sampling in that lab. That’s just normal controls in a lab of that quality. So they would have that information”
Other newsworthy quotes that Gottlieb made during the interview:
“The ledger that suggests that this could have come out of a lab has continued to expand.”
“And the side of the ledger that suggests that this could have come from a zoonotic source, come out of nature, really hasn’t budged, and if anything, you can argue that that side of the ledger has contracted because we’ve done an exhaustive search for the so-called intermediate host, the animal that could have been host to this virus before it spread to humans. We have not found such an animal. We’ve also fully disproven the market, the food market that was initially implicated in the original outbreak as the source of the outbreak. And so that side of the ledger probably has shrunken, and China could provide evidence that would be exculpatory here. They could provide the blood samples from those who worked in the lab in Wuhan. They’ve refused to do that. They could provide the source strain, some of the original strains. They’ve refused to do that. They [could] provide access to some of the early samples that we could sequence. They could provide an inventory of what was in the lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab that has been implicated in a potential lab leak. They have refused to do that.”
“These kinds of lab leaks happen all the time, actually.”
“In China, the last six known outbreaks of SARS-1 have been out of labs, including the last known outbreak, which was a pretty extensive outbreak that China initially wouldn’t disclose that it came out of lab. … it was only disclosed finally by some journalists who were able to trace that outbreak back to a laboratory.”
-
Encore? China on Tuesday confirmed the first human case of the H10N3 bird flu strain. A man from Zhenjiang was hospitalized at the end of April and diagnosed late last week. Authorities and epidemiologists don't seem particularly concerned about the threat of widespread transmission, but you know how these things go. This comes a week after Chinese scientists warned of new pandemic risks from bird flu cases in Russia.
-
Encore? China on Tuesday confirmed the first human case of the H10N3 bird flu strain. A man from Zhenjiang was hospitalized at the end of April and diagnosed late last week. Authorities and epidemiologists don't seem particularly concerned about the threat of widespread transmission, but you know how these things go. This comes a week after Chinese scientists warned of new pandemic risks from bird flu cases in Russia.
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/075/457/398/original/54cbaedf09a4e7d3.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/075/457/398/original/54cbaedf09a4e7d3.png)
-
https://gab.com/DaveCullen/posts/106131019322706266
Encore? China on Tuesday confirmed the first human case of the H10N3 bird flu strain. A man from Zhenjiang was hospitalized at the end of April and diagnosed late last week. Authorities and epidemiologists don't seem particularly concerned about the threat of widespread transmission, but you know how these things go. This comes a week after Chinese scientists warned of new pandemic risks from bird flu cases in Russia.
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/075/457/398/original/54cbaedf09a4e7d3.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/075/457/398/original/54cbaedf09a4e7d3.png)
-
he is an embarrassment to the medical profession at this point
it is all about him
If we win in '24 he needs to be fired:
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/06/02/fauci-emails-mark-zuckerberg-says-people-trust-and-want-to-hear-from-our-experts/
coming out with book
movies about him
this is pathological folks
-
has valid concerns the Biden "90" day review
is likely a sham for political cover :
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/gordon-chang-covid-19-intelligence-research/2021/06/01/id/1023488/
I agree
how is it we can't trust our own government anymore?
-
If we win in '24?
:roll:
he is an embarrassment to the medical profession at this point
it is all about him
If we win in '24 he needs to be fired:
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/06/02/fauci-emails-mark-zuckerberg-says-people-trust-and-want-to-hear-from-our-experts/
coming out with book
movies about him
this is pathological folks
-
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2021/06/02/emails-show-anthony-fauci-scrambled-at-beginning-of-pandemic-to-determine-potential-u-s-role-in-funding-coronavirus-research-abroad/
it is one thing experimenting on dangerous organisms etc
but creating them ?
how crazy is that
GM writes if we win in '24 ? :roll:
I agree GM - I should correct and replace with "when we win in '24".
thank you for pointing that out. :-D
-
"GM writes if we win in '24 ? :roll:
I agree GM - I should correct and replace with "when we win in '24".
thank you for pointing that out. :-D "
I like the optimism!
-
You guys would drive me to drink, if I hadn't already driven there long ago...
"GM writes if we win in '24 ? :roll:
I agree GM - I should correct and replace with "when we win in '24".
thank you for pointing that out. :-D "
I like the optimism!
-
:-D
Seems a tad tin foil GM. I'm not saying it can't be-- indeed given how vulnerable we have been revealed to be to Chinese antibiotic based extortion by all this, if it didn't occur to them before it surely is occurring to them now-- but that article seems really thinly sourced and highly speculative.
Anyway, here is this:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/075/845/359/original/a328c738a7a1aedf.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/075/845/359/original/a328c738a7a1aedf.png)
-
https://pjmedia.com/columns/paula-bolyard/2021/06/04/report-high-ranking-chinese-defector-working-with-dia-has-direct-knowledge-of-chinas-bioweapons-program-and-its-very-bad-n1452251
Fauci sent money over so they could upgrade a virus to infect everyone but people with Mandarin genes
what other reason would they be fooling around with viruses to make them more dangerous to humans
and he lies about it
plays dumb
I just follow the science and the date ......
major jack ass
by knowing this was possible all along
-
https://thenationalpulse.com/news/faucis-boss-admits-funding-wuhan-lab-we-had-no-control-over-what-they-were-doing/
-
https://thenationalpulse.com/news/faucis-boss-admits-funding-wuhan-lab-we-had-no-control-over-what-they-were-doing/
https://thenationalpulse.com/news/faucis-boss-admits-funding-wuhan-lab-we-had-no-control-over-what-they-were-doing/
In an interview in February of this year, former Deputy National Security Advisor (DNSA) Mathew Pottinger said the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had been carrying out biological warfare experiments in Wuhan for years and tried to cover up the COVID-19 outbreak. Pottinger said that U.S. intelligence sources had strong reason to believe that the “Chinese military was doing secret classified animal experiments in that same laboratory [Wuhan Institute of Virology]” as early as 2017. He added that there is “good reason to believe” that an outbreak of a “flu-like illness” had occurred among the scientists in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in the fall of 2019, just before the first cases of a new type of pneumonia were being reported in Wuhan.
Pottinger stressed that although the Wuhan lab bills itself as a “civilian institution,” U.S. intelligence has determined that the lab has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military. Pottinger also stated the lab has undertaken “classified research, including laboratory animal experiments,” on behalf of the PLA since 2017. Pottinger noted as well that when the outbreak first began it was the PLA, not some civilian entity, that was put in charge of handling the situation in Wuhan. It was the military that was called in.
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-evidence-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt/
-
since he is an old white male he can't accuse those who point out his failings as being sexist racist or other phobe
so he instead calls them anti science :
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-evidence-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt/
and of course , out of spite we have all the leftists defending him tooth and nail
and thanking him
-
NRO has me paywall blocked. May I ask you to paste the article?
-
The Lab-Leak Theory: Evidence Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
June 5, 2021 6:30 AM
Experts from China and the World Health Organization joint team visit Wuhan Tongji Hospital in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, February 23, 2020. (China Daily via Reuters)
Every good prosecutor will tell you that the best case is a strong circumstantial case — and that’s exactly what we have.
‘Of course, it’s only circumstantial evidence. We may never know the truth.”
If I’ve heard this once, over more decades than I care to admit, I’ve heard it a thousand times. It is the rote dismissal of circumstantially based cases, and it is almost always wrong.
We can no longer afford to be wrong when it comes to the origin — the generation by regime-controlled Chinese scientists, almost certainly by accident — of a pandemic that has caused nearly 4 million deaths globally (now closing in on 600,000 in the U.S.), in addition to geometrically more instances of serious illness, trillions of dollars’ worth of economic destruction, and incalculable setbacks in the educational and social development of tens of millions of children.
I was a prosecutor for a long time, and prosecutors are in the business of proving stuff. Every good one will tell you that the best case is a strong circumstantial case. It is the most airtight and least problematic kind of proof.
Circumstantial cases are a tapestry of objectively provable facts. No one of those facts, by itself, establishes the ultimate conclusion for which all the interconnected facts collectively stand. Instead, each single fact supports a subordinate proposition that must be true in order for the ultimate conclusion to be valid. Stitch enough of those subordinate propositions together and the ultimate conclusion is inexorable.
We have a natural human reluctance to trust circumstantial evidence. In our own lives, we know what we know — or at least what we think we know — because we have lived it. We don’t need to run down a plethora of clues to grasp our own experiences. We can describe them firsthand. If we worked in a lab that came under scrutiny, we could tell everyone how an accident there happened — or assure them that it didn’t happen. Ergo, we reason, what we really need is direct evidence, someone like ourselves who can narrate the goings-on.
Only then, we tell ourselves, can we really know. Even when all the disparate circumstantial trails lead to the same answer, we instinctively ask how we can trust that answer unless and until it has been confirmed by someone who was there.
But that is not how it works in the real world. Once you get beyond the narrow limits of your own experience, everything else is about what you can trust. And you quickly realize you can trust a constellation of objective facts that fit together (i.e., circumstantial evidence) more reliably than the subjective account of a witness — “direct” evidence — whose entanglement in a controversy may erode his credibility.
The murderer is apt to tell you he didn’t do it. And even the murderer who tells you he did do it is apt to be lying about something significant. Maybe he’s currying favor with the prosecutor, who has demanded testimony against an accomplice in exchange for a reduced sentence; maybe he is settling a score with the accomplice; maybe he has mistakenly assumed that the accomplice was complicit because of what some intermediary told him.
When we are trying to judge a scenario we did not personally witness, we always want a firsthand witness to look us in the eye and say, “Here is what happened.” But even as we listen to such testimony, we realize that we are still in a realm of epistemic uncertainty. For now, we need to consider the witness’s motives, biases, intelligence, scrupulousness, and capacity under the circumstances to have perceived what happened, recall it accurately (for memory plays tricks on us all), and relate it clearly.
What’s the upshot of all that? Well, it means we’re necessarily right back to circumstantial evidence.
When it comes to something of consequence, we don’t take the direct witness’s word for it. We demand corroboration. And how do we corroborate a witness’s testimony? The same way we prove a circumstantial case: by establishing that the subordinate facts line up with the testimonial version of events — that, for example, the records show the alarm triggered just when the witness says the break-in happened; that a nearby surveillance camera captured a streaking vehicle matching the getaway car’s description only 20 seconds later; that the next morning, a series of suspicious cash deposits started to be made at banks just a few blocks apart from each other; and so on.
Apodictic knowledge eludes us. That’s the human condition. Whether we are in the position of relying on circumstantial evidence, direct evidence, or some combination of the two, we are forever at a deficit. Our knowledge is imperfect and our premises may be flawed (and constantly reminding oneself of that is what separates good intelligence analysts from bad ones). Notice that in the criminal justice system, where we apply the most exacting evidentiary standards, the requirement is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, not proof beyond all possible doubt.
There is no proof beyond all possible doubt.
What NR’s Jim Geraghty has chronicled for months is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the coronavirus pandemic was generated by an accident — a lab leak, a not-uncommon mishap in medical research conducted by fallible human beings — at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Ditto the important work of Nicholas Wade, Vanity Fair’s Katherine Eban, our own Michael Brendan Dougherty, and a few intrepid others.
Lab accidents are common, and have been known to spawn infectious diseases (including the escape of SARS1 from the Chinese National Virology Institute in Beijing “no less than four times,” according to Wade). WIV scientists were conducting gain-of-function research on bat-based coronaviruses, in particular their capacity to infect humans. The bats in which are found closely related (but, importantly, not identical) viruses do not inhabit the vicinity of Wuhan — they are nearly a thousand miles away from that densely populated city and have limited flight range. The likelihood of naturally occurring interspecies transmission (outside a lab setting) is infinitesimal. The lab conditions in Wuhan were insufficiently safe — grossly so, it appears. Several of the lab’s researchers fell ill (at least three severely enough to be hospitalized) right at the critical time, in autumn of 2019, before the first identified case of infection with SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Here, two additional points are salient. First, those implausibly claiming that the circumstantial case is weak always skip past the inconvenient fact that the circumstantial case for their preferred theory of natural transmission (from bat to human, directly or through an intermediary species) is so weak as to be negligible — there being, most tellingly, no known existence of a bat (or pangolin, etc.) in which a virus matching SARS-CoV2 has been found.
Second, we are not in a U.S. prosecution. The presumption of innocence that obtains in U.S. criminal trials does not apply in other contexts, and China is not entitled to it. Nor is China vested with the privilege against self-incrimination. We are fully within our rights to conclude that the monstrous regime in Beijing is not an innocent actor, and that it has sealed records, silenced witnesses, and hidden evidence because it knows both that SARS-CoV2 was generated by an accident in one of its labs and that its sundry deceits in concealing this fact undermined any possibility of containing the damage — to catastrophic effect.
On the same rationale, we can justifiably infer that American officials who zealously maligned sensible, informed efforts to investigate the lab-leak theory were motivated not by some adherence to science but by the awareness that the U.S. government knew about and was supportive of China’s virological research.
China and its abettors have much to account for. Unless and until China comes forward with convincing evidence that the lab-leak theory is wrong, the position of the United States and the world must be that China is culpable. We should stop spouting the untenable and irresponsible drivel that, because the case is “circumstantial,” the truth may never be known. We know plenty.
ANDREW C. MCCARTHY is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of BALL OF COLLUSION: THE PLOT TO RIG AN ELECTION AND DESTROY A PRESIDENCY. @andrewcmccarthy
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9652287/The-Pentagon-funneled-39million-charity-funded-Wuhan-lab.html
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/076/027/282/original/c1805d4c48bda223.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/076/027/282/original/c1805d4c48bda223.png)
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9652287/The-Pentagon-funneled-39million-charity-funded-Wuhan-lab.html
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2021/06/05/interesting-timing-obama-administration-lifted-block-on-gain-of-function-research-just-eleven-days-before-president-trump-took-office-january-9-2017/
Timing...
-
Well, that is curious , , ,
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/03/peter-daszak-orchestrated-bullying-campaign-to-make-sure-covid-outbreak-was-not-linked-to-the-wuhan-lab/?fbclid=IwAR24pZXG8wloy_2xm7KpuCxPCElwEqZTCg_IHPfex2723Hn8q8_ybpmhzM4
-
https://gab.com/DaveCullen/posts/106131019322706266
-
Well, that is curious , , ,
As is this:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/394161.php
-
good find GM
not much comes up on him
did he die of covid
or was jailed or executed
by CCP?
https://covid19.elsevierpure.com/en/persons/yu-sen-zhou/clippings/
-
The Power of Natural Immunity
Studies show it’s durable and widespread. If you’ve had Covid, you can get by with one shot of vaccine.
By Marty Makary
June 8, 2021 12:55 pm ET
The news about the U.S. Covid pandemic is even better than you’ve heard. Some 80% to 85% of American adults are immune to the virus: More than 64% have received at least one vaccine dose and, of those who haven’t, roughly half have natural immunity from prior infection. There’s ample scientific evidence that natural immunity is effective and durable, and public-health leaders should pay it heed.
Only around 10% of Americans have had confirmed positive Covid tests, but four to six times as many have likely had the infection. A February study in Nature used antibody screenings in late summer 2020 to estimate there had been seven times as many actual cases as confirmed cases. A similar study, by the University of Albany and New York State Department of Health, revealed that by the end of March 2020—the first month of New York’s pandemic—23% of the city’s population had antibodies. That share necessarily increased as the pandemic spread.
The contribution of natural immunity should speed up the timeline for returning fully to normal. With more than 8 in 10 adults protected from either contracting or transmitting the virus, it can’t readily propagate by jumping around in the population. In public health, we call that herd immunity, defined broadly on the Johns Hopkins Covid information webpage as “when most of a population is immune.” It’s not eradication, but it’s powerful.
Without accounting for natural immunity, we are far from Anthony Fauci’s stated target of 70% to 85% of the population becoming immune through full vaccination. But the effect of natural immunity is all around us. The plummeting case numbers in late April and May weren’t the result of vaccination alone, and they came amid a loosening of both restrictions and behavior.
-
https://www.foxnews.com/health/damning-science-shows-covid-19-likely-engineered-in-lab-experts?fbclid=IwAR0ejrP73P52nUJM4vfVA7XxuRkOR0QGuKeI6FwZzgLMufdk0lUy1eSKVVM
-
https://thenationalpulse.com/exclusive/daszak-reveals-chinese-colleagues-manipulating-coronaviruses/
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/09/the-two-chinese-scientists-who-shipped-live-ebola-viruses-from-canadian-lab-to-wuhan-lab-seem-to-have-disappeared/?fbclid=IwAR1unGluCZy5K_nO3s1diZUzCNGJ88aLFLsKQv4GCV0m2f1D2J0N1xmUcrw
-
why were they not in jail awaiting execution ?
instead of giving every Chinese spy a chance to escape back to China
like Swalwell's girlfriend
-
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/struggle-session/
-
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/struggle-session/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/076/552/841/original/4b62241fa32444ff.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/076/552/841/original/4b62241fa32444ff.png)
-
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/struggle-session/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/076/552/841/original/4b62241fa32444ff.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/076/552/841/original/4b62241fa32444ff.png)
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xGbiZsDB5hg/YMPzFg5n_II/AAAAAAABa6Y/Kub2agfYWaY_pp3CYGaUXA5xht3covb0gCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/1%2B%252878%2529.jpg
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xGbiZsDB5hg/YMPzFg5n_II/AAAAAAABa6Y/Kub2agfYWaY_pp3CYGaUXA5xht3covb0gCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/1%2B%252878%2529.jpg)
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/video-live-bats-wuhan-lab-reveals-daszak-lied-now-deleted-tweet
-
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scottmorefield/2021/06/15/a-group-of-parents-sent-their-kids-face-masks-to-a-lab-for-analysis-heres-what-they-found-n2591047
-
second
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/wuhans-bat-lady-found-all-genes-required-genetically-engineer-sars-coronavirus-2017-report?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
https://www.yahoo.com/news/300k-americans-may-live-chronic-100101667.html
almost certainly , not mentioned of course , is the fact these infected people are mostly illegals who bringing their diseases with them.
God forbid anyone in medicine should say politically incorrect things even when true
"listen to science"
-
https://thenationalpulse.com/exclusive/google-funded-wuhan-linked-ecohealth-research/
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210621%2001.jpg
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210621%2001.jpg)
-
Head of U.S. Intelligence: We May Never Know COVID-19’s Origin
On the menu today: Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, ominously declares in an interview that the U.S. intelligence community is no closer to determining how the COVID-19 pandemic began, and may never know with certainty; the need to end the crisis mentality on evictions; and Vice President Kamala Harris apparently thinks she’s “winning” something by refusing to spend a day visiting the border.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence: Hey, We May Never Know the Origin of COVID-19
Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, did a surprisingly extensive interview with Yahoo News, and said quite a bit about the ongoing U.S.-intelligence review of information relating to the origin of COVID-19. Almost nothing she said was particularly encouraging — starting with her declaration that “nearly a month into the review, it appears that the intelligence community is no closer to settling on one explanation of how the deadly virus originated”:
Asked if it’s possible the intelligence community will never have “high confidence” or a smoking gun on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, Haines responded, “Yes, absolutely.” Haines, who studied physics at the University of Chicago, held out the possibility of a eureka moment but refused to predict a breakthrough. “We’re hoping to find a smoking gun,” she said, but “it’s challenging to do that,” adding that “it might happen, but it might not.”
Haines said she has been closely overseeing the review, which involves dozens of analysts and intelligence officials, and has immersed herself in the details. She is regularly briefed by analysts who represent the rival theories, which may explain her caution about predicting a breakthrough. “I don’t know between these two plausible theories which one is the right answer,” she said in the interview. “But I’ve listened to the analysts, and I really see why it is that they perceive these two theories as being in contest with each other and why it’s very challenging for them to assess one over the other.”
If, after a 90-day review, specifically in response to a directive from the president, the U.S. intelligence community’s answer is, “Well, we just don’t know how this pandemic started,” it will be not just a colossal disappointment; it will also set off a million conspiracy theories about coverups.
The U.S. intelligence community has access to all kinds of information that we mere laymen don’t — signals intercepts of every kind from the NSA, satellite photos and footage, information from allied intelligence services such as the “Five Eyes,” and who knows, hopefully at least one human source in the Chinese government. There’s that rumor of a high-level defector, although some unnamed U.S. official told the Daily Beast that’s not true — but governments aren’t usually eager to confirm rumors of major-league defections. (If that denial is accurate, that raises the question of just where Dong Jingwei, vice minister of the Ministry of State Security, currently is.) At minimum, the U.S. intelligence community should be able to determine if anyone of significance within the Chinese government secretly feared or believed that the pandemic was indeed the result of a lab leak. Between the early lying, the delayed release of key information to the WHO, the taking down of previously accessible databases of virus information, the refusal to allow a WHO team to visit for a year, the refusal to turn over raw data on the first COVID-19 patients, and the suppression of academic research into the virus’s origin, Lord knows the Chinese government has been acting like it’s guilty from the start. And then there’s this simple fact, laid out in Katherine Eban’s piece in Vanity Fair:
Dr. Richard Ebright, board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, said that from the very first reports of a novel bat-related coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, it took him “a nanosecond or a picosecond” to consider a link to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Only two other labs in the world, in Galveston, Texas, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, were doing similar research. “It’s not a dozen cities,” he said. “It’s three places.”
There was one comment from Haines in that interview with Yahoo that seemed a little curious:
Haines even posited a third, hybrid theory for the virus’s origin. “It could be, for example, a scenario in which a scientist comes into contact with an animal that they’re sampling from” and contracts the virus in that way.
A scientist contracting the virus while collecting a sample is not morally or ethically all that different from a lab leak. (That particular scenario doesn’t seem all that unlikely, considering the fun-and-games images of bats hanging off the hats of the researchers with exposed skin collecting the samples, and Tian Junhua’s description of the time he “forgot to take protective measures. Bat urine dripped on him like raindrops” and self-quarantined for two weeks.) In either case, an effort at virus research that the institutions publicly insisted was safe was not safe and set off the worst pandemic in modern history. The only mitigating factor would be that no gain-of-function research was involved.
There is no bigger question facing the world right now than how this awful pandemic got started. Sure, thanks to vaccinations, the pandemic’s effect on American life is getting smaller each day. But this progress comes after more than 617,000 Americans succumbed to the virus, at least $16 trillion in economic losses, a lost year of schooling for almost all of America’s kids, the health effects of the “long-haulers,” and a million other disruptions and tribulations in the lives of ordinary people, all around the globe. We’re almost at 3.9 million deaths worldwide, and have more than 179 million cases worldwide. There’s also a good chance that all of these official figures underestimate the true toll in lives lost.
No one wants to go through this again, which means we have to know how it started. A “We just can’t figure it out” from the part of the U.S. government that is specifically assigned to protect us and and find out what other countries are hiding isn’t going to cut it.
By the way, even if this pandemic turns out to be proven to be the result of a lab leak, the risk of human beings catching a new virus from some animal is still a real and persistent risk, and animal smuggling and wet markets represent a significant continuing danger. (Yulin, China, hosted its annual Dog Meat Festival again this year. Dog lovers, you’re not going to want to click on that link.) The global scale of the illicit collection and trafficking of wild animals and their carcasses is jaw-dropping. Also, depending upon whom you ask, anywhere from 200,000 to 2.7 million pangolins are poached each year.
There are a lot of people who would prefer “We’ll never know” to “Yes, at least 4 million people worldwide are dead because of negligence and recklessness in the top virology lab in China.” Because if it’s that latter scenario, then the rest of us will have to do something about it, and the free nations of the world are already drifting into a new cold war with China, even without confirmation of our worst suspicions. Xi Jinping has been preparing for this conflict his entire life; the Chinese Communist Party has been researching, developing, and experimenting with new methods to maximize its leverage over other countries for decades.
It is not overstating it to declare that the upcoming intelligence-community report on the origins of COVID-19 may be the most consequential assessment of the U.S. government since George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” in 1946, recognizing the threat of international Communism and more or less inventing the concept of “containment.”
-
:roll:
Head of U.S. Intelligence: We May Never Know COVID-19’s Origin
On the menu today: Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, ominously declares in an interview that the U.S. intelligence community is no closer to determining how the COVID-19 pandemic began, and may never know with certainty; the need to end the crisis mentality on evictions; and Vice President Kamala Harris apparently thinks she’s “winning” something by refusing to spend a day visiting the border.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence: Hey, We May Never Know the Origin of COVID-19
Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, did a surprisingly extensive interview with Yahoo News, and said quite a bit about the ongoing U.S.-intelligence review of information relating to the origin of COVID-19. Almost nothing she said was particularly encouraging — starting with her declaration that “nearly a month into the review, it appears that the intelligence community is no closer to settling on one explanation of how the deadly virus originated”:
Asked if it’s possible the intelligence community will never have “high confidence” or a smoking gun on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, Haines responded, “Yes, absolutely.” Haines, who studied physics at the University of Chicago, held out the possibility of a eureka moment but refused to predict a breakthrough. “We’re hoping to find a smoking gun,” she said, but “it’s challenging to do that,” adding that “it might happen, but it might not.”
Haines said she has been closely overseeing the review, which involves dozens of analysts and intelligence officials, and has immersed herself in the details. She is regularly briefed by analysts who represent the rival theories, which may explain her caution about predicting a breakthrough. “I don’t know between these two plausible theories which one is the right answer,” she said in the interview. “But I’ve listened to the analysts, and I really see why it is that they perceive these two theories as being in contest with each other and why it’s very challenging for them to assess one over the other.”
If, after a 90-day review, specifically in response to a directive from the president, the U.S. intelligence community’s answer is, “Well, we just don’t know how this pandemic started,” it will be not just a colossal disappointment; it will also set off a million conspiracy theories about coverups.
The U.S. intelligence community has access to all kinds of information that we mere laymen don’t — signals intercepts of every kind from the NSA, satellite photos and footage, information from allied intelligence services such as the “Five Eyes,” and who knows, hopefully at least one human source in the Chinese government. There’s that rumor of a high-level defector, although some unnamed U.S. official told the Daily Beast that’s not true — but governments aren’t usually eager to confirm rumors of major-league defections. (If that denial is accurate, that raises the question of just where Dong Jingwei, vice minister of the Ministry of State Security, currently is.) At minimum, the U.S. intelligence community should be able to determine if anyone of significance within the Chinese government secretly feared or believed that the pandemic was indeed the result of a lab leak. Between the early lying, the delayed release of key information to the WHO, the taking down of previously accessible databases of virus information, the refusal to allow a WHO team to visit for a year, the refusal to turn over raw data on the first COVID-19 patients, and the suppression of academic research into the virus’s origin, Lord knows the Chinese government has been acting like it’s guilty from the start. And then there’s this simple fact, laid out in Katherine Eban’s piece in Vanity Fair:
Dr. Richard Ebright, board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, said that from the very first reports of a novel bat-related coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, it took him “a nanosecond or a picosecond” to consider a link to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Only two other labs in the world, in Galveston, Texas, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, were doing similar research. “It’s not a dozen cities,” he said. “It’s three places.”
There was one comment from Haines in that interview with Yahoo that seemed a little curious:
Haines even posited a third, hybrid theory for the virus’s origin. “It could be, for example, a scenario in which a scientist comes into contact with an animal that they’re sampling from” and contracts the virus in that way.
A scientist contracting the virus while collecting a sample is not morally or ethically all that different from a lab leak. (That particular scenario doesn’t seem all that unlikely, considering the fun-and-games images of bats hanging off the hats of the researchers with exposed skin collecting the samples, and Tian Junhua’s description of the time he “forgot to take protective measures. Bat urine dripped on him like raindrops” and self-quarantined for two weeks.) In either case, an effort at virus research that the institutions publicly insisted was safe was not safe and set off the worst pandemic in modern history. The only mitigating factor would be that no gain-of-function research was involved.
There is no bigger question facing the world right now than how this awful pandemic got started. Sure, thanks to vaccinations, the pandemic’s effect on American life is getting smaller each day. But this progress comes after more than 617,000 Americans succumbed to the virus, at least $16 trillion in economic losses, a lost year of schooling for almost all of America’s kids, the health effects of the “long-haulers,” and a million other disruptions and tribulations in the lives of ordinary people, all around the globe. We’re almost at 3.9 million deaths worldwide, and have more than 179 million cases worldwide. There’s also a good chance that all of these official figures underestimate the true toll in lives lost.
No one wants to go through this again, which means we have to know how it started. A “We just can’t figure it out” from the part of the U.S. government that is specifically assigned to protect us and and find out what other countries are hiding isn’t going to cut it.
By the way, even if this pandemic turns out to be proven to be the result of a lab leak, the risk of human beings catching a new virus from some animal is still a real and persistent risk, and animal smuggling and wet markets represent a significant continuing danger. (Yulin, China, hosted its annual Dog Meat Festival again this year. Dog lovers, you’re not going to want to click on that link.) The global scale of the illicit collection and trafficking of wild animals and their carcasses is jaw-dropping. Also, depending upon whom you ask, anywhere from 200,000 to 2.7 million pangolins are poached each year.
There are a lot of people who would prefer “We’ll never know” to “Yes, at least 4 million people worldwide are dead because of negligence and recklessness in the top virology lab in China.” Because if it’s that latter scenario, then the rest of us will have to do something about it, and the free nations of the world are already drifting into a new cold war with China, even without confirmation of our worst suspicions. Xi Jinping has been preparing for this conflict his entire life; the Chinese Communist Party has been researching, developing, and experimenting with new methods to maximize its leverage over other countries for decades.
It is not overstating it to declare that the upcoming intelligence-community report on the origins of COVID-19 may be the most consequential assessment of the U.S. government since George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” in 1946, recognizing the threat of international Communism and more or less inventing the concept of “containment.”
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/nih-deleted-data-on-early-wuhan-covid-cases-at-request-of-chinese-researchers/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=24252038
-
It Came From Science Fiction
body snatchers
As a kid I was fascinated with other-worldly tales, but the first one to really scare me was “The Pedestrian”, 1951, by Ray Bradbury—the story of a guy out walking at night, stopped by an unmanned police vehicle wanting to know why he was not at home watching his ‘viewing screen’. Bradbury had it all right, even driverless cars, and most of all, an understanding that life functions around oppressive control by an elite.
If we view present circumstances as ‘science fiction’, what is the plot for this story? Instigators for the ‘great reset’ (Make Back Better) include well-known Malthusians (who want most of us dead), advocating precipitous actions to reduce global population—now.
We know who these people are—those same ones who devastated Libya, the Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine. Well-meaning serial killers, who after their first 20,000 murders, seem able to take it in stride—and to set their plan in motion. Just as the Mongols would build a timber wall around existing fortification walls of a city under attack, isolating the inhabitants in terror, the ‘resetters’ took it upon themselves to isolate the world population by raising a ‘wall of fear’ for a virus that amounted to no more than a bad flu.
Using masks that do no good and issuing stay at home orders that kept people indoors (scientists knew we were safer outdoors), commanding obedience for the ‘efficient cause’ of their plan, gene therapy, disguised as vaccines—gene therapy that in previous SARS trials was known to cause blood clots.
An interesting plot twist, because why would a gene-therapy, known to cause blood clots, be rushed to market?
Why would toxicology study protocol, always done before human trials, be abandoned? And why would a ‘vaccine’ with only emergency-use status be promoted as ‘safe’ (an obvious lie), and offered to pregnant woman and children?
In terms of sci-fi population reduction, pregnant women and children would be two important categories.
Meanwhile, in the real world, we have been lied to about the facts of science, suppressed by a coordinated effort on the part of government and WHO/CDC, since 2019. Even now, with their diabolical spokesperson, Fauci, thoroughly discredited, he remains in power while a ‘whitewash’ job is done to resurrect him.
What Bradbury didn’t have was the idea of digital vaccine passports, which are the truly necessary element to this narrative because, from a digital data center, the elite would be able to make us marionettes dance at will.
They are already promoting and bringing out booster shots to deal with viral variants. But the variants are 99.7 similar to Covid 19, making boosters totally unnecessary to mount an immune response.
We are told this is a novel virus. This is not a novel virus—60% similar to the ‘com-mon cold’ and 80% similar to earlier SARS viruses, meaning a great many persons have strong immunity against it—natural immunity, which gets compromised by the ‘jabs’.
Without testing for naturally-occurring antibodies resulting from fighting off earlier viruses, healthy persons are ‘jabbed’ and stripped of natural ability to mount a defense.
Let me reiterate—I write fiction—and this is an exercise in science fiction.
But why, in dealing with this virus are we cajoled into injections that are not vaccines and are unable to eradicate the virus?
Why did they only deal with the part that is the spike protein and not the whole virus?
Going after one aspect, the spike protein, gives the virus time to devise a way around that little wall they put up—extended the life and times of a virus which would have passed through much more quickly if it had been left alone.
From a Bradbury perspective, what is the plot now? Booster shots are not vaccines so what is it about booster shots that could change reality on the cellular level?
Vaccine passports would change cellular reality, but because we have a Bill of Rights. we are the nation who can stop it. Canada and Britain, in fact the entire EU, have no guaranteed rights—they do what they are told.
Given that the viral response is a bunch of tyrannical crap (even without sci-fi), built on lies and PR, we had better use our rights.
If we do not step-up and we get vaccine passports, what then?
As with digitally lock-downed currency, the elite would gain total control.
As political, medical and economic screws tighten, as with taxes, it only gets worse. At first, without your booster appearing on your phone, you don’t fly, then it changes—you can’t get gas or a quart of milk.That’s the good scenario. Since our friends on high can rationalize the murders of 20,000, what happens when they see the need to kill-off another 5 or 6 billion?
No worries—you’re strong and healthy—not one of those ‘dribblers’ with brain clots. You get assigned to a burial detail that spans the globe. One of the fortunates with job security.
Suppose the only persons subsidized are those willing to be chipped. Or worse than that, one of the boosters has the chip (they fail to mention) in it because tyrannical Malthusians differ from others—being up to the task—doing what has to be done.
Is this fiction? The elite know this virus is not acutely lethal yet they spent a fortune promoting fear, while keeping actual facts to themselves in a disinformation campaign.
For the elite to prevail, the gullible need be enlisted as shills, giving the elite ‘immunity’ from the herd. With the virus, if they can get enough of us ‘jabbed’, the rest can be corralled into an ignominious grouping—’anti-vaxxers’—where name calling is all that’s needed.
No matter that you willingly took vaccines for polio and smallpox, you are an anti-vaxxer—one who refuses to acquiesce to dictated, inevitable, cellular data-dumps.
Is this article science fiction?
Do we give the elite the benefit of simply being stupid, taking us forward, technologically, to place from which we cannot get back—where one can never un-vaccinate and may never be free from hideous illness that persists?
Are the elite simply morons who didn’t realize what they were doing? If the answer is yes, is the suppression of gold, the stripping of American rights, and the destruction of our economy, just bad planning by morons.
Or does Ray Bradbury see it otherwise?
You can get on my blog email list at: erik@neverhadaboss.com
-
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/second-covid-coverup-china-us-kt-mcfarland?fbclid=IwAR1llj4bNwL19NYdKXdfc8A2TrnhSpdwggjEj1X1SwTHXZJ_HlfqXsSIP7I
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/077/987/250/original/f179d9f421582dcf.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/077/987/250/original/f179d9f421582dcf.jpg)
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMxuNvVgxlU
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMxuNvVgxlU
Wow. Why did school children and pregnancy aged women need to take the vaccination in the first place? They were at roughly zero risk of dying of covid and inefficient carriers of it.
Offering ice cream to children to have their RNA permanently altered?
In Washington state, free joint with vax. Presumably to adults. Nothing says informed consent like free joint.
-
The Fauci Lab leak coverup referred to in the previous link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNxoVFZwMYw
No "gain of function" research was an important point of contention in the Rand Paul - Fauci exchange. Fauci's denial was presumably under oath in Senate testimony. Is there no consequence for catching America's most trusted expert lying to the world under oath?
It seems that one reason we aren't ruthlessly going after the Chinese regime for this totally unnecessary catastrophe is that Americans were complicit.
Research that can shut down the world for a year and kill more people than a large scale war was conducted under level II security - 'hey, shut that door when you leave' - and the Americans were funding and approving it. Again, no consequence?
-
https://thenationalpulse.com/exclusive/google-funded-wuhan-linked-
-
The Fauci Lab leak coverup referred to in the previous link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNxoVFZwMYw
No "gain of function" research was an important point of contention in the Rand Paul - Fauci exchange. Fauci's denial was presumably under oath in Senate testimony. Is there no consequence for catching America's most trusted expert lying to the world under oath?
It seems that one reason we aren't ruthlessly going after the Chinese regime for this totally unnecessary catastrophe is that Americans were complicit.
Research that can shut down the world for a year and kill more people than a large scale war was conducted under level II security - 'hey, shut that door when you leave' - and the Americans were funding and approving it. Again, no consequence?
C'mon Doug, it's been made very clear that the cloud people don't have to obey the laws we do.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/078/176/589/original/892eb88f633475b9.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/078/176/589/original/892eb88f633475b9.png)
-
Shelter-in-place orders didn’t help, researchers find
May have contributed to deaths
BY TOM HOWELL JR. THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A little-noticed study says government orders to “shelter in place” during the COVID-19 fight did not save lives and spurred an uptick in excess deaths in some places, especially overseas.
Researchers from the RAND Corporation and the University of Southern California studied excess mortality from all causes, the virus or otherwise, in 43 countries and the 50 U.S. states that imposed shelter-in-place, or “SIP,” policies.
In short, the orders didn’t work.
“We fail to find that SIP policies saved lives. To the contrary, we find a positive association between SIP policies and excess deaths. We find that following the implementation of SIP policies, excess mortality increases,” the researchers said in a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
The increase was statistically significant in other countries in the weeks following the imposition of shelter-in-place orders. In the U.S., excess deaths rose in the weeks following the order before subsiding 20 weeks later under the orders.
The findings undercut blue states that relied on stay-athome methods as the treatment of choice throughout the pandemic, while providing a measure of vindication for GOP leaders who said they were harmful and that constituents could protect themselves.
Former President Donald Trump told Americans to stay home to slow the spread in March 2020 but criticized ongoing
shutdowns as counterproductive overreach throughout 2020.
Researchers counted all excess deaths to avoid a messy debate over what constituted a COVID-19 death. They pointed to reported upticks in deaths of despair — including drug overdoses, homicides, and unintentional injuries in 2020 — and delays in diagnosing other health conditions as part of the reason the orders fell flat.
“There’s little evidence these policies saved lives and there is some evidence they led to an increase in deaths of despair,” Neeraj Sood, a study author and USC professor, told The Washington Times.
He said government moves often lagged behind choices that individuals made to mitigate their risk of catching COVID-19, blunting the anticipated impact of shelter-in-place orders.
“People respond to the pandemic on their own. They’re invested in their own self-interest and self-preservation,” he said.
Mr. Sood said he might have received criticism over the paper six months ago, but most of the reaction has been positive or constructive as the team accepts comments ahead of submission to a peer-reviewed journal.
“I really haven’t gotten any negative comments saying, like, ‘You guys are ruining public health’ or ‘Why did you write this paper?’” he said. “I haven’t gotten any of those, surprisingly.”
Researchers found the shelter-inplace orders had only a modest impact in restricting movement, although people in American neighborhoods with higher incomes tended to stay put more than lower income ones, and mobility was more restricted in Europe than in U.S. states.
Shelter-in-place orders did slash excess mortality in the island nations of Australia, Malta and New Zealand, and the state of Hawaii, which is also an island chain, the researchers found.
It is possible that islands saw a benefit because “they were able to keep out kind of the inflow of people into the population,” Mr. Sood said.
The paper also looked at the trajectory of deaths compared with the timing of the orders, and found they remained counterproductive.
If the orders were implemented when excess deaths were on the rise, “then the results from the event study would be biased towards finding that SIP policies lead to excess deaths,” the researchers wrote. “However, we find the opposite: countries that implemented SIP policies experienced a decline in excess mortality prior to implementation compared to countries that did not implement SIP policies.”
Researchers said it is difficult to game out how the virus would have spread in the absence of the orders. But they thought it was important to take a longterm look at stay-at-home orders that were imposed in spring 2020 to keep hospitals afloat. The lockdowns became a preferred method in many places during the up-and-down fight with the coronavirus until vaccines arrived last December.
“The implication is this is not a great policy for saving lives, and vaccinations are a greater investment,” Mr. Sood said.
The researchers said they looked realworld impact of shelter-in-place policies that occurred instead of what might have been the “ideal” policy, or if there had been better compliance with them.
Amesh Adalja, a health expert who wasn’t involved in the study, said it will take some time for the world to tease apart which policies were effective in mitigating the fallout from the pandemic.
“That being said, in general, public health tends to favor voluntary recommendations rather than official government force, such as stay-at-home orders for the uninfected. It may be the case that in certain situations the stay-at-home orders created a paradoxical increase in risk as people gathered at homes where indoor transmission took place,” said Dr. Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Shutdowns exacted a massive economic toll and knocked children out of in-person learning for a year or even longer, prompting soul-searching around the method and a push to improve the development and approval of therapies or diagnostics that can detect future threats.
“No discussion of shelter in place orders is complete without realizing that the only reason that the governors thought they needed them was because of massive missteps at the federal level in January, February [and] in most of March of 2020, in which evasion, lack of preparation, botched testing and a litany of other mistakes put the country in a situation in which undetected chains of transmission were bubbling up and putting hospitals into crisis,” Dr. Adalja said.
The RAND and USC researchers said in light of their study, “continued reliance on SIP policies to slow COVID-19 transmission may not be optimal.”
Instead, the best policy response may be pharmaceutical interventions in the form of vaccinations and therapeutics when they become available, the researchers said. “Early evidence suggests that initial vaccination efforts have led to large reductions in COVID-19 incidence,” they said. “Policy efforts to promote vaccination are thus likely to have large positive impacts.”
The Biden administration is emphasizing vaccination over shutdowns as it frets over the delta variant that is becoming dominant in the country. Los Angeles and other places are reimposing mask rules to protect people from the fast-moving delta variant but haven’t ordered sweeping shutdowns.
“There’s little evidence these policies saved lives and there is some evidence that they led to an increase in deaths of despair,” study author Neeraj Sood said. ASSOCIATED PRESS
-
Right. Also violates every word and meaning of the US constitution.
-
Right. Also violates every word and meaning of the US constitution.
I'm predicting that the vaccines will kill/maim more people than the Covid.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/078/509/906/original/b1298a5b9bcc677c.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/078/509/906/original/b1298a5b9bcc677c.jpeg)
-
Tucker made a fascinating point tonight, worthy of considerable rumination: In several states the average age of Wuhan deaths was greater than the average life span for that state.
-
https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1413086077146050564
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/078/733/633/original/eab83339bddfb305.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/078/733/633/original/eab83339bddfb305.jpg)
-
https://greatgameindia.com/third-wave-two-vaccines-deaths/
-
Columbia professor who thanked Fauci for Wuhan lab messaging has links to Chinese Communist Party members | Fox News
Trivia:
Dr. Lipkin and I (known then to us as "Wally"- for Walter) went to college together for two years.
I would accompany him on rhythm guitar as he would play a pretty passable lead guitar.
I saw him on the news in the early days of the Wuhan Virus (Far out! That's Wally!) and reached out to him.
He blew me off.
Nonetheless, the report here is deeply disappointing.
-
You mean this Dr Lipkin? Fox news " consultant "
https://www.foxnews.com/us/dr-ian-lipkin-consultant-contagion-coronavirus
Link to CCP:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/columbia-professor-lipkin-fauci-wuhan-lab-china
-
This is as deep, scary, and evil as it gets.
LISTEN FOR COMPREHENSION!!!
1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_uSZAWQmMM&t=186s
2)
Also see: Dr. David E. Martin | Sitzung 60: Die Zeit ist kein flacher Kreis (odysee.com)
A lot of back and forth here translating the German into English, but the gist of it is this:
Using sound follow the money, apolitical methodology, Dr Martin provides evidence that SARS COV2 is not novel. And shows evidence of patents, timing, relations, obfuscation, etc. going back many years. And much, much more.
Go to 33:21 of the video. By the time you get to the 39:50 point you will quite probably be in "Holy $___" mode. Go back to the beginning, follow the evidence, and so many pieces will fall into place.
3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knXcLOKXUeM
4) Apparently similar evil shenigans are at work as well: https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/stop-chinas-gene-harvesting_3897051.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-07-13&mktids=e7fe56dde3740be57857227e4102013f&est=vuSD7m8B7AU4HkVIiXc3J5R9dET8Ul4azBtlWuikzDvdw1Aqu228Aaz6%2Fk4tZnM%2FHWe6
-
Second post:
CCP: Yup, that is "Wally".
-
quote author=Crafty_Dog
This is as deep, scary, and evil as it gets.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_uSZAWQmMM&t=186s
...
Public private partnerships - of all types - should be unconstitutional. This one, CDC, in particular has SO much that can go wrong with it.
Like he said, in the first months of this coronavirus they monopolized testing and botched testing.
Where did they get the authority to issue a "lodge in place' order binding in 50 states for 16 months? And based on what science, the largely discredited spread by surfaces theory?
They have been so wrong all the way through with no consequence. If you stand up to them you are a nut. Coincidence that they brought down the Trump economy and presidency?
As mentioned, they need a crisis for zillion dollar research to escalate. Just like 'climate science'. That is an enormously perverse incentive.
We found out (?) the virus came out of lab in China. No one is shocked. Then we found out the US CDC funded that lab - with no precautions. No one is shocked. We thought WHO was a problem. Perhaps worse was our own CDC. At least we knew WHO was corrupt.
Sen (Dr.) Rand Paul had his famous gain of function debate with Dr. Fauci. What have we learned since? Fauci was, at best, playing with words at best to stick with that denial. More likely, he was lying through his teeth. Again, no consequence.
Note: This video is from May 2020.
What is the lesson going forward from Covid-19? If we sit still, the lesson will stand that the constitution is provisional and that one or two scientists can shut down the country and the world and put us all under martial law for any or no reason at all at any time.
-
"What is the lesson going forward from Covid-19? If we sit still, the lesson will stand that the constitution is provisional and that one or two scientists can shut down the country and the world and put us all under martial law for any or no reason at all at any time."
That's their plan.
-
A) Hoping that the posts I made earlier today will get a careful assessment here.
B)
The Reassuring Data on the Delta Variant
There’s no sign of a surge in hospitalization or severe illness, and the vaccines remain extremely effective.
By Leslie Bienen and Monica Gandhi
July 15, 2021 6:05 pm ET
You read the same alarming headlines every few months, now with Greek letters. As the virus that causes Covid-19 evolves and mutates, the same concerns pop up about whether the variant evades vaccines, makes people sicker than the old versions, and increases transmissibility. What we know about the Delta variant is reassuring.
One of the most important questions is whether vaccines are still working well. The best way to answer that is to look at the number of vaccinated people getting serious Covid-19 symptoms or being hospitalized. A new study from the U.K. found that vaccines are still incredibly effective at preventing serious illness with the Delta variant circulating. The Pfizer vaccine was 96% effective after two doses at preventing hospitalization, meaning the average unvaccinated person in the study was more than 25 times as likely to be hospitalized with Covid as the average vaccinated one. (This almost certainly understates the protectiveness of the vaccine, as the vaccinated cohort was older and had a higher incidence of pre-existing conditions than the unvaccinated one.) The Johnson & Johnson vaccine produces strong neutralizing antibodies and cellular responses against the Delta variant, still present eight months after administration.
Studies from Canada and the U.K. show 79% to 87% effectiveness against symptomatic infection with the Delta variant. On July 8 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration asserted their confidence in the vaccines. They jointly announced that no boosters are necessary at this time.
This is all excellent news, as is the finding that 99% of hospitalizations for Covid-19 are among unvaccinated people. The vaccines are as good as first heralded, even against new variants. That unvaccinated people are still being hospitalized underscores the continuing need to get as many people vaccinated as possible. That will also protect children under 12, who aren’t eligible for vaccines. Cases in kids have fallen in places with high vaccination rates among adults and adolescents.
The human immune system truly is more clever and flexible than most people realize. Vaccines generate memory B cells that allow them to produce adapted antibodies toward a range of variants should they ever encounter them. Data from the La Jolla Immunology Institute and the University of California, San Francisco show that T-cell responses provoked by the vaccines are strong against known variants. If you choose a two-shot regimen such as Pfizer or Moderna, getting both shots is still important, as the booster may be necessary to recognize a range of variants.
A second question is whether a particular variant is making infected people sicker. This question is answered fairly easily by looking at publicly available data from the CDC and comparing hospitalizations per case, particularly in regions where a new variant is more common. We analyzed these CDC data and found that the hospitalization data support none of the alarming headlines suggesting Delta is more dangerous than earlier strains.
Hospitalization data are a key to understanding the overall risk for two reasons. They tell us whether healthcare systems are overwhelmed, and they predict deaths with high reliability. Positivity data are less reliable, especially the relationship between infection and hospitalizations becomes weaker in highly vaccinated countries like the U.S. We conducted similar analyses in April, when headlines were raging that the U.K. variant, now called Alpha, was driving surges in kids. We found that it wasn’t, and that juvenile hospitalizations weren’t rising in places with a high prevalence of the Alpha variant.
In the U.S. overall, hospitalizations fell consistently from their daily peak in early January of 133,214 to an average of about 12,000 in late June and early July. In the past few weeks, however, hospitalizations bottomed out and are rising in places with low rates of vaccination and low levels of natural immunity. Hospitalizations in children have been consistently low since the first domestic Covid-19 case was found in February 2020, and they haven’t increased since Delta emerged.
U.S. hospitalization data also show not only that higher Delta prevalence doesn’t go hand in hand with higher hospitalization rates; these numbers appear inversely correlated—that is, places that had higher percentages of the Delta variant had lower ratios of hospitalized people to Covid cases. Whatever else we know or don’t know about Delta, its prevalence clearly isn’t driving hospitalizations. When we look at current hospitalization data across the country, the most striking predictive pattern is that a high vaccination rate in a region accurately predicts a lower hospitalization rate.
The hardest question to answer is transmissibility, because it isn’t possible to conduct controlled trials comparing how many people get infected with a particular variant. Using data about prevalence of a given variant as a proxy for transmissibility is an unsound approach, because evolutionarily fitter versions of Covid-19 will swamp other versions and outreplicate them. They may well be more infectious or they may only be better at reproducing themselves in an infected person’s body—we have no reliable way of knowing. The effect is the same: Delta is well on its way to becoming the dominant strain in the U.S.
So far, as we march through the variant alphabet, none of the predicted doomsday scenarios in virulence or vaccine resistance have come to pass. If that changes with a future variant, we will know quickly, because data on hospitalizations are readily available. Anyone can go to the CDC website or the state health department and see whether hospitalizations are rising.
“In baseball you don’t know nothing,” Yogi Berra observed. But we need to stop acting as if we know nothing about Covid-19. Every variant that has come along has produced unwarranted panic. We have to work harder to get people vaccinated, given that almost every American death from Covid-19 is tragically preventable, that world-wide vaccination is paramount to tamp down transmission and stop future variants, and that saving lives everywhere is the right thing to do.
Dr. Bienen is a public-health researcher at Oregon Health and Science University-Portland State University School of Public Health. Dr. Gandhi is an infectious-disease physician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Eric Happel contributed to this article.
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/07/new-uk-study-people-vaccinated-make-47-new-covid-cases/
-
https://www.city-journal.org/panic-pandemic?wallit_nosession=1
-
I took mine but how come some people don't trust the vaccines:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1416094954603044864
One minute video, Biden and Harris express more doubt than any elected Republican I have seen.
"...the American people should not have confidence in it." Candidate Joe Biden
"If Donald Trump says we should take it, I'm not takin' it." Candidate Kamala Harris
These statements don't matter because ...
Much more at this link: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/07/why-do-some-mistrust-the-vaccines.php
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210719%2007.jpg
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210719%2007.jpg)
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/079/663/537/original/c3f077d3697d333a.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/079/663/537/original/c3f077d3697d333a.jpg)
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210719%2007.jpg
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210719%2007.jpg)
-
https://gab.com/DaveCullen/posts/106131019322706266
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/beijing-vet-dies-monkey-b-virus-which-has-70-80-fatality-rate
The next one?
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/07/20/fauci-snaps-at-sen-paul-over-gain-of-function-research-you-dont-know-what-youre-talking-about/
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/07/20/rand-paul-and-anthony-fauci-clash-on-nih-funding-in-wuhan-it-is-a-crime-to-lie-to-congress/
Fauci
very deviously clever
if you ask me.
But we are stuck with him as long as Dems in power.
-
"This tweet is misleading. Learn more about how vaccines work."
People should post pre-warnings about big tech warnings:
"Twitter is part of a Big Tech propaganda mission to quash opinions not in line with their own.
See twitter warning that follows.
Click here to see our same content expressed freely without bullsh*t warnings from Orwellian censors like Twitter."
-
https://www.newsmax.com/health/health-news/covid-immunity-vaccination/2021/06/09/id/1024476/
-
The difficulty of the news business is that you’re constantly trying to tell people their information is outmoded, which they resist since assimilating new information entails a cost. And yet here goes:
If you haven’t had Covid yet, you will. If you’ve had it once, you’ll have it again. If you’re vaccinated or were infected previously—which will one day be most people except the very young—your symptoms will likely be mild or nonexistent, but it’s not guaranteed. Words the CDC says about the flu it will say about Covid: “Vaccination is especially important for people 65 years and older because they are at high risk of developing serious complications from flu. Flu vaccines are updated each season as needed to keep up with changing viruses.”
Nobody is surprised when they get the flu for the second, the third, the eighth time in their lives. This is what epidemiologists meant when, for the last 15 months, they said the new coronavirus was likely to evolve and become endemic.
Which brings us again to the question of vaccine hesitancy. Media types have been worshiping a Kaiser Family Foundation survey that finds 86% of Democrats and only 52% of Republicans are vaccinated.
But all the problems of polling apply: fewer and increasingly unrepresentative are those of us who even bother to answer our phones; we’re cagey on partisan questions. The numbers also seem disproportionate to every correlate: Rural vs. urban. Young vs. old. Black vs. white. Kaiser says it aims for an error of plus or minus 3 percentage points; on party identification it achieved an error of 6 to 7 points.
Never mind. The media ecstatically embrace an anecdote about CPAC idiots cheering when the Biden administration “fails” at anything, even vaccine promotion. Remember when Kamala Harris thought it clever to encourage distrust of the “Trump” vaccine? Realism should teach us to make allowance for a trait common among our least-gifted politicians: the inability to access their own thoughts on any subject in their blind groping for the talking point du jour.
In Sunday’s New York Times, a dismaying report from Arkansas kept coming back to high-risk subjects who refused the vaccine because they thought masks protected them. Masks are good at stopping you from spreading the disease, not getting it. This was and remains the CDC advice, and yet YouTube apparently might censor you if you use a mainstream news clip making this point because it resembles a claim that “masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19.”
If such idiocy were actionable under law, half the press would be bankrupted by wrongful-death lawsuits after its promotion of undifferentiated mask fetishism in the summer of 2020, which likely contributed to the embrace of masks and sharp decline in social distancing that the Covid States Project found to be a factor in last fall’s deadly surge.
When adjusted for age priority and residential geography, and equally important the quality of the vaccines being distributed and the priority put on delivering first versus second doses, the U.S. is doing as well as anybody. It’s got at least one jab into 65% of the eligible population. The urgent problem now is the unvaccinated developing world.
In all the successful countries, the rate of vaccination falls off partly from an inversion of the no-atheists-in-foxholes rule: When people feel less threatened by the virus, they take fewer precautions. If asked, in their cognitive dissonance they revert to bluster or cite something from the internet. We’re seeing this movie for the fourth time with the Delta variant’s emergence. To its credit, the Times spent 2,000 words on Arkansas vaccine hesitaters without mentioning political party or Donald Trump. Last week, I guesstimated that most countries would be lucky if vaccine compliance reached 80%. The reason is universal: The vaccine is less inviting when case rates are low. This is why those countries that were most successful in keeping Covid out find their citizens least clamoring for the vaccine or pressuring politicians to supply it.
Which brings us to another problem: Our understanding of cases in the U.S. is still awful, still dependent on voluntary testing among subjects 95% of whom turn out to have symptoms of something else. For all we know, Delta might be rampant among vaccinated people right now without symptoms.
In a related glaring oversight, Kaiser didn’t bother to ask its vaccine-resistant subjects one of the most important questions: Have you had Covid? Our inability to see past “confirmed cases” has been a demonstrable menace, systematically encouraging Americans to underestimate their risk of encountering the virus and overestimate their risk of dying from it.
We can’t understand what we don’t measure. And yet the silence of the press on these failings has been absolute. If editors had been more interested in free and conscientious inquiry, and less interested in executing pet narratives, by now there’s quite a list of ways it might have helped society better rise to the Covid challenge.
-
https://www.uptodate.com/contents/covid-19-epidemiology-virology-and-prevention?search=undefined&source=covid19_landing&usage_type=main_section#H1575856513
Studies have also identified SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4 and CD8 T cell responses in patients who had recovered from COVID-19 and in individuals who had received an investigational COVID-19 vaccine, which suggest the potential for a durable T cell immune response
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/author-of-retracted-study-on-harm-of-mask-wearing-by-children-says-removal-was-political_3911445.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-07-22&mktids=ef5239d8acdfaf3ea5125b5119073175&est=[EMAIL_SECURE_LINK]
-
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/07/21/fauci-rand-paul-inflammatory-slanderous-comments-were-completely-out-of-line/
you are on record stating gain of function research is worth the risk
in the past
by your own institutions definition (which you now obfuscate and deny)
through a secondary you provided funds for it ;
Wuhan was clearly involved in this research
you conspired to cover up the truth that the virus leaked from the lab
and even that the Chinese lab works with the CCP military
YET Fauc CONTINUES to LIE about it
and use the phony "science card" :
'if you speak against me you are against science"
the science community is obviously covering their own God darn asses here
and at the same time China
Speaking the truth is NOT slander
talk to your lawyer.
-
Well put, ccp.
Babylon Bee put it this way:
"Debate Erupts Between Trusted Medical Doctor And Dr. Fauci"
https://babylonbee.com/news/debate-erupts-between-trusted-medical-doctor-and-dr-fauci
John Hinderaker said, I may have treated as many patients as Dr. Fauci. (He was a trial lawyer.)
Strange thought but what if they had just approached covid with preparedness and truth?
Gain of function research, co-funding a weapons lab with our enemy, lying about the origin, coverup the early testing fiasco, mask nonsense that changes with the wind, school closings, lodge in place orders, deceptive casualty stats,... and they can't figure out why trust collapsed.
Fauci could have replaced the mask inventory Obama depleted and he could have heeded the warning of Sen Majority Leader Bill Frist 15 years earlier facing SARS, instead of tapdancing around truth now.
https://americanmind.org/salvo/a-storm-for-which-we-were-unprepared/
A Storm for Which We Were Unprepared
Bill Frist, M.D. Senator
June 5, 2005
https://firehydrantoffreedom.com/index.php?topic=1148.msg124876#msg124876
the evidence strongly suggests that we are at the threshold of a major shift in the antigenicity of not merely one but several categories of pathogens, for never have we observed among them such variety, richness, opportunities for combination, and alacrity to combine and mutate. HIV, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (mad cow), avian influenzas such as H5N1, and SARS are merely the advance patrols of a great army forming out of sight, the lightning that however silent and distant gives rise to the dread of an approaching storm—a storm for which we are entirely unprepared. How can that be? How can the richest country in the world, with its great institutions, experts, and learned commissions, have failed to make adequate preparation—when preparation is all—for epidemics with the potential of killing off large segments of its population?"
...
"new facts such as rapid, voluminous, and essential travel and trade; the decline of staffed hospital beds; and a now heavily urbanized and suburbanized American population dependent as never before upon easily disrupted networks of services and supply, lead me to believe that—especially because vaccines, if they could be devised, would not be available en masse until six to nine months after the outbreak of a pandemic—the imminence of such viruses might result in the immensely high death tolls to which I have alluded. It is true that none of these viruses has yet spread geometrically—instantly and irrevocably overcoming health care systems and pulling us backward across thresholds of darkness that we long have believed we would never cross again. And yet this they might do—either entirely on their own or as a result of intentional human intervention."
...
"the inadequacy of what little has been done, but a hint may be accurately conveyed by the fact that the nation’s largest biocontaminant unit with fully adequate quarantine and negative air is a ten-bed facility in Omaha, or by the absurdity of a recent announcement from the Washington Hospital Center that in “implementing plans for handling any disaster that might effect our capital,” and “to deal with the worst in biological, chemical, and natural disasters,” it has built, “a multi-use, 20-bed ready room”
...
"The nature of the threat being mortal and reaction to it heretofore irresponsible and inadequate, I propose—entirely without prejudice to the necessity and absent the diminution of the means to disrupt, defeat, and confound the aggressor by force of arms—an immense and unprecedented effort. I see not an initiative on the scale of the Manhattan Project, but one that would dwarf the Manhattan Project; not the creation of a giant, multi-billion dollar research institution, but the creation of a score of them; not merely the funding of individual lines of inquiry, but of richly supported fundamental research, a supreme effort in hope of universal application; not the fractional augmentation of medical education but its doubling or tripling; not a wan expansion of emergency hospital capacity, but its expansion, as is necessary and appropriate, by orders of magnitude; not to tame or punish the private sector, but to unleash it especially upon this task; not the creation of a forest of bureaucratic organization charts and the repetition of a hundred million Latinate words in a hundred million meetings that substitute for action, but action itself, unadorned by excuse or delay; not the incremental improvement of stockpiles and means of distribution, but the creation of great and secure stores and networks, with every needed building, laboratory, airplane, truck, and vaccination station, no excuses, no exceptions, everywhere, and for everyone."
...
"today I have tried to impress upon you the urgency I feel in the matter of the immediate destiny not only of America but of the world, for pandemics know neither borders, nor race, nor who is rich nor who is poor, they know only what is human, and it is this that they strike, casting aside the vain definitions that otherwise divide us."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The people we trusted with our preparedness failed, and Fauci is the head of it.
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/house-democrats-block-covid-origins-declassification-bill
-
second post
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/zero-covid-catastrophe-participating-nations-see-new-records-across-board?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
".House Democrats Block COVID Origins Declassification Bill "
They just can't let Trump be right
truth be damned
full speed ahead with fake news.
-
(https://pjmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Daily-New-Deaths-in-Sweden.jpeg)
-
https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1418383450227228674?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1418383450227228674%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fcovid-19%2Fisrael-finds-pfizer-jab-only-39-effective-stopping-delta-variant
-
https://twitter.com/VeBo1991/status/1418575155123691520
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/080/073/871/original/8eedf9a2848fb43f.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/080/073/871/original/8eedf9a2848fb43f.png)
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/cnn-segregate-unvaccinated-make-them-pay-tests-every-day
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_wallace_112559?src=t_segregation
-
Simply brilliant. I would like to find a local attorney this assertive for various issues that come up from time to time.
I'm not against vaccines. I'm against other people, business or government making my choices for me.
-
Simply brilliant. I would like to find a local attorney this assertive for various issues that come up from time to time.
I'm not against vaccines. I'm against other people, business or government making my choices for me.
Exactly.
I'm so old, I remember when "my body, my choice" was a thing.
-
https://populist.press/minnesota-woman-has-both-legs-and-hands-amputated-after-receiving-experimental-pfizer-c-19-jab/
-
https://www.yahoo.com/news/recommend-vaccine-donald-trump-023528036.html
I notice Fox people also changing their tune about the vaccine of late too.
About time.
-
https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-021-01557-z/d41586-021-01557-z.pdf
-
A serious mistake, IMHO.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/recommend-vaccine-donald-trump-023528036.html
I notice Fox people also changing their tune about the vaccine of late too.
About time.
-
https://tv.gab.com/channel/revolvernews/view/huh-tucker-covers-vaccine-death-toll-60fade9e680daacfd76946c3
-
hundred + million vaccinated
and 7 months into it and people are not dropping like flies from the vaccine
The Left is making hay about how so many cases are now in Florida
and the vast majority of hospitalized ones are in unvaccinated
Anyway,
somehow I suspect we are nearing the tail end of the pandemic
and the waves will burn out over the next 1 or 2.
in 1918 the flu came in waves now identified to persist in smaller less severe pockets of outbreaks until 1921 to1923 ish
of course just a hunch.
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/here-we-go-again
hundred + million vaccinated
and 7 months into it and people are not dropping like flies from the vaccine
The Left is making hay about how so many cases are now in Florida
and the vast majority of hospitalized ones are in unvaccinated
Anyway,
somehow I suspect we are nearing the tail end of the pandemic
and the waves will burn out over the next 1 or 2.
in 1918 the flu came in waves now identified to persist in smaller less severe pockets of outbreaks until 1921 to1923 ish
of course just a hunch.
-
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsonandjohnson-cancer/
Unlike their carcenogenic baby powder, you can't sue them for any vaccine related issues.
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/french-intelligence-warned-obama-state-department-about-wuhan-lab-2015-former-official
-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/22/what-the-fight-between-anthony-fauci-and-rand-paul-is-really-about/?fbclid=IwAR01hCHhmAFzHRwhcXHD1b-oRnfq9LaA5BwEzeloKrT2ug7A8V0BxtfgjfY
-
https://gab.com/a/posts/106649494464529429
-
https://gab.com/DaveCullen/posts/106131019322706266
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/07/monkey_business_from_china__covid_part_two.html
-
https://gab.com/DaveCullen/posts/106131019322706266
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/07/monkey_business_from_china__covid_part_two.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/the-cdc-has-confirmed-monkeypox-in-the-us-you-should-probably-pay-attention-to-this/ar-AAMngVA
-
https://nationalfile.com/cdc-declares-pcr-tests-must-go-immediately-after-george-soros-bill-gates-buy-covid-19-test-manufacturer/
-
https://i.imgflip.com/5hq37g.jpg
-
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2021/07/devastating-evidence-of-danger-of-covid.html
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/01/04/fda-admits-pcr-tests-give-false-results-prepares-ground-for-biden-to-crush-casedemic/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/majority-hospitalized-covid-patients-uk-only-tested-positive-after-admission-leaked-nih?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/department-of-justice-declares-covid-19-vaccine-mandates-legal_3920759.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-07-28&mktids=7d4ac62ce9b1807ce83d7ffb11995b7a&est=Ri5h%2FOOG8UfN2ut1YQe%2FgUy1SKtBqHBw%2FPnggdVQdstoNdfdp%2BVOIEJ6i1xDsF8ARB8p
-
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/bob-odenkirk-better-call-saul-heart-attack-1234989892/
https://www.krqe.com/health/coronavirus/vaccine/better-call-saul-stars-get-covid-vaccine-at-hispanic-cultural-center/
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/health/fda-covid-vaccine-heart-warning/index.html
-
Optimism down 20 points since May, 26 points with Independents!
https://nypost.com/2021/07/26/the-honeymoons-over-american-optimism-drops-20-points-to-mark-bidens-six-months-in-office/
My reaction, slow learners, but better than total and permanent denial.
Every policy of this Administration is designed to bring down this country. If that is an exaggeration, tell me one policy of theirs that is not.
-
https://pandemic.solari.com/form-for-employees-whose-employers-are-requiring-covid-19-injections/
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/cdc-director-vaccine-passports-may-very-well-be-a-path-forward-in-us_3922369.html
-
https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-virus-cases-soar-hospitals-201622077.html
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/dr-gottlieb-explains-why-us-covid-hot-spots-may-have-reached-point-where-delta-surge?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
https://rumble.com/vkfz1v-the-vaccine-causes-the-virus-to-be-more-dangerous.html
-
Third post
https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/despite-delta-alarmism-covid-19-deaths-hit-16-month-low?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=newsletter-FP&utm_campaign=dailypm&utm_content=2021-07-30&ats_es=639c4dfcf4902e5be56a6038ef508105
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/907984/of-significant-interest-ccp-virus-protocol
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9848109/Miracle-drug-life-saving-against-Covid-stop-hospital-treatment-GPs-claim.html
-
Luc Montagnier says the vaccines are creating the variants.
https://greatgameindia.com/covid-19-vaccines-creating-variants/
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210706/COVID-19-vaccination-may-be-stemming-evolution-of-e2809cfittere2809d-SARS-CoV-2-variants.aspx
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/most-recovered-covid-19-patients-have-broad-and-robust-immunity-that-may-likely-provide-some-degree-of-protection-against-variants-study_3927481.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-01&mktids=c55c03d083b5f19ff706249766cfa7f9&est=wIkoPy5marMPwEg5om2Jce51nCALZ8ipsx7nRowpNkcPJTvAMFO2c4y0hvYVkqESCtb9
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8253687/
-
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/where-does-the-governments-right-to-require-vaccinations-come-from?fbclid=IwAR1WJrhv73ToHI9Zve0_cEtRE4Q65oDurmkY7O6Cz31js4gNcpzh2VZSGos
The fact that the article is from 2015 nicely isolates it from current controversies over the Trump Vaccines.
Upon reading the article I see nothing to suggest that it misreads the case law.
OTOH as a matter of logic, if people can protect themselves with a vaccine then there is no need to coerce others to vaccinate.
I had the Wuhan Cooties back in November and the science appears to show that I have good natural anti-bodies.
Standard medical principle is not to take medicine needlessly, so what would be the basis for coercing me to get vaccinated?
Would not doing so be a violation of my Fourth Amendment right to be secure in my person?
-
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/where-does-the-governments-right-to-require-vaccinations-come-from?fbclid=IwAR1WJrhv73ToHI9Zve0_cEtRE4Q65oDurmkY7O6Cz31js4gNcpzh2VZSGos
The fact that the article is from 2015 nicely isolates it from current controversies over the Trump Vaccines.
Upon reading the article I see nothing to suggest that it misreads the case law.
OTOH as a matter of logic, if people can protect themselves with a vaccine then there is no need to coerce others to vaccinate.
I had the Wuhan Cooties back in November and the science appears to show that I have good natural anti-bodies.
Standard medical principle is not to take medicine needlessly, so what would be the basis for coercing me to get vaccinated?
Would not doing so be a violation of my Fourth Amendment right to be secure in my person?
One study says 8 months protection from previous case.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6529/eabf4063
Vaccine is not 100% protection, perhaps should be called shot, jab, not vaccine. In public health, one argument beyond protecting yourself is to not be a carrier.. OTOH, perhaps we should not all in a population have some life altering substance injected, not knowing everything that will come from it.
Heavy persuasion is one thing. Requiring it is far different. I agree with you on Constitutional question of that.
Lastly, we have been lied to so often for so long, who knows what to believe.
-
Marc:
I’d like to see the study that inspired dr Fauci’s assertion that immunity from the vaccines is stronger than from the natural infection. Couldn’t find it.
I did read a study that people with natural immunity do not derive additional benefit from vaccination. Can’t find the link right now.
My own SIL had CoViD - and then took the 2 shots. She told me that the reaction to the 2nd shot was much worse than the original disease. OK, I also have a 71 year old friend who breezed through all of his 3 encounters with the viral antigen.
For those who are looking for consensus on this matter - it doesn’t exist yet. My overall sense is that for people with natural immunity it’s wiser to refrain from taking the vaccine. In fact, I think it may be medical malpractice to vaccinate people without first testing them for antibodies. Why? I think it implies failure to obtain informed consent.
Children never needed the vaccine. It appears that they do not spread the disease (much, anyway). For teachers and anyone else worried about CoViD and it’s variants - they should be encouraged to get vaccinated (as most of us have done).
Delta appears to be milder. Here are a couple of quick communications suggesting that. The second one is just a graph of the recent UK data - cases are sky high, but the death curve is almost flat.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/delta-variant-said-causing-far-fewer-serious-cases-in-israel/
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E6rYznTWEAMVpSG?format=jpg&name=large
About mutations - a Feb 2020 article, from before any controversies have started.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0690-4
Anatole
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Marc:
You had obliquely mentioned that you had natural immunity, but I was not aware that you had a COVID infection, that changes the calculus.
1. First, the official govt response is that they want you vaccinated even though you have had COVID. Next my thoughts:
2. You have had COVID, this means you have received the best vaccine possible, a whole living breathing shot of live virus. Compare this with the govt vaccines which are essentially just a small portion of the spike protein (mRNA converts to prot). So you dont need any more vaccine. That would be enough information for most individuals. However, if you want a more analytical/technical approach...
3. What does happen is that your antibody levels decline with time. If you got the infection in Nov, its now close to 8-9 months. Doing some basic math, the half life of the antibody is about 73 days, and by end of Aug, I anticipate 4 half-lives will have passed (73 x4=292 days or about 9 months), by which time per standard kinetics about the antibody levels would have declined about 95 %.
4. So what i would do is get SARS-CoV-2 IgG levels again, for both anti-N (nucleocapsid) and anti-S/RBD (Spike protein/Receptor Binding Protein). These are IgG antibodies against different parts of the virus. I have seen, that anti-N disappears faster than anti-S, so its good to get both, ideally from the same lab where you got the first test, so that comparisons can be made. If it is a hospital lab, if you call the lab/your doc, you can in addition ask them to give you the semiquantitative reading in optical density..i.e. a number which correlates with the strength of the antibody.
5. The data so far shows that antibody levels correlate well with virus neutralizing activity, i.e. its not enough that you have antibodies to COVID, but that those antibodies can actually neutralize the COVID virus. This neutralization can be studied using a VSV- pseudotyped virus (Vesiculo-Stomatitis Virus), that is available at Mayo Labs (code FSAR2) and elsewhere. This testing is however not needed, since the correlation between high levels of antibody and neutralizing activity is high.
6. Another line of thought is that even though the antibody levels decline, your body maintains memory of those events, so called anamnestic response and if you were to be reinfected, your body will make fresh antibodies. i.e. you dont need a booster.
7. COVID re-infections are very rare (i.e. someone who had COVID catches COVID again), as opposed to vaccine breakthroughs (i.e. catches COVID after vaccination).
I believe the above should help you make an informed decision. Get an anti-N and anti-S level to start with and go from there.
-
"Delta appears to be milder. Here are a couple of quick communications suggesting that. The second one is just a graph of the recent UK data - cases are sky high, but the death curve is almost flat."
What about the fact I keep getting push back about this -
"hospitals are overflowing right now"
I don't do hospitals anymore but this is the usual retort when I state the delta is less virulent
I can see younger people not getting vaccinated or those who have already had the virus
but in my view people over ~ 40 should be vaccinated - "real men" get vaccinated
and it certainly would help reduce the spread ......
it is not just the death rate it is the prevention of our economic and daily flow of activity
the unnecessary use of hospital and other health resources that increase costs to all of us
that also implies vaccinations are beneficial
That all said I know many get angry when I even think in this direction
I see people who absolutely refuse vaccination ( I suspect they are nearly always conservatives - who watch Tucker et al - and so far none have ever denied it when I mention this)
EVERY DAY
many of these are people in the 40 to 80s
many with underlying conditions
I tell them I am a conservative but I think this whole conservative thing - I am taking a stand here on the vaccine hill - is really misguided
we are in the middle of pandemic that has devastated this country upwards what, 6 + trillion - has allowed the LEFT to take advantage of it . For God's sake get the vaccine - you will not die . And yes do it for the country.
Real men get vaccines ..
GM I love you man.
you are a real man - no offense to you
just may opinion.
-
Let's be clear:
I got the flu vaccine.
The Trump Vaccines were and are a great political achievement for President Trump and a great medical achievement for those who brought them across the finish line.
I took my mother to get a Trump Vaccine.
I would have gotten a Trump Vaccine for myself, but before it became available to me I caught the Wuhan Virus.
Therefore I now have the natural antibodies.
As my doctor friend above says "You have had COVID, this means you have received the best vaccine possible, a whole living breathing shot of live virus. Compare this with the govt vaccines which are essentially just a small portion of the spike protein (mRNA converts to prot). So you dont need any more vaccine."
EXACTLY SO!!!
Taking medicines we don't need is medical malpractice.
Show me the studies that say there is benefit to those with natural anti-bodies further provoking their immune systems with a (still unapproved it is worth noting) Trump Vaccine shot!
PERSUADE ME!
Instead, for reasons we don't need to go into in this moment, the Powerful are deliberately conflating people like me with the unvaccinated and prepare to deny me my Fourth Amendment right to be secure in my person.
The Powerful now prepare to seize our children as well on the basis of , , , pretty much zilch. ("Children never needed the vaccine. It appears that they do not spread the disease (much, anyway). For teachers and anyone else worried about CoViD and it’s variants - they should be encouraged to get vaccinated (as most of us have done)."
My doctor friend advises me as follows:
"For those who are looking for consensus on this matter - it doesn’t exist yet. My overall sense is that for people with natural immunity it’s wiser to refrain from taking the vaccine. In fact, I think it may be medical malpractice to vaccinate people without first testing them for antibodies. Why? I think it implies failure to obtain informed consent."
As the free man that I am as an American, I exercise my judgment to agree with my doctor friend.
-
https://pandemic.solari.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Form_Employees_Whose_Employers_Are_Requiring_Covid-19_Injections.pdf
-
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/08/01/fauci-maskless-are-encroaching-on-others-right-to-not-get-sick/
-
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbcc4a003-72f9-4417-b43a-be0eb75ac72a_750x1334.png
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/1/covid-19-delta-variant-hospitalizations-deaths-far/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=l44pxstkajVDJHY%2FXQt1JyH9kOJMqBZUgZja8cPrLvfpKDYx2ZYrnXQrIP%2B4mX6d&bt_ts=1627898797637
-
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbcc4a003-72f9-4417-b43a-be0eb75ac72a_750x1334.png
"The pivotal clinical trial for the Pfizer Covid vaccine trial shows it does nothing to reduce the overall risk of death. Zero. 15 patients who received the vaccine died. 14 patients who received the placebo died. The End. The trial blind is broken. This is all the data we will ever have."
[Doug] Is this true? Is this all the data we will ever have? The link doesn't go anywhere for me so I don't know the study to which he refers. We just vaccinated a hundred and fifty million people. Don't we have more data now than 15 deaths? We don't need placebo, we have vaccinated, unvaccinated and people who built their own anti-bodies fighting the virus.
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were 94% effective against COVID-19 hospitalization among fully-vaccinated adults over the age of 65.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7018e1.htm?s_cid=mm7018e1_w
Isn't that pretty good? Or is it false. Enter the "delta variant". More contagious. Less deadly. Isn't it also less deadly because of the high number of vaccinations?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Israel says Pfizer Covid vaccine is just 39% effective as delta spreads, but still prevents severe illness"
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/delta-variant-pfizer-covid-vaccine-39percent-effective-in-israel-prevents-severe-illness.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The total number of individuals who died after contracting Covid-19 despite vaccination [as of 6/25/21] is 750.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/25/covid-breakthrough-cases-cdc-says-more-than-4100-people-have-been-hospitalized-or-died-after-vaccination.html
Aren't these numbers consistent with the 94% effective ratio?
"COVID-19 pandemic caused approximately 375,000 deaths in the United States during 2020."
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm
[Doug] Hard to compare these numbers, but...
375,000 deaths, one year, entire country
750 deaths half year, only of those vaccinated, which is now > 50% but got to that number gradually over the past 6, now 7 months.
The 94% effective claim seems approximately true throughout a large population study. If so, the, "does nothing to reduce the overall risk of death"..."This is all the data we will ever have", statement does not appear true to me. Again, not sure what he is referring to. If they wouldn't censor, maybe I could look into what honest skeptics are referring.
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-publication-results-landmark
----------------------------------------------
Crafty's points about vaccinating (or not) someone who had the covid in November is directly relevant to a circumstance in my family. I hope to see more information on that.
-
I'm working on it Doug!
======================
More analysis on ivermectin
https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/epidemiologic-analyses-on-covid19-and-ivermectin/
================
Michael Yon on Pandemics
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/913491/pandemic-book-recommendation
-
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm7031e2_w
-
In South Florida, I think in Fort Lauderdale, there is a 2 physician medical practice, a husband and wife - who used Ivermectin aggressively on their patients, starting very early in the epidemic. They claimed excellent results - a 100% recovery rate. They got some publicity - were mentioned in local papers, on TV - but, that was it. No one, apparently, was interested in evaluating their results. They must have been some of the first in the world to try this treatment.
Here’s a curious recent study. Basically, it shows that natural immunity from having had CoViD is just as protective as the vaccines - and vaccinating them does not offer any added protection.
https://www.medrxiv.org/.../2021.06.01.21258176v2.full
DrFauci made a big deal about vaccination “boosting” the antibody levels in people who were previously infected. SO WHAT? What difference does this make if the immunity levels they have are perfectly sufficient for them to be protected??
In a sane world, people would be advised to take antibody tests prior to vaccinations. Would save them from having reactions, sometimes severe - for no added benefit.
-
third post
You run the risk of overstimulation of your immune system and possible long term autoimmune issues. ...very hard to prove this assertion at the moment though.
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9845333/FDA-okays-Regeneron-COVID-19-antibody-preventive-high-risk-settings.html
-
fifth post
NR PLUS MEMBER FULL VIEW
House Report Contains Shocking Detail about the Wuhan Lab
On the menu today: House Republicans unveil the results of their investigation into the origins of COVID-19, which uncovered an utterly inexplicable massive expenditure by the Wuhan Institute of Virology shortly before the pandemic began; and the three professions that need to get vaccinated the most will probably never face workplace mandates because of the strength of their unions.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology’s $606 Million Air-Conditioning-Repair Bill
On September 16, 2019 — roughly two and a half months before the first reported cases of COVID-19 — the Wuhan Institute of Virology signed a contract to spend a bit more than $606 million on a “Central Air Conditioning Renovation Project.”
Even if you’re used to the air-conditioning guy coming to you with a massive bill, that seems like a lot. For perspective, Microsoft is building a new data-center campus on 53 acres near Chicago for somewhere between $450 million and $500 million. The Wuhan Institute of Virology wanted to spend more than that just to renovate its HVAC system.
This new fact comes from the Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a new report, The Origins of COVID-19: An Investigation of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Its source for that is the China Government Procurement Network. You can run the contract through Google translate; note the contract’s sum of 3,928,876,694 yuan actually calculates out to $607,855,882.69 at the current exchange rate.
The argument of House Republicans is that this massive expenditure, along with others in the preceding and subsequent months, indicates that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had equipment problems in the year before COVID-19 appeared in the surrounding city: “The references to maintenance at the BSL-3 and animal center at the WNBL, the procurement of an environmental air disinfection system, and renovations to the hazardous waste treatment system and central air conditioning system all raise questions about how well these systems were functioning in the months prior to the outbreak of COVID-19.” Josh Rogin notes that the contract announcement, along with one for a new $1.3 million “Security Service Procurement Project” on September 12, were later scrubbed from the Chinese Ministry of Finance website.
I find, even by the standards of government contracting, the sum of $606 million to replace an air-conditioning system so astronomically high that it is hard to believe that the contractor was just being asked to renovate the existing air-conditioning system. Garden-variety corruption doesn’t explain a building’s repairs costing that much. For comparison: “The building and sophisticated equipment that make up the Galveston National Laboratory cost more than $174 million when it was completed in 2008” — that comes out to $219 million once adjusted for inflation.
Why would China’s bill to replace an air-conditioning system be three times the cost of building a new lab from the ground up here in the United States?
Last night, someone in the field insisted that the Institute buildings’ air-conditioning systems had nothing to do with the air-handling system for the biocontainment suites. Fine. But the sheer size of the sum of money in that contract raises the question of just what the contractor was really being asked to do. Beyond that — even by the standards of a secretive and ruthless authoritarian government — who posts and then subsequently takes down the air-conditioning-repair bill, unless there’s something significant about it?
The House Republicans’ report doesn’t mince words, declaring right at the start that:
The preponderance of evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory sometime prior to September 12, 2019. The virus, or the viral sequence that was genetically manipulated, was likely collected in a cave in Yunnan province, PRC, between 2012 and 2015. Researchers at the WIV, officials within the [Chinese Communist Party], and potentially American citizens directly engaged in efforts to obfuscate information related to the origins of the virus and to suppress public debate of a possible lab leak. It is incumbent on these parties to respond to the issues raised herein and provide clarity and any exonerating evidence as soon as possible. Until that time, it must be assumed General Secretary Xi and the Chinese Communist Party, prioritizes preserving the Party over the lives of its own people and those around the global suffering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is not a perfect report; I would quibble with its emphasis on two points.
The first disputable contention is when the report notes that, “athletes at the Military World Games held in Wuhan in October 2019 who became sick with symptoms similar to COVID-19 both while in Wuhan and also shortly after returning to their home countries.” Testing these athletes for antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 would be a simple task, and yet I have not heard about any positive tests that confirmed exposure to the virus in October 2019. As Rogin noted back in June of this year, “no one performed any antibody testing or disease tracing on these thousands of athletes. No one even attempted to find out whether the games in Wuhan was, in fact, the first international pandemic super spreader event.” It’s possible that SARS-CoV-2 was spreading among those athletes at that time, but that remains unproven.
The second disputable contention is that, “satellite imagery of Wuhan in September and October 2019 that showed a significant uptick in the number of people at local hospitals surrounding the WIV’s headquarters, coupled with an unusually high number of patients with symptoms similar to COVID-19.” The problem is that we don’t know if those upper-respiratory illnesses and viral infections represented cases of SARS-CoV-2; Wuhan has a lot of other viruses going around! In June and July 2019, the streets of Wuhan saw massive protests of thousands of people, objecting to construction of a new incinerator plant, complaining that the city’s air quality was bad enough.
Beyond that, the House Foreign Affairs Committee report is excellent. Some details are almost comical:
Director Wang’s 2021 New Year’s speech makes reference to the Party Committee of Wuhan Institute of Virology, pledging that the party committee will “effectively play the role of a battle fortress of grassroots party organizations.” The WNBL also has its own party branch, the Zhengdian Laboratory Party Branch, which was “awarded the title of ‘Red Flag Party Branch’ by the Hubei Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Organization Working Committee, effectively playing an advanced and exemplary role.” Notably, in discussing the COVID-19 pandemic, Director Wang [Yanyi]’s 2021 speech takes pains to address questions of lab safety — “The institute’s high-level biosafety laboratory operates safely for more than 300 days throughout the year.” Her 2020 address, posted sometime after April 2020, makes no such mention.
Director Wang knows how many days are in a year, right? Declaring a lab operates “safely for more than 300 days throughout the year” is like saying you drive safely six days a week.
The report lays out why some figures in government strongly suspect that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is connected to Chinese biological-weapons programs:
The WNBL’s BSL-4 lab was constructed as a result of an agreement between the PRC and France that was signed after the 2003 SARS pandemic. At the time, all BSL-3 labs in the PRC were controlled by the PRC’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Then-President of France, Jacques Chirac, and his Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, approved the project despite concerns from both the French Ministry of Defense and French intelligence services – Raffarin himself described it as “a political agreement.” The PRC was suspected of having a biological warfare program, and the military and intelligence services were worried that the dual-use technology required to build a BSL4 lab could be misused by the PRC government. The uneasy compromise reached within the French government was that the agreement would require joint PRC-France research to be conducted in the lab, with French researchers present. In 2016, the PRC requested dozens of the containment suits required to work in the lab. The French Dual-Use Commission, tasked with considering exports of sensitive equipment, rejected their request. According to French reporting, the request was “well above the needs of the Wuhan [lab].” This continued to fuel concerns within the French Ministry of Defense that the PRC was seeking to engage in military research or open a second BSL-4 lab for military means. Despite the agreement that the BSL-4 lab would be a site of joint research, and an announcement at the 2017 inauguration by then Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve of €5 million in funding, there has only been one French scientist assigned to the lab. His tour ended in 2020.
It’s a thorough, detailed, and even-handed report. Read the whole thing here.
Of course, this report from House Republicans is just the appetizer. The intelligence community’s assessment is the main course.
Wait, Which Groups Are Refusing to Get Vaccinated?
I’m not a fan of vaccine mandates as a condition of employment — at least, not a mandate for a vaccine still waiting for a biological-license-application approval from the FDA. But if I had a magic wand and could instantly vaccinate everyone in three professions in America, I know exactly which groups I would choose. The first would be staffers at nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, because the people they work with are the most vulnerable to both COVID-19 and all other infections. And only 59 percent of nursing-home staffers are partially or fully vaccinated nationwide.
The second would be staffers at hospitals and other medical facilities, because the people they work with are the most likely to be infected and symptomatic. About one in four hospital workers across the country remains unvaccinated; at the country’s 50 largest hospitals, the rate is one in three.
And the third would be teachers and anyone else who encounters large numbers of children; while the COVID-19 risk to children is still low, children are the one group in America that remains involuntarily unvaccinated.
Naturally, thanks to these groups’ unions, the three professions least likely to experience a vaccine mandate at their workplace are nursing-home workers, hospital workers, and teachers.
ADDENDUM: Thanks to Andy McCarthy for the kind words.
-
Sixth post
https://www.mdlinx.com/news/existing-drug-is-shown-to-inhibit-virus-that-causes-covid-19/2GxOuECODsZBzyVXifzMu5?show_order=2&utm_campaign=malert_080321_commercial&tag=Morning&utm_medium=email&ipost_environment=m3usainc&utm_source=iPost&iqs=9z2zt77olrrs02doh8a04s0h714cdjraihev7tgsfi0
-
well at least for vaccines and "autoimmune diseases"
here is a recent conclusion:
https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccines-and-other-conditions/vaccines-and-autoimmune-diseases
here is another:
https://www.thelancet.com/pb-assets/Lancet/extras/02art9340web.pdf
-
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-masking-of-america/
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/03/mccloskey-pardon-mike-parson-armed-st-louis/
Fox news scientists need not apply
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/they-cant-arrest-us-all-sen-rand-paul-urges-americans-resist-pelosi-petty-tyrants
-
I'm willing to take a vaccine as soon as I find someone willing to accept all potential liability from any injury or death that results from the vaccine.
"Delta appears to be milder. Here are a couple of quick communications suggesting that. The second one is just a graph of the recent UK data - cases are sky high, but the death curve is almost flat."
What about the fact I keep getting push back about this -
"hospitals are overflowing right now"
I don't do hospitals anymore but this is the usual retort when I state the delta is less virulent
I can see younger people not getting vaccinated or those who have already had the virus
but in my view people over ~ 40 should be vaccinated - "real men" get vaccinated
and it certainly would help reduce the spread ......
it is not just the death rate it is the prevention of our economic and daily flow of activity
the unnecessary use of hospital and other health resources that increase costs to all of us
that also implies vaccinations are beneficial
That all said I know many get angry when I even think in this direction
I see people who absolutely refuse vaccination ( I suspect they are nearly always conservatives - who watch Tucker et al - and so far none have ever denied it when I mention this)
EVERY DAY
many of these are people in the 40 to 80s
many with underlying conditions
I tell them I am a conservative but I think this whole conservative thing - I am taking a stand here on the vaccine hill - is really misguided
we are in the middle of pandemic that has devastated this country upwards what, 6 + trillion - has allowed the LEFT to take advantage of it . For God's sake get the vaccine - you will not die . And yes do it for the country.
Real men get vaccines ..
GM I love you man.
you are a real man - no offense to you
just may opinion.
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2021/08/full-disclosure.html
-
https://news.gab.com/2021/07/29/important-download-covid-vaccine-religious-exemption-documents-here/
-
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD015017.pub2/full
Cochrane review is a way of making heads or tails of multiple studies
To me it is a complicated data analysis
but I was told by a trusted previous professor of mine from the 1980s who has published in the New England Journal landmark studies
that he thinks it is valid
Once again , however, it is endless data crunches analyses and more crunches.
Bottom line here is it states there is insufficient evidence to conclude ivermectin does anything.
OTOH it does not prove it does not - only that the available studies do not prove it does.
I do not prescribe it and return money for patients who call to ask for it and be prescribed the medicine in a polite fashion.
-
That was helpful. Thank you.
================================
THIS!
https://dailycaller.com/2021/08/04/dr-makary-natural-immunity-covid-19-vaccine/
https://twitter.com/MartyMakary/status/1420882642346577921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1420882642346577921%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2021%2F08%2F04%2Fdr-makary-natural-immunity-covid-19-vaccine%2F
From June 21
https://dailycaller.com/2021/06/11/natural-immunity-covid-19-coronavirus-great-barrington-declaration/
-
I have been recommending those who get the infection
to go on and get the vaccine
but it may well be that is not needed
though I don't see evidence that convinces me it is harmful to do this .
My head spins as much as any non doctor on all the things flying around medical journals news
internet
CD please ask your friend about the Cochrane review.
I would be interested in his opinion of it.
Thanks
-
G M: "I'm willing to take a vaccine as soon as I find someone willing to accept all potential liability from any injury or death that results from the vaccine."
[Disclosure: I took two tiny jabs of the pfizer, partly due to pressure from my daughter who thinks I'm old and vulnerable. Also for the 'public health' aspect.]
[My 2 cents] My guess from afar, G M is not of super vulnerable age, doesn't have known co-morbidities, doesn't live a super spreader lifestyle, and is not the problem or the solution for Wuhan virus. The people who come into brief contact with G M (and others) already got the vaccine if they wanted it and are protected, if the vaccine works.
Estimated 35% of US has had the virus. Estimated 55% US have had at least one dose vaccine, 65% here. Those groups overlap so they don't add up to 90 or 100%. We are not at 'herd immunity' but we are not the vulnerable population we were a year and a half ago either - if anti-bodies and vaccines are effective. If they are not, then all this worry about who gets vaccinated and who does not isn't as crucial.
On the other side of public health, it is good for the human race and for science that not everyone is injected with RNA altering substance, or whatever it is.
Early vaccination numbers seemed true, 94-95% effective against infection and nearly 100% effective against dying from it. That's pretty good.
Delta variant numbers are more confusing, and 'Delta' won't be the last variant. There isn't one correct vaccination answer for all people, IMHO. Your risk on both sides of the equation vary.
For a doc, I understand recommending vaccination. That patient in front of you may have unknown co-morbidities, may get infected and may die, and a vaccine is available to likely prevent that. To not take it, for some, is a valid personal choice also.
The death curve where I live is basically at zero, summer in Minnesota.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view
Like the Cuomo scandal, they already killed off the old people locked up in nursing homes.
Now I'm wearing an N95 outdoors, sometimes, for the wildfire smoke, and taking it off to go into the stores. Go figure.
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9865463/CVS-says-STOPPED-offering-Johnson-Johnson-Covid-vaccine-pharmacies.html
-
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762?fbclid=IwAR2w4r7z9G-B74Dl7dfwl6d7E-OkYvJMmgaNdS89ZgTzhJMn53u5OPgUfVE
Natural infection vs vaccination: Which gives more protection?
Nearly 40% of new COVID patients were vaccinated - compared to just 1% who had been infected previously.
Tags: Coronavirus Vaccine
David Rosenberg , Jul 13 , 2021 9:24 AM
Share
COVID-19 vaccine
COVID-19 vaccineiStock
Coronavirus patients who recovered from the virus were far less likely to become infected during the latest wave of the pandemic than people who were vaccinated against COVID, according to numbers presented to the Israeli Health Ministry.
Health Ministry data on the wave of COVID outbreaks which began this May show that Israelis with immunity from natural infection were far less likely to become infected again in comparison to Israelis who only had immunity via vaccination.
More than 7,700 new cases of the virus have been detected during the most recent wave starting in May, but just 72 of the confirmed cases were reported in people who were known to have been infected previously – that is, less than 1% of the new cases.
Roughly 40% of new cases – or more than 3,000 patients – involved people who had been infected despite being vaccinated.
A rapid coronavirus test - and results within 15 minutes
Foreign Minister to attend Coronavirus Cabinet meetings
Slight drop in number of serious coronavirus cases
Sharp drop in public approval of govt's handling of COVID crisis
With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus, the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were already infected with COVID.
By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave.
According to a report by Channel 13, the disparity has confounded – and divided – Health Ministry experts, with some saying the data proves the higher level of immunity provided by natural infection versus vaccination, while others remained unconvinced.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/covid-19-survivors-have-broad-longer-term-immunity_3928732.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-08&mktids=cd6dd79f5b811d67c9702ccedf953cb2&est=rpfSsJbEcOs77rofD8ka%2BGpxXQfrvfCo4FLoh9yLXXMJv2wlMBkEPX7JhXEK%2BBNtfnMJ
-
second post
https://journals.lww.com/ajg/Fulltext/2021/08000/Adverse_Events_After_SARS_CoV_2_mRNA_Vaccination.31.aspx
RESULTS:
In general, AE frequency was similar to that reported in the general population. AEs were more common among younger patients and those with previous COVID-19.
=================================================
https://www.futurity.org/mild-covid-antibodies-kids-2600642/
-
third
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(21)00203-2?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2666379121002032%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells
Kristen W. Cohen 10
Susanne L. Linderman 10
Zoe Moodie
Mehul S. Suthar 11
Rafi Ahmed 11
M. Juliana McElrath 11, 12
Show all authors
Show footnotes
Open AccessPublished:July 14, 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2021.100354
PlumX Metrics
Most recovered COVID-19 patients mount broad, durable immunity after infection
Neutralizing antibodies show a bi-phasic decay with half-lives >200 days
Spike IgG+ memory B cells increase and persist post-infection
Durable polyfunctional CD4 and CD8 T cells recognize distinct viral epitope regions
Summary
Ending the COVID-19 pandemic will require long-lived immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Here, we evaluate 254 COVID-19 patients longitudinally up to 8 months and find durable broad-based immune responses. SARS-CoV-2 spike binding and neutralizing antibodies exhibit a bi-phasic decay with an extended half-life of >200 days suggesting the generation of longer-lived plasma cells. SARS-CoV-2 infection also boosts antibody titers to SARS-CoV-1 and common betacoronaviruses. In addition, spike-specific IgG+ memory B cells persist, which bodes well for a rapid antibody response upon virus re-exposure or vaccination. Virus-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are polyfunctional and maintained with an estimated half-life of 200 days. Interestingly, CD4+ T cell responses equally target several SARS-CoV-2 proteins, whereas the CD8+ T cell responses preferentially target the nucleoprotein, highlighting the potential importance of including the nucleoprotein in future vaccines. Taken together, these results suggest that broad and effective immunity may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/081/415/137/original/e794c831c5cfce5b.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/081/415/137/original/e794c831c5cfce5b.png)
-
https://www.google.com/search?q=covid+deaths+in+us&oq=covid+deaths+in+us&aqs=chrome..69i57.3430j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
-
https://www.google.com/search?q=covid+deaths+in+us&oq=covid+deaths+in+us&aqs=chrome..69i57.3430j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
As you know, correlation is not causation.
Perhaps the the virus already killed the easy to kill.
-
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/global-covid-19/shielding-approach-humanitarian.html?fbclid=IwAR0NHprxmHvLAkhbPXsrSSCKi4VaAJYINq0DU30soDTU7IwJIFGgutDNp48
-
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/global-covid-19/shielding-approach-humanitarian.html?fbclid=IwAR0NHprxmHvLAkhbPXsrSSCKi4VaAJYINq0DU30soDTU7IwJIFGgutDNp48
"High-risk individuals would be temporarily relocated to safe or “green zones” established at the household, neighborhood, camp/sector or community level"
- Typo? They forgot the word 'voluntarily' relocated?
How come the plotting and planning to keep us safe always overlaps with the Left mission to take away our God given freedoms?
-
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6266975985001?fbclid=IwAR2lQk6_gzqDsz3Hyvde8D_7ZqAXVVm63e8rfG68geI5n_c97R8Rh_r-gWg#sp=show-clips
-
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6266975985001?fbclid=IwAR2lQk6_gzqDsz3Hyvde8D_7ZqAXVVm63e8rfG68geI5n_c97R8Rh_r-gWg#sp=show-clips
Very good and optimistic analysis there. Thank you.
A person who has had the virus is 6-7 times better protected (if I heard that correctly) than someone who is only vaccinated. IF he is right, that ends the argument of a vaccinated person telling someone who has had the virus and doesn't want the vaccine to get vaccinated, and he is as knowledgeable as anyone we are going to find.
-
[Nearly wiping out the country as predicted], 0.0014 of the population in Sweden died so far a coronavirus linked death, 14,000 out of 10 million. [Half those deaths were in nursing homes.] Now they have higher natural immunity rates and also have very high vaccination rates. With Delta, 8 people in Sweden died of coronavirus in July.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/monvindication-swedish-model-non-coercive-pandemic-mitigation
Of the currently 12,248 people who have tested positive for COVID-19, 12, 219 are experiencing mild symptoms (99.8%) and 29 (0.2%) are in serious or critical condition, according to woldometers.info.
-
https://phibetaiota.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Fauci-2008-Paper-on-Spanish-Flu.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2sXf5wo4f1GO--kkGH_legnW6wW6FOyfszThoTOJwViV3D7sxQVsvSakM
-
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/08/09/must-see-family-medical-physician-dr-dan-stock-delivers-an-important-message-to-mount-vernon-school-board-about-coronavirus/
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2029717
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33948610/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3543548/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/29/these-12-graphs-show-mask-mandates-do-nothing-to-stop-covid/
https://gbdeclaration.org/
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/6/1760
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33205991/
https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7505013/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20092668/
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm
https://pmj.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/12/postgradmedj-2020-139065
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556964/
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8N5oduX1KQ
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/90-patients-treated-experimental-israeli-covid-drug-discharged-within-5-days?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
third
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMp2026913?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed&fbclid=IwAR1AwYh3v9HO87ovRQ6oR-hg5OEgz1IQPfySY5q32dL_aImUBh2oVhIxom0
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/harvard-epidemiologist-martin-kulldorff-on-vaccine-passports-the-delta-variant-and-the-covid-public-health-fiasco_3942556.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-11&est=ZrWbokevQJVLrPWjNEFKhRxV34VRT%2BpwWH6uUDkavGkdnj1WKhTiTpO92ayH3d4m3n1%2F
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/943882/vaccination-failure
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/astrazeneca-vaccine-developer-covid-herd-immunity-not-a-possibility-believes-virus-will-become-seasonal_3944231.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-12&mktids=7a9e6dc1536c574354b8ea3e2c452608&est=%2BAZqG2%2Bf2JqAtFGkHGXwSVyurePGL%2FvxzpJ6pFnL7p7thqI8t%2BOSlav%2FagQ1gF22MHbG
-
Living the superspreader lifestyle right now. I have flown to LA three times since the start of the month and have been through three other international airports, some multiple times during this time period. Aside from massive sleep deprivation, I seem fine so far.
G M: "I'm willing to take a vaccine as soon as I find someone willing to accept all potential liability from any injury or death that results from the vaccine."
[Disclosure: I took two tiny jabs of the pfizer, partly due to pressure from my daughter who thinks I'm old and vulnerable. Also for the 'public health' aspect.]
[My 2 cents] My guess from afar, G M is not of super vulnerable age, doesn't have known co-morbidities, doesn't live a super spreader lifestyle, and is not the problem or the solution for Wuhan virus. The people who come into brief contact with G M (and others) already got the vaccine if they wanted it and are protected, if the vaccine works.
Estimated 35% of US has had the virus. Estimated 55% US have had at least one dose vaccine, 65% here. Those groups overlap so they don't add up to 90 or 100%. We are not at 'herd immunity' but we are not the vulnerable population we were a year and a half ago either - if anti-bodies and vaccines are effective. If they are not, then all this worry about who gets vaccinated and who does not isn't as crucial.
On the other side of public health, it is good for the human race and for science that not everyone is injected with RNA altering substance, or whatever it is.
Early vaccination numbers seemed true, 94-95% effective against infection and nearly 100% effective against dying from it. That's pretty good.
Delta variant numbers are more confusing, and 'Delta' won't be the last variant. There isn't one correct vaccination answer for all people, IMHO. Your risk on both sides of the equation vary.
For a doc, I understand recommending vaccination. That patient in front of you may have unknown co-morbidities, may get infected and may die, and a vaccine is available to likely prevent that. To not take it, for some, is a valid personal choice also.
The death curve where I live is basically at zero, summer in Minnesota.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view
Like the Cuomo scandal, they already killed off the old people locked up in nursing homes.
Now I'm wearing an N95 outdoors, sometimes, for the wildfire smoke, and taking it off to go into the stores. Go figure.
-
" I have flown to LA three times since the start of the month and have been through three other international airports, some multiple times during this time period. Aside from massive sleep deprivation, I seem fine so far "
you can tell us GM, you were in Martha's Vineyard recently right? :wink:
-
Living the superspreader lifestyle right now. I have flown to LA three times since the start of the month and have been through three other international airports, some multiple times during this time period. Aside from massive sleep deprivation, I seem fine so far.
Sounds like you're out making things happen. )
Nice mixture of germs and vitamin D, you'll be fine. A hundred light exposures is probably better for you than staying home.
Real anti-bodies are 6-7 times more effective than the vaccine - I've heard.
-
" I have flown to LA three times since the start of the month and have been through three other international airports, some multiple times during this time period. Aside from massive sleep deprivation, I seem fine so far "
you can tell us GM, you were in Martha's Vineyard recently right? :wink:
All west coast and interior American west.
-
We shall see.
No vaccine, only token half-assed mask wearing when mandated (No one in Utah, Wyoming GAF about masks). I never don the mask unless told to do so.
Living the superspreader lifestyle right now. I have flown to LA three times since the start of the month and have been through three other international airports, some multiple times during this time period. Aside from massive sleep deprivation, I seem fine so far.
Sounds like you're out making things happen. )
Nice mixture of germs and vitamin D, you'll be fine. A hundred light exposures is probably better for you than staying home.
Real anti-bodies are 6-7 times more effective than the vaccine - I've heard.
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/5/biden-teams-misguided-and-deadly-covid-19-vaccine-/
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9898157/People-previously-infected-COVID-likely-symptoms-vaccine-shot.html
-
https://www.revolver.news/2021/08/navy-commander-warns-national-security-threat-from-mandatory-vaccination/
-
Link where you enter the serial numbers off of dollar bills to see where they've been.
http://www.wheresgeorge.com/
And a piece about how the data is used:
Banknote tracking helps model spread of disease
18:15 25 January 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Will Knight
Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self Organisation
Amaral Research Group, Northwestern University
Where's George
Tracking the movements of hundreds of thousands of banknotes across the US could provide scientists with a vital new tool to help combat the spread of deadly infectious diseases like bird flu.
Modern transport has transformed the speed at which epidemics can spread, enabling disease to rip through populations and leap across continents at frightening speed.
However, scientists possess few mathematical models to help them understand these movements and how this might govern the global spread of disease. To a large degree, this is because tracking the movements of so many people over such a large area is next to impossible.
But now physicists from the Max Planck Institute in G?ttingen, Germany, and the University of Santa Barbara, California, US, have developed a model to explain these movements, based on the tracked movements of US banknotes.
Dirk Brockmann and colleagues used an online project called www.wheresgeorge.com (George Washington's image is on the $1 bill) to track the movements of dollar bills by serial number. Visitors to the site enter the serial number of banknotes in their possession and can see where else the note may have been.
The team tracked 464,670 dollar bills across the US using 1,033,095 individual reports. The fact the notes are carried by people suggests it is a good way of modelling other things that people may carry, including disease.
Piggy bank
The researchers noticed that the bills' move according to two mathematical rules, each known as a power law. One describes the distance travelled in each step of the journey, the other the length of time spent between journeys.
While most notes travel a short distance each time, there is a slim probability that it will leap a very long distance ? perhaps carried from one side of the US to the other in the wallet of a passenger taking a flight. Secondly, while some notes move on quickly, there is a fair chance that it will remain in one place for a long period ? for instance stuffed into a child's piggy bank.
Although the movements of individual bills remain unpredictable, the mathematical rules make it possible to calculate the probability that a bill will have travelled a certain distance over a certain amount of time. "What's triggering this is our behaviour," Brockmann told New Scientist. "That is what you need if you want to build quantitative models for the spread of disease."
Very, very important
Brockmann admits that the movement of money may not perfectly mirror that of people. For one thing, he says, it may be that only certain types of people are interested in seeing where their bills have been and entering that on www.wheresgeorge.com. However, he says comparing the model to publicly available information on passenger flights and road travel suggests that it is accurate.
Luis Amaral at Northwestern University, US, believes the study could indeed prove very useful to epidemiologists. ?Understanding the way people move can be very, very important for developing strategies for fighting disease," he told New Scientist. "It seems like a very cool study."
But Amaral also says that the comparison between banknotes and disease is far from perfect. "Banknotes do not reproduce like a disease," he notes.
Modify message
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/major-study-covid-19-vaccines-less-effective-against-delta-as-good-as-natural-infection_3955968.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-20&mktids=6915e925258a10451cc2001be2c0d771&est=JafP6otcWFB5COlvxxrVjFIfFftfPyhvLMy9KRByjWG2lc%2FPWTDrksp4L4hzTgOq2UHM
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/george-mason-university-grants-professor-exemption-from-covid-vaccine-mandate-after-lawsuit-filed_3955930.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-20&mktids=6915e925258a10451cc2001be2c0d771&est=4Z%2BDSl%2FP1RBGBo3IWC6lBUrN%2FsWnXGVXrDg4pr1t7hmS%2BF0kX202XYtql7xsJBfHy%2FNg
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bOHYZhL0WQ&t=6s
-
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-0653
-
https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2021/08/20/cdc-accused-of-file-drawering-a-study-that-found-student-masking-did-not-have-a-statistically-significant-benefit/?utm_source=twtydaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=bf2dc9dd81e2b73bac14012727728307
-
one less excuse not to get shots
though I doubt this will placate nay sayers who will find 25 more reasons not to get it:
:cry:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/985287/meta-analysis-ivermectin-appears-to-work
-
I find the FDA to be as trustworthy as any other federal agency.
Strange how I'm not dead yet, given that I have flown through LAX and three other International Airports multiple times this month.
one less excuse not to get shots
though I doubt this will placate nay sayers who will find 25 more reasons not to get it:
:cry:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine
-
you prove my point.
:-D
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2021/08/get-used-to-this.html
-
https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-is-the-only-state-where-more-people-are-dying-of-covid-now-than-ever-before-what-went-wrong-090001893.html
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/082/990/659/original/a31a842afa212393.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/082/990/659/original/a31a842afa212393.png)
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/08/pfizer-ceo-says-covid-19-vaccine-resistant-variant-likely-emerge-pharma-co-system-place-release-new-variant-specific-jab-3-months-video/
-
If the U.S. intelligence agencies adhered to the mandated schedule, and there’s nothing magical about 90 days, the White House on Tuesday received spookdom’s report on the origins of Covid 19.
Leaks already indicate the 18 agencies couldn’t settle an internal disagreement over whether a natural origin or a lab release was more likely. There is much else they might usefully say, though, in the declassified release the administration has talked about making public in the next few days.
With less than 100% confidence, the agencies could certainly tell us that China has engaged in a deliberate coverup. With some degree of confidence, they might tell us whether they believe China itself knows how Covid got started.
The agencies could estimate how committed Xi Jinping and his regime are to the propaganda claim that the virus originated outside the country, perhaps in the U.S. Army facility at Fort Detrick, Md. They might tell us about China’s efforts to steal the secrets of the West’s superior vaccines.
NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP
On a related question, they could estimate how long China will stick with its zero-Covid policy, which has required a deepening, Mao-like control over its population and China’s re-isolation from the world.
If news reporting is correct, China is sitting on samples from early Covid infections and much other information it hasn’t shared. A Bloomberg News investigation elaborates on a point made by this column: China’s leadership would likely be covering up even a natural origin, “embarrassed that its citizens were still eating wild animals bought in wet markets—a well-known path for zoonotic disease transmission that China tried unsuccessfully to outlaw almost 20 years ago.”
While they might still be in the dark about details of a natural outbreak, China’s scientists would know with documentary certainty by now whether the virus is related to one held and possibly manipulated in a government-run lab. Thus it matters whether secret evidence shows they are still trying to find answers to Covid’s origins.
The Economist magazine suggests that, following on the work of private researchers, U.S. intelligence supercomputers may have scoured the web for traces of deleted viral sequences once housed by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
CNN, citing leaks, reports that the agencies may be in possession of Wuhan lab records that the Chinese mysteriously tried to take offline in September 2019, weeks before the Wuhan outbreak became publicly known.
The stakes are rising, geopolitically and politically. Once the story seemed to be that China, with its strange dietary fetishes and industrially primitive food markets, inflicted the virus on the world. The integrated, rules-based, freedom-based outside world saved the day with mRNA vaccines.
That story is less satisfying now that Delta has emerged. Our vaccines, however fabulous, are proving not a one-and-done fix. Everybody now seems to have a Delta breakthrough story. In my circle, multiple acquaintances talk about colleagues or family members who previously had Covid, were vaccinated, and now have tested positive for Covid again.
More than ever, coping with the virus seems likely to involve long-term adjustments. We might take with a couple of sacks of salt reports this week that China beat down its own Delta outbreak spread over 17 provinces by conducting 100 million tests in a matter of days, including testing every resident of one city 12 times.
Whether China can carry on this way is doubtful. In the meantime, it has effectively entered into a biological-cum-chemical standoff with the outside world. The global population’s immune systems are being hardened by multiple exposures as well as by vaccination, and people are getting back to normal life after much loss and suffering.
China’s increasingly virulent propaganda is aimed not at outsiders but at its own people, neutralizing what is bound to be a growing disgruntlement over recurrent iron-fisted lockdowns, over having to wait in lines repeatedly for mandatory testing, over the loss of tourism dollars, the loss of domestic and foreign travel and education opportunities, the loss of income and opportunities of every kind.
Three weeks ago I suggested the White House would likely prefer continued murk around Covid’s origins for the purpose of rebuilding U.S.-China relations—that is, “unless the Biden administration’s popularity is in free fall in three weeks and needs a foreign conflict to revive it.”
That caveat was offered in advance of the Afghanistan debacle, in advance of a now-avalanche of indicators suggesting the Delta surge is complicating what should be a shining recovery and renewing U.S. political fights over masks, vaccine mandates, schools and deteriorating hospital care in some locations.
The Biden administration has more reason now to treat the intelligence report on Covid’s origins as a chance to lay down a tougher line on China’s role in bringing this calamity on the world.
-
On a related question, they could estimate how long
China America will stick with its zero-Covid policy, which has required a deepening, Mao-like control over its population and China’s America's re-isolation from the world.
If the U.S. intelligence agencies adhered to the mandated schedule, and there’s nothing magical about 90 days, the White House on Tuesday received spookdom’s report on the origins of Covid 19.
Leaks already indicate the 18 agencies couldn’t settle an internal disagreement over whether a natural origin or a lab release was more likely. There is much else they might usefully say, though, in the declassified release the administration has talked about making public in the next few days.
With less than 100% confidence, the agencies could certainly tell us that China has engaged in a deliberate coverup. With some degree of confidence, they might tell us whether they believe China itself knows how Covid got started.
The agencies could estimate how committed Xi Jinping and his regime are to the propaganda claim that the virus originated outside the country, perhaps in the U.S. Army facility at Fort Detrick, Md. They might tell us about China’s efforts to steal the secrets of the West’s superior vaccines.
NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP
On a related question, they could estimate how long China will stick with its zero-Covid policy, which has required a deepening, Mao-like control over its population and China’s re-isolation from the world.
If news reporting is correct, China is sitting on samples from early Covid infections and much other information it hasn’t shared. A Bloomberg News investigation elaborates on a point made by this column: China’s leadership would likely be covering up even a natural origin, “embarrassed that its citizens were still eating wild animals bought in wet markets—a well-known path for zoonotic disease transmission that China tried unsuccessfully to outlaw almost 20 years ago.”
While they might still be in the dark about details of a natural outbreak, China’s scientists would know with documentary certainty by now whether the virus is related to one held and possibly manipulated in a government-run lab. Thus it matters whether secret evidence shows they are still trying to find answers to Covid’s origins.
The Economist magazine suggests that, following on the work of private researchers, U.S. intelligence supercomputers may have scoured the web for traces of deleted viral sequences once housed by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
CNN, citing leaks, reports that the agencies may be in possession of Wuhan lab records that the Chinese mysteriously tried to take offline in September 2019, weeks before the Wuhan outbreak became publicly known.
The stakes are rising, geopolitically and politically. Once the story seemed to be that China, with its strange dietary fetishes and industrially primitive food markets, inflicted the virus on the world. The integrated, rules-based, freedom-based outside world saved the day with mRNA vaccines.
That story is less satisfying now that Delta has emerged. Our vaccines, however fabulous, are proving not a one-and-done fix. Everybody now seems to have a Delta breakthrough story. In my circle, multiple acquaintances talk about colleagues or family members who previously had Covid, were vaccinated, and now have tested positive for Covid again.
More than ever, coping with the virus seems likely to involve long-term adjustments. We might take with a couple of sacks of salt reports this week that China beat down its own Delta outbreak spread over 17 provinces by conducting 100 million tests in a matter of days, including testing every resident of one city 12 times.
Whether China can carry on this way is doubtful. In the meantime, it has effectively entered into a biological-cum-chemical standoff with the outside world. The global population’s immune systems are being hardened by multiple exposures as well as by vaccination, and people are getting back to normal life after much loss and suffering.
China’s increasingly virulent propaganda is aimed not at outsiders but at its own people, neutralizing what is bound to be a growing disgruntlement over recurrent iron-fisted lockdowns, over having to wait in lines repeatedly for mandatory testing, over the loss of tourism dollars, the loss of domestic and foreign travel and education opportunities, the loss of income and opportunities of every kind.
Three weeks ago I suggested the White House would likely prefer continued murk around Covid’s origins for the purpose of rebuilding U.S.-China relations—that is, “unless the Biden administration’s popularity is in free fall in three weeks and needs a foreign conflict to revive it.”
That caveat was offered in advance of the Afghanistan debacle, in advance of a now-avalanche of indicators suggesting the Delta surge is complicating what should be a shining recovery and renewing U.S. political fights over masks, vaccine mandates, schools and deteriorating hospital care in some locations.
The Biden administration has more reason now to treat the intelligence report on Covid’s origins as a chance to lay down a tougher line on China’s role in bringing this calamity on the world.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/083/076/374/original/4745412905451587.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/083/076/374/original/4745412905451587.jpeg)
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/08/26/theres-definitely-something-very-wrong-with-pfizer-biontechs-full-authorization-docs/#more-247314
one less excuse not to get shots
though I doubt this will placate nay sayers who will find 25 more reasons not to get it:
:cry:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/florida-surpasses-10000-monoclonal-antibody-treatments_3965258.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-27&mktids=ad5a18f7268cd1752305bb4d208884dc&est=JoTQ99vHYmS%2FGBak0XyGejaVcnxBDF9UVpiUnqoapkpnMDHneu1%2BUwqWh4nAlwE0WBMe
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1006147/japan-going-ivermectin-which-i-did-in-march-2020
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/28/anthony-fauci-discusses-coronavirus-booster-shots-every-five-months/
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/we-could-end-chasing-our-tails-scientists-speak-out-against-bidens-push-booster-jabs
-
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/having-sars-cov-2-once-confers-much-greater-immunity-vaccine-no-infection-parties?fbclid=IwAR0nakOfpbrs-nr74V5vD-yUhDgtYxl0WLLoLjNlrLeX3tN0F0xk8lo7wec
-
fourth
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-27/previous-covid-prevents-delta-infection-better-than-pfizer-shot
-
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17709/china-crime-of-the-century
-
second
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/pfizer-board-member-warns-policymakers-natural-immunity-needs-be-included-covid-mandate?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/083/733/100/original/336c08543827ed7a.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/083/733/100/original/336c08543827ed7a.png)
-
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/red-cross-vaccine-alert-you-gotta-hear-this/
-
https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=64dd710498a9fd543cff14eb499c9094_6130cd7a_6d25b5f&selDate=20210902
Sorry Facebook, forced universal vaccinations are not the answer
All the science should be considered, not censored
By Dr. Robert Malone and Peter Navarro
On August 5, 2021, we warned against the Biden regime’s forced universal vaccination policy, and Facebook promptly censored us. Now, the World Health Organization Director is pleading that world governments abandon their infinite booster shot madness, warning – as we did – about the possibility of more “virulent” and “potent” mutations. We wonder if Facebook will censor him.
If we are right – and we have science, facts, and evidence all on our side – there are more than First Amendment rights at stake. Millions of lives – perhaps even the human race itself – hang in the balance.
Prong One of our strategy is to vaccinate only the most vulnerable – primarily the elderly and individuals with significant comorbidities such as lung and heart disease or diabetes. Online and smartphone tools can allow people to assess their vulnerabilities accurately.
Prong Two allows physicians to freely prescribe a wide range of safe and effective therapeutics in early treatment, outpatient use. Deploying home-based infection detection test kits would allow such treatment to start as early as possible.
As reflected in the WHO’s concerns, sound science strongly suggests that the more you vaccinate, the more likely you will spawn vaccine-resistant mutations. Therefore, the more likely those who have been vaccinated will fall prey to the mutations. To put this another way, minimizing the number of people vaccinated is the BEST way to protect the most vulnerable – and most efficiently allocate scarce vaccine supplies around the world.
It is this simple Darwinian principle of virology that Facebook’s censors can’t seem to wrap their heads around. They argue mutations will occur whether the virus encounters antibodies generated by vaccines or antibodies generated by those previously infected. But here’s the critical difference: The mutations that develop when the virus encounters vaccinated people will be far better armed to defeat the vaccine than the mutations that otherwise develop from far more diverse “wild-spike” and other viral proteins. So the more people you vaccinate, the more vaccine-resistant mutations you get, and in the vaccine “arms race,” the more need for ever more potent boosters. And here’s the worst-case – but by no means low probability – scenario: By vaccinating the entire population of the country (and world) with spike protein, you risk developing a “super virus” capable of evading globally harmonized immunity and putting everyone back at high risk yet again.
Sound science likewise informs us that universal vaccination is foolish because it imposes unnecessary risks on a substantial fraction of our population – think children, the young, the healthy, and previously infected who have developed what are likely to be a more robust, diverse, and long-lasting protective immune response. Recent data from Israel provides yet more support for this logic.
We must be honest here – because the Biden regime has not been. Each of the major vaccines can cause a wide range of serious side effects – or kill people outright. Yet, the FDA’s system to monitor such “adverse events” appears to undercount such events dramatically.
In contrast, the European Union’s far more accurate system yields alarming statistics: As of July 31, 2021, the Eudravigilance10 database has recorded 20,525 deaths and 1,960,607 injuries.
The apparent lack of durability of our current suiteofvaccinesisequallyalarming. Recentdata indicates the need for additional jabs every four to six months. This is effectively a medical version of Russian roulette where the small risk of a single jab becomes a much bigger risk with multiple jabs. So why expose those with little risk from the disease – particularly our children – to vaccination at all?
Sound science further informs us that it is likely far less risky to treat our low-risk cohorts with therapeutics that range from hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to apixaban, anti-inflammatory steroids, Vitamin D and zinc. We now know these therapeutics can significantly reduce symptoms, length of hospitalization, and mortality rate through the accumulation of data.
For example, a meta-analysis of more than 300 hydroxychloroquine studies involving over 4,000 scientists worldwide and nearly 400,000 infected patients indicates a 66% overall improvement. Early treatment mortality studies estimate an average – and astonishing – 75% reduction in deaths.
Despite such overwhelming data, there appears to be a coordinated effort by the Fauci-led federal bureaucracy working in tandem with Big Pharma and chains like CVS and Walgreens to suppress the distribution of a wide range of therapeutics that physicians all over the world are using to successfully keep patients out of the hospital with early treatment. In many cases, patients simply cannot get their prescriptions filled – a clear case of pharmacies practicing medicine without a license.
That Facebook – which is now requiring all of its employees to be vaccinated – would interject itself into this debate is as distressing as it is deadly. We reiterate we are not anti-vaxers. One (Malone) has been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work on mRNA vaccines. The other played a key role in jumpstarting operation WARP speed.
We are not just exercising our First Amendment rights. We are doing so from one of the strongest data- and science-based foundations imaginable. Ignore – or censor -- us at the world’s peril. Dr. Robert Malone is the discoverer of in-vitro and in-vivo RNA transfection and the original inventor of the core mRNA vaccine technology. Peter Navarro served in the Trump White House and is the author of the forthcoming book In Trump Time: A Journal of America’s Plague Year (All Seasons Press)
===========
Sorry Facebook, forced universal vaccinations are not the answer
All the science should be considered, not censored
By Dr. Robert Malone and Peter Navarro
On August 5, 2021, we warned against the Biden regime’s forced universal vaccination policy, and Facebook promptly censored us. Now, the World Health Organization Director is pleading that world governments abandon their infinite booster shot madness, warning – as we did – about the possibility of more “virulent” and “potent” mutations. We wonder if Facebook will censor him.
If we are right – and we have science, facts, and evidence all on our side – there are more than First Amendment rights at stake. Millions of lives – perhaps even the human race itself – hang in the balance.
Prong One of our strategy is to vaccinate only the most vulnerable – primarily the elderly and individuals with significant comorbidities such as lung and heart disease or diabetes. Online and smartphone tools can allow people to assess their vulnerabilities accurately.
Prong Two allows physicians to freely prescribe a wide range of safe and effective therapeutics in early treatment, outpatient use. Deploying home-based infection detection test kits would allow such treatment to start as early as possible.
As reflected in the WHO’s concerns, sound science strongly suggests that the more you vaccinate, the more likely you will spawn vaccine-resistant mutations. Therefore, the more likely those who have been vaccinated will fall prey to the mutations. To put this another way, minimizing the number of people vaccinated is the BEST way to protect the most vulnerable – and most efficiently allocate scarce vaccine supplies around the world.
It is this simple Darwinian principle of virology that Facebook’s censors can’t seem to wrap their heads around. They argue mutations will occur whether the virus encounters antibodies generated by vaccines or antibodies generated by those previously infected. But here’s the critical difference: The mutations that develop when the virus encounters vaccinated people will be far better armed to defeat the vaccine than the mutations that otherwise develop from far more diverse “wild-spike” and other viral proteins. So the more people you vaccinate, the more vaccine-resistant mutations you get, and in the vaccine “arms race,” the more need for ever more potent boosters. And here’s the worst-case – but by no means low probability – scenario: By vaccinating the entire population of the country (and world) with spike protein, you risk developing a “super virus” capable of evading globally harmonized immunity and putting everyone back at high risk yet again.
Sound science likewise informs us that universal vaccination is foolish because it imposes unnecessary risks on a substantial fraction of our population – think children, the young, the healthy, and previously infected who have developed what are likely to be a more robust, diverse, and long-lasting protective immune response. Recent data from Israel provides yet more support for this logic.
We must be honest here – because the Biden regime has not been. Each of the major vaccines can cause a wide range of serious side effects – or kill people outright. Yet, the FDA’s system to monitor such “adverse events” appears to undercount such events dramatically.
In contrast, the European Union’s far more accurate system yields alarming statistics: As of July 31, 2021, the Eudravigilance10 database has recorded 20,525 deaths and 1,960,607 injuries.
The apparent lack of durability of our current suiteofvaccinesisequallyalarming. Recentdata indicates the need for additional jabs every four to six months. This is effectively a medical version of Russian roulette where the small risk of a single jab becomes a much bigger risk with multiple jabs. So why expose those with little risk from the disease – particularly our children – to vaccination at all?
Sound science further informs us that it is likely far less risky to treat our low-risk cohorts with therapeutics that range from hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to apixaban, anti-inflammatory steroids, Vitamin D and zinc. We now know these therapeutics can significantly reduce symptoms, length of hospitalization, and mortality rate through the accumulation of data.
For example, a meta-analysis of more than 300 hydroxychloroquine studies involving over 4,000 scientists worldwide and nearly 400,000 infected patients indicates a 66% overall improvement. Early treatment mortality studies estimate an average – and astonishing – 75% reduction in deaths.
Despite such overwhelming data, there appears to be a coordinated effort by the Fauci-led federal bureaucracy working in tandem with Big Pharma and chains like CVS and Walgreens to suppress the distribution of a wide range of therapeutics that physicians all over the world are using to successfully keep patients out of the hospital with early treatment. In many cases, patients simply cannot get their prescriptions filled – a clear case of pharmacies practicing medicine without a license.
That Facebook – which is now requiring all of its employees to be vaccinated – would interject itself into this debate is as distressing as it is deadly. We reiterate we are not anti-vaxers. One (Malone) has been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work on mRNA vaccines. The other played a key role in jumpstarting operation WARP speed.
We are not just exercising our First Amendment rights. We are doing so from one of the strongest data- and science-based foundations imaginable. Ignore – or censor -- us at the world’s peril. Dr. Robert Malone is the discoverer of in-vitro and in-vivo RNA transfection and the original inventor of the core mRNA vaccine technology. Peter Navarro served in the Trump White House and is the author of the forthcoming book In Trump Time: A Journal of America’s Plague Year (All Seasons Press)
-
https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/62dbff4583dbf187.jpg
(https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/62dbff4583dbf187.jpg)
-
https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/62dbff4583dbf187.jpg
(https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/62dbff4583dbf187.jpg)
https://nationalfile.com/pfizer-is-now-developing-a-twice-per-day-covid-pill-that-must-be-taken-alongside-vaccines/
-
(https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/covid_breakthrough_chart_8-31-21.jpg)
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-fully-vaccinated-are-more-likely-to-die-from-bee-stings-than-covid-19
Deadliest Pandemics ever:
https://coronavirus.nautil.us/deadliest-pandemics-in-history-coronavirus/
Hint: Coronavirus barely makes the top ten.
The vaccines are out and universally available if you live in the USA. They don't prevent 'delta', but they do reduce death down to the infinitesimal. When do we move past this?
Hard to talk about it but the most vulnerable and susceptible are dead and the super-spreaders have anti-bodies by now.
15 days to slow the spread didn't prevent anything except maybe having too many go to the ER at the same time - 16 months ago.
Recovering from covid is 13 times more effective against future infection than the vaccines. Each time someone gets a mild case we potentially save a life.
We aren't even willing to slow the spread ACROSS the border. If we could stop it here and we can't, it would still come in.
After Trump pushed vaccine and treatment development forward in the early months, government has done nothing but get in the way ever since.
-
What are the odds of dying from the Covid experimental "vaccine"?
(https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/covid_breakthrough_chart_8-31-21.jpg)
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-fully-vaccinated-are-more-likely-to-die-from-bee-stings-than-covid-19
Deadliest Pandemics ever:
https://coronavirus.nautil.us/deadliest-pandemics-in-history-coronavirus/
Hint: Coronavirus barely makes the top ten.
The vaccines are out and universally available if you live in the USA. They don't prevent 'delta', but they do reduce death down to the infinitesimal. When do we move past this?
Hard to talk about it but the most vulnerable and susceptible are dead and the super-spreaders have anti-bodies by now.
15 days to slow the spread didn't prevent anything except maybe having too many go to the ER at the same time - 16 months ago.
Recovering from covid is 13 times more effective against future infection than the vaccines. Each time someone gets a mild case we potentially save a life.
We aren't even willing to slow the spread ACROSS the border. If we could stop it here and we can't, it would still come in.
After Trump pushed vaccine and treatment development forward in the early months, government has done nothing but get in the way ever since.
-
https://rumble.com/vl5il4-vaccine-disaster-ahead.html
Accurate?
What are the odds of dying from the Covid experimental "vaccine"?
(https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/covid_breakthrough_chart_8-31-21.jpg)
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-fully-vaccinated-are-more-likely-to-die-from-bee-stings-than-covid-19
Deadliest Pandemics ever:
https://coronavirus.nautil.us/deadliest-pandemics-in-history-coronavirus/
Hint: Coronavirus barely makes the top ten.
The vaccines are out and universally available if you live in the USA. They don't prevent 'delta', but they do reduce death down to the infinitesimal. When do we move past this?
Hard to talk about it but the most vulnerable and susceptible are dead and the super-spreaders have anti-bodies by now.
15 days to slow the spread didn't prevent anything except maybe having too many go to the ER at the same time - 16 months ago.
Recovering from covid is 13 times more effective against future infection than the vaccines. Each time someone gets a mild case we potentially save a life.
We aren't even willing to slow the spread ACROSS the border. If we could stop it here and we can't, it would still come in.
After Trump pushed vaccine and treatment development forward in the early months, government has done nothing but get in the way ever since.
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/i-feel-good-joe-rogan-contracts-covid-bounces-back-within-days-using-drug-cocktail
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/083/917/770/original/7105e3c7efb3bc7c.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/083/917/770/original/7105e3c7efb3bc7c.png)
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/083/919/506/original/e7bfad5eab8c2e1c.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/083/919/506/original/e7bfad5eab8c2e1c.jpg)
-
Not for us, for our replacement populations.
https://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/guidelines/overseas-guidelines.html
All Middle Eastern, Asian, North African, Latin American, and Caribbean refugees should receive presumptive therapy with:
Albendazole, single dose of 400 mg (200 mg for children 12-23 months)
AND
Ivermectin, two doses 200 mcg/Kg orally once a day for 2 days before departure to the United States.
All African refugees who did not originate from or reside in countries where Loa loa infection is endemic (Box 1) should receive presumptive therapy with:
Albendazole, single dose of 400 mg (200 mg for children 12-23 months)
AND
Ivermectin, two doses 200 mcg/Kg orally once a day for 2 days
AND
Praziquantel, 40 mg/kg, which may be divided in two doses before refugees depart for the United States.
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1029777/why-are-israeli-ultra-vaxxers-and-aussie-pandemic-fascists-so-infected
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9952555/amp/CDC-study-estimates-80-Americans-protected-COVID-19.html
-
https://noqreport.com/2021/09/03/delta-variant-death-rate-among-vaccinated-over-5-times-higher-than-the-unvaccinated-in-england/
-
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/samantha-power-mask-scandal/
-
https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/08/exclusive-summary-covid-19-vaccine-concerns/
-
https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/08/exclusive-summary-covid-19-vaccine-concerns/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/084/103/708/original/3dc2cc4914597550.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/084/103/708/original/3dc2cc4914597550.jpg)
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9959811/Israel-planning-administer-FOURTH-Covid-vaccine-adjusted-fight-new-variants.html
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1033856/cdc-recommending-ivermectin-horse-medicine-for-brown-people
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1033856/cdc-recommending-ivermectin-horse-medicine-for-brown-people
Please see below:
CDC recommends Ivermectin
« Reply #1249 on: September 03, 2021, 01:31:18 PM »
QuoteModifyRemove
Not for us, for our replacement populations.
https://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/guidelines/overseas-guidelines.html
All Middle Eastern, Asian, North African, Latin American, and Caribbean refugees should receive presumptive therapy with:
Albendazole, single dose of 400 mg (200 mg for children 12-23 months)
AND
Ivermectin, two doses 200 mcg/Kg orally once a day for 2 days before departure to the United States.
All African refugees who did not originate from or reside in countries where Loa loa infection is endemic (Box 1) should receive presumptive therapy with:
Albendazole, single dose of 400 mg (200 mg for children 12-23 months)
AND
Ivermectin, two doses 200 mcg/Kg orally once a day for 2 days
AND
Praziquantel, 40 mg/kg, which may be divided in two doses before refugees depart for the United States.
Modify message
-
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/nursing-baby-died-with-blood-clots-inflamed-arteries-following-mothers-pfizer-shot-vaers-report-says/
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2021/08/get-used-to-this.html
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2021/09/fyi.html
-
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/dr-fauci-finally-gets-exposed
-
https://vladtepesblog.com/2021/09/09/a-doctor-estimates-time-frames-for-vaes-links-2-september-9-2021/
-
https://vladtepesblog.com/2021/09/09/a-doctor-estimates-time-frames-for-vaes-links-2-september-9-2021/
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/heart.jpg
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/heart.jpg)
-
THERE was your 15 days to stop the spread. China knew of the outbreak and hid it. Instead China kept up all it's international flights out of Wuhan, Hubei, a central China province with 6 times the population of London. Even when they closed Wuhan to the rest of China they kept up the international flights - until Trump shut it down. They denied the outbreak and infected the world. Note it was Taiwan who blew the whistle. That makes me think of one consequence. Recognize Taiwan and boot China from the world's organizations. BTW, where are the jailed doctors now? Is there not whistleblower protection in PLA PRC CCP China? I heard from Thomas Friedman NYT, from the old neighborhood, that they have a better form of government. Without checks and balances, they get things done better. If infect the world is the goal, then they get things done better.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9958207/amp/Scientist-reveals-heard-Covid-Wuhan-TWO-WEEKS-Beijing-warned-world.html?__twitter_impression=true
Top US scientist reveals he first heard about virus outbreak in Wuhan TWO WEEKS before Beijing warned the world about Covid
One of the world's top epidemiologists admits he first heard about the pandemic outbreak in Wuhan more than two weeks before it was disclosed to global health bodies.
The revelation by Ian Lipkin, a professor at Columbia University honoured by China for work on the first Sars epidemic earlier this century, undermines the official Beijing narrative on the origins.
Prof Lipkin told a documentary by the director Spike Lee that he learned of 'the new outbreak' on December 15, even repeating the date for clarification.
Yet China claims there were only five known patients before that time in Wuhan – a city of 11 million people – with the earliest confirmed case of a patient with the novel coronavirus supposedly cropping up just one week earlier.
The World Health Organisation was not tipped off for another 16 days after Taiwan raised the alarm.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update: Biden talks with Xi, doesn't bring up virus.
https://nypost.com/2021/09/10/biden-talks-with-chinese-leader-xi-but-doesnt-discuss-covid-19/
-
" I heard from Thomas Friedman NYT, from the old neighborhood, that they have a better form of government. Without checks and balances, that seems hard to believe."
That's a feature, not a bug to the left.
See our current circumstances.
-
https://www.city-journal.org/good-news-from-cdc-on-delta-variant-covid-pandemic?wallit_nosession=1
Delta is Dying
New CDC findings show that we’re closer than ever to the end of the pandemic.
Joel Zinberg
September 10, 2021
Despite media claims that “We Can’t Turn the Corner on Covid,” the numbers of Covid-19 cases, new hospitalizations, and deaths nationwide peaked and started to decline around the beginning of September. The combination of this milestone, new findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing widespread levels of vaccination and natural immunity, and improved availability of treatments suggests that, outside of isolated pockets, Covid-19 is likely to become a diminishing health risk in the United States.
City Journal
-
https://www.sott.net/article/456538-Media-blackout-Renowned-German-pathologists-vaccine-autopsy-data-is-shocking-and-being-censored
-
https://www.sott.net/article/456538-Media-blackout-Renowned-German-pathologists-vaccine-autopsy-data-is-shocking-and-being-censored
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_WXr99Tmvg&t=11s
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/extreme-cover-scientist-who-penned-lancet-letter-bat-down-lab-theory-have-links-china
-
From above post:
"https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/fauci-finally-admits-covid-19-may-have-come-wuhan-lab-not-convinced-natural-origin"
There is NO way in high heaven Fauci did not from DAY #1 not shit in his pants thinking this virus might have been a manufactured one .
No way .
He was clearly lying the whole time with his denials.
Going around telling everyone "my colleagues " in China tell me it was not manufactured blah blah blah .
ZERO chance this politically savvy shrewd guy would be THAT naive - nada.
He was artfully deceiving us of his own thoughts and knowledge the entire time.
Another one of his ploys -
"what good does it do to point fingers - the virus is here now and we have to deal with it."
Why blame Hitler ? WW2 is in our faces - just deal the problem at hand...........
He should be in an orange jump suit spending his retirement in jail - not continuing to collect the highest salary in government with all Fed employee perks etc.
My guess is he has enough accrued sick time never taken to pay for a year salary for free.
Who in the private sector gets this kind of give away?
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATiX0-2PEr4&t=4s
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9980015/26-Lancet-scientists-trashed-theory-Covid-leaked-Chinese-lab-links-Wuhan.html
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/covid-hospitalization-numbers-can-be-misleading/620062/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2906&pnespid=pOU3DTtVP6EIgOjapiWrT8_PugCtDZxzKbXi0LRusgBm6Z6vwvD172x9ZrgHmo1h8oXltLvx
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/covid-hospitalization-numbers-can-be-misleading/620062/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2906&pnespid=pOU3DTtVP6EIgOjapiWrT8_PugCtDZxzKbXi0LRusgBm6Z6vwvD172x9ZrgHmo1h8oXltLvx
Deliberate lies to hype fear can be misleading!
-
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/painful-periods-side-effect-covid-24996082?utm_
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210917%2003.jpg
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210917%2003.jpg)
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210917%2003.jpg
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210917%2003.jpg)
https://vladtepesblog.com/2021/09/17/cdc-panel-heart-attacks-happen-71-more-often-after-mrna-vaxx/
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210917%2003.jpg
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210917%2003.jpg)
https://vladtepesblog.com/2021/09/17/cdc-panel-heart-attacks-happen-71-more-often-after-mrna-vaxx/
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/bombshell-testimony-from-doctors-at-fda-vaccine-booster-hearing/
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/09/18/the-conspiracy-theorists-were-right-it-is-a-poison-death-shot/
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/09/18/the-conspiracy-theorists-were-right-it-is-a-poison-death-shot/
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2021/09/fda-covid-vaxx-71x-more-heart-attacks.html
-
https://americasfrontlinedoctors.org/frontlinenews/immunization-expert-unvaccinated-people-are-not-dangerous-vaccinated-people-are-dangerous-for-others/
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/americas-remaining-unvaccinated-seniors/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20210920&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
-
Why don’t Covid-19 vaccinations last longer?
Measles shots are good for life, chickenpox immunizations protect for 10 to 20 years, and tetanus jabs last a decade or more. But U.S. officials are weighing whether to authorize Covid-19 boosters for vaccinated adults as soon as six months after the initial inoculation.
The goal of a vaccine is to provide the protection afforded by natural infection, but without the risk of serious illness or death.
“A really good vaccine makes it so someone does not get infected even if they are exposed to the virus,” said Rustom Antia, a biology professor at Emory University who studies immune responses. “But not all vaccines are ideal.”
The three tiers of defense, he said, include full protection against infection and transmission; protection against serious illness and transmission; or protection against serious illness only.
The effectiveness depends on the magnitude of the immune response a vaccine induces, how fast the resulting antibodies decay, whether the virus or bacteria tend to mutate, and the location of the infection.
The threshold of protection is the level of immunity that’s sufficient to keep from getting sick. For every bug, it’s different, and even how it’s determined varies.
Windows of immunity for selected vaccines
Hepatitis A
Human
Papillomavirus
Tetanus
Typhoid
Influenza
Covid-19
0 year
5
10
15
20
Sources: San Francisco Department of Public Health (hepatitis A); National Institutes of Health (human papillomavirus); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (tetanus, typhoid, influenza, Covid-19)
“Basically, it’s levels of antibodies or neutralizing antibodies per milliliter of blood,” said Mark Slifka, a professor at Oregon Health & Science University.
(T-cells also contribute to protection, but antibodies are easier to measure.)
A threshold 0.01 international units per milliliter was confirmed for tetanus in 1942 when a pair of German researchers intentionally exposed themselves to the toxin to test the findings of previous animal studies.
“One of them gave himself two lethal doses of tetanus in his thigh, and monitored how well it went,” Dr. Slifka said. “His co-author did three lethal doses.”
Neither got sick.
A threshold for measles was pinned down in 1985 after a college dorm was exposed to the disease shortly after a blood drive. Researchers checked antibody concentrations in the students’ blood donations and identified 0.02 international units per milliliter as the level needed to prevent infection.
Recent studies have shown that the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines is decreasing, though experts say the shots still work well. WSJ explains what the numbers mean and why they don’t tell the full story. Photo illustration: Jacob Reynolds/WSJ
With these diseases, the magnitudes of response to the vaccines combined with the antibodies’ rates of decay produce durable immune responses: Measles antibodies decay slowly. Tetanus antibodies decay more quickly, but the vaccine causes the body to produce far more than it needs, offsetting the decline.
“We’re fortunate with tetanus, diphtheria, measles and vaccinia,” Dr. Slifka said. “We have identified what the threshold of protection is. You track antibody decline over time, and if you know the threshold of protection, you can calculate durability of protection. With Covid, we don’t know.”
Historically, the most effective vaccines have used replicating viruses, which essentially elicit lifelong immunity.
Measles and chickenpox vaccines use replicating viruses.
Non-replicating vaccines and protein-based vaccines (such as the one for tetanus) don’t last as long, but their effectiveness can be enhanced with the addition of an adjuvant—a substance that enhances the magnitude of the response.
Tetanus and hepatitis A vaccines use an adjuvant.
The Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines use non-replicating adenovirus and don’t contain an adjuvant. The Pfizer and Moderna messenger RNA Covid-19 vaccines, which work differently, don’t contain any virus at all.
Complicating things further, viruses and bacteria that mutate to escape the body’s immune response are harder to control.
Measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox hardly mutate at all, but at least eight variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, have been found, according to the British Medical Journal.
“It does make it more complicated for the vaccine to work,” Dr. Slifka said. “You’re chasing multiple targets over time. Flu also mutates. With flu, we’ve adjusted by making a new flu vaccine each year that as closely as possible matches the new strain of flu.”
Flu vaccines can offer protection for at least six months.
Setting aside the complexities of crafting an effective vaccine to combat a shape-shifting virus, some hope has revolved around the possibility of defeating Covid-19 by achieving herd immunity, but, according to Dr. Antia, the way coronaviruses infect the body makes that challenging.
“Vaccines are very unlikely to lead to long-lasting herd immunity for many respiratory infections,” Dr. Antia said. “The herd immunity only lasts for a modest period of time. It depends on how fast the virus changes. It depends on how fast the immunity wanes.”
Part of the problem is that coronaviruses replicate in both the upper and lower respiratory tracts.
“We have good circulation in our lungs and body, but not on the surfaces of our nostrils,” Dr. Slifka said. “We can block severe disease because there are antibodies in the lower respiratory tract.”
But the risk of low-level infections in the upper respiratory tract can persist.
Moving forward, Covid-19 vaccines will be updated to combat variants of the virus, and according to researchers at Imperial College London, the next generation of vaccines might also focus on enhancing immunity in the moist surfaces of the nose and lungs.
In the meantime, avoiding the slippery virus might require another shot.
-
"In the meantime, avoiding the slippery virus might require another shot."
And a heart transplant!
-
https://www.brighteon.com/8ae48e6f-e781-4348-a6ec-ae8385932216
https://www.brighteon.com/2b115605-1ff3-4752-997e-b5dfdf192852
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/new-study-shows-1-1000-develop-heart-inflammation-covid-vaccination-myocarditis-related-heart-conditions-increased-death-rate-within-5-years-risk-higher-dying-v/
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210917%2003.jpg
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210917%2003.jpg)
https://vladtepesblog.com/2021/09/17/cdc-panel-heart-attacks-happen-71-more-often-after-mrna-vaxx/
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/bombshell-testimony-from-doctors-at-fda-vaccine-booster-hearing/
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210922%2000.jpg
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210922%2000.jpg)
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/wuhan-scientists-planned-release-chimeric-covid-spike-proteins-bat-populations-using-skin
-
https://i.imgur.com/8HtMa4E.jpg
(https://i.imgur.com/8HtMa4E.jpg)
-
See if I have this right.
Covid 19 is named for year 2019 when it started spreading from Wuhan China throughout the world, now called alpha.
Trump operation Warpspeed vaccines 1 & 2 [Moderna and Pfizer] were allegedly 95% effective stopping me from getting or spreading [alpha] virus at the time I took the jabs. The health risk for vaccination was allegedly near zero then.
About that same time, India went crazy with a variant now called Delta. 99% of cases now are delta. The 'alpha' vaccine is way less effective against delta.
By now, everyone who wanted the vaccine got the vaccine. The debate is over mandates.
No new vaccines have come out in the US since Trump left office nor is there any push to improve them.
The vaccine (developed for alpha) cuts the very low death rate (for delta) down to near zero and slows the hospitalization rate, but does not stop the spread.
The vaccination rate does not take note of the natural immunization rate that comes from infection and recovery which is 7-8 times more effective, 13 and 26 times more effective than the vaccine depending on whose numbers you choose. Presumably areas with lower vaccination rates have higher natural immunity rates.
The debate over all of this is clouded by the fact of censorship of accurate and responsible data, analysis and opinions contrary to ruling view.
The mandate issue is more to do with liberty and constitution than contagion, virus or vaccination.
Red states have lower vaccination rates, higher hospitalization rates because Republicans are stupid. Oddly it was Trump who said take the vaccine and Biden and Harris who both said don't trust it. Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans also have lower vaccination rates and higher hospitalization rates, meaning they are largely Republican but they are not. Nor are they stupid or disproportionally reading right wing sites. They are distrustful with reason.
Infection rates, hospitalization rates and death rates are all poorly measured.
If one place is safer and another is more dangerous, it has turned out to only mean one got that wave sooner. than the other
With all this confusion and chaos, too bad information is blocked.
-
"The health risk for vaccination was allegedly near zero then."
According to some, we are killing 2 with the clot shot for everyone we save from COVID.
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/wuhan-scientists-planned-release-chimeric-covid-spike-proteins-bat-populations-using-skin
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/395700.php
-
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00578-z.pdf
GM: You proceeding post is very interesting.
Doug: Nice summary.
-
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34466270/
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10022831/WHO-recommends-Regenerons-Covid-antibody-treatment-patients-high-risk-hospitalized.html
-
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/09/07/1033677208/new-studies-find-evidence-of-superhuman-immunity-to-covid-19-in-some-individuals
-
second post
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/cdcs-rochelle-walensky-overrules-her-own-agency/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20210924&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
-
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/09/07/1033677208/new-studies-find-evidence-of-superhuman-immunity-to-covid-19-in-some-individuals
NPR?
:roll:
-
Credibility vel non is not automatically determined by the platform, but by the actual source. Do you have issues with the actual source?
-
Credibility vel non is not automatically determined by the platform, but by the actual source. Do you have issues with the actual source?
Just another clotshot propaganda piece.
-
Credibility vel non is not automatically determined by the platform, but by the actual source. Do you have issues with the actual source?
Just another clotshot propaganda piece.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210924%2009.jpg
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210924%2009.jpg)
Don’t you want super-duper immunity? Open wide!
-
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/university-of-ottawa-heart-institute-myocarditis-study
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/085/896/635/original/bdd0e277923fbe62.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/085/896/635/original/bdd0e277923fbe62.png)
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/norway-official-covid-19-can-now-be-compared-to-the-flu-as-country-removes-pandemic-restrictions_4014597.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-09-25&mktids=6ff12fad427c7ac295616f788b681e40&est=VzphrcejT1fN8EawkDDI6TF5p7KGofrtZ%2BDPFTYR%2FS6UiJZ2UHoA7x7lq1%2BMgda0r0AK
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/085/896/635/original/bdd0e277923fbe62.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/085/896/635/original/bdd0e277923fbe62.png)
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2021/09/off-reservation.html
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/dr-scott-atlas-on-vaccine-mandates-for-children-natural-immunity-and-floridas-covid-19-surge_4013490.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-09-26&est=MsiYgn%2BhpHqWBaPIrDrgw9v5Orb0wGaqsEamv06TjcecpmX%2FYqAS3N%2FOxBu8q3kvNCDj
-
https://www.jpost.com/international/could-dna-vaccines-be-the-next-tool-in-the-worlds-battle-against-covid-19-680371
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1113653/beating-ccp-and-their-bioweapon
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1113653/beating-ccp-and-their-bioweapon
I still haven't managed to catch it, despite approximately 30 flights in the last 3 months and driving through multiple states with no mask use.
-
"I still haven't managed to catch it, despite approximately 30 flights in the last 3 months and driving through multiple states with no mask use.
'
it is possible you had and don't know. :-D :wink:
-
"I still haven't managed to catch it, despite approximately 30 flights in the last 3 months and driving through multiple states with no mask use.
'
it is possible you had and don't know. :-D :wink:
Maybe.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/086/137/212/original/6cd5dbc93c243935.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/086/137/212/original/6cd5dbc93c243935.png)
-
In a similar vein:
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1118214/vaccine-may-have-ended-career
-
We will shut down constitutional liberty over a virus but we won't say aloud what the number one co-morbidity after elderly age is. OBESITY
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-associates-excess-body-weight-covid-.html
Why won't the President talk about it? Is he afraid of offending the VP?
-
We will shut down constitutional liberty over a virus but we won't say aloud what the number one co-morbidity after elderly age is. OBESITY
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-associates-excess-body-weight-covid-.html
Why won't the President talk about it? Is he afraid of offending the VP?
There isn’t an mRNA clotshot for obesity, not yet anyway. Going to have to stay with Covid fear to depopulate the planet.
-
(https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-09-29-at-8.40.16-AM.png?w=902&ssl=1)
https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-09-29-at-8.40.16-AM.png?w=902&ssl=1
-
True or false?
A child in Chicago is more likely to be shot than to die of covid.
https://nypost.com/2021/09/11/more-children-in-chicago-have-been-shot-than-died-from-covid/amp/
-
https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/10/watch-63-of-covid-delta-deaths-in-uk-since-feb-were-among-fully-vaccinated/
No word whether they caught it from the unvaccinated.
Looks to me like the Trump vaccine wiped out alpha virus. Where is the Biden warpspeed vaccine to wipe out delta, R1, etc?
-
PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATION
Antibodies Persist for More Than a Year After COVID-19 Infection, Study Finds
BY IVAN PENTCHOUKOV October 3, 2021 Updated: October 3, 2021 biggersmaller Print
The immune systems of the vast majority of people who have been infected with the CCP virus will continue to carry antibodies against the virus for at least 12 months, according to a peer-reviewed study accepted by the European Journal of Immunology on Sept. 24.
Scientists at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare studied the presence of antibodies in 1,292 subjects eight months after infection. They found that 96 percent of the subjects still carried neutralizing antibodies and 66 percent still carried a type of antibody called nucleoprotein IgG.
The scientists then investigated antibody levels one year after infection by randomly selecting 367 subjects from the original cohort who hadn’t yet been vaccinated. Eighty-nine percent of the subjects still carried neutralizing antibodies, and 36 percent still carried the IgG antibody.
Antibody levels were higher in subjects who had experienced severe COVID-19 disease. Compared to those who had mild disease, these subjects had two to seven times as many antibodies for at least 13 months after infection.
“Studies of individuals who have recovered from [CCP virus] infection are crucial in determining for how long antibodies persist after infection and whether these antibodies protect against re-infection,” the scientists wrote (pdf).
Despite lasting protection against the original strain of the CCP virus, the study found that the neutralization efficiency against the Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants waned over time. The reduction in efficiency was “considerably declined” for the Beta variant and was “only slightly reduced” against the Alpha variant. For the Delta variant, which is the dominant strain in the United States, the study found that 80 percent of the subjects still had immune protection 12 months after infection.
A study published in Nature Medicine in May found that the levels of neutralizing antibodies in a person are highly predictive of immune protection against infection and severe disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus. Prior studies have shown that antibodies persist six to 12 months after infection.
Despite the robust and lasting protection after an infection, CCP virus vaccine mandates in the United States offer no exemptions based on acquired immunity. An Epoch Times review of vaccine mandates for U.S. colleges and universities didn’t find a single school offering exemptions to students who had acquired immunity. Recent mandates imposed on the state and federal level have likewise ignored acquired immunity.
=============================================
Vaccine Antibodies Decline 7 Months After Second Shot: US Study
BY TAMMY HUNG October 3, 2021 Updated: October 3, 2021 biggersmaller Print
Antibody levels generated by two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can undergo up to a 10-fold decrease seven months following the second vaccination, research suggests.
The drop in antibody levels will compromise the body’s ability to defend itself against COVID-19 if the individual becomes infected.
In a recent BioRxiv study published ahead of peer-review, many recipients of the vaccine displayed substantial waning of antibodies to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, or SARS-CoV-2, and its variants including Delta, Beta, and Mu.
Bali Pulendran of Stanford University and Mehul Suthar of Emory University told Reuters that the study shows “vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine induces high levels of neutralizing antibodies against the original vaccine strain, but these levels drop by nearly 10-fold by seven months.”
While the body has other defense mechanisms in place to ward off the virus, Pulendran and Suthar added that antibodies “are critically important in protecting against SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
The study focused on 46 healthy participants who had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The participants’ blood was tested once after receiving the second vaccination and once again after six months.
Researchers suggested administering a third booster vaccination as a measure to improve vaccine efficacy.
Earlier reports of data from a phase one study showed that participants had a higher level of neutralization antibody titers against the CCP virus’s Delta variant after getting a booster—a third dose—versus those who just received two doses, officials said.
“The third dose elevates the neutralizing antibodies in our laboratory studies to up to 100 times higher levels [after the third dose] compared to [before],” Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer, told investors in a call earlier this year.
The two-dose Pfizer vaccine was found to be 96 percent effective for the first two months following the second dose, according to a July 28 study from the companies’ scientists.
The research paper outlined a drop in efficacy to 83.7 percent after four to six months.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the most widely used in the United States. More than 226 million doses have been administered as of Sept. 30, versus 151 million Moderna shots and 15 million from Johnson & Johnson.
Tammy Hung
-
https://time.com/6103606/virus-covid-new-england/
-
https://time.com/6103606/virus-covid-new-england/
Just 12 more boosters!
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvAeKe52dFA
Nothing to do with the ClotShot!
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/086/349/024/original/6baee7324743c959.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/086/349/024/original/6baee7324743c959.jpg)
-
https://www.visiontimes.com/2021/09/09/canadian-crippled-moderna-bc-vaccine-passport.html
At least she can sue!
Oh, wait...
-
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html
-
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html
How many times do they have to piss on your leg while telling you it's raining before you start to doubt their veracity?
-
Fair question-- I just don't want to be the sort of person who engages in denial. In point of fact, studies with hard data on whether the vaccines help natural immunities are curiously MIA, so when this one purports to be that it would seem it should be considered.
OTOH there is this:
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1140213/epidemiological-gristle-to-chew-on
-
second
This seems very interesting:
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2021/09/spartacus/
This is an anonymously posted document by someone who calls themselves Spartacus. Because it’s anonymous, I can’t contact them to ask for permission to publish. So I hesitated for a while, but it’s simply the best document I’ve seen on Covid, vaccines, etc. Whoever Spartacus is, they have a very elaborate knowledge in “the field”. If you want to know a lot more about the no. 1 issue in the world today, read it. And don’t worry if you don’t understand every single word, neither do I. But I learned a lot.
The original PDF doc is here: Covid19 – The Spartacus Letter
Hello,
My name is Spartacus, and I’ve had enough.
We have been forced to watch America and the Free World spin into inexorable decline due to a biowarfare attack. We, along with countless others, have been victimized and gaslit by propaganda and psychological warfare operations being conducted by an unelected, unaccountable Elite against the American people and our allies.
Our mental and physical health have suffered immensely over the course of the past year and a half. We have felt the sting of isolation, lockdown, masking, quarantines, and other completely nonsensical acts of healthcare theater that have done absolutely nothing to protect the health or wellbeing of the public from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, we are watching the medical establishment inject literal poison into millions of our fellow Americans without so much as a fight.
We have been told that we will be fired and denied our livelihoods if we refuse to vaccinate. This was the last straw.
We have spent thousands of hours analyzing leaked footage from Wuhan, scientific papers from primary sources, as well as the paper trails left by the medical establishment.
What we have discovered would shock anyone to their core.
First, we will summarize our findings, and then, we will explain them in detail. References will be placed at the end.
Summary:
• COVID-19 is a blood and blood vessel disease. SARS-CoV-2 infects the lining of human blood vessels, causing them to leak into the lungs.
• Current treatment protocols (e.g. invasive ventilation) are actively harmful to patients, accelerating oxidative stress and causing severe VILI (ventilator-induced lung injuries). The continued use of ventilators in the absence of any proven medical benefit constitutes mass murder.
• Existing countermeasures are inadequate to slow the spread of what is an aerosolized and potentially wastewater-borne virus, and constitute a form of medical theater.
• Various non-vaccine interventions have been suppressed by both the media and the medical establishment in favor of vaccines and expensive patented drugs.
• The authorities have denied the usefulness of natural immunity against COVID-19, despite the fact that natural immunity confers protection against all of the virus’s proteins, and not just one.
• Vaccines will do more harm than good. The antigen that these vaccines are based on, SARS-CoV- 2 Spike, is a toxic protein. SARS-CoV-2 may have ADE, or antibody-dependent enhancement; current antibodies may not neutralize future strains, but instead help them infect immune cells. Also, vaccinating during a pandemic with a leaky vaccine removes the evolutionary pressure for a virus to become less lethal.
• There is a vast and appalling criminal conspiracy that directly links both Anthony Fauci and Moderna to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
• COVID-19 vaccine researchers are directly linked to scientists involved in brain-computer interface (“neural lace”) tech, one of whom was indicted for taking grant money from China.
• Independent researchers have discovered mysterious nanoparticles inside the vaccines that are not supposed to be present.
• The entire pandemic is being used as an excuse for a vast political and economic transformation of Western society that will enrich the already rich and turn the rest of us into serfs and untouchables.
COVID-19 Pathophysiology and Treatments:
COVID-19 is not a viral pneumonia. It is a viral vascular endotheliitis and attacks the lining of blood vessels, particularly the small pulmonary alveolar capillaries, leading to endothelial cell activation and sloughing, coagulopathy, sepsis, pulmonary edema, and ARDS-like symptoms. This is a disease of the blood and blood vessels. The circulatory system. Any pneumonia that it causes is secondary to that.
In severe cases, this leads to sepsis, blood clots, and multiple organ failure, including hypoxic and inflammatory damage to various vital organs, such as the brain, heart, liver, pancreas, kidneys, and intestines.
Some of the most common laboratory findings in COVID-19 are elevated D-dimer, elevated prothrombin time, elevated C-reactive protein, neutrophilia, lymphopenia, hypocalcemia, and hyperferritinemia, essentially matching a profile of coagulopathy and immune system hyperactivation/immune cell exhaustion.
COVID-19 can present as almost anything, due to the wide tropism of SARS-CoV-2 for various tissues in the body’s vital organs. While its most common initial presentation is respiratory illness and flu-like symptoms, it can present as brain inflammation, gastrointestinal disease, or even heart attack or pulmonary embolism.
COVID-19 is more severe in those with specific comorbidities, such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. This is because these conditions involve endothelial dysfunction, which renders the circulatory system more susceptible to infection and injury by this particular virus.
The vast majority of COVID-19 cases are mild and do not cause significant disease. In known cases, there is something known as the 80/20 rule, where 80% of cases are mild and 20% are severe or critical. However, this ratio is only correct for known cases, not all infections. The number of actual infections is much, much higher. Consequently, the mortality and morbidity rate is lower. However, COVID-19 spreads very quickly, meaning that there are a significant number of severely-ill and critically-ill patients appearing in a short time frame.
In those who have critical COVID-19-induced sepsis, hypoxia, coagulopathy, and ARDS, the most common treatments are intubation, injected corticosteroids, and blood thinners. This is not the correct treatment for COVID-19. In severe hypoxia, cellular metabolic shifts cause ATP to break down into hypoxanthine, which, upon the reintroduction of oxygen, causes xanthine oxidase to produce tons of highly damaging radicals that attack tissue. This is called ischemia-reperfusion injury, and it’s why the majority of people who go on a ventilator are dying. In the mitochondria, succinate buildup due to sepsis does the same exact thing; when oxygen is reintroduced, it makes superoxide radicals. Make no mistake, intubation will kill people who have COVID-19.
The end-stage of COVID-19 is severe lipid peroxidation, where fats in the body start to “rust” due to damage by oxidative stress. This drives autoimmunity. Oxidized lipids appear as foreign objects to the immune system, which recognizes and forms antibodies against OSEs, or oxidation-specific epitopes. Also, oxidized lipids feed directly into pattern recognition receptors, triggering even more inflammation and summoning even more cells of the innate immune system that release even more destructive enzymes. This is similar to the pathophysiology of Lupus.
COVID-19’s pathology is dominated by extreme oxidative stress and neutrophil respiratory burst, to the point where hemoglobin becomes incapable of carrying oxygen due to heme iron being stripped out of heme by hypochlorous acid. No amount of supplemental oxygen can oxygenate blood that chemically refuses to bind O2.
The breakdown of the pathology is as follows:
SARS-CoV-2 Spike binds to ACE2. Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 is an enzyme that is part of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, or RAAS. The RAAS is a hormone control system that moderates fluid volume in the body and in the bloodstream (i.e. osmolarity) by controlling salt retention and excretion. This protein, ACE2, is ubiquitous in every part of the body that interfaces with the circulatory system, particularly in vascular endothelial cells and pericytes, brain astrocytes, renal tubules and podocytes, pancreatic islet cells, bile duct and intestinal epithelial cells, and the seminiferous ducts of the testis, all of which SARS-CoV-2 can infect, not just the lungs.
SARS-CoV-2 infects a cell as follows: SARS-CoV-2 Spike undergoes a conformational change where the S1 trimers flip up and extend, locking onto ACE2 bound to the surface of a cell. TMPRSS2, or transmembrane protease serine 2, comes along and cuts off the heads of the Spike, exposing the S2 stalk-shaped subunit inside. The remainder of the Spike undergoes a conformational change that causes it to unfold like an extension ladder, embedding itself in the cell membrane. Then, it folds back upon itself, pulling the viral membrane and the cell membrane together. The two membranes fuse, with the virus’s proteins migrating out onto the surface of the cell. The SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid enters the cell, disgorging its genetic material and beginning the viral replication process, hijacking the cell’s own structures to produce more virus.
SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins embedded in a cell can actually cause human cells to fuse together, forming syncytia/MGCs (multinuclear giant cells). They also have other pathogenic, harmful effects. SARS-CoV- 2’s viroporins, such as its Envelope protein, act as calcium ion channels, introducing calcium into infected cells. The virus suppresses the natural interferon response, resulting in delayed inflammation. SARS-CoV-2 N protein can also directly activate the NLRP3 inflammasome. Also, it suppresses the Nrf2 antioxidant pathway. The suppression of ACE2 by binding with Spike causes a buildup of bradykinin that would otherwise be broken down by ACE2.
This constant calcium influx into the cells results in (or is accompanied by) noticeable hypocalcemia, or low blood calcium, especially in people with Vitamin D deficiencies and pre-existing endothelial dysfunction. Bradykinin upregulates cAMP, cGMP, COX, and Phospholipase C activity. This results in prostaglandin release and vastly increased intracellular calcium signaling, which promotes highly aggressive ROS release and ATP depletion. NADPH oxidase releases superoxide into the extracellular space. Superoxide radicals react with nitric oxide to form peroxynitrite. Peroxynitrite reacts with the tetrahydrobiopterin cofactor needed by endothelial nitric oxide synthase, destroying it and “uncoupling” the enzymes, causing nitric oxide synthase to synthesize more superoxide instead. This proceeds in a positive feedback loop until nitric oxide bioavailability in the circulatory system is depleted.
Dissolved nitric oxide gas produced constantly by eNOS serves many important functions, but it is also antiviral against SARS-like coronaviruses, preventing the palmitoylation of the viral Spike protein and making it harder for it to bind to host receptors. The loss of NO allows the virus to begin replicating with impunity in the body. Those with endothelial dysfunction (i.e. hypertension, diabetes, obesity, old age, African-American race) have redox equilibrium issues to begin with, giving the virus an advantage.
Due to the extreme cytokine release triggered by these processes, the body summons a great deal of neutrophils and monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages to the lungs. Cells of the innate immune system are the first-line defenders against pathogens. They work by engulfing invaders and trying to attack them with enzymes that produce powerful oxidants, like SOD and MPO. Superoxide dismutase takes superoxide and makes hydrogen peroxide, and myeloperoxidase takes hydrogen peroxide and chlorine ions and makes hypochlorous acid, which is many, many times more reactive than sodium hypochlorite bleach.
Neutrophils have a nasty trick. They can also eject these enzymes into the extracellular space, where they will continuously spit out peroxide and bleach into the bloodstream. This is called neutrophil extracellular trap formation, or, when it becomes pathogenic and counterproductive, NETosis. In severe and critical COVID-19, there is actually rather severe NETosis.
Hypochlorous acid building up in the bloodstream begins to bleach the iron out of heme and compete for O2 binding sites. Red blood cells lose the ability to transport oxygen, causing the sufferer to turn blue in the face. Unliganded iron, hydrogen peroxide, and superoxide in the bloodstream undergo the Haber- Weiss and Fenton reactions, producing extremely reactive hydroxyl radicals that violently strip electrons from surrounding fats and DNA, oxidizing them severely.
This condition is not unknown to medical science. The actual name for all of this is acute sepsis.
We know this is happening in COVID-19 because people who have died of the disease have noticeable ferroptosis signatures in their tissues, as well as various other oxidative stress markers such as nitrotyrosine, 4-HNE, and malondialdehyde.
When you intubate someone with this condition, you are setting off a free radical bomb by supplying the cells with O2. It’s a catch-22, because we need oxygen to make Adenosine Triphosphate (that is, to live), but O2 is also the precursor of all these damaging radicals that lead to lipid peroxidation.
The correct treatment for severe COVID-19 related sepsis is non-invasive ventilation, steroids, and antioxidant infusions. Most of the drugs repurposed for COVID-19 that show any benefit whatsoever in rescuing critically-ill COVID-19 patients are antioxidants. N-acetylcysteine, melatonin, fluvoxamine, budesonide, famotidine, cimetidine, and ranitidine are all antioxidants. Indomethacin prevents iron- driven oxidation of arachidonic acid to isoprostanes. There are powerful antioxidants such as apocynin that have not even been tested on COVID-19 patients yet which could defang neutrophils, prevent lipid peroxidation, restore endothelial health, and restore oxygenation to the tissues.
Scientists who know anything about pulmonary neutrophilia, ARDS, and redox biology have known or surmised much of this since March 2020. In April 2020, Swiss scientists confirmed that COVID-19 was a vascular endotheliitis. By late 2020, experts had already concluded that COVID-19 causes a form of viral sepsis. They also know that sepsis can be effectively treated with antioxidants. None of this information is particularly new, and yet, for the most part, it has not been acted upon. Doctors continue to use damaging intubation techniques with high PEEP settings despite high lung compliance and poor oxygenation, killing an untold number of critically ill patients with medical malpractice.
Because of the way they are constructed, Randomized Control Trials will never show any benefit for any antiviral against COVID-19. Not Remdesivir, not Kaletra, not HCQ, and not Ivermectin. The reason for this is simple; for the patients that they have recruited for these studies, such as Oxford’s ludicrous RECOVERY study, the intervention is too late to have any positive effect.
The clinical course of COVID-19 is such that by the time most people seek medical attention for hypoxia, their viral load has already tapered off to almost nothing. If someone is about 10 days post-exposure and has already been symptomatic for five days, there is hardly any virus left in their bodies, only cellular damage and derangement that has initiated a hyperinflammatory response. It is from this group that the clinical trials for antivirals have recruited, pretty much exclusively.
In these trials, they give antivirals to severely ill patients who have no virus in their bodies, only a delayed hyperinflammatory response, and then absurdly claim that antivirals have no utility in treating or preventing COVID-19. These clinical trials do not recruit people who are pre-symptomatic. They do not test pre-exposure or post-exposure prophylaxis.
This is like using a defibrillator to shock only flatline, and then absurdly claiming that defibrillators have no medical utility whatsoever when the patients refuse to rise from the dead. The intervention is too late. These trials for antivirals show systematic, egregious selection bias. They are providing a treatment that is futile to the specific cohort they are enrolling.
India went against the instructions of the WHO and mandated the prophylactic usage of Ivermectin. They have almost completely eradicated COVID-19. The Indian Bar Association of Mumbai has brought criminal charges against WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan for recommending against the use of Ivermectin.
Ivermectin is not “horse dewormer”. Yes, it is sold in veterinary paste form as a dewormer for animals. It has also been available in pill form for humans for decades, as an antiparasitic drug.
The media have disingenuously claimed that because Ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug, it has no utility as an antivirus. This is incorrect. Ivermectin has utility as an antiviral. It blocks importin, preventing nuclear import, effectively inhibiting viral access to cell nuclei. Many drugs currently on the market have multiple modes of action. Ivermectin is one such drug. It is both antiparasitic and antiviral.
In Bangladesh, Ivermectin costs $1.80 for an entire 5-day course. Remdesivir, which is toxic to the liver, costs $3,120 for a 5-day course of the drug. Billions of dollars of utterly useless Remdesivir were sold to our governments on the taxpayer’s dime, and it ended up being totally useless for treating hyperinflammatory COVID-19. The media has hardly even covered this at all.
The opposition to the use of generic Ivermectin is not based in science. It is purely financially and politically-motivated. An effective non-vaccine intervention would jeopardize the rushed FDA approval of patented vaccines and medicines for which the pharmaceutical industry stands to rake in billions upon billions of dollars in sales on an ongoing basis.
The majority of the public are scientifically illiterate and cannot grasp what any of this even means, thanks to a pathetic educational system that has miseducated them. You would be lucky to find 1 in 100 people who have even the faintest clue what any of this actually means.
COVID-19 Transmission:
COVID-19 is airborne. The WHO carried water for China by claiming that the virus was only droplet- borne. Our own CDC absurdly claimed that it was mostly transmitted by fomite-to-face contact, which, given its rapid spread from Wuhan to the rest of the world, would have been physically impossible.
The ridiculous belief in fomite-to-face being a primary mode of transmission led to the use of surface disinfection protocols that wasted time, energy, productivity, and disinfectant.
The 6-foot guidelines are absolutely useless. The minimum safe distance to protect oneself from an aerosolized virus is to be 15+ feet away from an infected person, no closer. Realistically, no public transit is safe.
Surgical masks do not protect you from aerosols. The virus is too small and the filter media has too large of gaps to filter it out. They may catch respiratory droplets and keep the virus from being expelled by someone who is sick, but they do not filter a cloud of infectious aerosols if someone were to walk into said cloud.
The minimum level of protection against this virus is quite literally a P100 respirator, a PAPR/CAPR, or a 40mm NATO CBRN respirator, ideally paired with a full-body tyvek or tychem suit, gloves, and booties, with all the holes and gaps taped.
Live SARS-CoV-2 may potentially be detected in sewage outflows, and there may be oral-fecal transmission. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, in the Amoy Gardens incident, hundreds of people were infected by aerosolized fecal matter rising from floor drains in their apartments.
COVID-19 Vaccine Dangers:
The vaccines for COVID-19 are not sterilizing and do not prevent infection or transmission. They are “leaky” vaccines. This means they remove the evolutionary pressure on the virus to become less lethal. It also means that the vaccinated are perfect carriers. In other words, those who are vaccinated are a threat to the unvaccinated, not the other way around.
All of the COVID-19 vaccines currently in use have undergone minimal testing, with highly accelerated clinical trials. Though they appear to limit severe illness, the long-term safety profile of these vaccines remains unknown.
Some of these so-called “vaccines” utilize an untested new technology that has never been used in vaccines before. Traditional vaccines use weakened or killed virus to stimulate an immune response. The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines do not. They are purported to consist of an intramuscular shot containing a suspension of lipid nanoparticles filled with messenger RNA. The way they generate an immune response is by fusing with cells in a vaccine recipient’s shoulder, undergoing endocytosis, releasing their mRNA cargo into those cells, and then utilizing the ribosomes in those cells to synthesize modified SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins in-situ.
These modified Spike proteins then migrate to the surface of the cell, where they are anchored in place by a transmembrane domain. The adaptive immune system detects the non-human viral protein being expressed by these cells, and then forms antibodies against that protein. This is purported to confer protection against the virus, by training the adaptive immune system to recognize and produce antibodies against the Spike on the actual virus. The J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines do something similar, but use an adenovirus vector for genetic material delivery instead of a lipid nanoparticle. These vaccines were produced or validated with the aid of fetal cell lines HEK-293 and PER.C6, which people with certain religious convictions may object strongly to.
SARS-CoV-2 Spike is a highly pathogenic protein on its own. It is impossible to overstate the danger presented by introducing this protein into the human body.
It is claimed by vaccine manufacturers that the vaccine remains in cells in the shoulder, and that SARS- CoV-2 Spike produced and expressed by these cells from the vaccine’s genetic material is harmless and inert, thanks to the insertion of prolines in the Spike sequence to stabilize it in the prefusion conformation, preventing the Spike from becoming active and fusing with other cells. However, a pharmacokinetic study from Japan showed that the lipid nanoparticles and mRNA from the Pfizer vaccine did not stay in the shoulder, and in fact bioaccumulated in many different organs, including the reproductive organs and adrenal glands, meaning that modified Spike is being expressed quite literally all over the place. These lipid nanoparticles may trigger anaphylaxis in an unlucky few, but far more concerning is the unregulated expression of Spike in various somatic cell lines far from the injection site and the unknown consequences of that.
Messenger RNA is normally consumed right after it is produced in the body, being translated into a protein by a ribosome. COVID-19 vaccine mRNA is produced outside the body, long before a ribosome translates it. In the meantime, it could accumulate damage if inadequately preserved. When a ribosome attempts to translate a damaged strand of mRNA, it can become stalled. When this happens, the ribosome becomes useless for translating proteins because it now has a piece of mRNA stuck in it, like a lace card in an old punch card reader. The whole thing has to be cleaned up and new ribosomes synthesized to replace it. In cells with low ribosome turnover, like nerve cells, this can lead to reduced protein synthesis, cytopathic effects, and neuropathies.
Certain proteins, including SARS-CoV-2 Spike, have proteolytic cleavage sites that are basically like little dotted lines that say “cut here”, which attract a living organism’s own proteases (essentially, molecular scissors) to cut them. There is a possibility that S1 may be proteolytically cleaved from S2, causing active S1 to float away into the bloodstream while leaving the S2 “stalk” embedded in the membrane of the cell that expressed the protein.
SARS-CoV-2 Spike has a Superantigenic region (SAg), which may promote extreme inflammation.
Anti-Spike antibodies were found in one study to function as autoantibodies and attack the body’s own cells. Those who have been immunized with COVID-19 vaccines have developed blood clots, myocarditis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, Bell’s Palsy, and multiple sclerosis flares, indicating that the vaccine promotes autoimmune reactions against healthy tissue.
SARS-CoV-2 Spike does not only bind to ACE2. It was suspected to have regions that bind to basigin, integrins, neuropilin-1, and bacterial lipopolysaccharides as well. SARS-CoV-2 Spike, on its own, can potentially bind any of these things and act as a ligand for them, triggering unspecified and likely highly inflammatory cellular activity.
SARS-CoV-2 Spike contains an unusual PRRA insert that forms a furin cleavage site. Furin is a ubiquitous human protease, making this an ideal property for the Spike to have, giving it a high degree of cell tropism. No wild-type SARS-like coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2 possess this feature, making it highly suspicious, and perhaps a sign of human tampering.
SARS-CoV-2 Spike has a prion-like domain that enhances its infectiousness.
The Spike S1 RBD may bind to heparin-binding proteins and promote amyloid aggregation. In humans, this could lead to Parkinson’s, Lewy Body Dementia, premature Alzheimer’s, or various other neurodegenerative diseases. This is very concerning because SARS-CoV-2 S1 is capable of injuring and penetrating the blood-brain barrier and entering the brain. It is also capable of increasing the permeability of the blood-brain barrier to other molecules.
SARS-CoV-2, like other betacoronaviruses, may have Dengue-like ADE, or antibody-dependent enhancement of disease. For those who aren’t aware, some viruses, including betacoronaviruses, have a feature called ADE. There is also something called Original Antigenic Sin, which is the observation that the body prefers to produce antibodies based on previously-encountered strains of a virus over newly- encountered ones.
In ADE, antibodies from a previous infection become non-neutralizing due to mutations in the virus’s proteins. These non-neutralizing antibodies then act as trojan horses, allowing live, active virus to be pulled into macrophages through their Fc receptor pathways, allowing the virus to infect immune cells that it would not have been able to infect before. This has been known to happen with Dengue Fever; when someone gets sick with Dengue, recovers, and then contracts a different strain, they can get very, very ill.
If someone is vaccinated with mRNA based on the Spike from the initial Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2, and then they become infected with a future, mutated strain of the virus, they may become severely ill. In other words, it is possible for vaccines to sensitize someone to disease.
There is a precedent for this in recent history. Sanofi’s Dengvaxia vaccine for Dengue failed because it caused immune sensitization in people whose immune systems were Dengue-naive.
In mice immunized against SARS-CoV and challenged with the virus, a close relative of SARS-CoV-2, they developed immune sensitization, Th2 immunopathology, and eosinophil infiltration in their lungs.
We have been told that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines cannot be integrated into the human genome, because messenger RNA cannot be turned back into DNA. This is false. There are elements in human cells called LINE-1 retrotransposons, which can indeed integrate mRNA into a human genome by endogenous reverse transcription. Because the mRNA used in the vaccines is stabilized, it hangs around in cells longer, increasing the chances for this to happen. If the gene for SARS-CoV-2 Spike is integrated into a portion of the genome that is not silent and actually expresses a protein, it is possible that people who take this vaccine may continuously express SARS-CoV-2 Spike from their somatic cells for the rest of their lives.
By inoculating people with a vaccine that causes their bodies to produce Spike in-situ, they are being inoculated with a pathogenic protein. A toxin that may cause long-term inflammation, heart problems, and a raised risk of cancers. In the long-term, it may also potentially lead to premature neurodegenerative disease.
Absolutely nobody should be compelled to take this vaccine under any circumstances, and in actual fact, the vaccination campaign must be stopped immediately.
COVID-19 Criminal Conspiracy:
The vaccine and the virus were made by the same people.
In 2014, there was a moratorium on SARS gain-of-function research that lasted until 2017. This research was not halted. Instead, it was outsourced, with the federal grants being laundered through NGOs.
Ralph Baric is a virologist and SARS expert at UNC Chapel Hill in North Carolina. This is who Anthony Fauci was referring to when he insisted, before Congress, that if any gain-of-function research was being conducted, it was being conducted in North Carolina.
This was a lie. Anthony Fauci lied before Congress. A felony.
Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli are colleagues and have co-written papers together. Ralph Baric mentored Shi Zhengli in his gain-of-function manipulation techniques, particularly serial passage, which results in a virus that appears as if it originated naturally. In other words, deniable bioweapons. Serial passage in humanized hACE2 mice may have produced something like SARS-CoV-2.
The funding for the gain-of-function research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology came from Peter Daszak. Peter Daszak runs an NGO called EcoHealth Alliance. EcoHealth Alliance received millions of dollars in grant money from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (that is, Anthony Fauci), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (part of the US Department of Defense), and the United States Agency for International Development. NIH/NIAID contributed a few million dollars, and DTRA and USAID each contributed tens of millions of dollars towards this research. Altogether, it was over a hundred million dollars.
EcoHealth Alliance subcontracted these grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a lab in China with a very questionable safety record and poorly trained staff, so that they could conduct gain-of-function research, not in their fancy P4 lab, but in a level-2 lab where technicians wore nothing more sophisticated than perhaps a hairnet, latex gloves, and a surgical mask, instead of the bubble suits used when working with dangerous viruses. Chinese scientists in Wuhan reported being routinely bitten and urinated on by laboratory animals. Why anyone would outsource this dangerous and delicate work to the People’s Republic of China, a country infamous for industrial accidents and massive explosions that have claimed hundreds of lives, is completely beyond me, unless the aim was to start a pandemic on purpose.
In November of 2019, three technicians at the Wuhan Institute of Virology developed symptoms consistent with a flu-like illness. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, and Ralph Baric knew at once what had happened, because back channels exist between this laboratory and our scientists and officials.
December 12th, 2019, Ralph Baric signed a Material Transfer Agreement (essentially, an NDA) to receive Coronavirus mRNA vaccine-related materials co-owned by Moderna and NIH. It wasn’t until a whole month later, on January 11th, 2020, that China allegedly sent us the sequence to what would become known as SARS-CoV-2. Moderna claims, rather absurdly, that they developed a working vaccine from this sequence in under 48 hours.
Stephane Bancel, the current CEO of Moderna, was formerly the CEO of bioMerieux, a French multinational corporation specializing in medical diagnostic tech, founded by one Alain Merieux. Alain Merieux was one of the individuals who was instrumental in the construction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s P4 lab.
The sequence given as the closest relative to SARS-CoV-2, RaTG13, is not a real virus. It is a forgery. It was made by entering a gene sequence by hand into a database, to create a cover story for the existence of SARS-CoV-2, which is very likely a gain-of-function chimera produced at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and was either leaked by accident or intentionally released.
The animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 has never been found.
This is not a conspiracy “theory”. It is an actual criminal conspiracy, in which people connected to the development of Moderna’s mRNA-1273 are directly connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and their gain-of-function research by very few degrees of separation, if any. The paper trail is well- established.
The lab-leak theory has been suppressed because pulling that thread leads one to inevitably conclude that there is enough circumstantial evidence to link Moderna, the NIH, the WIV, and both the vaccine and the virus’s creation together. In a sane country, this would have immediately led to the world’s biggest RICO and mass murder case. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, Ralph Baric, Shi Zhengli, and Stephane Bancel, and their accomplices, would have been indicted and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Instead, billions of our tax dollars were awarded to the perpetrators.
The FBI raided Allure Medical in Shelby Township north of Detroit for billing insurance for “fraudulent COVID-19 cures”. The treatment they were using? Intravenous Vitamin C. An antioxidant. Which, as described above, is an entirely valid treatment for COVID-19-induced sepsis, and indeed, is now part of the MATH+ protocol advanced by Dr. Paul E. Marik.
The FDA banned ranitidine (Zantac) due to supposed NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine) contamination. Ranitidine is not only an H2 blocker used as antacid, but also has a powerful antioxidant effect, scavenging hydroxyl radicals. This gives it utility in treating COVID-19.
The FDA also attempted to take N-acetylcysteine, a harmless amino acid supplement and antioxidant, off the shelves, compelling Amazon to remove it from their online storefront.
This leaves us with a chilling question: did the FDA knowingly suppress antioxidants useful for treating COVID-19 sepsis as part of a criminal conspiracy against the American public?
The establishment is cooperating with, and facilitating, the worst criminals in human history, and are actively suppressing non-vaccine treatments and therapies in order to compel us to inject these criminals’ products into our bodies. This is absolutely unacceptable.
COVID-19 Vaccine Development and Links to Transhumanism:
This section deals with some more speculative aspects of the pandemic and the medical and scientific establishment’s reaction to it, as well as the disturbing links between scientists involved in vaccine research and scientists whose work involved merging nanotechnology with living cells.
On June 9th, 2020, Charles Lieber, a Harvard nanotechnology researcher with decades of experience, was indicted by the DOJ for fraud. Charles Lieber received millions of dollars in grant money from the US Department of Defense, specifically the military think tanks DARPA, AFOSR, and ONR, as well as NIH and MITRE. His specialty is the use of silicon nanowires in lieu of patch clamp electrodes to monitor and modulate intracellular activity, something he has been working on at Harvard for the past twenty years. He was claimed to have been working on silicon nanowire batteries in China, but none of his colleagues can recall him ever having worked on battery technology in his life; all of his research deals with bionanotechnology, or the blending of nanotech with living cells.
The indictment was over his collaboration with the Wuhan University of Technology. He had double- dipped, against the terms of his DOD grants, and taken money from the PRC’s Thousand Talents plan, a program which the Chinese government uses to bribe Western scientists into sharing proprietary R&D information that can be exploited by the PLA for strategic advantage.
Charles Lieber’s own papers describe the use of silicon nanowires for brain-computer interfaces, or “neural lace” technology. His papers describe how neurons can endocytose whole silicon nanowires or parts of them, monitoring and even modulating neuronal activity.
Charles Lieber was a colleague of Robert Langer. Together, along with Daniel S. Kohane, they worked on a paper describing artificial tissue scaffolds that could be implanted in a human heart to monitor its activity remotely.
Robert Langer, an MIT alumnus and expert in nanotech drug delivery, is one of the co-founders of Moderna. His net worth is now $5.1 billion USD thanks to Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine sales.
Both Charles Lieber and Robert Langer’s bibliographies describe, essentially, techniques for human enhancement, i.e. transhumanism. Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum and the architect behind the so-called “Great Reset”, has long spoken of the “blending of biology and machinery” in his books.
Since these revelations, it has come to the attention of independent researchers that the COVID-19 vaccines may contain reduced graphene oxide nanoparticles. Japanese researchers have also found unexplained contaminants in COVID-19 vaccines.
Graphene oxide is an anxiolytic. It has been shown to reduce the anxiety of laboratory mice when injected into their brains. Indeed, given SARS-CoV-2 Spike’s propensity to compromise the blood-brain barrier and increase its permeability, it is the perfect protein for preparing brain tissue for extravasation of nanoparticles from the bloodstream and into the brain. Graphene is also highly conductive and, in some circumstances, paramagnetic.
In 2013, under the Obama administration, DARPA launched the BRAIN Initiative; BRAIN is an acronym for Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies®. This program involves the development of brain-computer interface technologies for the military, particularly non-invasive, injectable systems that cause minimal damage to brain tissue when removed. Supposedly, this technology would be used for healing wounded soldiers with traumatic brain injuries, the direct brain control of prosthetic limbs, and even new abilities such as controlling drones with one’s mind.
Various methods have been proposed for achieving this, including optogenetics, magnetogenetics, ultrasound, implanted electrodes, and transcranial electromagnetic stimulation. In all instances, the goal is to obtain read or read-write capability over neurons, either by stimulating and probing them, or by rendering them especially sensitive to stimulation and probing.
However, the notion of the widespread use of BCI technology, such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink device, raises many concerns over privacy and personal autonomy. Reading from neurons is problematic enough on its own. Wireless brain-computer interfaces may interact with current or future wireless GSM infrastructure, creating neurological data security concerns. A hacker or other malicious actor may compromise such networks to obtain people’s brain data, and then exploit it for nefarious purposes.
However, a device capable of writing to human neurons, not just reading from them, presents another, even more serious set of ethical concerns. A BCI that is capable of altering the contents of one’s mind for innocuous purposes, such as projecting a heads-up display onto their brain’s visual center or sending audio into one’s auditory cortex, would also theoretically be capable of altering mood and personality, or perhaps even subjugating someone’s very will, rendering them utterly obedient to authority. This technology would be a tyrant’s wet dream. Imagine soldiers who would shoot their own countrymen without hesitation, or helpless serfs who are satisfied to live in literal dog kennels.
BCIs could be used to unscrupulously alter perceptions of basic things such as emotions and values, changing people’s thresholds of satiety, happiness, anger, disgust, and so forth. This is not inconsequential. Someone’s entire regime of behaviors could be altered by a BCI, including such things as suppressing their appetite or desire for virtually anything on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Anything is possible when you have direct access to someone’s brain and its contents. Someone who is obese could be made to feel disgust at the sight of food. Someone who is involuntarily celibate could have their libido disabled so they don’t even desire sex to begin with. Someone who is racist could be forced to feel delight over cohabiting with people of other races. Someone who is violent could be forced to be meek and submissive. These things might sound good to you if you are a tyrant, but to normal people, the idea of personal autonomy being overridden to such a degree is appalling.
For the wealthy, neural laces would be an unequaled boon, giving them the opportunity to enhance their intelligence with neuroprosthetics (i.e. an “exocortex”), and to deliver irresistible commands directly into the minds of their BCI-augmented servants, even physically or sexually abusive commands that they would normally refuse.
If the vaccine is a method to surreptitiously introduce an injectable BCI into millions of people without their knowledge or consent, then what we are witnessing is the rise of a tyrannical regime unlike anything ever seen before on the face of this planet, one that fully intends to strip every man, woman, and child of our free will.
Our flaws are what make us human. A utopia arrived at by removing people’s free will is not a utopia at all. It is a monomaniacal nightmare. Furthermore, the people who rule over us are Dark Triad types who cannot be trusted with such power. Imagine being beaten and sexually assaulted by a wealthy and powerful psychopath and being forced to smile and laugh over it because your neural lace gives you no choice but to obey your master.
The Elites are forging ahead with this technology without giving people any room to question the social or ethical ramifications, or to establish regulatory frameworks that ensure that our personal agency and autonomy will not be overridden by these devices. They do this because they secretly dream of a future where they can treat you worse than an animal and you cannot even fight back. If this evil plan is allowed to continue, it will spell the end of humanity as we know it.
Conclusions:
The current pandemic was produced and perpetuated by the establishment, through the use of a virus engineered in a PLA-connected Chinese biowarfare laboratory, with the aid of American taxpayer dollars and French expertise.
This research was conducted under the absolutely ridiculous euphemism of “gain-of-function” research, which is supposedly carried out in order to determine which viruses have the highest potential for zoonotic spillover and preemptively vaccinate or guard against them.
Gain-of-function/gain-of-threat research, a.k.a. “Dual-Use Research of Concern”, or DURC, is bioweapon research by another, friendlier-sounding name, simply to avoid the taboo of calling it what it actually is. It has always been bioweapon research. The people who are conducting this research fully understand that they are taking wild pathogens that are not infectious in humans and making them more infectious, often taking grants from military think tanks encouraging them to do so.
These virologists conducting this type of research are enemies of their fellow man, like pyromaniac firefighters. GOF research has never protected anyone from any pandemic. In fact, it has now started one, meaning its utility for preventing pandemics is actually negative. It should have been banned globally, and the lunatics performing it should have been put in straitjackets long ago.
Either through a leak or an intentional release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a deadly SARS strain is now endemic across the globe, after the WHO and CDC and public officials first downplayed the risks, and then intentionally incited a panic and lockdowns that jeopardized people’s health and their livelihoods.
This was then used by the utterly depraved and psychopathic aristocratic class who rule over us as an excuse to coerce people into accepting an injected poison which may be a depopulation agent, a mind control/pacification agent in the form of injectable “smart dust”, or both in one. They believe they can get away with this by weaponizing the social stigma of vaccine refusal. They are incorrect.
Their motives are clear and obvious to anyone who has been paying attention. These megalomaniacs have raided the pension funds of the free world. Wall Street is insolvent and has had an ongoing liquidity crisis since the end of 2019. The aim now is to exert total, full-spectrum physical, mental, and financial control over humanity before we realize just how badly we’ve been extorted by these maniacs.
The pandemic and its response served multiple purposes for the Elite:
• Concealing a depression brought on by the usurious plunder of our economies conducted by rentier-capitalists and absentee owners who produce absolutely nothing of any value to society whatsoever. Instead of us having a very predictable Occupy Wall Street Part II, the Elites and their stooges got to stand up on television and paint themselves as wise and all-powerful saviors instead of the marauding cabal of despicable land pirates that they are.
• Destroying small businesses and eroding the middle class.
• Transferring trillions of dollars of wealth from the American public and into the pockets of billionaires and special interests.
• Engaging in insider trading, buying stock in biotech companies and shorting brick-and-mortar businesses and travel companies, with the aim of collapsing face-to-face commerce and tourism and replacing it with e-commerce and servitization.
• Creating a casus belli for war with China, encouraging us to attack them, wasting American lives and treasure and driving us to the brink of nuclear armageddon.
• Establishing technological and biosecurity frameworks for population control and technocratic- socialist “smart cities” where everyone’s movements are despotically tracked, all in anticipation of widespread automation, joblessness, and food shortages, by using the false guise of a vaccine to compel cooperation.
Any one of these things would constitute a vicious rape of Western society. Taken together, they beggar belief; they are a complete inversion of our most treasured values.
What is the purpose of all of this? One can only speculate as to the perpetrators’ motives, however, we have some theories.
The Elites are trying to pull up the ladder, erase upward mobility for large segments of the population, cull political opponents and other “undesirables”, and put the remainder of humanity on a tight leash, rationing our access to certain goods and services that they have deemed “high-impact”, such as automobile use, tourism, meat consumption, and so on. Naturally, they will continue to have their own luxuries, as part of a strict caste system akin to feudalism.
Why are they doing this? Simple. The Elites are Neo-Malthusians and believe that we are overpopulated and that resource depletion will collapse civilization in a matter of a few short decades. They are not necessarily incorrect in this belief. We are overpopulated, and we are consuming too many resources. However, orchestrating such a gruesome and murderous power grab in response to a looming crisis demonstrates that they have nothing but the utmost contempt for their fellow man.
To those who are participating in this disgusting farce without any understanding of what they are doing, we have one word for you. Stop. You are causing irreparable harm to your country and to your fellow citizens.
To those who may be reading this warning and have full knowledge and understanding of what they are doing and how it will unjustly harm millions of innocent people, we have a few more words.
Damn you to hell. You will not destroy America and the Free World, and you will not have your New World Order. We will make certain of that.
-
third
https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/04/why-this-doctor-is-risking-the-nobel-prize-to-speak-out-against-universal-covid-19-vaccination/
-
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals/how-many-employees-have-hospitals-lost-to-vaccine-mandates-numbers-so-far
-
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/stunning-covid-chart-israel-vs-sweden/
-
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/05/senator-ron-johnson-points-out-no-fda-approved-vaccine-is-currently-available-in-the-united-states-pfizer-comirnaty-vaccine-not-being-used/
-
This seems very interesting:
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2021/09/spartacus/
Wow. Both scry and persuasive. I would like to post the whole thing here (but it is so long). Would like to know from our medical team and any biomed scientists what clear errors and dubious statements the author makes that undermine his credibility. It all sounds pretty close to the truth to me and it hits hard enough to understand why someone in the know might want to remain anonymous. I'm hesitant to spread this without knowing the author, but his source list (follows) is a major work in itself:
---------------------------------------------------------------
References:
COVID-19 is not a viral pneumonia — it is a viral vascular endotheliitis:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30937-5/fulltext
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/41/32/3038/5901158
https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.15252/embr.202152744
COVID-19 is not just a respiratory disease — it can precipitate multiple organ failure, including hypoxic and inflammatory damage to various vital organs, such as the brain, heart, liver, pancreas, kidneys, and intestines:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01693-6
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-hidden-long-term-cognitive-effects-of-covid-2020100821133
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0390-x
https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.15252/embj.2020106230
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776538
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32921216/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41575-021-00426-4
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32553666/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23886-3
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34081912/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41581-021-00452-0
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7438210/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92740-9
Some of the most common laboratory findings in COVID-19:
https://www.uptodate.com/contents/covid-19-clinical-features
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7426219/
COVID-19 can present as almost anything:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0968-3
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2020.00526/full
COVID-19 is more severe in those with conditions that involve endothelial dysfunction, such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes:
https://www.dovepress.com/obesity-related-inflammation-and-endothelial-dysfunction-in-covid-19-i- peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-JIR
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772071
https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/cells/cells-10-00933/article_deploy/cells-10-00933.pdf
The vast majority of COVID-19 cases are mild and do not cause significant disease:
https://www.webmd.com/lung/covid-recovery-overview#1
https://academic.oup.com/ofid/article/7/9/ofaa286/5875595
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33289900/
In those who have critical COVID-19-induced sepsis, hypoxia, coagulopathy, and ARDS, the most common treatments are intubation, injected corticosteroids, and blood thinners like heparin, which often precipitate harmful hemorrhages:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7548860/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7448713/
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2103417
The majority of people who go on a ventilator are dying due to COVID-19 mimicking the physiology of ischemia-reperfusion injury with prolonged transient hypoxia and ischemia, leading directly to the formation of damaging reactive oxygen species:
https://www.journalofsurgicalresearch.com/article/S0022-4804(14)00176-0/fulltext
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13909
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625011/
https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.201401-0168CP
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18974366/
The end-stage of COVID-19 is severe lipid peroxidation, where fats in the body start to “rust” due to damage by oxidative stress:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7768996/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7357498/
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ars.2021.0017
Oxidized lipids appear as foreign objects to the immune system, which recognizes and forms antibodies against OSEs, or oxidation-specific epitopes:
https://ard.bmj.com/content/annrheumdis/early/2020/08/04/annrheumdis-2020-218145.full.pdf
https://ard.bmj.com/content/80/9/1236
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7256550/
https://www.hss.edu/conditions_top-ten-series-antiphospholipid-syndrome-coronavirus-covid-19.asp
In COVID-19, neutrophil degranulation and NETosis in the bloodstream drives severe oxidative damage; hemoglobin becomes incapable of carrying oxygen due to heme iron being stripped out of heme by hypochlorous acid:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7757048/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7436665/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41418-021-00805-z
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221249262030052X
SARS-CoV-2 Spike binds to ACE2. Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 is an enzyme that is part of the renin- angiotensin-aldosterone system, or RAAS. The RAAS is a hormone control system that moderates fluid volume and blood pressure in the body and in the bloodstream by controlling sodium/potassium retention and excretion and vascular tone:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470410/
https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/multimedia/figure/cvs_regulating_blood_pressure_renin
This protein, ACE2, is ubiquitous in every part of the body that interfaces with the circulatory system, particularly in vascular endothelial cells and pericytes, brain astrocytes, renal tubules and podocytes,
pancreatic islet cells, bile duct and intestinal epithelial cells, and the seminiferous ducts of the testis, all of which SARS-CoV-2 can infect:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7167720/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2020.594495/full
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2020.573095/full
SARS-CoV-2 infects a cell as follows:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41401-020-0485-4
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abb2507
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1931312820306211
SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins embedded in a cell can actually cause adjacent human cells to fuse together, forming syncytia/MGCs:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41418-021-00782-3
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33051876/
SARS-CoV-2’s viroporins, such as its Envelope protein, act as calcium ion channels, introducing calcium into infected cells:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-021-00519-4
https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12985-019-1182-0
The virus suppresses the natural interferon response, resulting in delayed inflammation:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s12276-021-00592-0
https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/viruses/viruses-12-01433/article_deploy/viruses-12-01433.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8310780/
SARS-CoV-2 N protein can also directly activate the NLRP3 inflammasome:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25015-6
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.01021/full
SARS-CoV-2 suppresses the Nrf2 antioxidant pathway, reducing the body’s own endogenous antioxidant enzyme activity:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18764-3
https://ctajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13601-020-00362-7
https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/ijms/ijms-22-07963/article_deploy/ijms-22-07963.pdf
The suppression of ACE2 by binding with Spike causes a buildup of bradykinin that would otherwise be broken down by ACE2:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7834250/
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/is-a-bradykinin-storm-brewing-in-covid-19–67876
This constant calcium influx into the cells results in (or is accompanied by) noticeable hypocalcemia, or low blood calcium:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7292572/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8041474/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871402121000059
Bradykinin upregulates cAMP, cGMP, COX, and Phospholipase C activity. This results in prostaglandin release and vastly increased intracellular calcium signaling, which promotes highly aggressive ROS release and ATP depletion:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S089158490700319X?via%3Dihub
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1218972/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2156053/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/bradykinin-b2-receptor-agonist
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/bradykinin
NADPH oxidase releases superoxide into the extracellular space:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4556774/
https://www.pnas.org/content/110/21/8744
Superoxide radicals react with nitric oxide to form peroxynitrite:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8944624/
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/23/5839
Peroxynitrite reacts with the tetrahydrobiopterin cofactor needed by endothelial nitric oxide synthase, destroying it and “uncoupling” the eNOS enzymes, causing nitric oxide synthase to synthesize more superoxide instead (this means that every process that upregulates NOS activity now produces superoxide instead of nitric oxide):
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24353182/
https://academic.oup.com/cardiovascres/article/73/1/8/316487
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/bi9016632
This proceeds in a positive feedback loop until nitric oxide bioavailability in the circulatory system is depleted:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7276137/
Dissolved nitric oxide gas produced constantly by eNOS serves many important functions, but it is also antiviral against SARS-like coronaviruses, preventing the palmitoylation of the viral Spike protein and making it harder for it to bind to host receptors:
https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692(20)34397-X/fulltext
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7111989/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7754882/
The loss of NO allows the virus to begin replicating with impunity in the body (clearly, the virus has an evolutionary incentive to induce oxidative stress to destroy nitric oxide):
https://scitechdaily.com/nitric-oxide-a-possible-treatment-for-covid-19-only-substance-to-have-a- direct-effect-on-sars-cov-2/
Those with endothelial dysfunction (i.e. hypertension, diabetes, obesity, old age, African-American race) have redox equilibrium issues to begin with, giving the virus an advantage:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-020-00454-7
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2020.605908/full
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7430889/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19004510/
Due to the extreme cytokine release triggered by these processes, the body summons a great deal of neutrophils and monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages to the lungs:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.652470/full
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.720109/full
Phagocytic cells of the innate immune system are the first-line defenders against pathogens. They work by engulfing invaders and trying to attack them with enzymes that produce powerful oxidants, like SOD and MPO:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2012.00174/full
https://jlb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1189/jlb.0809549
Superoxide dismutase takes superoxide and makes hydrogen peroxide, and myeloperoxidase takes hydrogen peroxide and chlorine ions and makes hypochlorous acid, which is many, many times more reactive than sodium hypochlorite bleach:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/superoxide-dismutase
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/myeloperoxidase
In severe and critical COVID-19, there is actually rather severe NETosis:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.708302/full
https://insight.jci.org/articles/view/138999
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7184981/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7488868/
https://ashpublications.org/blood/article/136/10/1169/461219/Neutrophil-extracellular-traps- contribute-to
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221249262030052X
Hypochlorous acid building up in the bloodstream begins to bleach the iron out of heme and compete for O2 binding sites. Red blood cells lose the ability to transport oxygen, causing the sufferer to turn blue in the face:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7757048/
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0120737
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3863623/
Unliganded iron, hydrogen peroxide, and superoxide in the bloodstream undergo the Haber-Weiss and Fenton reactions, producing extremely reactive hydroxyl radicals that violently strip electrons from surrounding fats and DNA, oxidizing them severely:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0753332221000135
https://sites.kowsarpub.com/ans/articles/60038.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0300483X00002316?via%3Dihub
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/fenton-reaction
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Fenton-and-Haber-Weiss-reactions-are-a-source-of-oxidative- stress-The-generation-of_fig1_330729897
This condition is not unknown to medical science. The actual name for all of this is acute sepsis (but without the traditional hallmarks of sepsis, like shock):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4056356/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7886971/
https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/10.2217/fmb-2020-0312
https://www.global-sepsis-alliance.org/news/2020/4/7/update-can-covid-19-cause-sepsis-explaining- the-relationship-between-the-coronavirus-disease-and-sepsis-cvd-novel-coronavirus
We know this is happening in COVID-19 because people who have died of the disease have noticeable ferroptosis signatures in their tissues, as well as various other oxidative stress markers such as nitrotyrosine, 4-HNE, and malondialdehyde:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ehf2.12958
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7264936/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213231721001300
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354129433_Preliminary_Findings_on_the_Association_of_the_Lipid_Peroxidation_Product_4-Hydroxynonenal_with_the_Lethal_Outcome_of_Aggressive_COVID- 19
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8180845/
https://rupress.org/jem/article-abstract/218/6/e20210518/212093/Ferroptosis-in-infection- inflammation-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext
When you intubate someone with this condition, you are setting off a free radical bomb by supplying the cells with O2. It’s a catch-22, because we need oxygen to make Adenosine Triphosphate (that is, to live), but O2 is also the precursor of all these damaging radicals that lead to lipid peroxidation:
https://www.nature.com/articles/pr2009174
The correct treatment for severe COVID-19 related sepsis is non-invasive ventilation, steroids, and antioxidant infusions:
MATH+ Protocol
https://journals.lww.com/ccmjournal/Abstract/2007/09001/Antioxidant_supplementation_in_sepsis_and_systemic.25.aspx
https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/medicina/medicina-56-00619/article_deploy/medicina-56-00619- v2.pdf
Most of the drugs repurposed for COVID-19 that show any benefit whatsoever in rescuing critically-ill COVID-19 patients are antioxidants. N-acetylcysteine, melatonin, fluvoxamine, budesonide, famotidine, cimetidine, and ranitidine are all antioxidants:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/omcl/2018/6581970/
https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/62672
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6708076/
https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/88623
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/000629529390218L?via%3Dihub
Indomethacin prevents iron-driven oxidation of arachidonic acid to isoprostanes:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0161463079900442
There are powerful antioxidants such as apocynin that have not even been tested on COVID-19 patients yet which could defang neutrophils, prevent lipid peroxidation, restore endothelial health, and restore oxygenation to the tissues:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10787-020-00715-5
Scientists who know anything about pulmonary neutrophilia, ARDS, and redox biology have known or surmised much of this since March 2020:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/NADPH_oxidase_Covid-19_Oxygen_treatment
In April 2020, Swiss scientists confirmed that COVID-19 was a systemic vascular endotheliitis:
https://www.usz.ch/en/covid-19-also-a-systemic-endotheliitis/
By late 2020, experts had already concluded that COVID-19 causes a form of viral sepsis:
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/clinical-care/expert-severe-covid-19-illness-viral-sepsis
They also know that sepsis can be effectively treated with antioxidants:
https://jtd.amegroups.com/article/view/34870/html
https://www.evms.edu/about_evms/administrative_offices/marketing_communications/publications/issue_9_4/has-sepsis-met-its-match.php
None of this information is particularly new, and yet, for the most part, it has not been acted upon. Doctors continue to use damaging intubation techniques with high PEEP settings despite high lung compliance and poor oxygenation, killing an untold number of critically ill patients with medical malpractice:
https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13054-020-03049-4
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2765302
Because of the way they are constructed, Randomized Control Trials will never show any benefit for any antiviral against COVID-19. Not Remdesivir, not Kaletra, not HCQ, and not Ivermectin. The reason for this is simple; for the patients that they have enrolled in these studies, such as Oxford’s ludicrous RECOVERY study, the intervention is too late to have any positive effect (i.e. these RCTs are designed in such a way that the use of antivirals is futile, therefore, these studies are deceptive and unethical by their very nature):
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/6/963/htm
The clinical course of COVID-19 is such that by the time most people seek medical attention for hypoxia, their viral load has already tapered off to almost nothing. If someone is about 10 days post-exposure and has already been symptomatic for five days, there is hardly any virus left in their bodies, only cellular damage and derangement that has initiated a hyperinflammatory response:
https://www.the-hospitalist.org/hospitalist/article/234869/coronavirus-updates/state-inpatient-covid- 19-care
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0753332220306867
It is from this group that the clinical trials for antivirals have recruited, pretty much exclusively (i.e. they do not test prophylaxis/early treatment, only changes to the mean duration of hospitalization for those already hospitalized):
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2023184
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2022926
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34318930/
India went against the instructions of the WHO and mandated the prophylactic usage of Ivermectin. They have almost completely eradicated COVID-19:
Ivermectin Wins in India
https://ivmmeta.com
The Indian Bar Association of Mumbai has brought criminal charges against WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan for recommending against the use of Ivermectin:
https://indianbarassociation.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/IBA-PRESS-RELEASE-MAY-26-2021.pdf
Ivermectin is not “horse dewormer”. Yes, it is sold in veterinary paste form as a dewormer for animals. It has also been available in pill form for humans for decades, as an antiparasitic drug:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043740/
The media have disingenuously claimed that because Ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug, it has no utility as an antivirus. This is incorrect. Ivermectin has utility as an antiviral. It blocks importin, preventing nuclear import, effectively inhibiting viral access to cell nuclei. Many drugs currently on the market have multiple modes of action. Ivermectin is one such drug. It is both antiparasitic and antiviral:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166354219307211?via%3Dihub
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539925/
In Bangladesh, Ivermectin costs $1.80 for an entire 5-day course:
https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/fulltext/2021/08000/ivermectin_for_prevention_and_treatment_of.7.aspx
Remdesivir, which is toxic to the liver, costs $3,120 for a 5-day course of the drug:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/29/884648842/remdesivir-priced-at-more-than-3- 100-for-a-course-of-treatment
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7386240/
Billions of dollars of utterly useless Remdesivir were sold to our governments on the taxpayer’s dime, and it ended up being totally useless for treating hyperinflammatory COVID-19:
https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/gilead-s-1-5b-remdesivir-sales-help-buoy-greater-than- expected-declines-for-mainstay-hiv
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2021/01/31/remdesivir-covid- coronavirus/?sh=7e6034e666c2
COVID-19 is airborne. The WHO carried water for China by claiming that the virus was only droplet- borne. Our own CDC absurdly claimed that it was mostly transmitted by fomite-to-face contact, which, given its rapid spread from Wuhan to the rest of the world, would have been physically impossible:
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(21)00869-2/fulltext
https://www.pennmedicine.org/updates/blogs/penn-physician-blog/2020/august/airborne-droplet- debate-article
The ridiculous belief in fomite-to-face being a primary mode of transmission led to the use of surface disinfection protocols that wasted time, energy, productivity, and disinfectant:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4
The 6-foot guidelines are absolutely useless. The minimum safe distance to protect oneself from an aerosolized virus is to be 15+ feet away from an infected person, no closer. Realistically, no public transit is safe:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.03.20167395v1
Surgical masks do not protect you from aerosols. The virus is too small and the filter media has too large of gaps to filter it out. They may catch respiratory droplets and keep the virus from being expelled by someone who is sick, but they do not filter a cloud of infectious aerosols if someone were to walk into said cloud:
https://ajicjournal.org/retrieve/pii/S0196655305801439
The minimum level of protection against this virus is quite literally a P100 respirator, a PAPR/CAPR, or a 40mm NATO CBRN respirator, ideally paired with a full-body tyvek or tychem suit, gloves, and booties, with all the holes and gaps taped (in a pinch, surgical masks can be modified or worn a specific way to increase filtration):
https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/epa-researchers-test-effectiveness-face-masks-disinfection- methods-against-covid-19
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7409952/
Live SARS-CoV-2 may potentially be detected in sewage outflows, and there may be oral-fecal transmission:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720325936
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249568
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-020-0684-z
During the SARS outbreak in 2003, in the Amoy Gardens incident, hundreds of people were infected by aerosolized fecal matter rising from floor drains in their apartments (there is some valid concern that COVID-19 may also spread the same way, given its similarities to SARS):
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16696450/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC539564/
https://www.neha.org/sites/default/files/jeh/JEH5.06-Feature-Environmental-Transmission-of-SARS.pdf
https://www.cleanlink.com/news/article/COVID-19-Could-Spread-Through-Dry-Floor-Drains–25600
The vaccines for COVID-19 are not sterilizing and do not prevent infection or transmission. They are “leaky” vaccines. This means they remove the evolutionary pressure on the virus to become less lethal. It also means that the vaccinated are perfect carriers. In other words, those who are vaccinated are a threat to the unvaccinated, not the other way around:
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/leaky-vaccines-can-produce-stronger-versions-of-viruses- 072715
https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2021/08/23/lets_stop_pretending_about_the_covid- 19_vaccines_791050.html
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0730-mmwr-covid-19.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-fully-vaccinated-new-guidelines-wear-masks-indoors-delta-2021- 7?utm_source=yahoo.com&utm_medium=referral
All of the COVID-19 vaccines currently in use have undergone minimal testing, with highly accelerated clinical trials. Though they appear to limit severe illness, the long-term safety profile of these vaccines remains unknown:
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/accelerated-covid-19-vaccine-clinical-95853/
https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/were-the-covid-19-vaccines-rushed
Some of these so-called “vaccines” utilize an untested new technology that has never been used in vaccines before. Traditional vaccines use weakened or killed virus to stimulate an immune response. The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines do not. They are purported to consist of an intramuscular shot containing a suspension of lipid nanoparticles filled with messenger RNA:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5439223/
https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/drug-delivery/Without-lipid-shells-mRNA-vaccines/99/i8
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html
https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/therapy/mrnavaccines/
The way they generate an immune response is by fusing with cells in a vaccine recipient’s shoulder, undergoing endocytosis, releasing their mRNA cargo into those cells, and then utilizing the ribosomes in those cells to synthesize modified SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins in-situ:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2622-0
https://coronavirus.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/coronavirus/page_content/attachments/Cartoon%20Explainer%20How%20the%20Moderna%20and%20Pfizer%20Vaccines%20Work.pdf
These vaccines were produced or validated with the aid of fetal cell lines HEK-293 and PER.C6, which people with certain religious convictions may object strongly to:
https://www.health.nd.gov/sites/www/files/documents/COVID%20Vaccine%20Page/COVID- 19_Vaccine_Fetal_Cell_Handout.pdf
The Ethics of the SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines Revisited
SARS-CoV-2 Spike is a highly pathogenic protein on its own. It is impossible to overstate the danger presented by introducing this protein into the human body:
https://mcusercontent.com/22e41db63deaf4a84be439c0f/files/6a33980b-683f-4ee4-67d4- cc98dc7fcd37/20210601_Guide_to_COVID_19_vaccines_for_parents.pdf
https://rightsfreedoms.wordpress.com/2021/06/16/researcher-we-made-a-big-mistake-on-covid-19- vaccine/
It is claimed by vaccine manufacturers that the vaccine remains in cells in the shoulder, and that SARS- CoV-2 Spike produced and expressed by these cells from the vaccine’s genetic material is harmless and inert, thanks to the insertion of prolines in the Spike sequence to stabilize it in the prefusion conformation, preventing the Spike from becoming active and fusing with other cells:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20321-x
https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/tiny-tweak-behind-COVID-19/98/i38
However, a pharmacokinetic study from Japan showed that the lipid nanoparticles and mRNA from the Pfizer vaccine did not stay in the shoulder, and in fact bioaccumulated in many different organs, including the reproductive organs and adrenal glands, meaning that modified Spike is being expressed quite literally all over the place:
https://files.catbox.moe/0vwcmj.pdf
These lipid nanoparticles may trigger anaphylaxis in an unlucky few:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8441754/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7862013/
Messenger RNA is normally consumed right after it is produced in the body, being translated into a protein by a ribosome. COVID-19 vaccine mRNA is produced outside the body, long before a ribosome translates it. In the meantime, it could accumulate damage if inadequately preserved. When a ribosome attempts to translate a damaged strand of mRNA, it can become stalled:
https://elifesciences.org/articles/61984
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2018.00431/full
Certain proteins, including SARS-CoV-2 Spike, have proteolytic cleavage sites that are basically like little dotted lines that say “cut here”, which attract a living organism’s own proteases (essentially, molecular scissors) to cut them. There is a possibility that S1 may be proteolytically cleaved from S2, causing active S1 to float away into the bloodstream while leaving the S2 “stalk” embedded in the membrane of the cell that expressed the protein:
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab465/6279075
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-021-00908-w
https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/3/9/e202000786
SARS-CoV-2 Spike has a Superantigenic region (SAg), which may promote extreme inflammation:
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/41/25254
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00502-5
Anti-Spike antibodies were found in one study to function as autoantibodies and attack the body’s own cells:
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-612103/v2
Those who have been immunized with COVID-19 vaccines have developed blood clots, myocarditis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, Bell’s Palsy, and multiple sclerosis flares, indicating that the vaccine promotes autoimmune reactions against healthy tissue:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-july-13-2021
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccine/94061?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2021-08- 17
SARS-CoV-2 Spike does not only bind to ACE2. It was suspected to have regions that bind to basigin, integrins, neuropilin-1, and bacterial lipopolysaccharides as well:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-021-00958-0
https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/3/992/pdf
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acschemneuro.0c00619
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abd3072
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0253347
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7799037/
SARS-CoV-2 Spike, on its own, can potentially bind any of these things and act as a ligand for them, triggering unspecified and likely highly inflammatory cellular activity:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7827936/
SARS-CoV-2 Spike contains an unusual PRRA insert that forms a furin cleavage site. Furin is a ubiquitous human protease, making this an ideal property for the Spike to have, giving it a high degree of cell tropism. No wild-type SARS-like coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2 possess this feature, making it highly suspicious, and perhaps a sign of human tampering:
https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/JVI.01751-20
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7457603/
https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function- research-f96dd7413748
SARS-CoV-2 Spike has a prion-like domain that enhances its infectiousness:
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202003.0422/v1
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0023664
The Spike S1 RBD may bind to heparin-binding proteins and promote amyloid aggregation. In humans, this could lead to Parkinson’s, Lewy Body Dementia, premature Alzheimer’s, or various other neurodegenerative diseases:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7988450/
This is very concerning because SARS-CoV-2 S1 is capable of penetrating the blood-brain barrier and entering the brain. It is capable of increasing the permeability of the blood-brain barrier to itself and other molecules by injuring and disrupting it directly:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-020-00771-8
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-021-00719-9
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33053430/
SARS-CoV-2, like other betacoronaviruses, may have Dengue-like ADE, or antibody-dependent enhancement of disease:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7943455/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7454712/
https://www.journalofinfection.com/article/S0163-4453(21)00392-3/fulltext
https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/08/study-why-so-many-vaccinated-people-are-getting-sick/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00789-5
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220307311
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31826992/
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.22.457114v1
There is something called Original Antigenic Sin, which is the observation that the body prefers to produce antibodies based on previously-encountered strains of a virus over newly-encountered ones:
https://www.jimmunol.org/content/202/2/335
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin
In ADE, antibodies from a previous infection become non-neutralizing due to mutations in the virus’s proteins. These non-neutralizing antibodies then act as trojan horses, allowing live, active virus to be pulled into macrophages through their Fc receptor pathways:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement
https://www.cdc.gov/dengue/training/cme/ccm/page57857.html
It is possible for vaccines to sensitize someone to disease. There is a precedent for this in recent history. Sanofi’s Dengvaxia vaccine for Dengue failed because it caused immune sensitization in people whose immune systems were Dengue-naive:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2020.572681/full
https://news.unchealthcare.org/2021/06/scientists-discover-how-dengue-vaccine-fails-to-protect- against-disease/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3739535/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-worlds-first-dengue-vaccination-drive-ended-in- disaster/
In mice immunized against SARS-CoV and challenged with the virus, a close relative of SARS-CoV-2, they developed immune sensitization, Th2 immunopathology, and eosinophil infiltration in their lungs:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0035421
We have been told that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines cannot be integrated into the human genome, because messenger RNA cannot be turned back into DNA. This is false. There are elements in human cells called LINE-1 retrotransposons, which can indeed integrate mRNA into a human genome by endogenous reverse transcription:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33330870/
https://rightsfreedoms.wordpress.com/2021/08/13/mit-harvard-study-suggests-mrna-vaccine-might- permanently-alter-dna-after-all/
The Injection Fraud – It’s Not a Vaccine
The vaccine and the virus were made by the same people. In 2014, there was a moratorium on SARS gain-of-function research that lasted until 2017:
https://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/documents/gain-of-function.pdf
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-lifts-moratorium-on-funding-controversial-high-risk- virus-research/
https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-lifts-funding-pause-gain- function-research
Ralph Baric is a virologist and SARS expert at UNC Chapel Hill in North Carolina. This is who Anthony Fauci was referring to when he insisted, before Congress, that if any gain-of-function research was being conducted, it was being conducted in North Carolina:
Ralph S. Baric, PhD
Ralph Baric: On the Front Lines of Coronavirus for Three Decades
Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli are colleagues and have co-written papers together:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985/
Ralph Baric mentored Shi Zhengli in his gain-of-function manipulation techniques, particularly serial passage, which results in a virus that appears as if it originated naturally. In other words, deniable bioweapons. Serial passage in humanized hACE2 mice may have produced something like SARS-CoV-2:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/29/1027290/gain-of-function-risky-bat-virus-engineering- links-america-to-wuhan/
Items from coronavirus expert Ralph Baric‘s emails
https://www.paul.senate.gov/newsweek-op-ed-congress-must-pursue-answers-about-origin-covid-19
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html
The funding for the gain-of-function research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology came from Peter Daszak. Peter Daszak runs an NGO called EcoHealth Alliance:
https://peterdaszak.com/
https://peterdaszak.com/interceptdocs.pdf
https://theintercept.com/2021/09/09/covid-origins-gain-of-function-research/
https://nationalfile.com/bombshell-fauci-kept-funding-peter-daszaks-wuhan-gain-of-function- experiments-with-7-5-million-after-trump-canceled-grant/
EcoHealth Alliance received millions of dollars in grant money from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (that is, Anthony Fauci), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (part of the US Department of Defense), and the United States Agency for International Development. NIH/NIAID contributed a few million dollars, and DTRA and USAID each contributed tens of millions of dollars towards this research. Altogether, it was over a hundred million dollars:
https://www.independentsciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/EcoHealth-Funding-as-of- 01_10_2020-Fed.-Grants-Contracts.pdf
EcoHealth Alliance subcontracted these grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a lab in China with a very questionable safety record and poorly-trained staff, so that they could conduct gain-of-function research:
https://www.algora.com/Algora_blog/2021/09/22/ecohealth-alliance-darpa-toyed-with-infecting-wild- chinese-bats-with-covid-leaked-docs-allege
https://nypost.com/2021/07/01/pentagon-gave-millions-to-ecohealth-alliance-for-wuhan-lab/
Judicial Watch: New Documents Show Wuhan Lab Asked NIH Official for Information on Disinfectants; Nine Fauci Agency Grants for EcoHealth Bat Coronavirus Research
JW v NIH Wuhan June 2021 00696
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/kleelerner/files/20200414_wapo_- _state_department_cables_warned_of_safety_issues_at_wuhan_lab_studying_bat_coronaviruses_- _the_washington_post.pdf
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-officials-raised-alarms-about-safety-issues-in-wuhan-lab-report- 2020-4?op=1
Chinese scientists in Wuhan reported being routinely bitten and urinated on by laboratory animals:
https://img-prod.tgcom24.mediaset.it/images/2020/02/16/114720192-5eb8307f-017c-4075-a697- 348628da0204.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20200214144447/https:/www.researchgate.net/publication/339070128_ The_possible_origins_of_2019-nCoV_coronavirus
In November of 2019, three technicians at the Wuhan Institute of Virology developed symptoms consistent with a flu-like illness:
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210524/wuhan-lab-researchers-illness
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/556815-fauci-calls-on-china-to-release-medical-records-of- wuhan-researchers
December 12th, 2019, Ralph Baric signed a Material Transfer Agreement (essentially, an NDA) to receive Coronavirus mRNA vaccine-related materials co-owned by Moderna and NIH:
https://rightsfreedoms.wordpress.com/2021/06/26/confidential-documents-reveal-moderna-sent- mrna-coronavirus-vaccine-candidate-to-university-researchers-weeks-before-emergence-of-covid-19/
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/6935295/NIH-Moderna-Confidential-Agreements.pdf
It wasn’t until a whole month later, on January 11th, 2020, that China allegedly sent us the sequence to what would become known as SARS-CoV-2:
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/01/china-releases-genetic-data-new-coronavirus- now-deadly
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200131114748.htm
Moderna claims, rather absurdly, that they developed a working vaccine from this sequence in under 48 hours:
https://www.businessinsider.com/moderna-designed-coronavirus-vaccine-in-2-days-2020-11
Moderna designed its coronavirus vaccine in 2 days — here’s how
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-design.html
Stephane Bancel, the current CEO of Moderna, was formerly the CEO of bioMerieux, a French multinational corporation specializing in medical diagnostic tech, founded by one Alain Merieux:
https://www.biomerieux.com/en/board-directors-biomerieux-chaired-alain-merieux-has-appointed- stephane-bancel-directeur-general
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St%C3%A9phane_Bancel
https://www.himss.org/global-conference/speaker-stephane-bancel
Alain Merieux was one of the individuals who was instrumental in the construction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s P4 lab:
https://www.fondation-merieux.org/en/news/alain-merieux-receives-the-prestigious-chinese-reform- friendship-award/
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-wuhan-lab-core-virus-controversy.html
http://english.whiov.cas.cn/ne/201712/t20171212_187624.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20210921133410/http://english.whiov.cas.cn/ne/201712/t20171212_187624.html
The sequence given as the closest relative to SARS-CoV-2, RaTG13, is not a real virus. It is a forgery:
https://nerdhaspower.weebly.com/ratg13-is-fake.html
RaTG13 – the Undeniable Evidence That the Wuhan Coronavirus Is Man-Made
https://www.peakprosperity.com/forum-topic/scientific-history-of-ratg13/
The animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 has never been found:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/26/1021263/bat-covid-coronavirus-cause-origin-wuhan/
https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/how-who-is-working-to-track-down-the- animal-reservoir-of-the-sars-cov-2-virus
The FBI raided Allure Medical in Shelby Township north of Detroit for billing insurance for “fraudulent COVID-19 cures”. The treatment they were using? Intravenous Vitamin C. An antioxidant. Which, as described above, is an entirely valid treatment for COVID-19-induced sepsis, and indeed, is now part of the MATH+ protocol advanced by Dr. Paul E. Marik:
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/macomb/2020/04/28/allure-medical-spa-shelby- covid-vitamin-c/3038801001/
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/macomb-county/2020/05/15/doctor-got-loan-while- peddling-phony-covid-19-cure-feds-say/5197315002/
MATH+ Protocol
https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FLCCC-Alliance-MATHplus-Protocol- ENGLISH.pdf
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31978969/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0883944119316107?via%3Dihub
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/01/766029397/mixed-results-for-a-test-of- vitamin-c-for-sepsis
https://www.nutraingredients.com/Article/2020/01/28/Ethically-and-morally-unacceptable-Reaction- to-vitamin-C-for-sepsis-trial
The FDA banned ranitidine (Zantac) due to supposed NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine) contamination:
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-updates-and-press-announcements-ndma- zantac-ranitidine
https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2021/6/fda-studies-no-post-ingestion-ndma- from-ranitidine
Ranitidine is not only an H2 blocker used as antacid, but also has a powerful antioxidant effect, scavenging hydroxyl radicals. This gives it utility in treating COVID-19:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1472-8206.2009.00810.x
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1347861319342203
The FDA also attempted to take N-acetylcysteine, a harmless amino acid supplement and antioxidant, off the shelves, compelling Amazon to remove it from their online storefront:
https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-criminal-investigations/warning- letters/les-labs-593764-07232020
https://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/regulatory/us-senator-npa-press-fda-nac-supplements
https://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Article/2021/05/11/CRN-This-is-not-the-final-word-on-NAC
https://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/regulatory/amazon-confirms-plans-removing-nac- supplements
On June 9th, 2020, Charles Lieber, a Harvard nanotechnology researcher with decades of experience, was indicted by the DOJ for fraud:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/harvard-university-professor-and-two-chinese-nationals-charged- three-separate-china-related
Charles Lieber received millions of dollars in grant money from the US Department of Defense, specifically the military think tanks DARPA, AFOSR, and ONR, as well as NIH and MITRE:
Research Sponsors
His specialty is the use of silicon nanowires in lieu of patch clamp electrodes to monitor and modulate intracellular activity, something he has been working on at Harvard for the past twenty years:
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2011/01/virus-sized-transistors
He was claimed to have been working on silicon nanowire batteries in China, but none of his colleagues can recall him ever having worked on battery technology in his life; all of his research deals with bionanotechnology, or the blending of nanotech with living cells:
https://www.science.org/news/2020/02/why-did-chinese-university-hire-charles-lieber-do-battery- research
Reading life’s building blocks
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/07/harvard-researchers-present-nanowire-devices- update/
The indictment was over his collaboration with the Wuhan University of Technology. He had double- dipped, against the terms of his DOD grants, and taken money from the PRC’s Thousand Talents plan, a program which the Chinese government uses to bribe Western scientists into sharing proprietary R&D information that can be exploited by the PLA for strategic advantage (this risk has been known for a very long time):
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/harvard-university-professor-indicted-false-statement-charges
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/us/chinas-lavish-funds-lured-us-scientists-what-did-it-get-in- return.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00291-2
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2019-11-18%20PSI%20Staff%20Report%20- %20China’s%20Talent%20Recruitment%20Plans.pdf
https://www.research.psu.edu/sites/default/files/FBI_Risks_To_Academia.pdf
https://www.chinacenter.net/2020/china_currents/19-3/scholars-or-spies-u-s-china-tension-in- academic-collaboration/
https://www.drdavidzweig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Zweig-Kang-TTP.pdf
Charles Lieber’s own papers describe the use of silicon nanowires for brain-computer interfaces, or “neural lace” technology. His papers describe how neurons can endocytose whole silicon nanowires or parts of them, monitoring and even modulating neuronal activity:
http://cml.harvard.edu/assets/Nanowire-probes-could-drive-high-resolution-brain-machine- interfaces.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6531316/
https://spectrum.ieee.org/human-cells-eat-nanowires
Charles Lieber was a colleague of Robert Langer. Together, along with Daniel S. Kohane, they worked on a paper describing artificial tissue scaffolds that could be implanted in a human heart to monitor its activity remotely:
https://cml.harvard.edu/assets/Cyborg-tissues_-Merging-engineered-human-tissues-with-bio- compatible-nanoscale-wires.pdf
Robert Langer, an MIT alumnus and expert in nanotech drug delivery, is one of the co-founders of Moderna:
https://www.modernatx.com/modernas-board-directors
His net worth is now $5.1 billion USD thanks to Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine sales:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2020/11/12/mit-scientist-bob-langer-becomes-a- billionaire-thanks-to-moderna-stock-rally/?sh=41c3819a3a90
Moderna’s Stock Rally Makes Bob Langer a Billionaire
Both Charles Lieber and Robert Langer’s bibliographies describe, essentially, techniques for human enhancement, i.e. transhumanism:
Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum and the architect behind the so-called “Great Reset”, has long spoken of the “blending of biology and machinery” in his books:
https://invesbrain.com/klaus-schwab-great-reset-will-lead-to-fusion-of-our-physical-digital-biological- identity/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/598250/shaping-the-future-of-the-fourth-industrial- revolution-by-klaus-schwab-founder-and-executive-chairman-world-economic-forum-with-nicholas- davis/
Since these revelations, it has come to the attention of independent researchers that the COVID-19 vaccines (and even some surgical masks) may contain reduced graphene oxide nanoparticles:
https://ambassadorlove.wordpress.com/2021/08/09/confirmed-graphene-oxide-main-ingredient-in- covid-shots/
https://www.thelibertybeacon.com/graphene-oxide-the-vector-for-covid-19-democide/
https://www.orwell.city/2021/06/vaccination-vial-analysis-explained.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41428-020-0350-9
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6141029/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/masks-early-pulmonary-toxicity-quebec-schools-daycares- 1.5966387
https://humansarefree.com/2021/04/bombshell-disposable-blue-face-masks-found-to-contain-toxic- asbestos-like-substance-that-destroys-lungs.html
Japanese researchers have also found unexplained contaminants in COVID-19 vaccines:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/japan-suspends-1-6m-doses-moderna-shot-after- contamination-reports-n1277669
https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/contaminant-moderna-covid-19-vaccine-vials-found-japan- was-metallic-particles-report
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/08/27/japan-suspects-contaminant-in-moderna-vaccines- is-metallic-reacts-to-magnets/
Graphene oxide is an anxiolytic. It has been shown to reduce the anxiety of laboratory mice when injected into their brains:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961221001058
https://graphene-flagship.eu/graphene/news/soothing-the-symptoms-of-anxiety-with-graphene-oxide/
Indeed, given SARS-CoV-2 Spike’s propensity to compromise the blood-brain barrier and increase its permeability, it is the perfect protein for preparing brain tissue for extravasation of nanoparticles from the bloodstream and into the brain:
https://www.templehealth.org/about/news/sars-cov-2-spike-proteins-disrupt-the-blood-brain-barrier- potentially-raising-risk-of-neurological-damage-in-covid-19-patients
https://www.croiconference.org/abstract/neuromodulatory-effects-of-sars-cov-2-on-the-blood-brain- barrier/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75253- 9?utm_source=xmol&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_content=meta&utm_campaign=DDCN_1_GL01_metadata_scirep
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsanm.8b02056
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168365916303236
Graphene is also highly conductive and, in some circumstances, paramagnetic:
https://www.livescience.com/graphene-hides-rare-magnetism.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0008622319305809
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6474003/
https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-07-19-graphene-based-neuromodulation-technology-is-real- inbrain-neuroelectronics.html
BRAIN is an acronym for Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies®. This program involves the development of brain-computer interface technologies for the military, particularly non-invasive, injectable systems that cause minimal damage to brain tissue when removed:
https://www.darpa.mil/program/our-research/darpa-and-the-brain-initiative
Various methods have been proposed for achieving this, including optogenetics, magnetogenetics, ultrasound, implanted electrodes, and transcranial electromagnetic stimulation. In all instances, the goal is to obtain read or read-write capability over neurons:
https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-05-20
Wireless brain-computer interfaces may interact with current or future wireless GSM infrastructure, creating neurological data security concerns:
https://neuralink.com/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2019.00112/full
https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/44252
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-03-31/braingate-wireless
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-future-brain/202107/ai-and-vr-transform-thoughts- action-wireless-bci
A BCI that is capable of altering the contents of one’s mind would theoretically be capable of altering mood and personality, or perhaps even subjugating someone’s very will, rendering them utterly obedient to authority:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11023-012-9298-7
Mind reading and brain computer interface technology: the future is coming, fast
BCIs could be used to unscrupulously alter perceptions of basic things such as emotions and values, changing people’s thresholds of satiety, happiness, anger, disgust, and so forth:
http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2010/07/11518.html
Brain-machine interfaces may be used to study and regulate mood
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0488-y
For the wealthy, neural laces would be an unequaled boon, giving them the opportunity to enhance their intelligence with neuroprosthetics (i.e. an “exocortex”):
https://www.adforum.com/agency/6664937/press-releases/70226/opinion-the-last-humans-and-the- next-brands
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6893912
(more at link)
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/breaking-nih-director-francis-collins-resigns-documents-expose-lied-involvement-gain-function-research-wuhan-lab/
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/breaking-nih-director-francis-collins-resigns-documents-expose-lied-involvement-gain-function-research-wuhan-lab/
Quoting or paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln, 'if you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?' Four. Calling it a leg doesn't make it a leg.
When 'gain of function' was banned, they decided they would not call it that, but kept doing it. Great idea unless you are called to testify under oath.
Fauci decided to rely on the two standards of justice theory. Clearly, like Comey, Brennan and Clapper, he is a Democrat, therefore will face no consequence. Not a Republican like Michael Flynn and have his life savings taken, his son threatened and his life destroyed.
-
Must be nice, right?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/breaking-nih-director-francis-collins-resigns-documents-expose-lied-involvement-gain-function-research-wuhan-lab/
Quoting or paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln, 'if you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?' Four. Calling it a leg doesn't make it a leg.
When 'gain of function' was banned, they decided they would not call it that, but kept doing it. Great idea unless you are called to testify under oath.
Fauci decided to rely on the two standards of justice theory. Clearly, like Comey, Brennan and Clapper, he is a Democrat, therefore will face no consequence. Not a Republican like Michael Flynn and have his life savings taken, his son threatened and his life destroyed.
-
https://gatesofvienna.net/2021/10/there-are-no-stocks-of-covid-19-cultures/
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/explosive-video-emerges-fauci-hhs-officials-plotting-new-avian-flu-virus-enforce-universal-flu-vaccination-video/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/sweden-denmark-restrict-use-moderna-jab-over-risk-heart-inflammation-other-side-effects
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/singapore-sees-covid-19-infection-rate-surge-despite-one-highest-vaccination-rates-world-83/
-
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-covid-unvaccinated-deaths-pfizer-booster-serious-cases-delta-1.10245471
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/iceland-bans-moderna-vaccine-use-due-heart-inflammation-risk
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10074747/Bachelor-star-Monique-Morley-hospitalised-following-rare-vaccine-effects.html
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10076825/Fauci-says-Covid-deaths-soon-start-tells-vaccinated-people-wear-masks-outside.html
"Fauci warns vaccinated people to wear masks OUTSIDE this winter even though Covid deaths are decreasing down at same fast rate as hospitalizations"
When do they tell us they're joking? It's like a home run or grand slam of inconsistencies, starting with, why does a vaccinated person need protection?
If we're going this route, let's go 15 ft, no person within 15 ft of another person, no exceptions. The 6' rule was BS and fabric masks do nothing. C'mon man, 15 575 days to flatten the curve.
-
https://www.bitchute.com/video/3IpssiO8J2GX/
-
Let's be precise-- they were given adult doses.
-
Let's be precise-- they were given adult doses.
What is the amount that doesn’t cause heart damage?
-
Let's be precise-- they were given adult doses.
What is the amount that doesn’t cause heart damage?
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/087/400/504/original/543878b007dbafeb.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/087/400/504/original/543878b007dbafeb.png)
-
Good to see this argument shift from anecdotal to statistical.
-
Stanford Epidemiologist Says COVID Vaccination Is Primarily a Matter of Personal Health, Not Public Health
https://fee.org/articles/stanford-epidemiologist-says-covid-vaccination-is-primarily-a-matter-of-personal-health-not-public-health/
-
Good to see this argument shift from anecdotal to statistical.
It's difficult to use statistics when they are being hidden by TPTB.
-
"the powers that be"
True.
Their screwing with data makes this and many other things nearly impossible to analyze, compare and debate.
George Floyd was a Covid death.
-
"the powers that be"
True.
Their screwing with data makes this and many other things nearly impossible to analyze, compare and debate.
George Floyd was a Covid death.
https://www.rintrah.nl/too-many-people-are-dying-and-its-starting-to-worry-the-demographers/
-
Not found
-
1 hour documentary. Set aside some time to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh2Sj_QpZOA
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/healthy-16-year-old-boy-dies-online-class-receiving-second-covid-shot-pfizer/
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1166162/when-your-family-and-friends-start-dying-from-tuberculosis
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/nba-player-got-blood-clots-covid-vaccine-ends-season-nba-told-keep-quiet-video/
-
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/
-
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/
An evolutionary split in Homo sapiens and Homo mutatio contaminari.
-
https://theweek.com/coronavirus/1006016/covid-19-was-the-no-1-killer-of-americans-aged-35-to-54-last-month-and-no-2
nothing to see here........
-
https://theweek.com/coronavirus/1006016/covid-19-was-the-no-1-killer-of-americans-aged-35-to-54-last-month-and-no-2
nothing to see here........
How do we know these deaths were of the unvaccinated?
-
https://theweek.com/coronavirus/1006016/covid-19-was-the-no-1-killer-of-americans-aged-35-to-54-last-month-and-no-2
nothing to see here........
How do we know these deaths were of the unvaccinated?
21, in great physical condition, fully vaccinated and deader than canned tuna.
Exactly what killed him?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.13wmaz.com/amp/article/news/local/extraordinary-young-man-uga-senior-from-perry-dies-of-covid-19-complications/93-af0dc994-a98a-423c-8ed3-1a791fef31b2
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1172769/follow-the-success-and-the-money
-
https://medicaltrend.org/2021/10/10/taiwan-death-from-covid-19-vaccination-exceeds-death-from-covid-19/
-
https://thediplomat.com/2021/07/why-taiwan-is-beating-covid-19-again/
surprise
it is not by refusing masks, vaccines, quarantine, and going to music festivals.
-
https://thediplomat.com/2021/07/why-taiwan-is-beating-covid-19-again/
surprise
it is not by refusing masks, vaccines, quarantine, and going to music festivals.
Did you read the above article?
Explain why the Amish didn't have massive die-offs despite refusing masks, the ClotShot (Which is mRNA therapy, NOT a vaccine) and home detention. No music festivals, but they still went to church and drank from the same communion cup.
(https://www.truthorfiction.com/ezoimgfmt/i.imgur.com/IvnMfix.png?ezimgfmt=rs:551x359/rscb14/ng:webp/ngcb14)
https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/10/amish-covid-no-hospitalization-isolation-or-vaccines-herd-immunity/
Amish Covid: 'No hospitalization, isolation or vaccines = herd immunity'
DATED: OCTOBER 10, 2021 BY SHARYL ATTKISSON 36 COMMENTS
The following is a transcript of a report from "Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson." Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.
When it comes to actions taken to address the Covid-19 threat, hindsight is still very much underway. For your consideration: a story and outcome you probably aren't hearing much about anywhere else. It takes place in the heart of Amish country.
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: thousands of families lead lives largely separate from modern America.
The Amish are a Christian group that emphasizes the virtuous over the superficial. They don’t usually drive, use electricity, or have TVs. And during the Covid-19 outbreak, they became subjects in a massive social and medical experiment.
Sharyl: So, it's safe to say there was a whole different approach here in this community when coronavirus broke out than many other places?
Calvin Lapp: Absolutely.
Calvin Lapp is Amish Mennonite.
Lapp: There’s three things the Amish don't like. And that's government— they won't get involved in the government, they don't like the public education system— they won't send their children to education, and they also don't like the health system. They rip us off. Those are three things that we feel like we're fighting against all the time. Well, those three things are all part of what Covid is.
After a short shutdown last year, the Amish chose a unique path that led to Covid-19 tearing through at warp speed. It began with an important religious holiday in May.
Lapp: When they take communion, they dump their wine into a cup and they take turns to drink out of that cup. So, you go the whole way down the line, and everybody drinks out of that cup, if one person has coronavirus, the rest of church is going to get coronavirus. The first time they went back to church, everybody got coronavirus.
Lapp says they weren’t denying coronavirus, they were facing it head on.
Lapp: It’s a worse thing to quit working than dying. Working is more important than dying. But to shut down and say that we can't go to church, we can't get together with family, we can't see our old people in the hospital, we got to quit working? It's going completely against everything that we believe. You're changing our culture completely to try to act like they wanted us to act the last year, and we're not going to do it.
Steve Nolt is a scholar on Amish and Mennonite culture, and Mennonite himself. He’s studying Amish news publications to analyze community-wide trends.
Sharyl: So, are you saying, as of about May of 2020, things kind of went back to normal in the Amish community?
Steve Nolt: For the most part, yeah, by the middle of May, it's sort of like back to a typical behavior again.
That also meant avoiding hospitals.
Nolt: I know of some cases in which Amish people refused to go to the hospital, even when they were very sick because if they went there, they wouldn't be able to have visitors. And it was more important to be sick, even very sick at home and have the ability to have some people around you than to go to the hospital and be isolated.
Then, last March, remarkable news. The Lancaster County Amish were reported to be the first community to achieve “herd immunity,” meaning a large part of a population had been infected with Covid-19 and became immune.
Some outsiders are skeptical, and solid proof is hard to come by.
Nolt: Even those who believed that they had Covid tended not to get tested. Their approach tended to be, “I'm sick. I know I'm sick. I don't have to have someone else telling me I'm sick.” Or a concern that if they got a positive test, they would then be asked to really dramatically limit what they were doing in a way that might be uncomfortable for them. So, we don't have that testing number.
Lapp: We didn't want the numbers to go up, because then they would shut things more. What's the advantage of getting a test?
One thing’s clear: there's no evidence of any more deaths among the Amish than in places that shut down tight— some claim there were fewer here. That’s without masking, staying at home, or another important measure.
Sharyl: Did most of the community, at least the adults, get the Covid-19 vaccine?
Nolt: Again, we don't have data on that, but I think it's pretty clear that in percentage terms, relatively few did.
Lapp: Oh, we're glad all the English people got their Covid vaccines. That's great. Because now we don't have to wear a mask, we can do what we want. So good for you. Thank you. We appreciate it. Us? No, we're not getting vaccines. Of course not. We all got the Covid, so why would you get a vaccine?
By staying open, the Amish here have one tangible 2020 accomplishment few others can claim.
Lapp: We have this joke: when everybody else started walking, we started running. We made more money in the last year than we ever did. It was our best year ever.
Did the Amish really find a magic formula? They say yes. And they don’t care who doubts it.
Lapp: Yeah, all the Amish know we got herd immunity. Of course we got herd immunity! The whole church gets coronavirus. We know we got coronavirus. We think we’re smarter than everybody. We shouldn’t be bragging, but we think we did the right thing.
Sharyl (on-camera): Nolt, the scholar, is publishing a paper on the Amish social response to government mandates and Covid-19.
https://fullmeasure.news/news/shows/amish-covid
-
https://noqreport.com/2021/10/13/icu-doctor-describes-nightmarish-covid-19-vaccine-injuries-in-letters-to-fda-cdc-lawyer-says-agencies-havent-replied/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/friday-dark-humor-vaccine-efficacy-science-explained
At least it's 100% safe, right?
-
tylenol can kill
as can advil
too much water can also kill
tetanus booster can kill
etc
what is your point
if you don't want to get the shot
don't
-
tylenol can kill
as can advil
too much water can also kill
tetanus booster can kill
etc
what is your point
if you don't want to get the shot
don't
The problem is the leftist totalitarian government corporate fusion demands everyone does. There are potentially real, serious consequences to a mass alteration of the human genome from mRNA therapy.
-
I don't know what you mean
This is not crisper technology
it does not alter the human genome
it just generates an immune response
as does everything else new to our bodies
-
as for the the leftist totalitarian part I agree 100%
everything I do is taxed
everything is forced tribute to the Democrat Party
so . yes on that point
.
-
https://surakblog.wordpress.com/2021/10/15/the-injection-toll-october-15-2021/
-
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/17/physicians-asst-whistleblower-reveals-hospital-intake-with-90-percent-vaccinated-patients-and-hospital-administration-refusing-to-report-adverse-events/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/fda-allow-mixing-and-matching-covid-boosters
SCIENCE!
-
https://www.americanpartisan.org/2021/10/covid-vaxxers-are-developing-a-i-d-s-bloodwork-proof/
-
https://www.americanpartisan.org/2021/10/covid-vaxxers-are-developing-a-i-d-s-bloodwork-proof/
https://i2.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/dr-fauci-sunny-philadelphia-covid-shots-booster-mask-everyone-follow-or-wont-work.jpg?w=505&ssl=1
(https://i2.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/dr-fauci-sunny-philadelphia-covid-shots-booster-mask-everyone-follow-or-wont-work.jpg?w=505&ssl=1)
-
Everyone has to complete this process for it to work
true
first would have been to get vaccinated
but it is more fun to refuse the vaccine for every reason imaginable
and then step back and say
SEE THEY DON'T WORK!
tell me how that is wrong
In the end once the cat is out of the bag with this kind of thing
little will be great
if Trump had stopped all international air travel at the outset
and began large quarantine program maybe
but then again we did not even have the testing to do that
and Trump ( I was too) was in denial mode
his response was mixed
but we can certainly blame Obama as well for not preparing for such a problem
-
If you are vaccinated for Polio, and I am not, does that mean you'll get Polio?
"but it is more fun to refuse the vaccine for every reason imaginable"
Like it's not a vaccine but mRNA therapy which hasn't been proven to be SAFE or EFFECTIVE. At least it's very profitable for Big Pharma, who can't be sued for ANY reason, no matter what the ClotShot does to you.
Everyone has to complete this process for it to work
true
first would have been to get vaccinated
but it is more fun to refuse the vaccine for every reason imaginable
and then step back and say
SEE THEY DON'T WORK!
tell me how that is wrong
In the end once the cat is out of the bag with this kind of thing
little will be great
if Trump had stopped all international air travel at the outset
and began large quarantine program maybe
but then again we did not even have the testing to do that
and Trump ( I was too) was in denial mode
his response was mixed
but we can certainly blame Obama as well for not preparing for such a problem
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/090/927/original/24860d8313327dff.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/090/927/original/24860d8313327dff.jpeg)
If you are vaccinated for Polio, and I am not, does that mean you'll get Polio?
"but it is more fun to refuse the vaccine for every reason imaginable"
Like it's not a vaccine but mRNA therapy which hasn't been proven to be SAFE or EFFECTIVE. At least it's very profitable for Big Pharma, who can't be sued for ANY reason, no matter what the ClotShot does to you.
Everyone has to complete this process for it to work
true
first would have been to get vaccinated
but it is more fun to refuse the vaccine for every reason imaginable
and then step back and say
SEE THEY DON'T WORK!
tell me how that is wrong
In the end once the cat is out of the bag with this kind of thing
little will be great
if Trump had stopped all international air travel at the outset
and began large quarantine program maybe
but then again we did not even have the testing to do that
and Trump ( I was too) was in denial mode
his response was mixed
but we can certainly blame Obama as well for not preparing for such a problem
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-admin-has-released-over-16000-covid-positive-migrants-us-whistleblower
-
Posted by Michael Yon.
Doctor of , , , what? Wouldn't a legit person bring that up?
Anyway, let's look for confirmation of this. HUGE if true!
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1192160/faux-vaccines-appear-at-best-to-be-worthless
-
Posted by Michael Yon.
Doctor of , , , what? Wouldn't a legit person bring that up?
Anyway, let's look for confirmation of this. HUGE if true!
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1192160/faux-vaccines-appear-at-best-to-be-worthless
https://www.peakprosperity.com/about/
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/brought-to-you-by-pfizer/comments
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/090/927/original/24860d8313327dff.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/090/927/original/24860d8313327dff.jpeg)
If you are vaccinated for Polio, and I am not, does that mean you'll get Polio?
"but it is more fun to refuse the vaccine for every reason imaginable"
Like it's not a vaccine but mRNA therapy which hasn't been proven to be SAFE or EFFECTIVE. At least it's very profitable for Big Pharma, who can't be sued for ANY reason, no matter what the ClotShot does to you.
Everyone has to complete this process for it to work
true
first would have been to get vaccinated
but it is more fun to refuse the vaccine for every reason imaginable
and then step back and say
SEE THEY DON'T WORK!
tell me how that is wrong
In the end once the cat is out of the bag with this kind of thing
little will be great
if Trump had stopped all international air travel at the outset
and began large quarantine program maybe
but then again we did not even have the testing to do that
and Trump ( I was too) was in denial mode
his response was mixed
but we can certainly blame Obama as well for not preparing for such a problem
-
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status
I know it is our government so of course the data is rigged
by CDC people taking bribes from Pfizer.
-
https://i.imgur.com/Tuj814d.png
(https://i.imgur.com/Tuj814d.png)
-
vaccine bad
says I.imgur.com
:roll:
-
vaccine bad
says I.imgur.com
:roll:
More credible than “Gain of function” Fauci, yes?
-
https://gatesofvienna.net/2021/10/a-defector-from-the-borg/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/fdas-war-against-truth-ivermectin
-
https://mobile.twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1450472059411341323
Why wouldn’t they want to know?
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/221/976/original/b0ac718d54dd626d.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/221/976/original/b0ac718d54dd626d.png)
Except for the ClotShot, totally safe and effective!
-
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34664804/
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZFMyzfZQXk&t=1s
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-vindicated-rand-paul-blasts-lying-fauci-over-civilization-ending-experiments
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-vindicated-rand-paul-blasts-lying-fauci-over-civilization-ending-experiments
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/10/22/proof-that-the-cdc-is-lying-to-the-world-about-covid-vaccine-safety/#more-251441
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/396118.php
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-vindicated-rand-paul-blasts-lying-fauci-over-civilization-ending-experiments
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/10/22/proof-that-the-cdc-is-lying-to-the-world-about-covid-vaccine-safety/#more-251441
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/sweden-suspends-moderna-shot-indefinitely-after-vaxxed-patients-develop-crippling-heart
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/investigators-find-monster-faucis-nih-reportedly-gave-375k-lab-placed-live-beagles-heads-cages-filled-hungry-sand-flies-ate-alive/
-
https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/10/censored-injured-covid-19-vaccine-child-study-volunteer/
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/537/375/original/26b4dbe6bc7f3d4f.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/537/375/original/26b4dbe6bc7f3d4f.png)
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10124957/Australian-actress-Melle-Stewart-suffers-stroke-getting-AstraZeneca-Covid-vaccine.html
-
The rate of new vaccinations dropped the day moron-tyrant announced mandates.
https://issuesinsights.com/2021/10/25/epic-fail-vaccination-rates-now-lower-than-when-biden-took-office/
-------------
Reminds me of gun sales surging every time Obama made moves toward ending gun sales.
R's may be the stupid party but these people aren't exactly geniuses either.
-
https://www.civilslave.com/2021/10/dr-vladimir-zelenko-risks-his-life-telling-the-truth-about-covid-vaccine-biowarfare/
Quoted by Michael Yon.
-
https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/10/censored-injured-covid-19-vaccine-child-study-volunteer/
https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/26/dr-vernon-coleman-they-knew-children-would-die/
-
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/25/why-is-pfizer-requesting-legal-immunity-if-vaccines-for-5-to-11-year-olds-are-safe/
-
https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/mass-vaccination-may-permanently?fbclid=IwAR0Toj8vw2LWEZJEPNPBwbD4IXGWIL5KhCuwggsu641hSrlQdY2H_chVI2E
-
https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/mass-vaccination-may-permanently?fbclid=IwAR0Toj8vw2LWEZJEPNPBwbD4IXGWIL5KhCuwggsu641hSrlQdY2H_chVI2E
If you think it means that taking the ClotShot means you are fcuked, then yes.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/764/597/original/ee6fc285045edfe9.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/764/597/original/ee6fc285045edfe9.jpeg)
-
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/26/health/covid-19-fourth-dose-for-the-immunocompromised/index.html
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/537/375/original/26b4dbe6bc7f3d4f.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/537/375/original/26b4dbe6bc7f3d4f.png)
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/pediatric-covid-hospitalizations-plunge-schools-reopen-baffling-experts?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=224
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/pediatric-covid-hospitalizations-plunge-schools-reopen-baffling-experts?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=224
Herd immunity works.
Who knew?
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/912/285/original/72e23f57f18c5114.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/912/285/original/72e23f57f18c5114.jpg)
-
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext
Lancet Study: Vaccination Doesn't Prevent Covid Infection or Transmission
A report in the current issue of the Lancet demonstrates that those vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus (SARS-COV2) are not only highly susceptible to infection, but carry as high a viral load as the unvaccinated and are likely to spread the virus to other members of their household. Moreover, vaccinated individuals are only marginally less susceptible to infection within the household than unvaccinated individuals.
-
https://rumble.com/vo9ne3-hospitals-are-overrun-with-non-covid-patients-a-super-cold-is-spreading-and.html
-
https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screenshot_20211030-120308_Chrome-461x1024.jpg
(https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screenshot_20211030-120308_Chrome-461x1024.jpg)
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/breakthrough-infections-deaths-among-covid-19-vaccinated-rose-in-recent-months-cdc_4077371.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-10-30-2&mktids=197bd0f40b606ed83674b637f3e6b8c2&est=zAkmtRzUiilAg7b717Nndf0P7oLN9dVzrC5f8wnrshbmdbTPQGTNyeD3%2BWFDjUMVzSch
-
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4008463/posts
Lifelong heart condition, luckily, he won't live as long...
-
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/
-
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/
https://nw-connection.com/opinion-fauci-knew-about-hcq-in-2005-nobody-needed-to-die/
-
This from the White House:
(https://theconservativetreehouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/jen-psaki-rona-positive.jpg)
What difference does it make what contact she had and when? They are both vaccinated.
The 6 feet rule is anti-science, made up by the rule makers. Does she really not know that?
Meanwhile, Biden met with the Pope during this time - without masks.
The Rules of Covid are just practice for government controlling (the little) people.
The (Trump) vaccine means her symptoms were minor. Yes, maybe so, but wasn't she in a low risk group to begin with? It should have been a choice not a mandate/
-
"The Rules of Covid are just practice for government controlling (the little) people."
THIS.
This from the White House:
(https://theconservativetreehouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/jen-psaki-rona-positive.jpg)
What difference does it make what contact she had and when? They are both vaccinated.
The 6 feet rule is anti-science, made up by the rule makers. Does she really not know that?
Meanwhile, Biden met with the Pope during this time - without masks.
The Rules of Covid are just practice for government controlling (the little) people.
The (Trump) vaccine means her symptoms were minor. Yes, maybe so, but wasn't she in a low risk group to begin with? It should have been a choice not a mandate/
-
https://thenationalpulse.com/exclusive/wuhan-report-boasted-of-human-infecting-covid/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cnn-host-inadvertently-exposes-covid-crisis-theater-we-took-our-masks-just-photo
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/another-day-another-professional/comments
-
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-delta-plus-variant-ay-4-2-states/
-
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-delta-plus-variant-ay-4-2-states/
Will those with 4 ClotShots blame this on the people who have only had three?
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/something-really-strange-happening-hospitals-all-over-america
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/472/583/original/2550d2c02671256d.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/472/583/original/2550d2c02671256d.jpg)
The ClotShot and abortion.
-
Covid-19 Boosters Aren’t for Everyone
If you’re healthy and young, a third shot gives no benefit, so it isn’t worth even the small risk.
By Michael Segal
Nov. 3, 2021 12:20 pm ET
Healthy people in their 20s have been asking me about getting the third shot of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, recently authorized for older people. I’ve advised caution. More vaccine isn’t always better.
Doctors think of drug dosing using the metaphor of a “therapeutic window.” The bottom of the window is the lowest effective dose. The top is the dose at which the side effects become unacceptable. We aim to keep the dose within the therapeutic window.
When the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were first released, a second shot got 95% of patients into the therapeutic window, defined by total absence of symptoms. In the months since then, some of those people have dropped below the bottom of this therapeutic window because of a combination of fading immunity and the arrival of the Delta variant. Thus the case for boosters: A Pfizer study demonstrates that a third shot, administered some 11 months after the second, reduces symptomatic infections by 96% compared with those who had two shots.
So why not give everyone a third shot? Many people who got two shots are still in the therapeutic window and wouldn’t benefit from a third shot. For them, a booster would risk gratuitous inflammation that would push them above the window. The prospect of such inflammation wasn’t a deal breaker with the second shot. Months of follow-up revealed instances of heart inflammation, especially in young male patients, but these were rare and almost always mild and transient, and Covid itself can produce far worse heart inflammation. Other symptoms of inflammation, such as fever, fatigue and headache were far more common but lasted for only a day or two.
There could be other, more serious effects of inflammation that would take years to become apparent. In other contexts, strong inflammation has been shown to disrupt the “blood-brain barrier” and contribute to the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. That possibility isn’t a reasonable argument against a second shot because the inflammation from Covid itself can be far stronger, and the second shot reduces that risk by providing solid protection against serious disease.
For third shots, the calculation changes. A booster makes sense for most older people and for the immunocompromised because they tended to get lower efficacy and little inflammation from the second shot. A third shot puts them back into the therapeutic window. But healthy young people typically had good efficacy from the two-shot regimen, and many had strong inflammation.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention struggled with such issues and recommended a third shot for the elderly and the immunocompromised, but not for healthy young people. Advisory committee members suggested that further research was needed to refine these initial recommendations.
Some such research will be at the population level, advising about particular ages and vaccines. Other recommendations will be more personalized, drawing on many decades of assessing immunity against other diseases. When I began my clinical training in the 1980s, our group of new doctors took a blood test to assess immunity to diseases for which we could be vaccinated. Similarly, more research using blood tests for Covid immunity and questionnaires about the risk of inflammation could allow us to assess whether further shots would move a particular patient in or out of the therapeutic window.
Personalized recommendations are particularly important for the more than 100 million Americans who have already recovered from Covid. Their immunity and risk of inflammation from vaccines is variable. But when health officials refuse to take account of natural immunity, they neglect the needs and concerns of a large segment of the population and give the public a reason to think experts are not conveying the whole truth.
We also need answers to other questions about the therapeutic window for vaccines, such as whether taking anti-inflammatory drugs after vaccination is good because it reduces inflammation or bad because it could reduce the vaccine’s effectiveness.
Radio hosts often advise listeners to “do your own research.” What we really need is research that gives the CDC and FDA the data needed to refine their initial recommendations on third shots. The recommendations that will be most acceptable to the populace are the ones that promote trust by helping assess whether a particular patient would benefit from the shot.
Dr. Segal is a neurologist and neuroscientist.
-
"Radio hosts often advise listeners to “do your own research.” What we really need is research that gives the CDC and FDA the data needed to refine their initial recommendations on third shots. The recommendations that will be most acceptable to the populace are the ones that promote trust by helping assess whether a particular patient would benefit from the shot."
what good is "doing your own research " when one can look up and get 50 different opinions analyses or positions
I agree
the CDC should be leading the way
but they have lost trust
I am not really sure if young people need any vaccines
except to help prevent spread to older people
-
"Radio hosts often advise listeners to “do your own research.” What we really need is research that gives the CDC and FDA the data needed to refine their initial recommendations on third shots. The recommendations that will be most acceptable to the populace are the ones that promote trust by helping assess whether a particular patient would benefit from the shot."
what good is "doing your own research " when one can look up and get 50 different opinions analyses or positions
I agree
the CDC should be leading the way
but they have lost trust
I am not really sure if young people need any vaccines
except to help prevent spread to older people
Any evidence the ClotShot stops the spread?
-
"Any evidence the ClotShot stops the spread?"
lots of evidence it reduces death and hospitalizations
heard Bill O'Reilly say this on his nightly radio show few weeks ago
:-D
-
"Any evidence the ClotShot stops the spread?"
lots of evidence it reduces death and hospitalizations
heard Bill O'Reilly say this on his nightly radio show few weeks ago
:-D
You found someone with even less credibility that Frauci !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_HyZ5aW76c
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/11/03/report-hospital-ers-swamped-with-people-reporting-blood-clots-heart-problems-tingling-arms/
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/11/03/report-hospital-ers-swamped-with-people-reporting-blood-clots-heart-problems-tingling-arms/
The tingling shows the ClotShot is working!
-
"Independent journalist Alex Berenson suggested that the health emergencies have less to do with COVID, than the vaccines for COVID."
I do not believe hospital ERs are swamped with corona vaccine adverse events
sorry this has to be bullshit
sorry
nada
-
Time will tell.
"Independent journalist Alex Berenson suggested that the health emergencies have less to do with COVID, than the vaccines for COVID."
I do not believe hospital ERs are swamped with corona vaccine adverse events
sorry this has to be bullshit
sorry
nada
-
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/athletes-covid-vaccines-and-life
-
FWIW
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/groundbreaking-israeli-study-shows-how-covid-proteins-attack-heart-and-blood-vessels?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=254
-
Yet it seems the vaxxed are getting ill and dying, not the unvaxxed.
FWIW
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/groundbreaking-israeli-study-shows-how-covid-proteins-attack-heart-and-blood-vessels?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=254
-
yes ,
ERs around the United States flooded
with dead and dying and critically ill vaccinated people :
I found it online :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSEVyzKmlyU
:wink:
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/groundbreaking-israeli-study-shows-how-covid-proteins-attack-heart-and-blood-vessels?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=254
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/11/emails-reveal-cdc-changed-definition-vaccine-vaccination-experimental-covid-shots-didnt-work/
-
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/what-is-luciferase
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/795/981/original/0117bbb1639fed22.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/795/981/original/0117bbb1639fed22.jpeg)
-
Just as I refuse to call the Virus "Covid" and call it by its original name "Wuhan", with the change in definition of "vaccination" I have decided to use the term "injection".
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/effectiveness-of-2-of-3-covid-19-vaccines-used-in-us-drops-below-50-percent-study_4090442.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-11-07-2&mktids=383054536e8d4461a5d2ce5ff8a8ad9b&est=Zy70Crwm6paOmKzNpAg%2BzQZxvxd%2Bz3a0Cg7LDNUYd%2F%2BSw%2BlIdMdyWHgr2v0tMDilGpkG
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/11/florian-dagoury-worlds-top-static-freediver-diagnosed-myocarditis-taking-pfizer-vax-may-end-career/
-
https://www.kut.org/covid-19/2021-11-08/unvaccinated-people-20-times-more-likely-to-die-from-covid-19-texas-data-shows
I am shocked
:-P
-
https://www.kut.org/covid-19/2021-11-08/unvaccinated-people-20-times-more-likely-to-die-from-covid-19-texas-data-shows
I am shocked
:-P
:roll:
As 100s of vaxxed 20somethings clutch their chest and fall over...
-
https://www.bitchute.com/video/SwHqJVM50BqJ/
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/942/029/original/98c9b705739def5c.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/942/029/original/98c9b705739def5c.png)
-
https://archive.fo/s46CZ
The chest pain shows it’s working!
-
Should You Vaccinate Your 5-Year-Old?
Be reassured that whatever you do, the risk is extremely low.
By Nicole Saphier and Marty Makary
Nov. 8, 2021 12:42 pm ET
If you’re agonizing about whether to have your young child vaccinated against Covid-19, be reassured: The risk is extremely low either way. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 42% of U.S. children 5 to 11 had Covid by June 2021, before the Delta wave—a prevalence that is likely greater than 50% today. Of 28 million children in that age range, 94 have died of Covid since the pandemic began (including deaths before newer treatments), and 562 have been hospitalized with Covid infections.
Serious complications are so uncommon in this age range that of 2,186 children in the Pfizer vaccine study, no child in either the vaccine or placebo group developed severe illness from Covid. Sixteen of the 663 unvaccinated children developed Covid infections, compared with only three of the 1,305 vaccinated ones—an effectiveness rate of 90.7% against infection. Thus it’s safe to assume that vaccinating a healthy child would take his extremely low risk of serious disease and drive it down even lower.
There’s an important exception, though: If a child already had Covid, there’s no scientific basis for vaccination. Deep within the 80-page Pfizer report is this crucial line: “No cases of COVID-19 were observed in either the vaccine group or the placebo group in participants with evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.” That’s consistent with the largest population-based study on the topic, which found that natural immunity was 27 times as effective as vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic Covid. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Natural immunity is likely even more robust in children, given their stronger immune systems. An indiscriminate Covid vaccine mandate may result in unintended harm among children with natural immunity. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
As with adults, pediatric Covid deaths and hospitalizations tend to come among those with comorbidities. If your child has a medical risk factor for Covid illness (including obesity), or lives with someone who does, the vaccine’s benefit outweighs the risk.
Side effects in the study were significant but not life-threatening. The overall adverse-event rate following vaccination in the Pfizer study was 10.9%. (!!!!!!!!!!!)
Notably, fever (as high as 104 degrees) occurred in 6.5% of kids following the second vaccine dose. One case of leg numbness was reported in the vaccine group.
We’d like to know if adverse events were clustered in children who had circulating antibodies from prior Covid infection, but Pfizer didn’t provide that data. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) There were no cases of myocarditis (heart inflammation), but the sample size was too small to rule out a complication that was found in 1 in 7,000 adolescent boys.
Vaccine complications in children can be mitigated by spacing out the doses. Complications are clustered after the second dose, and research on older patients shows that a longer interval between doses results in stronger immunity. Another recent study showed that delaying the second vaccine dose in younger adults not only resulted in stronger immunity but it also decreased the mild side effects following the second dose. Moreover, one Israeli study found that a single Pfizer dose alone was 100% effective against infection in children 12 to 15. Pediatricians may advise hesitant parents that one dose is better than none.
Dr. Saphier is an assistant professor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and editor-in-chief of MedPage Today.
-
At the time of writing, more than 50 countries have a higher death rate. If you measure excess mortality for the whole of 2020, Sweden (according to Eurostat) will end up in 21st place out of 31 European countries. If Sweden was a part of the US, its death rate would rank number 43 of the 50 states.
https://unherd.com/2021/11/how-sweden-swerved-covid-disaster/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/regeneron-shares-surge-antibody-cocktail-cuts-covid-risk-816?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=265
-
https://www.kut.org/covid-19/2021-11-08/unvaccinated-people-20-times-more-likely-to-die-from-covid-19-texas-data-shows
I am shocked
:-P
I can see potential flaws in the study, but those numbers are startling. Not just the death rate but the transmission rate is perhaps even more relevant to public health.
Just a reminder, the political and constitutional issue of the day is mandates. The scientific question is vaccines.
-
Covid Confusion at the CDC
Decisions on boosters relied on data from Israel. Why isn’t the U.S. producing this research?
By Marty Makary
Sept. 13, 2021 1:02 pm ET
The U.S. spends lavishly on healthcare yet can’t answer basic questions about Covid-19. Some of the best research has come from Israel. American public health agencies should be producing data on breakthrough infections, boosters and natural immunity. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has failed to provide the information needed to inform a sound Covid strategy.
Israel began its vaccine rollout with Pfizer in December, only days after the U.S. But Israel kept good data, reported them out frequently and quickly, and used them to track subsequent Covid infections. When the White House announced its plan to recommend a booster shot for all Americans, it cited Israeli data. The World Health Organization and others criticized the plan, calling the evidence insufficient, and in what seemed like a coordinated protest, two top scientists at the Food and Drug Administration abruptly resigned.
The Biden administration recently got the supporting data it needed to justify its booster plan. But not from the CDC. Another Israeli study showed that a booster resulted in a 10-fold reduction in severe Covid illness in people over 60. The results were published mere weeks after the study’s completion, not months later as often happens in the U.S.
“There’s no doubt,” Anthony Fauci said of the findings in a press briefing, “from the dramatic data from the Israeli study that the boosts that are being now done there and contemplated here support very strongly the rationale for such an approach.” The FDA, trying to evaluate the question of boosters, scrambled to obtain the raw data from Israel.
The bigger question is: Why didn’t the CDC produce the research? The agency has 21,000 employees and a $15 billion annual budget. It has data on more than 40 million Americans who have tested positive for Covid and 200 million who have been vaccinated. The data include the vaccine type, dosing schedule and vaccination date. Calculating the rate of U.S. breakthrough infections and subsequent hospitalizations and deaths isn’t the Manhattan Project. It’s Epidemiology 101.
The CDC’s failure to report meaningful data has left policy makers flying blind. In the absence of good data to answer the basic questions Americans have been asking, political opinions have filled the vacuum. Strong data might have prevented much of the polarization over Covid.
Sound data from the CDC has been especially lacking on natural immunity from prior Covid infection. On Aug. 25, Israel published the most powerful and scientifically rigorous study on the subject to date. In a sample of more than 700,000 people, natural immunity was 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic infections.
Despite this evidence, U.S. public health officials continue to dismiss natural immunity, insisting that those who have recovered from Covid must still get the vaccine. Policy makers and public health leaders, and the media voices that parrot them, are inexplicably sticking to their original hypothesis that natural immunity is fleeting, even as at least 15 studies show it lasts.
Meanwhile, employers fire workers with natural immunity who won’t get vaccinated. Schools disenroll students who won’t comply.
The CDC did put out a study on natural immunity last month, forcefully concluding that vaccinated immunity was 2.3 times better than natural immunity. The CDC used these results to justify telling those with natural immunity to get vaccinated.
But the rate of infection in each group was less than 0.01%, meaning infections were exceedingly rare in the short two-month time period the agency chose to study. This is odd, given there are more than a year of data available. Moreover, despite having data on all 50 states, the CDC only reported data from Kentucky. Was Kentucky the only state that produced the desired result? Why else exclude the same data from the other 49 states?
Some public health officials are afraid to acknowledge natural immunity because they fear some will choose infection over vaccination. But leaders can encourage all Americans who aren’t immune to get vaccinated and be transparent with the data at the same time.
The CDC shouldn’t fish for data to support outdated hypotheses. Heeding the robust Israeli data on natural immunity could help restore the agency’s credibility and even help vaccination efforts.
Israel also contributed a brilliant study on vaccinating children. Researchers found that one dose of the Pfizer vaccine, instead of the normal two, was 100% effective in children ages 12 to 15. Such a finding could have significant implications for achieving broad immunity in adolescents while reducing the risk of heart complications, which have been clustered around the second dose.
These are the studies U.S. public health agencies should be doing but aren’t. By any metric, the CDC has failed in its primary task of preparing the country for a pandemic and telling us how to reduce harm from the novel Covid pathogen.
Dr. Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the author of “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care—And How To Fix It.”
-
My doctor friend in rural Colorado is in the thick of it. Says the system is being overwhelmed.
" I’m taking over a service today. 14 patients, 8 of them with COVID, none of them vaccinated, all severely ill, Fully 25 % of the patients in my hospital have COVID, 96 % unvaccinated. We are turning patients away to other facilities because we lack beds an staffing. The drain on the system from COVID is overwhelming here and throughout the state"
-
Young and healthy patients? Or elderly with comorbidities?
My doctor friend in rural Colorado is in the thick of it. Says the system is being overwhelmed.
" I’m taking over a service today. 14 patients, 8 of them with COVID, none of them vaccinated, all severely ill, Fully 25 % of the patients in my hospital have COVID, 96 % unvaccinated. We are turning patients away to other facilities because we lack beds an staffing. The drain on the system from COVID is overwhelming here and throughout the state"
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/959/170/original/423e4191c82f8a88.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/959/170/original/423e4191c82f8a88.jpeg)
-
The great covid debate has hit me. I organize a weekly indoor tennis (doubles) game of some (former) top players in our area. One friend/participant is unvaccinated. A few are not joining in because of that, though at this point I have enough players without them. Others are asking me to do something about it without saying exactly what.
My side of it: The indoor space involves close to a million cubic feet of air shared by 16 people on 4 courts for 2 hours of medium level exercise, see video. At almost no time are you 6 feet from anyone, much less someone breathing in your direction. Best case, the game looks something like this (we wish):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8jdDou97Fs Short video of pro-level highlights.
It seems to me:
1) This is as close to an outdoor environment that indoors can be.
2) If vaccinations and masks protect, those who feel at risk can do so.
3) This doesn't fit any scenario for unacceptable risk in science in terms of numbers of people and proximity.
4) Just discussing who isn't vaccinated and why violates health privacy.
5) The unvaccinated person has so far spread the virus to no one in 500 days. If he had, he would now have natural immunity.
6) Masks inhibit breathing, an important part of exercise. A medical incident of a different sort could result in our age group.
7) The exercise and fitness itself is a treatment for covid avoidance and survival.
8 ) The very cautious CDC and MN Dept of Health do not advise against this.
9) Sample size zero, I know of no one who has contracted covid on the court through tennis.
10) Soon the question will be booster shot and so on. No end in sight and nothing brings zero risk.
-
The great covid debate has hit me. I organize a weekly indoor tennis (doubles) game of some (former) top players in our area. One friend/participant is unvaccinated. A few apparently are not playing up because of that, though at this point I have enough without them. Others are asking me to do something about it without saying exactly what.
My side of it, the indoor space involves close to a million cubic feet of air shared by 16 people on 4 courts for 2 hours of medium level exercise, see video. At almost no time are you 6 feet from anyone, much less someone breathing in your direction. Best case, the game looks something like this (we wish):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8jdDou97Fs
It seems to me:
1) This is as close to an outdoor environment that indoors can be.
2) If vaccinations and masks protect, those who feels at risk can do so.
3) This doesn't fit any scenario for unacceptable risk in science in terms of numbers of people and proximity.
4) There is some health privacy violation going on, just discussing who isn't vaccinated and speculating the reasons.
5) The unvaccinated person has so far spread it to no one in 500 days. If he had, he would have natural immunity.
6) Masks inhibit breathing, an important part of exercise. A medical incident of a different sort could result in our age group.
7) The exercise and fitness itself is a treatment for covid avoidance and survival.
8) The very cautious CDC and MN Dept of Health do not advise against this.
9) Sample size zero, I know of no one who has contracted covid on the court through tennis.
10) Soon the question will be booster shot and so on. No end in sight if zero risk is the bar, and nothing brings zero risk.
Be sure to recert on First Aid/CPR and have a CPR mask and AED nearby when one of the vaxxed drops and starts doing the horizontal Mambo. Low dose aspirin and have the address of the tennis court preprinted with the emergency gear, under the adrenaline dump of a medical crisis, it’s easy to draw a blank on the address when talking to a 911 dispatcher.
-
https://summit.news/2021/11/03/after-pro-mask-anti-florida-rants-don-lemon-takes-a-maskless-vacation-in-florida/
He’s not afraid, even given his potentially immune compromised lifestyle.
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10182893/Scientists-discover-antibody-protect-people-against-coronaviruses.html
-
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/11/08/are-our-soldiers-covid-19-vaccine-test-subjects-a-flight-surgeons-testimony-will-make-you-wonder-n1530723
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/942/029/original/98c9b705739def5c.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/942/029/original/98c9b705739def5c.png)
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/gavin-newsom-is-out-of-sight-likely
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/942/029/original/98c9b705739def5c.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/942/029/original/98c9b705739def5c.png)
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/gavin-newsom-is-out-of-sight-likely
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/gov-gavin-newsom-moderna-booster-vaccine/
-
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/11/10/confirmed-gavin-newsom-had-adverse-reaction-to-covid-booster-flu-shots-n1531670
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/942/029/original/98c9b705739def5c.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/942/029/original/98c9b705739def5c.png)
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/gavin-newsom-is-out-of-sight-likely
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/gov-gavin-newsom-moderna-booster-vaccine/
-
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/new-vaers-analysis-reveals-hundreds
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/11/virginia-pharmacy-found-administering-wrong-covid-19-vaccine-children-aged-5-11-100-received-adult-dosage-just-1-day/
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/pennsylvania-department-of-health-refuses-to-provide-full-covid-19-death-data_4097040.html?utm_source=hardwallnewsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-11-11-2&mktids=3700b5c6576a7bdb9aac3c7e6dec1ddf&est=RVeT%2Fivi6%2FL0HUvzYFf4QESzgkJR6JobKAwtDgP3R2BfypFNADYMxqMLMO34ZZ68R05p
-
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheEliKlein/status/1458943488494641154?
-
Whoa!
-
https://www.mychamplainvalley.com/news/coronavirus/vermont-reports-another-covid-record-591-cases-as-delta-surge-continues/
Vermont reports another COVID record: 591 cases, as Delta surge continues
Nov 11, 2021
The Vermont Department of Health reported 591 cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, another single-day record as the surge in the highly contagious Delta variant continues across the state.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strangely, Vermont leads the nation in vaccination rates.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-tracker/
-
Almost like the ClotShot makes you MORE vulnerable...
https://www.mychamplainvalley.com/news/coronavirus/vermont-reports-another-covid-record-591-cases-as-delta-surge-continues/
Vermont reports another COVID record: 591 cases, as Delta surge continues
Nov 11, 2021
The Vermont Department of Health reported 591 cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, another single-day record as the surge in the highly contagious Delta variant continues across the state.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strangely, Vermont leads the nation in vaccination rates.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-tracker/
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/11/scientists-growing-covid-vaccine-filled-spinach-lettuce-edible-plants-replace-covid-injections/
Why are they so desperate to use mRNA therapy on us?
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/11/elementary-school-nurse-accidentally-vaccinates-wrong-6-year-old-student-without-parental-consent/
-
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheEliKlein/status/1458943488494641154?
https://m.startribune.com/minnesota-reports-first-covid-19-reinfection-numbers/600112043/
Reinfection = 1% of covid positive cases. MN
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/cdc-no-record-of-naturally-immune-transmitting-covid-19_4102046.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-11-13-3&mktids=0450b10669127285e84719d0ef46f788&est=EOqkFSGO1ZZB%2BvJUS%2Bw7sk1lJWq0gqiOpKKqBeeAWrs7%2F5VAKvPtv1oqF5xpGCrLWssB
-
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/young-cardiologist-dies-in-sleep-after-booster-shot/
-
https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2021/11/14/fauci-says-he-wont-step-down-until-covid-is-in-rearview-mirror/
from the guy who is on record of stating gain of function research is worth the risk
from the guy who sent money to a lab that produced a virus that devastated the world
as though NO ONE else could replace him.........
-
World’s Most Vaccinated Country Cancels Christmas Due to Massive Rise in COVID-19 Infections
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/11/16/geert-vanden-bossche-was-right-the-worlds-most-vaccinated-country-cancels-christmas-due-to-massive-rise-in-covid-19-infections/
Statement released by the Gibraltar government, a spokesperson said: “Given the exponential rise in the number of cases, the Government, for example, intends to cancel a number of its own functions including official Christmas parties, official receptions and similar gatherings.
“The public, at this stage, are ultimately called upon to exercise their own judgement in this respect bearing in mind the current advice given.
------------------------------------------
Shoot. I already forgot what the purpose of the vaccinations was.
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/worldwide-vaccine-failure
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/most-vaccinated-nation-earth-cancels-christmas-over-surge-cases?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=284
-
https://dailycaller.com/2021/11/18/fda-requests-year-2076-publish-data-pfizer-vaccine-approval/
Nothing to hide?
Is that the same year we get to see the Tara Reade personnel file?
-
https://www.popsci.com/science/second-monkeypox-case-confirmed-us/?utm_source=Camden+Contacts&utm_campaign=19797216f2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_11_19_06_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_387276506e-19797216f2-515834222#affinity=Health
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/
-
I went to see the Minnesota Orchestra and Minnesota Chorale play Beethoven's 9th Symphony at Orchestra Hall in Downtown Minneapolis this past weekend. Of note, vaccination papers were required, the first time I have shown mine. People complied like sheep, and all but the wind instrumentalists wore masks.
Good that we aren't having a super spreader event right before the Thanksgiving holiday and people were thankful to be out. Singing in public hasn't been allowed for a LONG time.
Begs the question, of course, what about people with natural immunity which is many times more effective and alters the vaccination risk calculation for people who have it. No allowance made.
https://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/tickets/calendar/2122/valcuha-conducts-beethovens-ninth/
Photographs from pre-mask era.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4th Movement, Ode to Joy: Skip to 3 minute mark for the familiar melody, or the 21 minute for the spectacular finish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdWyYn0E4Ys
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Better than some places where you need vax to fill your gas tank:
https://fee.org/articles/no-gasoline-without-covid-papers-it-s-already-happening-in-some-parts-of-the-world/
Slovenia's regulation forbidding people without 'COVID certificates' from pumping fuel shows governments are getting increasingly creative in their coercion.
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/
-
second
https://greatgameindia.com/list-30-studies-mask-useless-covid-19/?fbclid=IwAR1zxzzbA7vvJ82Ck8IzxiCHJPB9QuxjNkkw87wML-9z0MlIdBjo2mtQ_IY
-
second
https://greatgameindia.com/list-30-studies-mask-useless-covid-19/?fbclid=IwAR1zxzzbA7vvJ82Ck8IzxiCHJPB9QuxjNkkw87wML-9z0MlIdBjo2mtQ_IY
I don't think that applies to properly fitted N95 or this one below, pasting in an earlier post :
https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/28/new-study-shows-masks-did-not-slow-covid-spread/
I think we knew from the start that a regular cloth mask is stupid, like a chain link fence around your yard to stop mosquitoes.
Now that the crisis is over, maybe they could ease up on the fascist industry restrictions and allow the manufacture and sale to the public of masks that do stop viruses.
A friend is an investor and board member of this company, Claros Technologies. They bought a technology developed at the University of Minnesota that infuses zinc that kills viruses into the fabric of the masks.
https://kstp.com/coronavirus/this-is-a-game-changer-u-of-m-spinoff-company-launches-face-mask-it-says-can-kill-the-coronavirus-february-3-2021/6000735/
"A proprietary zinc solution is infused into a fabric, then heated to form zinc nanoparticles 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. The company said the particles, now trapped in the fabric, won't leach out, even after 100 washes. The zinc is harmless to humans but deadly to the virus."
------------------------------------------------------
$25 each (at least when I bought it), free shipping, no minimum purchase. Spendy but the technology, unlike the vaccine, will kill this one and other viruses. I recommend buying (at least) one per person for those you want to protect from the next Wuhan, Nile or Congo virus.
I switched from N95 to this mask a few months ago and found it a little more breathable, comfortable and washable. We have been required for the past year to wear masks for indoor USTA matches (tennis). Breathability is a big deal in sports.
https://www.log3mask.com/
--------------
Note: Masks don't seal over beard etc.
-
good stuff!
nuff said!
8-)
-
Is this accurate/true?
https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-11-22-africa-6percent-vaccinated-covid-disappeared-scientists-baffled.html#
-
Covid-19 Antibody Tests in Demand as People Worry About Immunity
Doctors say what constitutes a sufficient level of protection against the virus isn’t known
Many people are getting Covid-19 antibody tests, though U.S. health authorities have discouraged such testing to assess immunity after infection or vaccination.
PHOTO: SARAH REINGEWIRTZ/ZUMA PRESS
By Robbie Whelan and Brianna Abbott
Nov. 24, 2021 5:30 am ET
Some people are taking Covid-19 antibody tests to determine whether they might be protected against the virus. Many health officials and doctors wish they wouldn’t.
Antibody tests are one tool some people are deploying to help them decide which precautions to take to protect themselves and curb the spread of Covid-19. Some vaccinated people say they want to know whether their protection has weakened to the point that they should get a booster, while some previously infected people say they want to measure the strength of the response the virus generated in their immune systems.
Katy Savage, 41 years old, doesn’t want to get a Covid-19 vaccine because she worries about side effects for her unborn child. She survived an August bout with the disease that put her on a ventilator for nine days and thinks immunity from that infection is enough to protect her. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended since August that expecting mothers or women who plan to get pregnant take the vaccine, citing research showing the shots are safe and effective during pregnancy.
She plans to get a test later this month to see if she still has antibodies circulating in her blood.
“To me that would be, ‘OK, cool, I’m still good. I’m still safe,’ ” Ms. Savage said.
But it isn’t known what level of antibodies effectively prevents infection or a severe case of Covid-19, said Emily Volk, president of the College of American Pathologists. She said getting a positive antibody test isn’t a substitute for getting vaccinated.
The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration discourage antibody testing to assess immunity after infection or vaccination in part because the tests can’t say how much protection those antibodies might provide.
Studies have found a connection between higher antibody levels, especially for so-called neutralizing antibodies that prevent the virus from entering cells, and increased protection against Covid-19. The specific threshold for what level of antibodies a person needs to be protected from infection or severe disease is still being determined in research.
“Whenever you order a laboratory test, typically you’d want to have in mind what you’re looking for,” Dr. Volk said. “If you’re just sort of shooting in the dark and then getting a number that’s difficult to place into clinical context, it just adds confusion.”
Antibody tests also don’t account for immune cells known as B-cells, which produce antibodies, or T-cells, which can help identify the virus or kill virus-infected cells.
“Antibody testing doesn’t give you a full picture of a person’s immune response to Covid. It just shows you a snapshot of one branch of the immune system,” said Elitza Theel, head of the infectious diseases serology lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
The FDA has authorized about 90 antibody tests, also called serology tests, that search for Covid-19 fighting proteins that develop after an infection or vaccination. Most of the tests require a blood draw and are analyzed in a laboratory. Some require only a finger-prick, and one uses a saliva sample.
Patients often can access the tests through their doctors or companies including Laboratory Corp. of America, Quest Diagnostics or CVS Health Corp. They can cost anywhere from $40 to $150 and are sometimes covered by insurance. The volume of serology testing conducted by Labcorp jumped in August and September this year, according to a Wells Fargo & Co. analysis, though Quest didn’t see as much of an increase.
An antibody test was given in January in Santa Monica, Calif., and recent information suggests that more people are getting the tests.
PHOTO: VALERIE MACON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Antibody tests are useful in some contexts. Public-health researchers use them to estimate what proportion of a population has had a Covid-19 infection. Immunologists and other experts use them to study the immune response to Covid-19 after both infection and vaccination.
The tests can help rule out whether certain symptoms in children, such as fever with stomach pain or dizziness, are caused by a condition called multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which can develop after a Covid-19 infection. They also can help determine whether someone had Covid-19 if they didn’t get a viral test when they were sick.
Antibody tests can also benefit immunocompromised patients. Roberta Massaro, a retired pharmacy-inventory specialist in South Bend, Ind., takes anti-rejection drugs that suppress her immune system by killing the antibodies that might attack the transplanted liver she received in 2013.
After receiving her second vaccine dose in April, she took an antibody test that indicated she had Covid-19 antibodies in her system. “It was just for peace of mind,” Ms. Massaro said. She still takes precautions such as masking indoors, but she said she had begun shopping again at the supermarket during more crowded times of day.
In September, people waited in the observation area after receiving a Covid-19 booster shot in Southfield, Mich.; some people are getting antibody tests to see if they might need a booster.
PHOTO: EMILY ELCONIN/REUTERS
Some clinicians and pathologists said an antibody test about a month after a second or even third dose can help determine whether an immunocompromised patient has responded to the vaccine. If not, some doctors are cautioning those patients to act as if they haven’t been vaccinated.
“The antibody testing tells us who we need to look out for that will need help after vaccination,” said Alan Wells, medical director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center clinical laboratories.
But Dr. Wells said checking antibody levels of patients outside of those specific cases has little benefit for now. Antibodies generally peak shortly after infection before dropping to a baseline level, so seeing a lower antibody response many months out from a vaccination doesn’t say much about how well that person is protected, Dr. Wells said.
NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP
Coronavirus Briefing and Health Weekly
Get a morning briefing about the coronavirus pandemic three times a week and a weekly Health newsletter when the crisis abates.
PREVIEW
SUBSCRIBE
For some viruses, including the hepatitis B virus, scientists have identified a level of antibody prevalence that corresponds with protective immunity. “We just don’t have that yet for Covid, so outside of public-health labs and big studies, there’s not a lot of clear use for the results right now,” said Kelly Wroblewski, director of the infectious-diseases program at the Association of Public Health Laboratories.
Another challenge is that not all tests hunt for the same antibodies, and results aren’t uniformly reported across different tests. Ligia Pinto, director of the Vaccine, Immunity and Cancer Directorate at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research in Maryland is leading a government-backed effort to get laboratories and researchers to standardize antibody-test results to make it easier to compare results across different scientific studies and get a better understanding of the data.
To figure out the signals for protective immunity from infection or disease, researchers need to track certain parts of the immune response in large cohorts of patients over time and match them with cases of breakthrough infections or reinfections, she said.
“We have very strong tests,” Dr. Pinto said. “We need to understand better what a certain level means.”
-
Makes perfect sense to address the unfair discrimination between vaccinated and natural immunity.
From the article (previous post):
"U.S. health authorities have discouraged such testing to assess immunity after infection or vaccination."
Unbelievable. Same people know previous infection is more effective than vaccine and people who already have antibodies are reacting differently to the vaccine. Especially relevant as many who had two jabs and have been reading for 6 months since aren't eager to take the third, or the fourth, etc.
Antibody tests aren't reliable? Well, neither is the vaccine. Where is the Biden WarpSpeed program to make antibody tests reliable and to update the vaccine to be effective against 'new' strains like delta that have been out as long as Biden has been President?
All we hear about is greater enforcement of old methods that aren't working, with blame assigned to those who won't follow.
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/11/24/new-york-times-admits-more-coronavirus-deaths-under-joe-biden-despite-vaccines/
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/nov/26/who-debate-dangerous-south-africa-coronavirus-vari/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=qCnbAsnRan9PY2hknSJ12leR2cKsxNjOFAz7HcQi5kU3n4m%2FJ1sMY%2F95Qxp%2B3Iyy&bt_ts=1637933861366
-
https://www.fda.gov/media/151733/download
https://dailyexpose.uk/2021/11/25/official-fda-report-finds-all-cause-death-rate-is-higher-among-the-vaccinated/
(Please help find article claim in the published data.)
-
"(Please help find article claim in the published data.)"
Yes, please!
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/former-pro-calls-investigation-after-another-soccer-player-suddenly-collapses?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=305
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/pfizer-ceo-warns-new-vaccine-combat-heavily-mutated-coronavirus-could-take-100-days?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=306
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/naturally-immune-people-at-little-risk-of-reinfection-severe-disease-from-covid-19-study_4126747.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-11-27-3&mktids=b837377253e317707e36492838051765&est=TOAzugMg3%2FDpB4NpHcStahY1molZ9eBGnSyAeHCGvrdnS53yjZ3T2ZGVd1DO7F31sbvG
-
I'm told the NEJM is a serious publication:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2108120
Final two paragraphs:
Reinfections had 90% lower odds of resulting in hospitalization or death than primary infections. Four reinfections were severe enough to lead to acute care hospitalization. None led to hospitalization in an ICU, and none ended in death. Reinfections were rare and were generally mild, perhaps because of the primed immune system after primary infection.
In earlier studies, we assessed the efficacy of previous natural infection as protection against reinfection with SARS-CoV-22,3 as being 85% or greater. Accordingly, for a person who has already had a primary infection, the risk of having a severe reinfection is only approximately 1% of the risk of a previously uninfected person having a severe primary infection. It needs to be determined whether such protection against severe disease at reinfection lasts for a longer period, analogous to the immunity that develops against other seasonal “common-cold” coronaviruses,4 which elicit short-term immunity against mild reinfection but longer-term immunity against more severe illness with reinfection. If this were the case with SARS-CoV-2, the virus (or at least the variants studied to date) could adopt a more benign pattern of infection when it becomes endemic.4
Laith J. Abu-Raddad, Ph.D.
Hiam Chemaitelly, M.Sc.
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/scared-nu-world-heres-what-we-know-about-new-covid-strain?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=307
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/the-english-data-on-vaccines-and/comments?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDQ1MTM1NTYsIl8iOiJKK1dFNCIsImlhdCI6MTYzODEzODM4MCwiZXhwIjoxNjM4MTQxOTgwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzYzMDgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.TwKXiSq6uJxWJiaBfXFAhmr3d0vMtW3CwhmoZyQ3wWE
-
Fourth of the day:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/florida-reports-lowest-daily-covid-19-cases-per-capita-in-us_4127566.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-11-28-4&mktids=e9456ec2dced0d915f09cc3be3f4b2f1&est=NKJAS1uszlhK5MawwsbR%2B7vw3uOU2qr9hZD%2FewXoezjLUyADg926sKLGMTKsanoUx9WP
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10252377/Drug-cocktail-saviour-New-Covid-treatment-FOUR-TIMES-effective.html
-
13 page pdf, take a look, I think this is important.
https://www.dshs.texas.gov/immunize/covid19/data/Cases-and-Deaths-by-Vaccination-Status-11082021.pdf
Some observations:
1. Most recent data is probably the most relevant to right now, meaning delta. One chart shows Jan 15 (this year) to Oct 1. The next shows just Sept 4 to Oct 1. Less data, but more recent and more likely to be delta variant data, which was not what I was seeing when I took the jab.
2. As always, they don't differentiate between "unvaccinated" and already had covid and have natural immunity probably much greater than vaccination. That means to me, the truly unvaccinated have even worse odds than the conclusions here.
3. From elsewhere, Texas is 64% vaccinated. https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/state/texas
4. Picking one conclusion, the death rate in the 50-64 range (age range of people I know not taking the vaccine), in most recent data set, unvaccinated 45 times more likely to die from covid.
5. Overall the death rate is 40 times higher for the unvaccinated.
6. Nothing in this goes into damage from the vaccine.
7. Plenty of defects in the data but that would go both ways.
Listening to conservative radio and other sources I came to believe the vaccine is not very effective against 'Delta'. This data indicates the vaccine is VERY effective in cases and deaths (obviously far from perfect), not at all what I expected.
Is anyone seeing actual data otherwise? Do you see large defects in this study?
-
My understanding is that for the middle-aged and up "unantibodied" the vaccines may well be a very good idea. I took my 89 year old mother to get her vax. OTOH for 20s on down I'm not seeing it, ESPECIALLY for children.
However, I AM natural antibodied and as such that decision is not for me.
Regarding MY status, I am of the opinion that naturals are BETTER than the vaxxes and have no intention of vaxxing under the current known/perceived facts..
I continue to hammer that essentially all of the data on vaxx efficiency is contaminated by the commingling of the unantibodied and the naturals..
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/dec/1/omicron-prompts-new-virus-origin-worries/
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/who-no-evidence-booster-vaccines-offer-greater-protection-to-healthy-populations_4137217.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-12-03-3&est=11BYOO76ucVThcJgLoIJF5s4UZTKYP1tjNCGwodz87wPPtJP3lQxJTU6bGvuqnpsgSW%2F
-
The Vast Promise of mRNA Technology
The Covid vaccine platform offers real hope for treating many other diseases, including cancer. How an immigrant from Hungary played a prominent scientific role.
By
Allysia Finley
Dec. 3, 2021 6:31 pm ET
Are Covid-19 vaccines a failure? That’s the view in some media quarters amid breakthrough infections and new virus variants. It’s also false. Vaccinated people are more prone to mild infections than public-health authorities initially anticipated. But the shots continue to provide strong protection against serious disease, and the mRNA vaccines in particular—Pfizer/BioNTech’s and Moderna’s—are adaptable to new variants.
More important, the drama over vaccines has masked a bigger and untold story, which is the vast promise of mRNA technology. Messenger RNA has shown enormous potential for medical applications beyond Covid to other infectious diseases, as well as vaccines and treatments for conditions from cancer to multiple sclerosis. Its development is a tale of scientific perseverance and serendipity that deserves more attention, with a prominent role by an American immigrant from communist Hungary.
The Omicron variant is an example of mRNA’s promise and adaptability. Omicron has some 30 mutations on its spike protein that could make it harder for vaccine-induced antibodies to recognize and neutralize the virus. But mRNA vaccines can be reformulated for the new variant.
BioNTech and Pfizer say they could begin shipping vaccines that target Omicron within 100 days if protection from their existing vaccines declines substantially against the new variant. Moderna has already started testing booster shots designed to anticipate mutations. It also says it would rapidly advance an Omicron-specific booster shot, which could be available early next year.
That quick pivot would be impossible with conventional vaccine technologies, which usually take between six and 36 months just to manufacture and deliver. It can take many more years to design vaccines. With mRNA, vaccine makers only need about six weeks to adapt a shot and then take it from the lab to production.
Messenger RNA delivers the genetic code instructing human cells how to create a protein—in this case, the coronavirus spike, which binds to the ACE2 receptor on human cells. The mRNA is enveloped in lipid nanoparticles, which are fatty blobs that protect the genetic motherload from degradation and facilitate its entry into cells. Once the mRNA is injected into the muscle, human cells become vaccine mini-factories that churn out pseudovirus particles, which in turn prompt the immune system to produce antibodies that respond when confronted with the real thing. The vaccines also induce T cells, which provide a backup defense to antibodies. If a virus mutates, scientists can easily swap new genetic code into the mRNA.
The Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccines are the first commercially approved mRNA products, but they were made possible by decades of experimentation, innovation and determination. Geneticists established the existence of mRNA in the early 1960s. RNA regulates how genes are expressed and is a single-stranded molecule similar to the double-helix DNA. Messenger RNA carries the instructions from DNA to the protein-making machinery in cells, known as ribosomes.
That’s where Katalin Kariko comes in. The 66-year-old Hungarian-born biochemist, now a scientist at BioNTech, first began working with RNA as a graduate student in the late 1970s at the University of Szeged. Researchers were interested in manipulating what is known as small RNA to generate antiviral effects. In 1985 the biological center where she was a researcher ran out of funding, and her postdoctoral position was terminated.
She applied for three research positions in Europe but wasn’t eligible for funding. Then she landed a postdoctoral position at Temple University. She and her husband sold their car for £900 (about $1,200), sewed the notes into their 2-year-old daughter’s teddy bear—Hungary didn’t allow citizens to take cash out of the country—and moved to Philadelphia.
Years later the University of Pennsylvania hired her as an adjunct professor. At the time, she envisioned using mRNA to create therapeutic proteins that could substitute for medications. But because she failed to obtain grants, she was passed up for promotions. Government, nonprofit institutions and investors were skeptical about mRNA since the genetic material was considered fragile and produced too little protein to be effective. “For two years every month I submitted for a grant and got none,” Ms. Kariko says in an interview. Research on mRNA “was a backwater.”
Relying on senior faculty to support her research, she was determined to show that mRNA could be used for medical treatments. For a time she collaborated with a cardiologist on designing mRNA coded for proteins that could prevent blood clots after heart-bypass surgery. Later she worked with a neurologist to design mRNA that would instruct cells to create an enzyme that produces nitric oxide, which could dilate the brain’s blood vessels to relieve a hemorrhage.
One day she bumped into the immunologist Drew Weissman at a copy machine. “He was interested in doing a vaccine, and he says he was working with Anthony Fauci. I didn’t know who Fauci was. He was not in the television at the time,” she says. “Drew said he wanted to make a vaccine that can be therapeutic and prophylactic.”
She performed many experiments in animals and on cells cultured in Petri dishes. Yet when Dr. Weissmann tested her synthetic mRNA, it triggered an inflammatory response from human immune cells.
Eventually, Ms. Kariko and Dr. Weissman discovered by experimentation that swapping out uridine, one of mRNA’s component “letters,” for a chemically similar compound called pseudouridine blunted the inflammatory response. “This produced 10 times more protein,” she says. Starting in 2005 they published a series of papers describing their discovery.
The studies caught the attention of stem-cell biologist Derrick Rossi, who had the idea of using mRNA to reprogram human adult stem cells. He shared his idea with his Harvard Medical School colleague Timothy Springer, an immunologist. Mr. Springer had even more ambitious ideas to commercialize mRNA and approached Robert Langer, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology biomedical engineering professor with expertise in drug delivery and tissue engineering. With funding from biotech venture capitalists, Moderna was founded in 2010.
Meantime, Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, a husband-and-wife immunologist team from Germany, were also working on mRNA. The couple envisioned using mRNA for immunotherapies, which mobilize the immune system to fight cancer. In 2008 they launched BioNTech.
BioNTech and Moderna both licensed the Kariko-Weissman innovation and have spent more than a decade building on it. Beyond a genetic sequence that encodes a protein, mRNA also includes elements that provide an instruction manual to the human cell machinery.
Every cell has the ability to make proteins, Dr. Sahin, CEO of BioNTech, says. “But the regulation of the ‘translation’ is a complex process.” By translation, he means the process by which mRNA is converted into a protein. “You have to imagine that the ribosome where the mRNA is translated is a privileged place in the cell. Not every mRNA can go there,” he says; mRNA needs “a passport to reach the ribosome. And when it is in the cell, there are many other mRNAs produced by the cell. So there’s a competition for how long the mRNA can stay at the ribosome and be translated. And it makes a difference whether the mRNA stays long enough to make five copies of a protein or 20 or 100 copies of a protein.”
Scientists don’t only have to design the genetic sequence for the proteins they want cells to create. They also have to create the “passport” to tell the cell’s machinery to create more or less of a protein.
BioNTech is working on “self-amplifying” mRNA that can produce large amounts of protein from a small amount of mRNA. This could enormously improve manufacturing efficiency—effectively moving more mRNA production from the lab into human cells—and the efficacy of future vaccines and treatments.
In 2018 BioNTech paired with Pfizer to develop a flu vaccine. With conventional flu shots, viruses are injected and fertilized in chicken eggs. Scientists harvest the fluid containing the virus and inactivate it, a cumbersome process that takes at least six months. Scientists have to guess the strains likely to be predominant at least eight months before flu season. That’s one reason flu vaccines are only 50% effective at preventing illness on average.
An mRNA flu vaccine could improve that efficacy by better matching the strains in circulation. And mRNA generates a stronger immune response than the inactivated viruses. Pfizer and BioNTech started a flu-vaccine trial in September, and Moderna launched one in July.
Moderna is also advancing vaccines for other infectious diseases, including Zika, HIV, Epstein-Barr, CMV, human metapneumovirus, parainfluenza virus and respiratory synclinal virus. The last three are respiratory viruses that can cause severe illness in children and people over 65. Moderna aims to combine vaccines for seasonal flu, RSV and Covid-19 into a single shot.
Before the pandemic, Moderna and BioNTech were each working on using mRNA for therapeutic purposes. Moderna paired with AstraZeneca on an mRNA therapy to regenerate heart tissue patients with heart failure. Their mRNA encodes a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor A, which promotes new blood-vessel growth. A phase 1 trial completed in early 2019 showed the mRNA, after being injected into the skin of men, caused a localized production of the protein without severe side effects. Last month they reported positive early results from a Phase 2 trial.
As Mr. Rossi recognized a decade ago, mRNA also offers the potential to reprogram cells. “We have shown that mRNA can be used to take a blood cell and generate a stem cell,” Dr. Sahin says. “This opens up the potential to address various diseases including aging and tissue repair.” Future mRNA uses could include stimulating the production of cartilage to ease arthritis and collagen to reduce wrinkles.
Autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system attacks parts of the body, are another promising area of research. BioNTech this year published a study that showed an mRNA vaccine has potential to treat multiple sclerosis without suppressing the immune system like existing therapies do.
BioNTech’s main focus is cancer. It has 21 mRNA products in its clinical pipeline that use 11 different approaches to killing cancer cells. One of Ms. Kariko’s first projects at BioNTech involved injecting mRNA coding for cytokines—proteins that control the immune response—into the surface of a tumor. That makes “the cold tumor hot, so that immune cells migrate there so they can see the metastatic tumor there and kill it.”
Another approach is cancer immunotherapy personalized for the patient. Dr. Sahin explains how it works: After taking a biopsy, “we identify the mutations” and use machine learning “to select those mutations that are the best suited to detect the patient’s tumor. And then we prepare mRNA for the patient. This is something we can do in less than six weeks.”
The patient is then injected with mRNA that codes for “neoantigens” on the tumor, which turbocharges the immune system to attack it. BioNTech has already begun Phase 2 trials for personalized melanoma and colon-cancer therapies, with initial results expected next year. It is also working on using mRNA to prevent relapses by inducing T cells to patrol throughout the body and kill hidden cancer cells that metastasize.
While Moderna and BioNTech were pioneers in mRNA, large drug makers including Pfizer, Sanofi and Merck are now investing heavily in the technology, which means more advances may come even sooner. Venture capitalists are pouring money into mRNA startups such as Strand Therapeutics and Kernal Biologics.
Not all experimental mRNA products will succeed. “There are many times I thought something was a good idea and then I realized it was not feasible,” Ms. Kariko concedes. But as her career shows, “there are windows of opportunities from closed doors.”
Ms. Finley is a member of the Journal’s editorial board
-
What Spreads Faster Than Covid? Vaccination.
Our last pointless ideological fight may be over whether the vaccinated are spreaders.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Dec. 3, 2021 6:14 pm ET
It deserves a wow. Some 57% of the human population has received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and 45% are fully vaccinated, in less than a year.
This means the vaccine has spread approximately twice as fast as the virus, never mind that the virus itself is an exceptionally fast spreader that organizes its own distribution without help from trained administrators and sub-zero storage.
Add that infection also offers a kind of vaccination, so now two kinds of resistance to Covid-19 have been spreading with unprecedented rapidity through the human population.
Numerous were the complaints about how Delta spoiled the summer even for vaccinated people, but it’s not clear why this was so. Vaccination takes away Covid’s deadliest property, its novelty to the human immune system, turning it into the equivalent of a cold or flu. Nobody lets the prospect of a cold or flu spoil their holiday (though perhaps they should for the sake of their elderly in-laws).
The point is not frivolous. It suggests why, rather than a dark new chapter, the Omicron variant may be our last big wallow in hysteria, from which we will awake slightly red-faced in the morning.
Start with numbers and remind yourself that what turned Covid into a global catastrophe wasn’t its unusual deadliness—in unvaccinated people, it appears to be roughly twice as deadly as the flu when unvaccinated apples are compared to unvaccinated apples; in vaccinated people it appears to be significantly less deadly given that our standard flu mortality estimate of 0.1% arises in a U.S. population in which vaccination approaches 70% for the riskiest age brackets.
The big disturber of our equanimity was Covid’s rapid spread—with so many of us getting our high-risk first exposure in a compressed period of time, straining the world’s hospitals.
With flu, the U.S. government estimates that 5% to 20% of us (with or without symptoms) are infected each year; about half of us are vaccinated. With Covid, a government-sponsored study recently estimated that 100 million were infected in 2020, or 30% of the U.S. population, at a time when almost nobody was vaccinated.
This speed of transmission is what keeps throwing the world for a loop; moreover, it seems indisputable in retrospect that we squandered our best point of leverage by failing to focus on protecting the elderly and those at highest risk.
Indeed, so much of what we became hysterical about—mask wearing and vaccine hesitancy as applied to the low-risk—was a poor substitute for communicating about and acting on distinctions in risk.
The worst part is we knew better on day one, but political imperative did not favor realistic communication about risk or prioritization.
Maybe the last of these pointless battles is the current ideologized argument over whether the vaccinated contribute significantly to transmission. The science is inconclusive, but a vaccinated person with Delta might be far less infectious than an unvaccinated person with Delta and still about as infectious as an unvaccinated person with the original Wuhan variant, which had no trouble circling the globe.
In any case, the bigger factor now is behavior, with social distancing falling by the wayside for an increasingly low-risk population. It’s clearer than ever that few of us will escape infection regardless of vaccination status. An extraordinarily safe assumption is that a more communicable variant, if that’s what Omicron is, won’t be “contained.” Hand-wringing about whether Omicron should have been identified sooner seems a tad unrealistic when ever-advancing immunity (natural and vaccinated) guarantees that a huge majority of infections will elude detection among millions of mild colds and flus or when devoid of symptoms altogether.
The shrinking number of Americans who are both high-risk and unvaccinated may be fools but the consequences fall mostly on themselves. In such a world, the idea that everybody’s vaccination status is everybody else’s business rests on increasingly forlorn assumptions.
A second blessing is that evolution gives the virus a reason to become less deadly and disabling, rather than the opposite, though we can never rule out bad luck. In recent weeks, meanwhile, I can’t help but notice the media finally noticing the dead end China set for itself. The Chinese people are falling behind the world in acquiring the powerful hybrid immunity that comes from effective vaccines plus exposure to the evolving virus.
Beijing started out with few good options but would have been wise to throw in its lot with the West on vaccine development. Now its slowly souring bet on zero Covid can only further alienate the country from a world that won’t soon be forgetting where this plague originated.
-
second
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/over-42000-adverse-reaction-reports-revealed-first-batch-pfizer-vax-docs?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=320
-
third
https://www.theepochtimes.com/why-you-cant-find-cheap-at-home-covid-19-tests_4127581.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-12-04-4&est=2U9AHL1D%2B8H2VBoXQAxG%2FoM0tT%2FXTEqr54KQkfYKbl8SvHQu2SfEERE6mV5IBmt2yIJQ
-
https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/07-21-2021-lab-alert-Changes_CDC_RT-PCR_SARS-CoV-2_Testing_1.html?fbclid=IwAR2dcV8ofed5qfsA_flBk3aOEh84UnRjzeAU4gPl82QPBWOZbwECwpOiXLE
-
Pop Sci has become distinctly Woke, offered here FWIW:
https://www.popsci.com/health/covid-erectile-dysfunction/?utm_source=Camden+Contacts&utm_campaign=7f5a4ce3f7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_12_06_02_19&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_387276506e-7f5a4ce3f7-515834222#affinity=Health
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/07/global-access-to-effective-coronavirus-treatments-as-important-as-vaccines/
-
www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/people-who-get-johnson-johnson-vaccine-at-elevated-risk-of-guillain-barre-syndrome-study_4145771.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-12-08-3&mktids=1ed03c2a09621824a15789ff124a3cc2&est=5zuGoWAoufS9aEafqpq7nuWYgB0Sw0Kv%2FdiseT5KmPYI1WlBoJwCgl%2BGcSqNjfUeip7s
-
https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/08/dr-peter-mccullough-vaccine-induced-myocarditis-in-young-people-way-more-serious-than-covid-induced-myocarditis/
-
Covid-19 Vaccines or Infections: Which Carries the Stronger Immunity?
Evidence grows that infections provide as much protection as vaccines, prompting some experts to suggest a nuanced approach to vaccine mandates
Vaccination is a far safer, more reliable strategy for acquiring immunity, given the risks of serious illness or death from infection. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By Denise Roland Follow
Nov. 27, 2021 5:30 am ET
Evidence is building that immunity from Covid-19 infection is at least as strong as that from vaccination. Scientists are divided on the implications for vaccine policy.
The role of immunity from infection, which scientists have been trying to figure out since the outset of the pandemic, has gained fresh significance amid the controversy over vaccine mandates.
Vaccines typically give rise to a stronger antibody response than infection, which might make them better at fending off the virus in the short term. Infection triggers a response that evolves over time, possibly making it more robust in the long term. A combination of both types appears to be stronger than either alone. But the jury is out on whether one form is stronger than the other, and whether their relative strength even matters for vaccine policy.
The comparison is further complicated by the emergence of new variants, such as that identified this month in southern Africa, which may be more contagious and be better at evading vaccines.
One thing is clear: Vaccination is a far safer, more reliable strategy for acquiring immunity, given the risks of serious illness or death from infection. But viewpoints splinter about whether people who have had Covid-19 before need a full course of vaccination, and whether documented prior infection should count as proof of immunity—as is the case in some other countries, including much of Europe.
Immunity from infection hasn’t been studied as extensively as vaccine-mediated immunity. But over the course of the pandemic, clues have emerged to suggest the two are at least equivalent.
Several peer-reviewed studies conducted in the early part of the pandemic, before widespread vaccination, found that people infected during the first waves were around 80% less likely to test positive during the next surge. Those studies spanned healthcare workers in the U.K., the Danish population and patients at the Cleveland Clinic, a large health system with facilities mostly in Ohio and Florida.
A recent Israeli study found that people who had been vaccinated with two shots of the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE —the most commonly used there—were 13 times more likely to later get infected than those with a prior infection. The study, which hasn’t been peer reviewed, tracked confirmed infections between June and August this year for people who had been either vaccinated or infected in January or February.
It also suggested that immunity from infection is longer lasting than that from vaccination.
More real-world evidence would be needed to make the case that immunity from infection is superior to that from vaccination, said David Dowdy, associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
A factor that may have exaggerated the protective benefit of infection in the Israeli study was that vaccinated people could be more likely to travel abroad and bring the virus back to their vaccinated families, pushing case numbers up in that group, he said.
Data from the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics showed that, between May and August, a prior infection offered around the same level of protection against the Delta variant as vaccination with either the Pfizer shot or the one developed by AstraZeneca PLC and the University of Oxford.
Some studies suggest the opposite. One, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that, among people hospitalized with a respiratory illness, Covid-19 was over five times more common among those who were unvaccinated and had an earlier infection compared with those who were fully inoculated and hadn’t had the virus before. Critics say the study, which hasn’t been peer reviewed, had flaws that likely overestimated the relative strength of vaccination.
The CDC said in a recent review of the current scientific evidence that both fully vaccinated and those previously infected with the virus have a low risk of subsequent infection for at least six months.
“It is complicated but…we’re at a state in the world where [vaccination and prior infection] seem equally protective,” said Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine and associate chief of the University of California San Francisco’s division of HIV, infectious diseases and global medicine.
The two forms of immunity appear to have different strengths. Vaccination with mRNA vaccines produced higher concentrations of neutralizing antibodies—the type that prevent the virus from entering cells—than infection, although levels waned in both groups, according to a recent paper published in the journal Nature by researchers at the Rockefeller University in New York.
The new coronavirus variant has sparked fears of further travel restrictions.
Immune memory, however, appears to be stronger following infection. The Rockefeller research group found in an earlier study, also published in Nature, that the antibodies produced by memory B cells—which quickly multiply in subsequent encounters with the virus—continued to evolve at least a year after infection. The study on vaccinated people found that the antibodies produced by their memory B cells didn’t change much over time.
One possible reason for the difference, they said, was that pieces of virus remain in the body for weeks after infection, whereas vaccine particles fade away faster. The upshot: The immune memory of people who have been infected is ready to produce a broader array of antibodies than of people who have been vaccinated.
Michel Nussenzweig, the professor who led the Rockefeller research, said the papers suggest that vaccination likely offers better protection from infection but that this protection wanes rapidly. However, the quality of long-term immune memory, which is key to responding to infection and staying out of the hospital, is superior in people who have had an infection, he said.
So-called hybrid immunity—that in people who have had both vaccination and infection—has been shown to be strongest of all. The Rockefeller researchers found that vaccination boosted levels of antibodies in the blood and memory B cells in people who had been infected before. The effect also appears to work in the other direction: A study of vaccinated people who were infected during a July 4 holiday weekend outbreak in Cape Cod found that they produced high levels of antibodies and T-cells directed against the virus. That study, led by researchers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, hasn’t been peer reviewed.
Questions remain, though, about whether people who have had Covid-19 need a full course of vaccination. A study from New York University found that although one dose of the Pfizer vaccine significantly increased antibody levels in people with a prior infection, a second dose produced a more muted response.
Another study from researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York found that a single dose of the Pfizer or Moderna Inc. vaccines produced more antibodies in people who had previously had Covid-19 than two doses did in those who had never encountered the virus. It also found that people with prior infection report more unpleasant side effects from vaccination. The authors concluded that offering a single shot to those who had already had Covid-19 wouldn’t negatively affect their antibody levels and would spare them from needless pain. The NYU and Icahn studies haven’t been peer reviewed.
Some doctors say the mounting evidence on the role of immunity from infection supports a more nuanced approach to vaccine policy.
Among them is UCSF’s Dr. Gandhi, who supports a single dose of vaccine in people who have had the virus. She also thinks prior infection should carry weight when it comes to vaccine mandates. “Mandating [vaccination] so that someone [unvaccinated] loses their job if they have a proven prior infection is going too far,” she said.
Marty Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, also advocates a case-by-case approach to vaccination in people who have already had Covid-19, especially among children. “There’s no scientific basis for vaccinating people who had the infection,” he said. “It’s not clear to me that the benefits of vaccination in someone who has circulating antibodies outweighs the risk.”
Lockdowns, vaccine requirements and travel restrictions have swept Europe amid rising Covid infections and concerns over a variant detected in South Africa, highlighting new challenges ahead for the U.S. as officials want to avoid more shutdowns.
Yet others say universal vaccination—as recommended by the CDC—still makes sense. That is mainly because the vaccines are safe and have been shown to enhance the immune response of people who have been infected before.
One issue with a more targeted approach is that immune responses to infections vary, and there is no way to sort out people whose infection led to a strong response from those who didn’t. Although responses to vaccination also differ, the dose is fixed, making it less variable, they say.
“The risk of vaccination is extraordinarily low,” said Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC and chief executive of Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit initiative that works on strengthening epidemic preparedness. “The benefit is high and the uncertainty with infection makes it so that you can’t make that a replacement to vaccination.”
-
one can watch cable news and keep driving one self nuts with the 24/7 daily rehash
of cherry picked data analyses and pundits
health "experts" etc
I just got the damn 3rd shot
and am glad
the rest of the country can keep yelling screaming wringing their hands back and forth
Frankly my dears , I don't give a shit anymore
thank you for listening
ccp
-
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356962821_Ivermectin_prophylaxis_used_for_COVID-19_reduces_COVID-19_infection_and_mortality_rates_A_220517-subject_populational-level_retrospective_citywide
-
second
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.10.21267534v1
-
Severity of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfections as Compared with Primary Infections | NEJM
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2108120?fbclid=IwAR3h6Zh5z1utod3IbaM5asmr7j_FzlDaDRu_xpTXTmW98FL-Pj0HOKCdyTo
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/dec/14/pfizer-confirms-covid-19-pills-results-potency-ver/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=JDlDi%2BOrKvSw0y%2BiLqL09rg8YU%2F1aKKZtR7g2LICMiWiNN6F72IpWPIFKAueUtBw&bt_ts=1639488867147
-
Fourth
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.04.21267114v1.full.pdf
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/taiwanese-lab-leak-sharpens-debate-on-pandemic-origin_4157452.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-12-15&mktids=9b6fa8e6ca2219d05592f2de0713cf4d&est=SWWInhVDga%2F16CVghUTMNKv%2FQKauJTZaRGXfoS4iWsbJfhZhBAgypc3rg1oJoqYkaWdL
-
".And a prominent and early supporter of the natural origins narrative, Columbia University virologist Ian Lipkin, changed his mind about the virus’s origin after the Wuhan Institute admitted it conducted its coronavirus experiments at a BSL-2 lab.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” Lipkin stated. “People should not be looking at bat viruses in BSL-2 labs.”
Lipkin said that he now considers a lab leak to be a viable theory, saying that his “view has changed.”
Well Ian Lipkin will not be invited back on DNC shill Erin Burnett any time soo.
he will not get free tickets to an NBA game
may lose is tenure at Columbia
and get "fact checked on Fakebook".
here he is on DNC propagandist fake jurnolisters show [for the last time]:
https://twitter.com/cnn/status/1355390535385501698
AND HE BETTER NOT SET FOOT BACK IN PRC.
-
As previously mentioned Ian Lipkin was a college buddy in my freshman and sophmore years. At the time he went by Wally". We use to jam together on guitar, with him taking lead.
Glad to see him rediscovering his integrity!
-
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/healthcare/uk-study-finds-no-evidence-of-omicron-having-lower-severity-than-delta
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/can-ivermectin-help-prevent-covid-19-deaths_4164036.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-12-18-2&mktids=3925b4ea63a66be07697343060f7573a&est=nvrB5nXOtz9T5jAK65hRQmey7kS6ysHmWnI1WjeXsfb9LMnGgj%2BsUKffvXedtdTbQ%2Bi2
BTW I take Vitamin D everyday.
-
Laura had a researcher who developed the "RNA platform "
on last night (but I cannot find it posted now no link here )
He along with a researcher who did the "best meta analysis"
explained how a recent study was shut down by Merck for lack of study medicine.
They said the reasons for stopping it had to be a lie ( or gross negligence) and suspect a cover up.
It is possible that it is Merck's interests to stop that research for the this very cheap generic drug (ivermectin ) in order to push the more expensive drugs they are researching later.
(or the med est. is covering this up for political reasons?)
he also said omicron is much less serious than delta or previous strains and to his knowledge only 10 deaths so far -> WOLRD WIDE ! And this would be a blessing if this milder variant takes hold to replace earlier more dangerous strains.
One thing I do not disagree with he said the 300 mcgs per kg (ivermectin) is "small".
When I have used ivermectin for parasites it is 200 mcgs/kg that we use, so I do not think this is a "small dose". It is the usual therapeutic dose.
https://www.drugs.com/ivermectin.html#dosage
I have not been offering ivermectin
at this point, but my mind is open.
I don't trust Merck after yesterday's interview.
-
Had scratchy throat low grade fever
and mild headache and feeling washed out
yesterday
called and googled around
no home or PCR tests available in my area for 8 days.....
thanks Joe and Phil (Murphy).
-
Had scratchy throat low grade fever
and mild headache and feeling washed out
yesterday
called and googled around
no home or PCR tests available in my area for 8 days.....
thanks Joe and Phil (Murphy). (Gov NJ)
Operation Warpspeed is currently on vacation in Mara Lago. Current occupant is more interested in trans bathrooms than public health.
-
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/15/wuhan-lab-leak-now-likely-origin-covid-mps-told/
Lab leak? Yes, and wouldn't be a global pandemic without '"gain of function".
China and Fauci lied and millions died.
-
".One thing I do not disagree with he said the 300 mcgs per kg (ivermectin) is "small".
When I have used ivermectin for parasites it is 200 mcgs/kg that we use, so I do not think this is a "small dose". It is the usual therapeutic dose."
I meant to say , "I DO DISAGREE".
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/12/21/white-house-plans-to-send-500-million-coronavirus-tests-to-americans-two-weeks-after-mocking-idea/
-
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/12/us-army-creates-single-vaccine-effective-against-all-covid-sars-variants/360089/
I note that at long last someone is acknowledging my point about the corruption of vaxx efficacy rates by including people with natural antibodies:
"The vaccine’s human trials took longer than expected, he said, because the lab needed to test the vaccine on subjects who had neither been vaccinated nor previously infected with COVID.
"Increasing vaccination rates and the rapid spread of the Delta and Omicron variants made that difficult. "
-
Second post
https://whnt.com/news/4-in-10-covid-patients-dont-have-any-symptoms-study-warns/?utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR1lWFezORzhn5rJoeiXvMqBFwDrC_VcBLOdoVdMaaSXIGtJG-_og--_l4g
-
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/nyregion/covid-vaccine-black-young-new-yorkers.html
Someone please send NYT login codes to me by private message. )
Interesting that Trump pushed the vaccine and has now had his booster, and the young and black, not a traditional conservative base group, are among the most unvaxxed.
Someone please check the narrative.
I can't see the article but what this statistic says to me is that young blacks are among the most skeptical of government knows best message, a core tenet of conservatism, no matter the merits of the vaccine.
-
"I note that at long last someone is acknowledging my point about the corruption of vaxx efficacy rates by including people with natural antibodies"
- That's right. With the whole world as a sample size, it is so strange that our data is so flawed and lacking.
Among both the vaxxed and the unvaxxed are those with natural immunities.
Twice I have shown my vaccine card to enter a (choral music) event, proving that I have, what, 1/13th the protection of someone unvaccinated who recently recovered from Covid? Next time, if they scrutinize carefully enough, they will kick me out for not having a booster - an alpha booster that doesn't stop the spread of delta or omicron.
Everything is based on rear view mirror data. By the time I took the alpha vaccine, the threat was delta and now it is 80% omicron with no data yet showing that bug is more dangerous than the flu, or walking to the store.
A new vaccine protecting against Omicron is great news! Why are they requiring me to take the old one that doesn't?
Heart disease and cancer both kill more people than covid. We focus on covid deaths because they are more avoidable.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
Speaking of data and avoidable transmission, Covid killed fewer people at its peak than abortion:
https://christianliferesources.com/2021/01/19/u-s-abortion-statistics-by-year-1973-current/
Liberal silence on that is deafening.
-
Denmark: 76% of Non-Omicron COVID Infections and 90% of Omicron Infections are in the Vaccinated??
Probably because the country is 88% vaxxed and the vaccine does not stop the delta or omicron infections:
https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/europe/denmark-records-highest-covid-cases-despite-inoculating-88-percent-of-its-population.html
https://www.ssi.dk/-/media/cdn/files/covid19/omikron/statusrapport/rapport-omikronvarianten-17122021-ep96.pdf?la=da
https://www.ssi.dk/-/media/cdn/files/covid19/omikron/statusrapport/rapport-omikronvarianten-16122021-fk3t.pdf?la=da
https://thebluestateconservative.com/2021/12/22/denmark-76-of-non-omicron-covid-infections-and-90-of-omicron-infections-are-vaccinated/
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/stunning-covid-data-from-denmark
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10337845/Enormous-spread-Omicron-cause-140-MILLION-new-infections-January-1-March-1.html
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/12/23/kamala-harris-flees-d-c-for-los-angeles-after-close-contact-with-infected-staffer/
she should stay put and quarantine
not jump on airplane to fly 3,000 miles
what the hell is so pressing she needs to be in California anyway that she cannot do from DC
via online phone etc?
yet Americans should not get together for the holidays for any risk at all. :roll:
-
https://elquanah.com/2021/12/22/if-youve-had-covid-youre-likely-protected-for-life/
-
https://www.newsmax.com/us/biden-omicron-measures-experts/2021/12/23/id/1049818/
At this point after 2 yrs
I feel there is no real stopping this
might as well run its course
and high risk people take more precautions
all these measures apart from vaccination to prevent severe infections
can't stop this.
a President Houdini would not have been able to do more
we have to hope for God to kill off the virulent strains and the scientists to save us from this
like in the War of the Worlds.....
and make China pay for this.....
-
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6f5e5ff8-41a0-4c2d-b61c-b3392d9666ed_750x1334.png
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/a-ny-times-editor-has-died-of-a-heart/comments?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDYwMjk5NDIsIl8iOiJKK1dFNCIsImlhdCI6MTY0MDUxMTE2NSwiZXhwIjoxNjQwNTE0NzY1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzYzMDgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.cbNZNXI8EhKKPguXiU0S0joRHtd3bdAjBMtSwKu6hEo
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/094/199/272/original/b1261b377bb20a34.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/094/199/272/original/b1261b377bb20a34.png)
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDHwhrOh0Eo&t=83s
-
thanks to Trump we have vaccines that are murdering young athletes
he just FINALLY came out and encouraged people to get after a yr
is that your point?
Look, the medical field has done the best it can; and often failed
so have politicians and others
but
if you get corona do not call an accountant ......or Laura know it all Ingraham
if we get an epidemic do not call for the tanks......
on the front lines we are doing the best we can
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDHwhrOh0Eo&t=83s
Just a coincidence!
(https://i0.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/message-nuremberg-code-government-can-force-medical.jpg?w=480&ssl=1)
-
orced Vaccinations: Below are the rights of All People of the World to resist taking any of the “Covid 19 vaccination” injections.
UN Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights:
Article 6, section 1:
Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any
reason without disadvantage or prejudice.
Article 6, section 3:
In no case should a collective community agreement or the consent of a community leader or other authority substitute for an individual’s informed consent.
According to the BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL
No 7070 Volume 313: Page 1448, 7 December 1996.
CIRP Introduction
The judgment by the war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg laid down 10 standards to which physicians must conform when carrying out experiments on human subjects in a new code that is now accepted worldwide.
This judgment established a new standard of ethical medical behavior for the post World War II human rights era. Amongst other requirements, this document enunciates the requirement
of voluntary informed consent of the human subject. The principle of voluntary informed consent protects the right of the individual to control his own body.
This code also recognizes that the risk must be weighed against the expected benefit, and that unnecessary pain and suffering must be avoided.
This code recognizes that doctors should avoid actions that injure human patients.
The principles established by this code for medical practice now have been extended into general codes of medical ethics.
The Nuremberg Code (1947)
Permissible Medical Experiments
The great weight of the evidence before us to effect that certain types of medical experiments on human beings, when kept within reasonably well-defined bounds, conform to the ethics of the medical profession generally. The protagonists of the practice of human experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other methods or means of study. All agree, however, that certain basic principles must be observed in order
to satisfy moral, ethical and legal concepts:
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to
exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient
knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the
acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to
be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.
The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs, or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.
2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.
3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated
results justify the performance of the experiment.
4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental
physicians also serve as subjects.
6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.
7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability or death.
8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.
9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the
experiment seems to him to be impossible.
10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith,
superior skill and careful judgment required of him, that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.
-
https://www.thedailybeast.com/alex-jones-threatens-to-dish-dirt-on-donald-trump-for-pushing-covid-19-vaccine
:roll:
-
Well, if you lie down with dogs don't be surprised if you acquire fleas.
With good reason, AJ is persona non grata on this forum. That said, it cannot be ruled out that he will be able to hurt Trump badly with accusations based upon the events of January 6.
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/
-
Omicron: My Current Model
by Zvi
December 30, 2021 9:28 AM
A year and a half ago, I wrote a post called Covid-19: My Current Model. Since then things have often changed, and we have learned a lot. It seems like high time for a new post of this type.
Note that this post mostly does not justify and explain its statements. I document my thinking, sources and analysis extensively elsewhere, little of this should be new.
This post combines the basic principles from my original post, which mostly still stand, with my core model for Omicron. I’ll summarize and update the first post, then share my current principles for Omicron and how to deal with and think about it.
There’s a lot of different things going on, so this will likely be incomplete, but hopefully it will prove useful. The personally useful executive summary version first.
Omicron has already taken over, most cases are being missed, crunch time is now. Crunch time will likely last 1-2 months.
First two shots don’t protect against infection, boosters do somewhat (60%?).
Vaccination and natural infection protect against severe disease, hospitalization and death (best guess ~80% reduction in death for double vaccination, 95%+ reduction in death for boosters but too soon to know).
Tests work, but when delayed are mostly useless for preventing infection especially when delayed, as Omicron can spread within 1-2 days after exposure. Rapid tests mostly test for infectiousness, not being positive.
Omicron probably milder than Delta (~50%) so baseline IFR likely ~0.3% unless hospitals overload, lower for vaccinated or reinfected.
Being young and healthy is robust protection against severe disease and death, being not that means a lot more risk. Long Covid risk small but real for all age groups, vaccination likely helps a lot.
Medical system is under strain, could be overwhelmed soon, should be better again in a few months at most if it gets bad. Delaying infection has value but stopping it fully is likely not worth the cost. If you care about real prevention, the tools that matter are vaccination, good masks (N95 or even better P100+), social distancing and air ventilation.
Vitamin D and Zinc, and if possible Fluvoxamine, are worth it if you get infected, also Vitamin D is worth taking now anyway (I take 5k IUs/day). Paxlovid is great (~88%) if available right after you test positive, but in very limited supply for now.
Default action on positive test is 5 days isolation at home as per new CDC guidelines, if possible is good to get a negative rapid test before ending isolation. If things get bad, especially if you have trouble breathing, call your doctor, seek treatment and so on.
Here are the old principles that still apply, with adjustments as appropriate:
Risks follow Power Laws. Focus on reducing your biggest risks.
Sacrifices to the Gods are demanded everywhere. Most intervention effort treats Covid-19 as a morality in which the wicked must be punished, rather than aiming physical interventions to achieve physical results.
Governments Most Places Are Lying Liars With No Ability To Plan or Physically Reason. They Can’t Even Stop Interfering and Killing People. There is a War, and the WHO, FDA and CDC, and most similar agencies abroad, and most elected officials, are not on our side of it. Instead they focus mostly on getting in the way, protecting their power and seeking to avoid blame on a two week time horizon.
Silence is Golden. Talking or singing greatly increases infection risk, and the directions people face matter too. You’re still not safe or anything, but it helps.
Surfaces are Mostly Harmless. Mostly don’t wor
y about them.
Food is Mostly Harmless. Mostly don’t worry about it.
Outdoor Activity Is Relatively Harmless. It’s a huge relative risk reduction.
Masks Are Effective. I’m less excited about cloth masks than I used to be, but I remain confident in N95s, and if you actually need to not get Covid-19 you can step up and use P100s or other heavy-duty options at the cost of social awkwardness. My rule of thumb at this point: Cloth masks are for satisfying mask requirements. N95s are for reducing Covid-19 risk. P100s are for actually attempting to prevent Covid-19. Choose your fighter.
Six Feet Is An Arbitrary Number. There’s still nothing better than an inverse square law, so by default I presume 12 feet is a quarter of the risk of 6 feet, and 3 feet is quadruple the risk, there is no magic number. No one seems to care about distancing much anymore. If there was one big omission last time, it was not focusing on air ventilation and flow.
Partial Herd Immunity Matters. 75% immunity no longer cuts it under Omicron, but every little bit helps. This isn’t an all-or-nothing situation. Every person that is immune, or even partially immune, slows the spread.
Yes, We Know People Who Have Been Infected Are (Largely) Immune. This is less absolute than it used to be. Infection by Delta or earlier strains provides strong protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death, but not total protection, and it provides far less protection against infection.
Our Lack of Experimentation Is Still Completely Insane. Yes.
We Should Be Spending Vastly More on Vaccines, Testing and Other Medical Solutions. Yes.
R0 Defaults In Medium-Term To Just Under One. This is true because case rates and behaviors and rates of previous infection adjust until it becomes true. It’s importantly not true if pushed past its breaking point, and the question is whether or not this happened with Omicron. But in a few months, it will be true again either way.
The Default Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) Is At Most 1%. Still true, but my estimates are now doubly lower for better treatments and Omicron being milder, see the new section.
Many Deaths and Infections are missed. The numbers I put here no longer apply, and the rate at which cases are missed varies a lot based on conditions. My guess is that most deaths are now identified in the United States, but that most cases are once again being missed under Omicron because they’re milder and testing is once again in short supply.
People Don’t Modify Behavior Much In Response To Rules. Most of the reaction to conditions is private choices on how to react. Private reaction to Omicron happened despite not much public imposition of new rules. Vaccine mandates are the one big exception.
It’s Out of Our Hands. Almost entirely true at this point. It’s on individuals to react wisely.
Support Longevity Research. If you think that people dying is bad, maybe we should do something about it.
Next, how to personally think about Omicron beyond the above.
First, infection.
Importance of air ventilation is the biggest thing I didn’t talk about before. It makes a huge difference to risk of infection whether or not there is good air flow. The glass barriers in restaurants are probably counterproductive (and my not realizing this early on was a mistake on my part).
You are probably going to get Omicron, if you haven’t had it already. The level of precaution necessary to change this assessment is very high, and you probably don’t want to pay that price.
You can probably guard against Omicron if you want to do so badly enough and don’t need to work outside the home, either short term or entirely. This means a P100-style or better mask, if you’re actually trying. It means extreme social distancing and isolation and caring about ventilation. It also means getting vaccinated and boosted. For those who are immunocompromised or otherwise at extremely high risk, this is a reasonable option.
There are a ton more cases out there than are being reported. Hard to tell exactly how many, but it’s a lot more. In addition to missing a lot of cases, being several days behind can mean you’re at several times more risk than it otherwise looks like at any given time, until things stabilize. So looking at current positive tests can be an order of magnitude or more too low.
Omicron spreads easier than Delta even among the unvaccinated. We don’t know this for a pure fact yet but it seems very likely to be a large effect. Assume the amount of exposure it takes to reach critical mass has gone down.
Vaccination with one or two doses of current vaccines is minimally protective against infection by Omicron. The data isn’t fully in, but this seems clear. If you haven’t been boosted, your protection is mostly against severe disease, hospitalization and death, rather than infection, although you’re somewhat less likely to spread the disease further because you’ll recover faster.
Vaccination with three doses is protective against infection by Omicron, but less protective than vaccines were against Delta. As a rule of thumb I am currently acting as if a booster shot is something like 60%-70% protective against infection but I don’t have confidence in that number. The main protection is still against severe disease, hospitalization and death.
The generation time (serial interval) of Omicron is lower than Delta. Someone who is infected today will often be highly contagious the day after tomorrow, and may be infectious tomorrow. Much of infectiousness proceeds symptoms.
Next, testing and isolation.
PCR tests are useful and accurate, but don’t mean you’re not infectious, and if they are delayed they become useless. The ideal is getting it back in 24 hours, but even that is a lot of the window before someone is infectious, so this doesn’t provide that big a risk reduction against Omicron. If it takes 48+ hours, use other than for treatment is greatly reduced.
Rapid tests are useful and mostly tell you if you’re currently infectious. They can have ‘false’ negatives, and actual false negatives, mostly because you can be infected but not infectious, and then you’ll mostly come back negative. Also user error is always an issue. Rapid tests are the more useful way to identify who is infectious and prevent spread, but far from foolproof.
All rapid and PCR tests detect Omicron. I include this because I know of people who aren’t confident on that and are freaking out a bit.
A negative rapid test should be necessary before ending isolation. The CDC’s new guidelines don’t say this but this seems overdetermined and obvious to me. If you care about not being infectious, you should check on that before exposing others.
The majority of infectiousness is within the first five days, and CDC guidelines now only require five days of isolation. That doesn’t mean five days is suddenly safe instead of unsafe, but the show must go on, so the rules have changed. Five days plus a negative test seems fine in general, but I still wouldn’t visit any grandparents that soon.
Next, vaccination, prognosis and treatment.
Omicron is probably substantially milder than Delta. My guess is something like 50% milder, so half the risks. How much comfort that provides is your call.
Being young is still the best defense. Everyone please stop being terrified about what might happen to young children. Most deaths will still be among the old and unhealthy. Remember that these are orders of magnitude differences.
Being healthy still helps a lot. If you are at a healthy weight and don’t have diabetes, and aren’t immunocompromised, those are also big games. If you do have these issues, that’s a problem. See my old post on comorbidity.
Vaccination is highly protective against severe disease, hospitalization and death. The vaccines are likely somewhat less effective against Omicron than Delta here, but still highly effective. Protection against hospitalization is probably something like 80%, with likely additional protection above that against severe disease, and then even more protection against death.
Booster shots are even more protective. I urge everyone to get their booster shots.
Previous infection, including by Delta, is highly protective as well. It’s at least similar to being vaccinated normally. Unclear if it’s better than that.
The risks of Covid-19 prevented by vaccination greatly exceed the risks of vaccination. Even the specific ‘risks’ of vaccination are net decreased by vaccination, because it prevents Covid-19 and makes Covid-19 more mild. If you are worried about unknown risks, get vaccinated. There are a few exceptions for specific medical situations, if you think you’re one of those exceptions talk to your doctor.
Most cases will be asymptomatic or mild, even if you are unvaccinated. It’s important not to forget this, or pretend otherwise in order to scare people.
If you do have symptoms or test positive, take at least Zinc and Vitamin D. You should be taking Vitamin D regardless. This isn’t a statement that you shouldn’t take anything else, but there’s nothing else that I know rises to this level.
If you test positive, consider Fluvoxamine. It is an SSRI, so it’s not something one should take lightly or proactively, only when you know you’ve been infected. Again, I’m not saying not to take anything else that I’m not listing, I’m merely saying I don’t have this level of confidence in anything else that’s available. Merck’s pill increases risk of mutations and I now believe it should not have been approved, but it likely is good for your personal health outcomes if you can get it in time and adhere to the protocol. If you do take it, you really really really need to follow the full protocol exactly.
If you test positive and can get it in time, take Paxlovid. Paxlovid reduces hospitalization and severe disease by about 88%. If you’re young and in good health and don’t want to take from the currently limited supply, I applaud that decision until there’s sufficient supply.
By default, recover while isolating at home. The medical system is there if you need it, but most of the time you will not need it. Trouble breathing is the biggest ‘seek treatment now’ sign, but I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice, and when in doubt call a real doctor.
Once you go to the hospital or otherwise seek treatment, I don’t have anything for you beyond wishing you luck. If I get sick, I will follow my wife’s advice, as she is a doctor. Can only focus on so many questions at once.
If the hospitals get overloaded things get much worse. A lot of patients that would otherwise live, will die without treatments the hospitals can give, especially oxygen.
Getting Omicron in January (or late December) is worse than getting it in February, which is worse than getting it in March. At some point in January (or maybe February, but probably January) there will be a turning point where strain on hospitals and the testing system begins to decline. If you get sick during the period when things are bad, then your prospects are worse. A small amount worse if the system is merely under strain, but much worse if things start to collapse and capacity runs out. Also Paxlovid is coming.
Long Covid is real but rare and risk scales with severity. This is not something we can be confident in, and there are big unknowns to be sure, but my baseline continues to be that Long Covid risks are mostly proportional to short-term serious Covid risks aside from not scaling as much with age, and other things that reduce one reduce the other. Long Covid is still the biggest downside to getting Covid if one is young. I wish I could put a magnitude on this risk, but my best guess continues to be that this is not that much worse or different than e.g. Long Flu or Long Lyme, sometimes getting diseases does longer term damage than we realize and curing and preventing disease is therefore even more valuable than we think. But to extent you worry, Paxlovid probably does a lot to prevent this, so holding out until it is available would help you here.
Other modeling observations and general prognosis.
Omicron is already the dominant strain. Delta will not go away entirely, but is unlikely to be a substantial presence going forward.
Things will peak in January, or perhaps February (or possibly the last few days of December). This is overdetermined.
After the peak things will probably decline rapidly, then stabilize at a new normal level. Fluctuations will happen as before, but there won’t be another Omicron peak like this one. If there is sufficient overshoot on immunity things might collapse further.
There might be another strain in the future. I don’t know how likely this is, but that’s the most likely way that things ‘don’t mostly end’ after this wave.
Once this wave is over and Paxlovid is widely available, restrictions don’t make sense. Continuing to require distancing or masks, or pushing hard on further vaccinations, isn’t justified by the levels of risk we will face, and there’s no collective risk justification either.
Taking action to ‘stop the spread’ mostly no longer makes sense. The spread isn’t going to be stopped, that ship has very much sailed. Slowing it down a bit has some value, but ‘pandemic ethics’ no longer apply.
Modifying how you live your life also won’t make sense. Covid-19 will be one more disease among many, and life will be marginally worse, but by about April you shouldn’t act substantially differently than if it no longer existed.
We’ll have to fight to end many restrictions. They will by default continue long past the point when they stop making any sense. Various forces will fight to use these restrictions to expand their powers permanently.
Discuss
-
https://www.drugs.com/news/certain-antidepressants-appear-curb-severe-covid-19-101669.html
-
Yes. This makes sense to me, as fair and accurate as anything else out there I think.
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/life-insurance-ceo-says-deaths-40-among-those-aged-18-64-and-not-because-covid
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/netherlands-announces-plan-dole-out-6-vaccine-doses
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/netherlands-announces-plan-dole-out-6-vaccine-doses
(https://i2.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/doctor-not-sure-about-9th-booster-anti-vaxxer.jpg?w=500&ssl=1)
https://i2.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/doctor-not-sure-about-9th-booster-anti-vaxxer.jpg?w=500&ssl=1
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/01/05/report-republican-senators-team-with-democrats-to-negotiate-68b-omicron-stimulus-package/
hey it is measly 68 bill
no biggie
this is the answer to everything more spending .. Sue Collins - can we please vote her out!
:roll:
-
When Susan Collins is out, the replacement will be worse. Just like if Dems primary Joe Manchin out with an AOC / Bernie clone, they lose the seat.
-
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-omicron-mouse-kind.html
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/095/054/219/original/75724708466698c6.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/095/054/219/original/75724708466698c6.jpg)
-
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-new-normal-13-year
-
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-new-normal-13-year
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/01/heartbreaking-double-vaccinated-13-year-old-boy-new-jersey-dies-suffering-cardiac-arrest/
Nuremberg 2.0 is coming.
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/netherlands-announces-plan-dole-out-6-vaccine-doses
(https://i2.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/doctor-not-sure-about-9th-booster-anti-vaxxer.jpg?w=500&ssl=1)
https://i2.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/doctor-not-sure-about-9th-booster-anti-vaxxer.jpg?w=500&ssl=1
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2022/01/let-me-know-when-penny-drops.html?m=1
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/a-quick-note-on-masks-and-cdc-guidance?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDY3MTIyMzYsIl8iOiJjVVIrYiIsImlhdCI6MTY0MTU4NTc0MCwiZXhwIjoxNjQxNTg5MzQwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.xRYelJAJ9NFAsS8iI_jsTiaJfuxsZd0adk_1gJRgh_E
-
I am undecided as to whether he is reliable:
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/has-covid-vaccine-efficacy-turned?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDY3MTA2NjAsIl8iOiJjVVIrYiIsImlhdCI6MTY0MTU4NjkwOSwiZXhwIjoxNjQxNTkwNTA5LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzYzMDgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.kljESiHdqQbloU-PpEhoaD_aqJsRFGbpU00R-8yBDqM
-
I am undecided as to whether he is reliable:
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/has-covid-vaccine-efficacy-turned?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDY3MTA2NjAsIl8iOiJjVVIrYiIsImlhdCI6MTY0MTU4NjkwOSwiZXhwIjoxNjQxNTkwNTA5LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzYzMDgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.kljESiHdqQbloU-PpEhoaD_aqJsRFGbpU00R-8yBDqM
See any flaws in what he posted?
-
Some of the statistics stuff goes right over my head. I have seen plausible articles challenging Berenson on other occasions. In the interest of integrity in the pursuit of truth, I mention this even as I post him.
-
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01377-5/fulltext
-
Vaccine Access and the Recovery
Access to COVID-19 vaccines is critical for economic recovery.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Global Vaccination Review | 2021
(click to enlarge)
We’re two years into the pandemic, but in many ways the start of 2022 feels very similar to the start of 2021. A holiday-induced wave of COVID-19 is picking up across the globe; restrictions on social activity are in place in many places to varying degrees; and supply chains are suffering from missing or damaged links. One notable difference, however, is the global administration of vaccines against the virus. This difference is critical for facilitating the economic recovery, whose progress varies greatly depending on the country. Unsurprisingly, developed and wealthier economies have higher vaccination rates than the developing world. Many people in North America and Europe are receiving booster shots, while in Africa people have yet to receive even a first dose of the vaccine.
Vaccine access will, in turn, impact countries’ economic performance in 2022. Developing countries could not weather lockdowns in the same way that advanced economies could. Poverty increased in many places, as did the presence of informal labor. Developing countries’ governments also lacked the fiscal bandwidth and institutional strength to throw money at the problem and foster a recovery. Much of the developing world has seen economic and wealth conditions set back a decade or more, and government debt problems are a reminder of the Third World debt crisis of the 1990s. The dual-track recovery will start to show itself more prominently this year.
-
I have signed up for this woman's email list:
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/a-quick-note-on-masks-and-cdc-guidance?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDY3MTIyMzYsIl8iOiJjVVIrYiIsImlhdCI6MTY0MTU4NTc0MCwiZXhwIjoxNjQxNTg5MzQwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.xRYelJAJ9NFAsS8iI_jsTiaJfuxsZd0adk_1gJRgh_E
-
Despite extensive travel and not wearing a mask, I still haven’t managed to get Sino Lung AIDS.
I have signed up for this woman's email list:
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/a-quick-note-on-masks-and-cdc-guidance?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDY3MTIyMzYsIl8iOiJjVVIrYiIsImlhdCI6MTY0MTU4NTc0MCwiZXhwIjoxNjQxNTg5MzQwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.xRYelJAJ9NFAsS8iI_jsTiaJfuxsZd0adk_1gJRgh_E
-
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/there-is-no-stopping-condition
-
Is his logic here wrong?
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1511003/fauci-2009-clearly-stating-this-is-about-profits
-
Despite extensive travel and not wearing a mask, I still haven’t managed to get Sino Lung AIDS.
I've got it. Don't be overconfident.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/covid-19-vaccines-linked-to-change-in-menstrual-cycles-study_4199446.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-01-07-4&utm_medium=email&est=tod9hIsoMXVi1NppMiIZJ0iBpxeRBCswhJ2Kunxlis%2BkcW66J3jalfRvk%2FakGoOkYD%2B0
-
Despite extensive travel and not wearing a mask, I still haven’t managed to get Sino Lung AIDS.
I've got it. Don't be overconfident.
You have it now?
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/covid-19-vaccines-linked-to-change-in-menstrual-cycles-study_4199446.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-01-07-4&utm_medium=email&est=tod9hIsoMXVi1NppMiIZJ0iBpxeRBCswhJ2Kunxlis%2BkcW66J3jalfRvk%2FakGoOkYD%2B0
Paywalled.
-
here:
COVID-19 Vaccines Linked to Change in Menstrual Cycles: Study
By Zachary Stieber January 7, 2022 Updated: January 7, 2022biggersmaller Print
Getting a COVID-19 vaccine has been linked to a change in the menstrual cycle among women, per a new study.
Dr. Alison Edelman of the Oregon Health & Science University and other researchers studied cycles among 2,403 vaccinated and 1,556 unvaccinated women and concluded vaccination was associated with a change in cycle length.
The change was pegged at under one day; no change in menses length was detected.
Researchers said that vaccines that use messenger RNA technology—both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s do—trigger an immune response, which could temporarily affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis function, and the study results support the hypothesis.
“Our findings are reassuring; we find no population-level clinically meaningful change in menstrual cycle length associated with COVID19 vaccination. Our findings support and help explain the self-reports of changes in cycle length. Individuals receiving two COVID-19 vaccine doses in a single cycle do appear to experience a longer but temporary cycle length change,” the researchers wrote.
While the study did not find vaccination associated with changes in menses length, “questions remain about other possible changes in menstrual cycles, such as menstrual symptoms, unscheduled bleeding, and changes in the quality and quantity of menstrual bleeding,” they added.
Limitations include possibly not being generalizable to the U.S. population given that the women who use Natural Cycles, from which the data came, are more likely to be white, college educated, and have lower body mass indexes than the average woman.
The study was published by Obstetrics & Gynecology and was funded by the National Institutes of Health, which last year awarded $1.6 million in grants to probe potential links between vaccination and menstrual changes.
“It is reassuring that the study found only a small, temporary menstrual change in women,” Dr. Diana Bianchi, director of agency’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
“These results provide, for the first time, an opportunity to counsel women about what to expect from COVID-19 vaccination so they can plan accordingly,” she added.
Little research has been conducted in the past on how vaccines, whether for COVID-19 or note, could influence the menstrual cycle, according to officials.
Research conducted in Norway by the country’s Institute of Public Health and published last month showed many women reported heavier periods than normal after getting a COVID-19 vaccine, but also found most changes went away after a period of time.
“Most menstrual changes after the first dose were transient. On average, they returned to their normal levels by the time of vaccination with the second dose, approximately two to three months after the first dose,” Dr. Lill Trogstad, project leader at the institute, said in a statement.
Authorities in Norway recommended women who experience heavy and persistent bleeding after vaccination put off any further doses until the cause is investigated or symptoms pass.
-
Despite extensive travel and not wearing a mask, I still haven’t managed to get Sino Lung AIDS.
I have signed up for this woman's email list:
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/a-quick-note-on-masks-and-cdc-guidance?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDY3MTIyMzYsIl8iOiJjVVIrYiIsImlhdCI6MTY0MTU4NTc0MCwiZXhwIjoxNjQxNTg5MzQwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.xRYelJAJ9NFAsS8iI_jsTiaJfuxsZd0adk_1gJRgh_E
https://i2.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/omicron-variant-gummy-flintstone-vitams-van-damme.jpg?resize=519%2C407&ssl=1
(https://i2.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/omicron-variant-gummy-flintstone-vitams-van-damme.jpg?resize=519%2C407&ssl=1)
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/01/10/new-research-shows-why-the-covid19-vaccines-are-killing-professional-athletes/#more-256299
-
Are you listening, Australian Tennis not-Open?
https://fee.org/articles/athletes-who-had-covid-will-be-considered-fully-vaccinated-ncaa-says-in-new-guidelines/
Considered vaccinated? I thought infected and recovered was measured at 12-24 times more protected than vaccinated.
-
"Despite extensive travel and not wearing a mask, I still haven’t managed to get Sino Lung AIDS."
you sure it is not the "balance of nature"
and not flinstone gummies?
-
"Despite extensive travel and not wearing a mask, I still haven’t managed to get Sino Lung AIDS."
you sure it is not the "balance of nature"
and not flinstone gummies?
I have been upping my intake of sunlight, and Vitamin C.
-
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/michael-van-der-galien/2022/01/10/common-cold-t-cells-also-protect-against-covid-british-research-concludes-n1548324
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/397332.php
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/hidden-military-documents-reveal-nih-intent-create-sars-cov-2-using-gain-function-research
“Horsepaste”
-
https://www.projectveritas.com/news/military-documents-about-gain-of-function-contradict-fauci-testimony-under/?fbclid=IwAR3U3DfqDK1WTMahwoEfrBkykfAF8N82gXzCK-OYNugryQp4A_3dOf4yltw
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/397341.php
-
https://thelibertyloft.com/2022/01/10/large-british-study-finds-risk-of-myocarditis-doubles-after-each-mrna-jab/?fbclid=IwAR3-yOazie2Lf0xPYEco6pztb8AO2hKgG79TfFPCOhdw9l1_NCe2oDa_4Yo
-
Despite extensive travel and not wearing a mask, I still haven’t managed to get Sino Lung AIDS.
I have signed up for this woman's email list:
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/a-quick-note-on-masks-and-cdc-guidance?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDY3MTIyMzYsIl8iOiJjVVIrYiIsImlhdCI6MTY0MTU4NTc0MCwiZXhwIjoxNjQxNTg5MzQwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.xRYelJAJ9NFAsS8iI_jsTiaJfuxsZd0adk_1gJRgh_E
https://i2.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/omicron-variant-gummy-flintstone-vitams-van-damme.jpg?resize=519%2C407&ssl=1
(https://i2.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/omicron-variant-gummy-flintstone-vitams-van-damme.jpg?resize=519%2C407&ssl=1)
(https://i0.wp.com/wilderwealthywise.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/26.png?w=768&ssl=1)
https://i0.wp.com/wilderwealthywise.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/26.png?w=768&ssl=1
-
Health departments in several states confirmed to The Epoch Times that they are looking into a steep surge in the mortality rate for people aged 18 to 49 in 2021—a majority of which are not linked to COVID-19. Deaths among people aged 18 to 49 increased more than 40 percent in the 12 months ending October 2021 compared to the same period in 2018–2019, before the pandemic
https://www.theepochtimes.com/several-states-examine-2021-mortality-surge-in-americans-aged-18-49_4213438.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=gp
----------------------------------------------
I think this is fentanyl. Still it's pandemic related if it came out of mandates and lockdowns.
-
Health departments in several states confirmed to The Epoch Times that they are looking into a steep surge in the mortality rate for people aged 18 to 49 in 2021—a majority of which are not linked to COVID-19. Deaths among people aged 18 to 49 increased more than 40 percent in the 12 months ending October 2021 compared to the same period in 2018–2019, before the pandemic
https://www.theepochtimes.com/several-states-examine-2021-mortality-surge-in-americans-aged-18-49_4213438.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=gp
----------------------------------------------
I think this is fentanyl. Still it's pandemic related if it came out of mandates and lockdowns.
I bet many are adverse reactions to the ClotShot.
-
Herd Immunity Is Over—Long Live Superimmunity
The Omicron wave will leave most people with potent and durable protection against Covid.
By Allysia Finley
Follow
Jan. 17, 2022 5:25 pm ET
Forget about herd immunity. Covid-19 vaccines and prior infection don’t provide lasting protection against infection and transmission, especially with the Omicron variant. That makes it impossible for enough of the population to become immune to stop the virus from spreading.
But don’t despair. Omicron will give much of the population what some scientists call “superimmunity”—stronger protection against new variants and even future coronaviruses. Normal life will be possible even as the virus continues to spread and mutate. Superimmunity won’t necessarily stop people from being infected or transmitting the virus. But most people who get infected, even with a more virulent variant, will experience mild or no symptoms.
To understand why, consider how the immune system works. Two types of white blood cells, T- and B-cells, tag-team to vanquish invading pathogens. T-cells act as sentinels that circulate in the lymph nodes and bloodstream. When they spot an invader, they kick into action. One type of T-cell destroys infected cells. Another signals B-cells, the immune system’s force multipliers, to proliferate and secrete antibodies that neutralize the pathogen. Antibodies target proteins on the pathogen known as antigens.
Once the army of white blood cells and their antibody foot soldiers have defeated the virus, most die off. But some white blood cells that remember the pathogen persist and hone their combat skills. These so-called memory T-cells continue to reside in the bone marrow, lymph nodes and other tissues, ready to mobilize the immune system if they encounter the intruder again.
Meantime, memory B-cells go to boot camp in the lymph nodes, where they get into better fighting shape should the invader return. Memory B-cells train to produce antibodies that can block new variants. When and if the virus reappears, they can more rapidly reproduce and produce more-potent antibodies.
Vaccines emulate natural infection by training the immune system with a pseudo-virus or antigen—in the case of Covid-19, the spike on the surface of the virus that it uses to bind to human cells. Antibodies produced after vaccination tend to decline more rapidly than after infection, perhaps because the virus particles persist longer in the body than the vaccine-simulated antigens.
With both infection and vaccination, the immune system gets quicker, stronger and smarter after being exposed to a new challenge. Researchers have found that people who were infected by Covid-19 and later vaccinated crank out higher levels and a broader array of antibodies that last longer than do people who have only been vaccinated.
Similarly, a study last month by the Oregon Health and Science University found that vaccinated people who experienced breakthrough infections produced higher levels of antibodies that were up to 1,000% more effective than those generated two weeks after a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. The researchers described this as superimmunity.
“I think this speaks to an eventual end game,” said co-author Marcel Curlin. “It doesn’t mean we’re at the end of the pandemic, but it points to where we’re likely to land: Once you’re vaccinated and then exposed to the virus, you’re probably going to be reasonably well-protected from future variants.” Dr. Curlin added: “Our study implies that the long-term outcome is going to be a tapering off of the severity of the worldwide epidemic.”
A study last month from South Africa found that people who were infected with Omicron produced antibodies that were more than four times better at neutralizing the Delta variant. Booster vaccines also improve the immune response by giving B-cells more time to mature—one reason antibodies after three Pfizer shots are capable in lab experiments of neutralizing Omicron while those after two aren’t.
But boosters train the immune system against the same target. Omicron’s myriad mutations create a bigger challenge for the B- and T-cells, and thereby strengthen the immune response. To use an analogy, if you train at doing push-ups, you’ll get stronger—but not as strong as if you also did pull-ups.
Infection also strengthens the T-cell response. T-cells from vaccinated people have been found to retain 70% to 80% of their efficacy against the Omicron variant spike protein. This has helped prevent more severe illness, even though vaccine antibodies are less effective against Omicron.
But infection trains T-cells to recognize virus proteins that also are less likely to mutate than the spike. Some of these proteins share similarities with the original SARS virus as well as four coronaviruses that can cause the common cold. SARS survivors have been found to have memory T-cells 17 years after infection that also recognized parts of the Covid-19 virus. A new study from the U.K.’s Imperial College found that people with pre-existing T-cells to non-spike proteins in common-cold coronaviruses were less likely to get infected with Covid-19.
All of this suggests that infection with Omicron is likely to stimulate potent and durable protection against Covid-19—and potentially other coronaviruses—even if it mutates to become more virulent. As Omicron rapidly spreads, people who have been vaccinated or previously infected will develop superimmunity. Covid-19 will become a virus that causes cold- and sometimes flulike symptoms—annoying but rarely deadly or disruptive.
One caveat is that older people generate weaker T-cell responses and memories to infections and vaccines. They’re likely to need annual booster shots. Omicron will end the pandemic by making Covid-19 endemic.
Ms. Finley is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
-
https://nypost.com/2022/01/19/folk-singer-hana-horka-dies-of-covid-after-exposing-herself-to-avoid-vaccine/
-
https://nypost.com/2022/01/19/folk-singer-hana-horka-dies-of-covid-after-exposing-herself-to-avoid-vaccine/
https://www.whsv.com/2021/10/12/fully-vaccinated-man-dies-covid-19-after-month-hospital/
-
https://nypost.com/2022/01/20/nocebo-effect-blamed-for-some-covid-vaccine-symptoms-study/
scare someone by telling them they will feel something - viola - they attribute every tiny thing to that.
-
https://nypost.com/2022/01/20/nocebo-effect-blamed-for-some-covid-vaccine-symptoms-study/
scare someone by telling them they will feel something - viola - they attribute every tiny thing to that.
Does that explain all the athletes suffering heart attacks?
-
https://nypost.com/2022/01/21/booster-shot-is-90-percent-effective-in-preventing-omicron-hospitalizations-cdc/
-
https://nypost.com/2022/01/21/booster-shot-is-90-percent-effective-in-preventing-omicron-hospitalizations-cdc/
Or, the ClotShot isn’t working, Omicron is just less severe.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/safrican-study-suggests-omicron-less-severe-even-unvaccinated-2022-01-14/
-
https://nypost.com/2022/01/20/nocebo-effect-blamed-for-some-covid-vaccine-symptoms-study/
scare someone by telling them they will feel something - viola - they attribute every tiny thing to that.
Does that explain all the athletes suffering heart attacks?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10339755/Premier-League-field-heart-issues-fuelled-suspicion-Covid-vaccines-players.html
-
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/01/20/1074373834/why-humans-are-losing-the-race-against-superbugs?fbclid=IwAR3ZjGqWOEY784qepvrPafubLRmtEwTN1hl71d6_Veqhagc-Owry0Gl2uxk
-
the use in countries that do not require prescription
is a problem with over use
in the US we are trying not to use
if not clearly necessary
this is why I will not prescribed "zpack " for corona and why it is no longer as effective when needed as it used to be
and no there is not much in the way of pharmaceutical company research for antibiotics
when there is it is for hospital use almost exclusively
not enough profit for them apparently otherwise.
-
https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-the-very-concerning-data-from-scotland
-
https://www.insider.com/monkeys-escape-from-pennsylvania-truck-en-route-to-labratory-2022-1?fbclid=IwAR0q-YUjduq8xallHGZ0YentO9MEFFVrrHTkiq350_jDZIb-riRLhbnlmjw
-
https://www.insider.com/monkeys-escape-from-pennsylvania-truck-en-route-to-labratory-2022-1?fbclid=IwAR0q-YUjduq8xallHGZ0YentO9MEFFVrrHTkiq350_jDZIb-riRLhbnlmjw
"records show that monkeys in laboratories in the US have been found with tuberculosis, Chagas disease, cholera, and MRSA."
So have illegal aliens.
-
https://www.insider.com/monkeys-escape-from-pennsylvania-truck-en-route-to-labratory-2022-1?fbclid=IwAR0q-YUjduq8xallHGZ0YentO9MEFFVrrHTkiq350_jDZIb-riRLhbnlmjw
"records show that monkeys in laboratories in the US have been found with tuberculosis, Chagas disease, cholera, and MRSA."
So have illegal aliens.
https://aapsonline.org/deadly-diseases-crossing-border-with-illegal-immigrants/
-
https://fism.tv/new-ebola-like-virus-discovered-in-bats-is-spreading-in-china-report-says/
-
https://fism.tv/new-ebola-like-virus-discovered-in-bats-is-spreading-in-china-report-says/
I wonder how many of our tax dollars Fauci funneled to the PRC to create this new disease...
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/the-covid19-vaccine-does-not-impact?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDc0OTExMDQsIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY0Mjk2OTE3OCwiZXhwIjoxNjQyOTcyNzc4LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.1UtTrO4738mg12w1EK0rB0WG3t818ClB3NdHb4nqC18
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/the-covid19-vaccine-does-not-impact?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDc0OTExMDQsIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY0Mjk2OTE3OCwiZXhwIjoxNjQyOTcyNzc4LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.1UtTrO4738mg12w1EK0rB0WG3t818ClB3NdHb4nqC18
We shall see
-
Agreed, but in our pursuit of Truth, we consider a panoply of sincere and informed opinion.
-
Agreed, but in our pursuit of Truth, we consider a panoply of sincere and informed opinion.
Let's examine history as well.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/medical-treatments/des-exposure.html
Safe and effective.
Or not.
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affairs-jan-24?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDc1MzY5NTksIl8iOiJCdFEyQyIsImlhdCI6MTY0MzAyOTE3MiwiZXhwIjoxNjQzMDMyNzcyLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9._aWyqpe6-5FVY8cdu9oRGHDIrmKaDx2H_NbU3NzsxDA
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/woman-who-came-into-contact-with-escaped-monkeys-says-she-developed-symptoms_4235038.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-01-25-2&utm_medium=email2&est=U1PkcR1%2FFc3g1KURTd5ym%2BZTtJzBcnITMuc0%2FxycZFxtF3E1yLibnVUuKiSB6Za%2FAv8j
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/woman-who-came-into-contact-with-escaped-monkeys-says-she-developed-symptoms_4235038.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-01-25-2&utm_medium=email2&est=U1PkcR1%2FFc3g1KURTd5ym%2BZTtJzBcnITMuc0%2FxycZFxtF3E1yLibnVUuKiSB6Za%2FAv8j
How many movies started like this?
-
How many movies started like this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaque
Could this be the start of the real Planet of the Apes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Apes
-
Have you seen 28 Days Later? (Chimps in this one)
Then there is Outbreak:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0YiotiaGx4
How many movies started like this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaque
Could this be the start of the real Planet of the Apes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Apes
-
Doctor’s Organization Has Treated Over 150,000 COVID-19 Patients With 99.99 Percent Survival (theepochtimes.com) (https://www.theepochtimes.com/doctors-organization-has-treated-over-150000-covid-19-patients-with-99-99-percent-survival_4236896.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-01-27&utm_medium=email&est=foscp7tCJKkcIRy%2B5Dt3RslXEDLxYsghfxoj1oo7gmlhpcKlo2P0rQveBT2kVmHbnHll)
Doctor’s Organization Has Treated Over 150,000 COVID-19 Patients With 99.99 Percent Survival'Early Treatment Works, Period'By Meiling Lee January 26, 2022 Updated: January 27, 2022Print ()A doctor who has been offering free telehealth (https://www.theepochtimes.com/t-telehealth (https://www.theepochtimes.com/doctors-organization-has-treated-over-150000-covid-19-patients-with-99-99-percent-survival_4236896.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-01-27&utm_medium=email&est=foscp7tCJKkcIRy%2B5Dt3RslXEDLxYsghfxoj1oo7gmlhpcKlo2P0rQveBT2kVmHbnHll#Print)) services to COVID-19 (https://www.theepochtimes.com/t-covid-19) patients during the pandemic says that early treatment for COVID-19 works, claiming that he has a 99.99 percent survival rate.
“We have a team of volunteer free doctors that donate their time to help treat these patients that come to us,” Dr. Ben Marble, the founder of myfreedoctor.com, an online medical consultation service, said at a roundtable discussion (https://rumble.com/vt62y6-covid-19-a-second-opinion.html) hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Jan. 24.
He added, “We deliver the early treatment protocols to them as early as we can, and we have a 99.99 percent survival rate. So, I believe myfreedoctor.com, (https://myfreedoctor.com/) the free volunteered doctors have settled the science on this—early treatment works, period!”
Marble was answering Johnson’s question about what people can do if they or their loved ones have COVID-19.
People can visit the website myfreedoctor.com, create an account, and fill out a patient intake form if the doctors are accepting new patients for that day. One of the doctors will then reach out in less than 24 hours. With a huge demand for their services, the physicians say they can only “accept a certain number of patients each day.”
Marble says that he and his small team of volunteer doctors prescribe [Dr. Peter] McCullough’s treatment protocol, which consists of hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies, prednisone, and other low-cost generic drugs. They also prescribe vitamins D and C, and zinc.
()Vitamin C bottles were on display in Miami, Florida on June 15, 2001. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)McCullough, a cardiologist, and epidemiologist, along with several physicians put together an early treatment protocol to provide outpatient care for COVID-19 patients. Their paper was published in The American Journal of Medicine (https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/06/15/GettyImages-1321615-1200x800.jpg (https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/06/15/GettyImages-1321615-1200x800.jpg)) in August 2020.
Dr. Pierre Kory, a pulmonologist and the President at the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance, says that the public is not aware that there are doctors across the country who will provide telehealth and early treatment for COVID-19.
“On our website, we have a button, which says find a provider (https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/covid-19-care-providers/). We’ve tried to collect as many telehealth providers that treat all states in the country,” Kory said.
“We are trying to let that message be known because that message is being suppressed that this disease is treatable,” he added.
Kory also claims that there is corruption at the federal level in suppressing early treatment with repurposed cheap drugs and their availability and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been “captured by the pharmaceutical industry.”
“The corruption is because they don’t want you to use off-label, repurposed generic medicines. It does not provide profit to the system,” Kory said, adding that, “you know what’s going on in this country right now, is that the CDC has been captured by the pharmaceutical industry.”
“They sent out a memo in August of 2021, they sent out a similar memo back in the spring 2020, telling the nation’s physicians and pharmacists not to use generic medicines.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the CDC for comment.
Early treatments were and continue to be discouraged by the CDC, whose guidance (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/steps-when-sick.html) since the beginning of the pandemic up until January 2022, only focused on people self-quarantining for 14 days, keeping hydrated, taking analgesics, and only seeking hospital care when they can’t breathe or turn blue. They also warned people to not take any medications not approved for COVID-19.
“People have been seriously harmed and even died after taking products not approved for use to treat or prevent COVID-19, even products approved or prescribed for other uses,” the CDC wrote on its potential treatments webpage (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/treatments-for-severe-illness.html).
The weblink provided for the alleged harmful product was related to a March 2020 health alert
(https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2020/han00431.asp) warning of a serious health effect from ingesting non-pharmaceutical chloroquine phosphate used to clean fish tanks. This alert came after an Arizona man and his wife took the non-pharmaceutical drug in an attempt to self-medicate for COVID-19.
For the past two years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has only authorized limited early outpatient treatments for COVID-19 that include monoclonal antibodies for high-risk patients and antiviral pills from Merck and Pfizer. However, the FDA on Jan. 24 announced (https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-limits-use-certain-monoclonal-antibodies-treat-covid-19-due-omicron) it was limiting the use of Eli Lilly and Regeneron monoclonal antibodies only to patients “likely to have been infected with or exposed to a variant that is susceptible to these treatments.”
Johnson held the roundtable discussion to offer a different perspective on the response to the pandemic, including on “the current state of knowledge of early and hospital treatment, vaccine efficacy and safety, what went right, what went wrong, what should be done now, and what needs to be addressed long term.”
The discussion panel consisted of renowned health experts and scientists that included McCullough, Dr. Robert Malone, and Dr. Paul Marik.
According to a press release (https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/2022/1/rsvp-deadline-media-advisory), Johnson also invited over a dozen prominent figures involved in developing, promoting, and leading the pandemic response, including the CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky and White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients. All of the individuals declined to attend the forum.
(https://www.theepochtimes.com/author-meiling-lee)
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/096/996/205/original/c1f76bc85c4039b0.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/096/996/205/original/c1f76bc85c4039b0.jpg)
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/01/project-veritas-undercover-video-reveals-disadvantaged-people-taking-excessive-covid-vaccines-tax-funded-gift-card-incentive/
Horrific
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/01/project-veritas-undercover-video-reveals-disadvantaged-people-taking-excessive-covid-vaccines-tax-funded-gift-card-incentive/
nurses should be prosecuted
and lose their licenses
losing their jobs is not enough for this
nothing will happen
everyone getting paid
to abuse the system ...... :x
-
https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-whistleblowers-share-dod-medical-data-that-blows-vaccine-safety-debate-wide-open#toggle-gdpr
-
https://theconversation.com/how-covid-19-might-increase-risk-of-memory-loss-and-cognitive-decline-141940
-
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.18.22269349v1
-
Predicting the next booster
Katelyn Jetelina
Jan 30
Comment
Share
Si quiere leer la versión en español, pulse aquí.
The next big scientific discussion bubbling to the surface is the potential of another booster: Will SARS-CoV-2 continue to mutate to escape antibody protection? Do we need another booster? If so, what’s the next formula? For example, do we need an Omicron-specific vaccine? By the time an Omicron-specific vaccine is tested, we won’t have an Omicron wave anymore. So, is there still value in rolling it out?
All of the above are difficult questions to answer because they require predicting how this virus will mutate. Some scientific labs have started this work and the story they are finding is nothing short of fascinating.
Will SARS-CoV-2 continue to mutate to escape antibody protection?
While all viruses mutate in many ways, when talking about vaccines, we’re really only interested in how viruses change to escape immunity (called antigenic phenotype). With this lens, there are two sides of the viral evolution spectrum:
Flu: On one end, we have the flu. It mutates a lot to escape our immunity, and about every 2-5 years our immune systems need a new vaccine formula to fight the virus. The new vaccine formula is fairly predictable, because the virus mutates in a ladder-like pattern: there is one major lineage, and every few years, a new variant sweeps and the others go extinct. (See Panel A in the figure below for a depiction). Because of this ladder, we can predict fairly well—although we are sometimes off—where the virus may go to proactively create the next vaccine formula.
Volz et al (2013) Viral Phylodynamics. PLOS Computational Biology. Source Here.
Measles: On the other end of the spectrum is measles. While measles mutates, it does not mutate to escape immunity. It has a more balanced evolutionary tree (See panel B in the figure above). There is no immune pressure that constantly pushes one mutation to outcompete another. So there is no ladder-like pattern. And, thankfully, our vaccines from the mid-1960s still work today.
But the flu and measles are very different from coronaviruses. To understand how SARS-CoV-2 may change to escape immunity over time, we must look at other coronaviruses that have been circulating for decades.
CoV-229E
The Bloom lab explored how another coronavirus—called CoV-229E—evolved over time. This is one of the “common colds” that has been circulating since at least the 1960s, although we think much longer. CoV-229E is probably a good indicator of what’s to come with SARS-CoV-2 because the viruses look fairly similar. Also, and importantly, they are mutating largely in the same physical places. The purpose of this study was to assess how CoV-229E evolved over time, which may give us some insight into how SARS-CoV-2 will mutate over time. So what did they find?
CoV-229E mutated over time in a clear ladder-like pattern, just like the flu (see figure below).
Over time, mutations of CoV-229E eroded antibody protection. In other words, people that were only infected by CoV-229E in 1984 weren’t well protected today.
The rate of antibody erosion was highly variable across people.
Eguia et al (2021). A human coronavirus evolves antigenically to escape antibody immunity. PLOS Pathogens. Source Here
This tells us that we should expect a ladder-like evolution of SARS-CoV-2 through which we could predict the next variant.
However, much to our surprise, this hasn’t happened
SARS-CoV-2 has thrown us for a loop, as the mutations haven’t evolved in a ladder-like fashion. The next variant hasn’t been coming from the last: Omicron didn’t come from Delta, and Delta didn’t come from Alpha. The fact that SARS-CoV-2 has lacked a pattern of evolution like other coronaviruses or the flu is incredibly puzzling.
(Next Strain)
But (and this is a big but), we haven’t had a lot of time for this pattern to play out. It’s only been 2 years and other evolutionary trees, like CoV-229E, also had 2-year time frames in which there were no ladder-like changes.
We expect the ladder-like pattern to arise with SARS-CoV-2 eventually. But because it hasn’t yet, we don’t know which direction SARS-CoV-2 is heading. This makes proactively predicting the next booster formulas challenging and risky (from financial and logistic standpoints). This leads us to the next question…
Do we need another booster right now?
There are really two camps of thought right now:
There is not enough evidence that we need another booster. Boosters are working fantastically well against severe disease during the Omicron wave. For example, in the U.K., we see that even 4-6 months after inoculation, efficacy of a booster against hospitalization is 75-85% compared to 2-dose series, which has an efficacy of 30-35%. This is even the case with BA.2 (sister lineage of Omicron), where there is less immunity escape than BA.1. The same goes for those that received the original J&J with one booster. A study out of South Africa found that a second dose of J&J was 85% effective against hospitalization during a time when Omicron was circulating, compared with 63% after one dose. In addition, T-cells, our second line of defense that keeps us out of the hospital, are mutating but have much less evolutionary pressure than our first line of defense (antibody protection). So there’s also a chance the current vaccine series will continue to protect against severe disease for a while.
(UK Health Security Agency- Source Here)
(UK Health Security Agency- Source Here)
Roll-out another booster vaccine. On the other hand, Israel already rolled out a second booster (not Omicron specific formula) among those aged 60+ years. The Israel Health Ministry just released data showing a 3-fold decrease in severe disease among those with 60+ years with 2 boosters compared to 1 booster during the Omicron wave (see figure below). Looking forward, there’s a good chance the next variant will come from Omicron (although, because we lack a ladder-like pattern, we could be wrong). If Omicron had enough mutations for partial antibody escape, the next variant may have full immune escape. Boosting with an Omicron-specific formula would then significantly prepare us for what is to come.
(Israel Ministry of Health)
Bottom Line: As Yogi Berra said, “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” And SARS-CoV-2 is making it even more difficult with its random evolutionary patterns. The booster discussion that will ensue among scientists in the coming months will be imperative to follow.
Love, YLE and Dr. Jesse Bloom
Dr. Jesse Bloom, PhD, is a viral evolutionary scientist and Professor at the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center and Affiliate Professor, Genome Sciences & Microbiology at the University of Washington. He and his team led much of the research described above. He also graciously ensured that I captured this complex work accurately for the YLE audience.
“Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE)” is written by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD—an epidemiologist, biostatistician, professor, researcher, wife, and mom of two little girls. During the day she has a research lab and teaches graduate-level courses, but at night she writes this newsletter. Her main goal is to “translate” the ever-evolving public health science so that people will be well equipped to make evidence-based decisions. This newsletter is free thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, please subscribe here:
-
From Medical Fascism post:
Among COVID-19 exposed individuals,
people in their 70s have roughly twice the mortality of those in their 60s,
10 times the mortality of those in their 50s,
40 times that of those in their 40s,
100 times that of those in their 30s,
300 times that of those in their 20s,
and a mortality that is more than 3000 times higher than for children.
---------------------------------------------------
Are these ratios (approximately) true for omicron, same as other variants?
-
Paraphrasing a very recently retired CEO of a major health insurer:
Virus is a living thing, wants to survive. (Isn't that what all living things want to do?)
Virus is a parasite, dies without a living host.
Virus has mutated into way more variants than those we know of or named.
The ones that become most successful and dominant have these two qualities:
Maximum contagion while minimizing the fatality of the host.
Omicron did this. Further dominant variants could (and should) be even less deadly.
The pandemic as we know ends this year.
-
https://rumble.com/vtiqyu-leaked-database-shows-u.s.-military-disease-skyrocketing-after-covid-19-ino.html
-
I am not clear where it states this is due to vaccine or corona infection
-
I am not clear where it states this is due to vaccine or corona infection
What else would it be?
-
New Study on Ivermectin ‘Should Convince Any Naysayer’: Dr. Pierre Kory
By Zachary Stieber and Jan Jekielek February 1, 2022 Updated: February 1, 2022biggersmaller Print
A recently published study indicating the anti-parasitic ivermectin worked well as a prophylactic against the virus that causes COVID-19 should help sway critics of the drug, according to Dr. Pierre Kory, president of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC).
“That should convince any naysayer,” Kory told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders.” “What they found was astounding.”
The Brazilian city of Itajaí launched a program that gave ivermectin to any residents that wanted any. The period that was studied was from July 7, 2020, to December 2, 2020.
Researchers found that the program, which had over 100,000 residents participate, was linked to a 44 percent drop in COVID-19 cases.
Read More
Dr. Pierre Kory: The War on Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, and Other Cheap Drugs to Treat COVID-19
Approximately 3.7 percent of ivermectin users contracted the illness during the trial period, compared to 6.6 percent of residents who didn’t take the drug.
The program was also associated with a statistically significant decrease in hospitalization and mortality.
The peer-reviewed study was published in Cureus on Jan. 15.
“Ivermectin MUST be considered as an option, particularly during outbreaks,” Dr. Flavio Cadegiani, one of the study’s authors and a founding member of FLCCC, told The Epoch Times in an email.
FLCCC focuses on early treatment of COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. The group has recommended ivermectin since early 2020.
Kory said the lack of reporting on the study despite it being peer-reviewed highlights how some scientific developments are ignored by many media outlets and scientists.
“You would think this would lead major headlines everywhere. And yet, nothing. And this is not new, this censorship of this highly effective science and evidence around repurposed drugs. The censoring of it, it’s not new, it’s just getting more and more absurd. And it has to stop,” he said.
Epoch Times Photo
A woman holds a box of ivermectin in Brasilia, Brazil in a file image. (Andressa Anholete/Getty Images)
Studies on ivermectin against COVID-19 have shown mixed results, with some being associated with no or little benefit and others suggesting a strong benefit. It’s been widely used in India and other countries as a preventative measure, but in the United States and much of Europe many official health care bodies recommend against its use or do not endorse it.
Ivermectin has been approved for certain uses by the Food and Drug Administration, but not for use against COVID-19. That means doctors can prescribe it off-label.
The National Institutes of Health’s COVID-19 treatment guidelines panel currently says that there is not enough evidence to advise either for or against using ivermectin to treat COVID-19. It does not address its potential use as a prophylactic.
While the new study was celebrated by some, others questioned the findings and pointed out that the conflicts of interest disclosures show both Cadegiani and another author have received funding from or contracted with Vitamedic, a company that manufactures ivermectin.
Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an Australian epidemiologist, for instance, called it “a fairly simple example of observational research that you’d do on routine medical data” but alleged the controls for confounding factors such as occupation and risk factors were “pretty inadequate given the purpose.”
Related Coverage
New Study on Ivermectin ‘Should Convince Any Naysayer’: Dr. Pierre KoryDr. Pierre Kory: The War on Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, and Other Cheap Drugs to Treat COVID-19
Cadegiani said the criticism was unfounded, saying he wasn’t convinced before the study that ivermectin would work as a preventative medicine and that researchers controlled for “all relevant factors,” including comorbidities, age, sex, and race.
“Their inability to focus on the data provided by the study itself is … proof of the extreme high quality of the study,” the doctor said, adding later that “To us, this is the best observational study on COVID-19 to date, with a power almost equivalent to a huge randomized clinical trial.”
The researchers plan on publishing multiple additional papers regarding the program, including papers on the biochemical effects of ivermectin and the effectiveness of the drug in preventing hospitalization.
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/02/weird-myocarditis-rates-31-france-75-germany-reason/
-
of the 1 out of roughly 150,000 vaccine recipients who get myocarditis will go home from hospital in short order on otc
motrin with total improvement
near 90%
-
of the 1 out of roughly 150,000 vaccine recipients who get myocarditis will go home from hospital in short order on otc
motrin with total improvement
near 90%
https://www.myocarditisfoundation.org/about-myocarditis/
In simple terms, myocarditis is a disease that causes inflammation of the heart muscle. This inflammation enlarges and weakens the heart, creates scar tissue and forces it to work harder to circulate blood and oxygen throughout the body.
While we often associate cardiovascular conditions with elderly populations, myocarditis can affect anyone, including young adults, children and infants. In fact, it most often affects otherwise healthy, young, athletic types with the high-risk population being those of ages from puberty through their early 30’s, affecting males twice as often as females. Myocarditis is the 3rd leading cause of Sudden Death in children and young adults.
As a layman, this strikes me as pretty serious.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/097/521/003/original/713fec1352b0c56f.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/097/521/003/original/713fec1352b0c56f.jpg)
-
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e5.htm
risk of myocarditis from corona infection 15.7 x normal
risk of myocarditis from vaccine 3.27 x normal in one analysis
"Since the introduction of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in the United States in December 2020, an elevated risk for myocarditis among mRNA COVID-19 vaccine recipients has been observed, particularly among males aged 12–29 years, with 39–47 expected cases of myocarditis, pericarditis, and myopericarditis per million second mRNA COVID-19 vaccine doses administered (6). A recent study from Israel reported that mRNA COVID-19 vaccination was associated with an elevated risk for myocarditis (risk ratio = 3.24; 95% CI = 1.55–12.44); in the same study, a separate analysis showed that SARS-CoV-2 infection was a strong risk factor for myocarditis (risk ratio = 18.28, 95% CI = 3.95–25.12) (4). On June 23, 2021, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices concluded that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination clearly outweighed the risks for myocarditis after vaccination (6). The present study supports this recommendation by providing evidence of an elevated risk for myocarditis among persons of all ages with diagnosed COVID-19."
------
"Myocarditis is uncommon among patients with and without COVID-19; however, COVID-19 is a strong and significant risk factor for myocarditis, with risk varying by age group. The findings in this report underscore the importance of implementing evidence-based COVID-19 prevention strategies, including vaccination, to reduce the public health impact of COVID-19 and its associated complications."
-
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e5.htm
risk of myocarditis from corona infection 15.7 x normal
risk of myocarditis from vaccine 3.27 x normal in one analysis
"Since the introduction of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in the United States in December 2020, an elevated risk for myocarditis among mRNA COVID-19 vaccine recipients has been observed, particularly among males aged 12–29 years, with 39–47 expected cases of myocarditis, pericarditis, and myopericarditis per million second mRNA COVID-19 vaccine doses administered (6). A recent study from Israel reported that mRNA COVID-19 vaccination was associated with an elevated risk for myocarditis (risk ratio = 3.24; 95% CI = 1.55–12.44); in the same study, a separate analysis showed that SARS-CoV-2 infection was a strong risk factor for myocarditis (risk ratio = 18.28, 95% CI = 3.95–25.12) (4). On June 23, 2021, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices concluded that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination clearly outweighed the risks for myocarditis after vaccination (6). The present study supports this recommendation by providing evidence of an elevated risk for myocarditis among persons of all ages with diagnosed COVID-19."
------
"Myocarditis is uncommon among patients with and without COVID-19; however, COVID-19 is a strong and significant risk factor for myocarditis, with risk varying by age group. The findings in this report underscore the importance of implementing evidence-based COVID-19 prevention strategies, including vaccination, to reduce the public health impact of COVID-19 and its associated complications."
How many of those infected with Covid had taken at least one ClotShot?
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/the-disease-of-modern-medicine?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDgwMTAzNDQsIl8iOiJCdFEyQyIsImlhdCI6MTY0Mzg4OTIxNSwiZXhwIjoxNjQzODkyODE1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzYzMDgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.Rezl3fYqcXbtr2YBzFFUHj4rBOJAhj6O6mcsEjpLed8
-
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-study-offers-strongest-proof-yet-of-vitamin-ds-power-to-fight-covid/
-
second
Your Local (Infectious Disease) Epidemiologist
Two underdog but game changing vaccines: NVX-CoV2373 (Novavax) and CORBEVAX
Katelyn Jetelina
Feb 4
Comment
Share
Si quiere leer la versión en español, pulse aquí.
One way (maybe the only way) we’re going to get out of this pandemic is to vaccinate a large portion of the global population. To the WHO, this means reaching 70% of the population by mid-2022, which is ~3 billion unvaccinated people with 6-9 billion doses before another variant of concern.
A diverse portfolio of vaccines that utilizes a number of different biotechnologies is of critical importance. While mRNA vaccines are innovative and effective, they pose logistical storage challenges to reach remote communities. The mRNA pharmaceutical companies are also not sharing their vaccine patent, which doesn’t allow others to manufacture. In addition, a diverse portfolio of vaccines frees up supply bottlenecks, provides options for those allergic to vaccines ingredients, and, among vaccines that use more traditional biotechnologies, will reduce vaccine hesitancy.
Two new vaccines have been added to our global repertoire: NVX-CoV2373 and CORBEVAX. These will be nothing short of game changers for the pandemic. Here is their story and how they work:
NVX-CoV2373
NVX-CoV2373 was created by Novavax, a small pharmaceutical company from Maryland. Before the pandemic they almost lost it all, but made a huge comeback after Operation Warp Speed took a chance on them. (I recommend reading their history over coffee; it’s fascinating). This will be their first vaccine to make it to the market.
Novavax is using a different vaccine biotechnology from other COVID19 vaccines. It contains the coronavirus spike protein combined with an immune-boosting compound from the soapbark tree. Once the immune system encounters the spike protein (which is harmless alone), the body produces antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and thus protect from future infection.
This method has a much longer track record than the newer approaches, as it’s used for some flu and HPV vaccines. The exciting (and innovative) aspect of this vaccine is that Novavax found a way to make it in moth cells (rather than mammal cells). The moth cells become little factories that pump out coronavirus proteins. The scientists then extract and purify the spike proteins for vaccines. This allows Novavax to manufacture the vaccine much quicker than other vaccine types.
Phase III clinical trials (called PREVENT-19) were released in 2021 and results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. NVX-CoV2373 had an efficacy of 100% against moderate-to-severe disease with the original variant and 90% efficacy overall. Which is nothing short of fantastic. Since, the vaccine has also been shown to be highly effective against other variants of concern, like Delta, Beta, and Omicron.
However, it’s taken months for Novavax to submit an EUA application to the FDA because they ran into some production issues. When a company applies to the FDA, they include data about the safety and effectiveness (which we all focus on), but they also submit data on manufacturing and production. And Novavax had a hard time passing production purity tests—the FDA requires vaccines to consistently pass a purity of 90% so contaminants don’t make the vaccine less effective or potentially cause some people to adversely react. Last October, Politico reported that Novavax was showing purity levels hovering around 70%.
This week Novavax announced they’re applying for an EUA in the United States—a signal that they refined their production to consistently pass purity tests for the FDA. Novavax has already been approved in several other countries, including India, South Africa, Australia and the E.U. On December 17, the WHO issued an emergency use listing (EUL) so Novavax could give a much-needed boost to COVAX—an international consortium of vaccine supply—to vaccinate more people in lower-income countries.
CORBEVAX
The second game changer vaccine is called CORBEVAX; in fact it’s been dubbed the “The World’s COVID-19 Vaccine.” This work was not led by a big (or small) pharmaceutical company but by two scientists at Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine: Drs. Maria Elena Bottazzi and Peter Hotez. The two have been working together on coronavirus vaccines for the past two decades, including the development of a SARS vaccine in 2003. So when the pandemic hit, they were able to quickly pivot to COVID19. They were not funded through Operation Warp Speed. In fact, they had a very difficult time receiving funding from the government so they turned to philanthropic support, including from Tito’s Vodka.
CORBEVAX is also protein based, but uses a yeast fermentation method that’s been around for several decades and doesn’t use human or animal cells. In fact, this is the same biotechnology used to make the Hepatitis B vaccine, which millions of us already have.
CORBEVAX completed Phase III clinical trials in India, which involved more than 3,000 participants. The vaccine was found to be highly effective against the original virus, with a >90% vaccine effectiveness and 80% effective against Delta. The clinical trials showed it was also safe and well tolerated, as it had 50% fewer adverse events than other vaccines. As NPR reported, one drawback to this biotechnology is that it can't be modified as quickly as mRNA vaccines for new variants.
Because this vaccine biotechnology has been around for a long time and because Drs. Hotez and Bottazzi made the intellectual property available to everybody, vaccine producers all around the world can make it. In fact, CORBEVAX is already licensed to four vaccine producers: Biological E in India, Biopharma in Indonesia, Septa in Bangladesh, and ImmunityBio in South Africa and Botswana. On December 28, it was authorized for emergency use in India. And, two days ago, Drs. Hotez and Bottazzi were nominated for the Nobel Peace Price.
Bottom line: The underdogs are pulling through! And we should all be cheering as these add diversity to our vaccine portfolio, which will get us one step (or more like leaps) closer to ending the pandemic.
Love, YLE
“Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE)” is written by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD—an epidemiologist, biostatistician, professor, researcher, wife, and mom of two little girls. During the day she has a research lab and teaches graduate-level courses, but at night she writes this newsletter. Her main goal is to “translate” the ever-evolving public health science so that people will be well equipped to make evidence-based decisions. This newsletter is free thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, please subscribe here:
-
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.03.479037v1?s=08&utm_campaign=+50933907&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=
-
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2788894
-
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/02/why_ivermectin_was_disappeared.html
-
https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(21)00523-4/fulltext
-
If I understand correctly, HCQ is applicable for early treatment only. Are the studies here of that?
-
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK8ekeXXEAgMm6A?format=jpg&name=large
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK8ekeXXEAgMm6A?format=jpg&name=large)
-
https://www.contagionlive.com/view/3-covid-19-exposures-provide-immunity-against-omicron
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/097/910/569/original/d5e544931977b22b.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/097/910/569/original/d5e544931977b22b.jpg)
-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/500000-covid-deaths-visualized/
then multiply this by 12
https://www.google.com/search?q=total+world+wide+deaths+from+corona&oq=total+world+wide+deaths+from+corona&aqs=chrome..69i57.6798j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Deaths
5.74M
+5,827
-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/500000-covid-deaths-visualized/
then multiply this by 12
https://www.google.com/search?q=total+world+wide+deaths+from+corona&oq=total+world+wide+deaths+from+corona&aqs=chrome..69i57.6798j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Deaths
5.74M
+5,827
How many actually died FROM Covid? As opposed to say, gunshot wounds?
https://www.kmov.com/news/colorado-coroner-calling-out-how-state-classifies-covid-19-deaths/article_297e3550-4131-11eb-9f01-ffe3e11d0f46.html
-
arguing in circles
:-P
-
arguing in circles
:-P
You don't think the statistics have been manipulated at all?
-
yes
by non vaccers
:-D
seriously
I don't know what the truth is
but the right cherry picks for themselves.
and left cherry picks for themselves.
I only more people die who do not get vaccinated
and many died with or without vaccines
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/highly-infectious-more-damaging-hiv-variant-found-in-the-netherlands_4259326.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-02-08&utm_medium=email&est=a54n9R42d0z2TRQYegf1zTjUse4m2DsxA2%2BY5YY%2BrTY6ExSCSwrD3BbvbegmRVD2bM%2Fd
-
https://www.authorea.com/users/455597/articles/552937-innate-immune-suppression-by-sars-cov-2-mrna-vaccinations-the-role-of-g-quadruplexes-exosomes-and-micrornas
and in English
https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-covid-shots-suppress-your-immune-system_4261662.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-02-08&utm_medium=email&est=zsPgpBJ6zYLQF5anHCaHbjf2fCQtbOnrG0fs%2B1AhBxAVhzFraR2CurJQ6%2BOMltBAfn8n
-
third
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867422000769
in English
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/urgent-new-research-turns-up-yet?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDg0MjcxMzEsIl8iOiJjSEtZNSIsImlhdCI6MTY0NDM2MzA4MSwiZXhwIjoxNjQ0MzY2NjgxLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzYzMDgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.I6S6sm0bwK-jOhocB5WpRHaOtt5f791e0K9LLf7KCFA
-
Dr. Pierre Kory: ‘Covid-19 Is Highly Treatable’
Joseph Mercola
Joseph Mercola
February 9, 2022 Updated: February 9, 2022biggersmaller Print
Commentary
Dr. Pierre Kory, a New York pulmonologist, talked about his experience in treating patients using a protocol that those in power tried to censor.
New York pulmonologist Dr. Pierre Kory, an unapologetic champion of evidence-based medicine, has had remarkable success treating patients with ivermectin and other therapies during the pandemic. His efforts to get the word out on this treatment protocol as part of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Working Group (FLCCC) have largely been stifled by censorship, ridicule and colleagues — brainwashed by the official narrative — unwilling to accept the science.
Kory spoke with Dr. Chris Martenson, host of the Peak Prosperity podcast, about his incredible experiences over the last nearly two years. On December 8, 2020, Kory testified to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which held a hearing on “Early Outpatient Treatment: An Essential Part of a COVID-19 Solution.”
He called on the NIH, CDC and FDA to review the expansive data on ivermectin to prevent COVID-19, keep those with early symptoms from progressing and help critically ill patients recover. As he told Martenson, due to their promising results, he believed early on that “the pandemic has been solved,” until he realized that those in power weren’t open to hearing what he had to say.
Despite his impassioned pleas and astonishing science to back them up, the treatment not only was ignored by the Senate committee but promptly eviscerated. Now, he feels his colleagues in the health care field are living in one of two worlds — by either not following the data or putting patients first because they’re afraid of losing their job or status, or by risking everything to put patients first. He’s become estranged from many colleagues who he says “don’t get it.”
There Is Treatment Available for Viruses
Kory’s eyes have been opened to the reality that many people only hear or believe what public health officials tell them, whether it’s because they’re overworked and don’t have time to delve into the real data or because they’re following with blind trust. Many of Kory’s colleagues have gone along with those they believe to be authoritative experts, even when their guidance defies logic and commonsense. Kory’s trust in the “experts,” however, started to erode the more that he learned.
One of Kory’s role models is Dr. Paul Marik, a critical care doctor at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in East Virginia, who is renowned for his work in creating the “Marik Cocktail,” which significantly reduces death rates from sepsis using inexpensive, safe, generic medications.
Marik was one of a small group of critical care physicians who formed FLCCC, which developed a highly effective COVID-19 treatment protocol known as MATH+. Marik is so in tune with science that if he reads a new study and has questions, he’ll contact the first author on the paper to get direct answers.
Right off the bat, the MATH+ protocol led to high survival rates. Out of more than 100 hospitalized COVID-19 patients treated with the MATH+ protocol by mid-April 2020, only two died. Both were in their 80s and had advanced chronic medical conditions.
After several tweaks and updates, the prophylaxis and early outpatient treatment protocol is now known as I-MASK+ while the hospital treatment has been renamed I-MATH+, due to the addition of ivermectin.
Kory is now a public face of FLCCC, and he’s forged a global network of colleagues who are willing to adapt to new information in any way they can to help patients. One of Kory’s biggest revelations involved the treatment of viruses — specifically, the fact that there are dozens of treatment options available, about 90% of which are repurposed, cost pennies and are readily available:
“I went into this pandemic believing what I’ve been taught my whole career, which is that there is no specific antiviral therapy … I mean, you get a cold, you just rest … and now here I am 18 months later — oh my gosh — there are literally two dozen compounds and now we have trial evidence showing pretty profound large magnitude benefits, either in the duration of symptoms, the duration of viral transmission, hospitalization and death.
We have a number of molecules that actually reduce mortality in what’s turned out to be a deadly viral disease. This isn’t the common cold, we’re clear on that.
I went from, there’s nothing to do for a virus to now, anytime I have a cold going forward, or any of my children, or any other virus that comes at us, we already have a whole armory of stuff that we can employ. And that data for those — which are best, which should be employed — is only going to increase.”
Giving Patients Agency Over Their Own Health
Marteson said that, since learning about accessible treatment options, “I feel like I have agency in my own health that I didn’t have before.” Kory mentions natural options like curcumin and nigella sativa, or black cumin, which he would have laughed off years ago, but now realizes they have multiple mechanisms by which they fight viruses:
“Reading about something like curcumin or nigella sativa, which if someone told me a year ago to take something like nigella sativa — black cumin seed — it would save your life in a viral disease, I would have literally burst out laughing … but when you look, there’s literally 10 years of lots of little trials and studies that have evaluated and defined multiple mechanisms of black cumin seed — immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, antiviral.
So you have all of these building blocks, and then you have this trial from Pakistan — large randomized controlled trial with really large magnitude benefits — of literally nigella sativa and honey. And then you find out about honey. Honey also has pleotropic properties.”
Kory is driven to share what he’s learned with as many people as possible, because he believes that everyone should feel empowered to stay healthy, similar to what I have long advised — to take control of your health. He told Marteson:
“It’s so satisfying because now we have agency, and so many people have agency by learning this knowledge of things that are readily available, cheap, don’t need a prescription, that you can actually treat yourself with very safe compounds. Not only is that agency so satisfying, but boy does it seem critical for the future. Is this going to be the last viral pandemic?”
His index case with ivermectin — the first person with COVID-19 whom he treated with the drug — is also etched in his memory. The patient — a “slightly older, slightly overweight” woman — was two weeks into COVID-19 and still having fevers and night sweats, so still quite sick. He treated her with ivermectin and she woke up in the morning feeling great:
“Literally I saw what could only be described as a phenomenal response to a medication. So when we talk about data that we use, I’m sorry but I was sold right there on the first dose. First patient, first dose. And then I had repeated experiences.”
COVID-19 Is Highly Treatable
Fear has dominated the pandemic, but both Martenson and Kory say there’s no need to walk around in fear. As a lung and ICU expert, Kory is a master at treating acute illnesses which, he says, “is all about trajectories.” “When we make rounds on patients, we see them every day, we’re following their course … in an ICU, I have to be very knowledgeable about their minute-to-minute, or sometimes hour-to-hour trajectory,” he said.
He teaches medicine also, and he teaches his trainees to study trajectories in their patients. When the trajectory worsens, especially in critical illness, therapies must be instituted but, he says, when “I see a trajectory on the improvement, I always say just stand back. They’re getting better, they’re going to continue to get better …”
In the case of his index patient with ivermectin, she was on a steady trajectory, but it rapidly improved upon administration of ivermectin — a pattern he sees regularly with the drug. The ability to get a sense of this pattern recognition is what makes the difference between an expert and nonexpert in critical care medicine, Kory says.
“The longer you’re in medicine, the better you get at that and you can see which medicines are working.” In this case, ivermectin is one that quickly stood out from the rest. Especially if you’re an expert at trajectories, patterns and diseases, as Kory is, “you can figure things out much quicker than a massive, multicentered, double-blinded, randomized controlled trial.”
If there were one thing that Kory could share, it’s that he wants everyone to know that COVID-19 is a highly treatable disease:
“I want everybody to know how treatable this is … I’m not that worried about it for me, my friends, my family, my colleagues. I’m not worried about it for those who follow the FLCCC and our protocols because we know that they’re effective.
And I just hope that umbrella of reassurance and protection, which is to say there are effective treatments which will save your life and prevent the need for hospitalization, I just hope that number grows. But me personally, I’m not that bothered by COVID. As you know, I actually got COVID. It was a relatively mild case and so I also have natural immunity in my camp.”
Early treatment, however, is essential. One of his friends became ill with COVID-19 and made the mistake of thinking he had a cold. He didn’t contact Kory until he’d been sick for seven or eight days and by that time, he said, “I had to pull out all the stops for him. I really had to use every tool in my arsenal to keep him out of the hospital.” So if you have COVID-19, the sooner you implement the treatment protocol, the better.
There’s a War Against Truth
The successful treatment of COVID-19 using ivermectin and other therapies is being actively suppressed. Few, for instance, have heard about the astonishing success in Uttar Pradesh, India, which embraced large-scale prophylactic and therapeutic use of ivermectin for COVID-19 patients, close contacts of patients and health care workers.
They’ve since had a COVID-19 positivity rate of almost zero, marking a major public health achievement that Kory believes should be a model for the world. Even the World Health Organization praised Uttar Pradesh for their excellent public health measures, which included sending people out to villages to conduct rapid COVID-19 tests and, if positive, treat patients and close contacts with ivermectin.
WHO, however, did not mention ivermectin as part of Uttar Pradesh’s success story. Kory now calls the FLCCC an “army,” because “they’re actively fighting a war”:
“They’re challenging the pharmacists. They’re talking to their doctors. They’re writing to pharmacy boards … I don’t think war is an overstatement here. There’s a war on truth. There’s a war on free discourse and sharing of opinions. One of the catastrophic things is the way they branded misinformation on the level of a felony. Someone who has an opinion that differs from the agency’s is automatically medical misinformation.
It’s treated as though it’s a scourge of society that needs to be extinguished. I think people are fighting back against that. It’s nice to hear the army and the tribe is growing and most important is, I think we’re helping people. We’re arming people with agency and the ability to navigate a pretty confusing world.”
FLCCC’s I-MASK+ protocol can be downloaded in full, giving you step-by-step instructions on how to prevent and treat the early symptoms of COVID-19. FLCCC also has protocols for at-home prevention and early treatment, called I-MASS, which involves ivermectin, vitamin D3, a multivitamin and a digital thermometer to watch your body temperature in the prevention phase and ivermectin, melatonin, aspirin and antiseptic mouthwash for early at-home treatment.
Household or close contacts of COVID-19 patients may take ivermectin (18 milligrams, then repeat the dose in 48 hours) for post-exposure prevention. FLCCC also has a management protocol — I-RECOVER — for long-haul COVID-19 syndrome. The protocols are translated into 23 different languages to provide widespread, free access to this lifesaving information, including how to get ivermectin.
FLCCC remains hopeful that ivermectin will be formally adopted into national or international COVID-19 treatment guidelines in the near future.
References
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021
FLCCC Alliance, Ivermectin & COVID-19
Mountain Home May 1, 2021
FLCCC Alliance, Math+ Hospital Treatment Protocol for COVID-19
Dr. Pierre Kory Senate Testimony May 6, 2020 (PDF)
FLCCC Alliance I-MASK+ Protocol
FLCCC MATH+ Hospital Protocol
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 24:30
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 26:41
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 28:30
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 28:58
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 32:04
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 34:30
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 34:30
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 38:33
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 40:00
Indian Express May 12, 2021
World Health Organization May 7, 2021
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 1:04
FLCCC Alliance, I-Mask+
FLCCC Alliance, I-MASS
FLCCC Alliance, I-RECOVER
FLCCC, How to Get Ivermectin
-
Craig is an elite combatives instructor and a friend, ex-army, retired LEO. Extremely fit.
====================================
I thought I'd make a public statement about some health issues I've been having, since quite a few of you already know and for those that don't it's relevant for when you may see me soon in training.
I started having some weird things going on around Thanksgiving. Numbness in my lower extremities and pain when walking and an overall sense of fatigue that included all of a sudden just getting sleepy. Cecil caught me asleep on a couch in a hotel lobby when we were in Vegas in December. Just dropped off.
On 12/16/21 I had to pause a class for the .gov at BSR in WV and turn it over to Scotty and go to the ER in Winchester, VA. I was light-headed, dizzy, and having chest pain that was around a 7. I thought I was having a heart attack. The ER trip showed nothing on a chest x-ray, a CT with contrast and a blood panel that was negative for any troponin enzyme. What they did say was my hemaglobin was a 9 and my D-dimer was elevated. I have no family history of anemia and have never been anemic.
They also said my hiatal hernia was huge, which is nothing I didn't already know about and suspected an internal bleed somewhere.
I had to cancel a LEO class in MPLS set for the weekend after the .gov class, and fly home as I could barely stand up.
Fortunately my neighbor is my GI doc and within a week after coming home I had an endoscopy, colonosocopy and a pill cam.
Nothing new. No internal bleed found. In the mean time I started OTC iron supplementation to try and raise my iron levels.
Finally got to a hematologist who after blood work says my MCV is low and diagnosed me with microcytic anemia. Basically what this means is that my ferritin is low (28) and my red blood cells are tiny so I can't oxygenate well. Hemaglobin is now up to 13 so I am feeling a tiny bit better and don't get gassed out playing with the dogs like I was right around Christmas and New Year's.
The plan now is to get IV iron infusion next week which the hematologist says should immediately make me feel better.
What she can't tell me is why I have become anemic or whether this will go away or be chronic.
My cardiologist and hormone doctor suspect this is a vaccine reaction and may very well be due to the spike protein. I received the first shot of Pfizer in May and the 2nd shot in June beacuse Lauren and I were going to Hawaii for a class and some vacay and to enter the state you had to be vaccinated. So I did it.
At the recommendation of my cardilogist and two other doctors whose care I'm under I will not be getting a booster. My cardiologist also has encouraged me to make a VAERS report.
My buddy, Shannon found a really interesting thread on a Mayo Clinic public forum that's about 20 pages long of ALOT of people who have experienced symptoms just like mine post vaccine. Eerily similar to what's going on with me.
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/.../iron-depletion-in.../
Right now I can stand up and talk and do light physical demo. The pressurized cabin of an aircraft makes me bordeline hypoxic because I can't oxygenate well and I can't do any jiu-jitsu. I can do some some light cable work in the gym but that's about it. Even that is pretty much all I can do that day so I can only work out at home when I can sit around on the couch for the rest of the day and watch Netflix.
None of this changes any classes scheduled as of right now and I am mostly able to do what I do. If I seem "off" from my normal energy level this is why. I will continue to drive on and do what you guys expect me to do to the best of my abilities.
As for the vaccine debate.....well...I'm not an "anti-vaxxer" but this issue is nuanced and anyone should carefully weigh the risk versus the reward of getting the shot. Personally in hindsight I wish I wouldn't have and no medical professional whose care I'm under thinks I'm in a high risk category for dying from Covid. I only got the shot because the state of Hawaii mandated it. I won't be getting any more.
That's it guys. If this offends some people and it very well may, and you are one of those "this pandemic is an issue of the unvaccinated" type people....well....you should probably go ahead an unfriend me. You do you and I'll do me.
-
Why are the PTB so intent on forcing the ClotShot?
Dr. Pierre Kory: ‘Covid-19 Is Highly Treatable’
Joseph Mercola
Joseph Mercola
February 9, 2022 Updated: February 9, 2022biggersmaller Print
Commentary
Dr. Pierre Kory, a New York pulmonologist, talked about his experience in treating patients using a protocol that those in power tried to censor.
New York pulmonologist Dr. Pierre Kory, an unapologetic champion of evidence-based medicine, has had remarkable success treating patients with ivermectin and other therapies during the pandemic. His efforts to get the word out on this treatment protocol as part of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Working Group (FLCCC) have largely been stifled by censorship, ridicule and colleagues — brainwashed by the official narrative — unwilling to accept the science.
Kory spoke with Dr. Chris Martenson, host of the Peak Prosperity podcast, about his incredible experiences over the last nearly two years. On December 8, 2020, Kory testified to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which held a hearing on “Early Outpatient Treatment: An Essential Part of a COVID-19 Solution.”
He called on the NIH, CDC and FDA to review the expansive data on ivermectin to prevent COVID-19, keep those with early symptoms from progressing and help critically ill patients recover. As he told Martenson, due to their promising results, he believed early on that “the pandemic has been solved,” until he realized that those in power weren’t open to hearing what he had to say.
Despite his impassioned pleas and astonishing science to back them up, the treatment not only was ignored by the Senate committee but promptly eviscerated. Now, he feels his colleagues in the health care field are living in one of two worlds — by either not following the data or putting patients first because they’re afraid of losing their job or status, or by risking everything to put patients first. He’s become estranged from many colleagues who he says “don’t get it.”
There Is Treatment Available for Viruses
Kory’s eyes have been opened to the reality that many people only hear or believe what public health officials tell them, whether it’s because they’re overworked and don’t have time to delve into the real data or because they’re following with blind trust. Many of Kory’s colleagues have gone along with those they believe to be authoritative experts, even when their guidance defies logic and commonsense. Kory’s trust in the “experts,” however, started to erode the more that he learned.
One of Kory’s role models is Dr. Paul Marik, a critical care doctor at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in East Virginia, who is renowned for his work in creating the “Marik Cocktail,” which significantly reduces death rates from sepsis using inexpensive, safe, generic medications.
Marik was one of a small group of critical care physicians who formed FLCCC, which developed a highly effective COVID-19 treatment protocol known as MATH+. Marik is so in tune with science that if he reads a new study and has questions, he’ll contact the first author on the paper to get direct answers.
Right off the bat, the MATH+ protocol led to high survival rates. Out of more than 100 hospitalized COVID-19 patients treated with the MATH+ protocol by mid-April 2020, only two died. Both were in their 80s and had advanced chronic medical conditions.
After several tweaks and updates, the prophylaxis and early outpatient treatment protocol is now known as I-MASK+ while the hospital treatment has been renamed I-MATH+, due to the addition of ivermectin.
Kory is now a public face of FLCCC, and he’s forged a global network of colleagues who are willing to adapt to new information in any way they can to help patients. One of Kory’s biggest revelations involved the treatment of viruses — specifically, the fact that there are dozens of treatment options available, about 90% of which are repurposed, cost pennies and are readily available:
“I went into this pandemic believing what I’ve been taught my whole career, which is that there is no specific antiviral therapy … I mean, you get a cold, you just rest … and now here I am 18 months later — oh my gosh — there are literally two dozen compounds and now we have trial evidence showing pretty profound large magnitude benefits, either in the duration of symptoms, the duration of viral transmission, hospitalization and death.
We have a number of molecules that actually reduce mortality in what’s turned out to be a deadly viral disease. This isn’t the common cold, we’re clear on that.
I went from, there’s nothing to do for a virus to now, anytime I have a cold going forward, or any of my children, or any other virus that comes at us, we already have a whole armory of stuff that we can employ. And that data for those — which are best, which should be employed — is only going to increase.”
Giving Patients Agency Over Their Own Health
Marteson said that, since learning about accessible treatment options, “I feel like I have agency in my own health that I didn’t have before.” Kory mentions natural options like curcumin and nigella sativa, or black cumin, which he would have laughed off years ago, but now realizes they have multiple mechanisms by which they fight viruses:
“Reading about something like curcumin or nigella sativa, which if someone told me a year ago to take something like nigella sativa — black cumin seed — it would save your life in a viral disease, I would have literally burst out laughing … but when you look, there’s literally 10 years of lots of little trials and studies that have evaluated and defined multiple mechanisms of black cumin seed — immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, antiviral.
So you have all of these building blocks, and then you have this trial from Pakistan — large randomized controlled trial with really large magnitude benefits — of literally nigella sativa and honey. And then you find out about honey. Honey also has pleotropic properties.”
Kory is driven to share what he’s learned with as many people as possible, because he believes that everyone should feel empowered to stay healthy, similar to what I have long advised — to take control of your health. He told Marteson:
“It’s so satisfying because now we have agency, and so many people have agency by learning this knowledge of things that are readily available, cheap, don’t need a prescription, that you can actually treat yourself with very safe compounds. Not only is that agency so satisfying, but boy does it seem critical for the future. Is this going to be the last viral pandemic?”
His index case with ivermectin — the first person with COVID-19 whom he treated with the drug — is also etched in his memory. The patient — a “slightly older, slightly overweight” woman — was two weeks into COVID-19 and still having fevers and night sweats, so still quite sick. He treated her with ivermectin and she woke up in the morning feeling great:
“Literally I saw what could only be described as a phenomenal response to a medication. So when we talk about data that we use, I’m sorry but I was sold right there on the first dose. First patient, first dose. And then I had repeated experiences.”
COVID-19 Is Highly Treatable
Fear has dominated the pandemic, but both Martenson and Kory say there’s no need to walk around in fear. As a lung and ICU expert, Kory is a master at treating acute illnesses which, he says, “is all about trajectories.” “When we make rounds on patients, we see them every day, we’re following their course … in an ICU, I have to be very knowledgeable about their minute-to-minute, or sometimes hour-to-hour trajectory,” he said.
He teaches medicine also, and he teaches his trainees to study trajectories in their patients. When the trajectory worsens, especially in critical illness, therapies must be instituted but, he says, when “I see a trajectory on the improvement, I always say just stand back. They’re getting better, they’re going to continue to get better …”
In the case of his index patient with ivermectin, she was on a steady trajectory, but it rapidly improved upon administration of ivermectin — a pattern he sees regularly with the drug. The ability to get a sense of this pattern recognition is what makes the difference between an expert and nonexpert in critical care medicine, Kory says.
“The longer you’re in medicine, the better you get at that and you can see which medicines are working.” In this case, ivermectin is one that quickly stood out from the rest. Especially if you’re an expert at trajectories, patterns and diseases, as Kory is, “you can figure things out much quicker than a massive, multicentered, double-blinded, randomized controlled trial.”
If there were one thing that Kory could share, it’s that he wants everyone to know that COVID-19 is a highly treatable disease:
“I want everybody to know how treatable this is … I’m not that worried about it for me, my friends, my family, my colleagues. I’m not worried about it for those who follow the FLCCC and our protocols because we know that they’re effective.
And I just hope that umbrella of reassurance and protection, which is to say there are effective treatments which will save your life and prevent the need for hospitalization, I just hope that number grows. But me personally, I’m not that bothered by COVID. As you know, I actually got COVID. It was a relatively mild case and so I also have natural immunity in my camp.”
Early treatment, however, is essential. One of his friends became ill with COVID-19 and made the mistake of thinking he had a cold. He didn’t contact Kory until he’d been sick for seven or eight days and by that time, he said, “I had to pull out all the stops for him. I really had to use every tool in my arsenal to keep him out of the hospital.” So if you have COVID-19, the sooner you implement the treatment protocol, the better.
There’s a War Against Truth
The successful treatment of COVID-19 using ivermectin and other therapies is being actively suppressed. Few, for instance, have heard about the astonishing success in Uttar Pradesh, India, which embraced large-scale prophylactic and therapeutic use of ivermectin for COVID-19 patients, close contacts of patients and health care workers.
They’ve since had a COVID-19 positivity rate of almost zero, marking a major public health achievement that Kory believes should be a model for the world. Even the World Health Organization praised Uttar Pradesh for their excellent public health measures, which included sending people out to villages to conduct rapid COVID-19 tests and, if positive, treat patients and close contacts with ivermectin.
WHO, however, did not mention ivermectin as part of Uttar Pradesh’s success story. Kory now calls the FLCCC an “army,” because “they’re actively fighting a war”:
“They’re challenging the pharmacists. They’re talking to their doctors. They’re writing to pharmacy boards … I don’t think war is an overstatement here. There’s a war on truth. There’s a war on free discourse and sharing of opinions. One of the catastrophic things is the way they branded misinformation on the level of a felony. Someone who has an opinion that differs from the agency’s is automatically medical misinformation.
It’s treated as though it’s a scourge of society that needs to be extinguished. I think people are fighting back against that. It’s nice to hear the army and the tribe is growing and most important is, I think we’re helping people. We’re arming people with agency and the ability to navigate a pretty confusing world.”
FLCCC’s I-MASK+ protocol can be downloaded in full, giving you step-by-step instructions on how to prevent and treat the early symptoms of COVID-19. FLCCC also has protocols for at-home prevention and early treatment, called I-MASS, which involves ivermectin, vitamin D3, a multivitamin and a digital thermometer to watch your body temperature in the prevention phase and ivermectin, melatonin, aspirin and antiseptic mouthwash for early at-home treatment.
Household or close contacts of COVID-19 patients may take ivermectin (18 milligrams, then repeat the dose in 48 hours) for post-exposure prevention. FLCCC also has a management protocol — I-RECOVER — for long-haul COVID-19 syndrome. The protocols are translated into 23 different languages to provide widespread, free access to this lifesaving information, including how to get ivermectin.
FLCCC remains hopeful that ivermectin will be formally adopted into national or international COVID-19 treatment guidelines in the near future.
References
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021
FLCCC Alliance, Ivermectin & COVID-19
Mountain Home May 1, 2021
FLCCC Alliance, Math+ Hospital Treatment Protocol for COVID-19
Dr. Pierre Kory Senate Testimony May 6, 2020 (PDF)
FLCCC Alliance I-MASK+ Protocol
FLCCC MATH+ Hospital Protocol
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 24:30
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 26:41
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 28:30
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 28:58
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 32:04
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 34:30
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 34:30
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 38:33
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 40:00
Indian Express May 12, 2021
World Health Organization May 7, 2021
Odysee, Peak Prosperity October 15, 2021, 1:04
FLCCC Alliance, I-Mask+
FLCCC Alliance, I-MASS
FLCCC Alliance, I-RECOVER
FLCCC, How to Get Ivermectin
-
Pfizer vacc
for young children held up
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pfizer-pulls-fda-request-covid-184908059.html
parents all over the US are in tears tonight I am sure
:roll:
-
“We went from 15 days to Flatten the Curve to 18 Wheels to Flatten the Regime.”
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/098/678/899/original/53d2c47b3137ee0a.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/098/678/899/original/53d2c47b3137ee0a.png)
-
HIV and ID Observations
An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
all matters medical, and some not so medical.
February 12th, 2022
The Rise and Fall of Ivermectin — 1 Year Later
Cheese consumption and death from bedsheets are highly correlated.
Here’s a confession few board-certified ID doctors will make — there was a brief period when I thought ivermectin could very well be an effective treatment for COVID-19.
It wasn’t when the in vitro data first came out. Therapeutic concentrations were not achievable in humans.
Nor when the anecdotal reports started pouring in, and sometimes making news. A former colleague of mine, a smart and clinically active person practicing in the Midwest, contacted me in late 2020 telling me that they acted as the primary medical consultant for a nursing home. Since they started using ivermectin, no patient had died or even been hospitalized from the disease. OK, a hopeful observation, but not proof.
Not when the figures appeared correlating ivermectin use and lower death rates from COVID-19 in some countries, mostly from tropical regions in South America and Asia. These figures always reminded me of these spurious (and often hilarious) correlations. Did you know that per capita cheese production correlated strongly with the number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bedsheets? Who knew? And what’s the mechanism?
And certainly not when these folks started pushing ivermectin with an enthusiasm that is frankly religious in intensity. This group’s treatment “protocols“, with their hodgepodge of antimicrobials (including ivermectin), immunomodulators, and vitamins — the kitchen sink approach — strain credibility.
Nope — my moment of greatest hope for ivermectin came just over a year ago, when Dr. Andrew Hill presented results from a meta-analysis of several randomized controlled trials, a presentation he would later also give to the NIH Guidelines panel. Andrew is a well-respected clinical researcher, someone well-known in the HIV research world.
In his analysis as first presented, the risk-ratio for mortality with ivermectin was 0.17 (95% confidence interval 0.08, 0.35), an 83% reduction in risk for dying. Outcomes for other endpoints (time to viral clearance, time to clinical recovery, duration of hospitalization) also favored treatment over controls.
Hearing these data, I reached out to Andrew to discuss his findings, and he generously discussed them with me. He acknowledged that the data were incomplete, but remained strongly suggestive of clinical benefit. Furthermore, he’d been in direct contact with the researchers who conducted the largest of these studies. They repeatedly reassured him that the data were sound.
I subsequently summarized my thoughts here in a post entitled, “Ivermectin for COVID-19 — Breakthrough Treatment or Hydroxychloroquine Redux?”; writing:
My take-home view? The clinical trials data for ivermectin look stronger than they ever did for hydroxychloroquine, but we’re not quite yet at the “practice changing” level. Results from at least 5 randomized clinical trials are expected soon that might further inform the decision. NIH treatment guidelines still recommend against use of ivermectin for treatment of COVID-19, a recommendation I support pending further data — we shouldn’t have to wait long.
What happened next? I offered Andrew the chance to submit the meta-analysis to Open Forum Infectious Diseases, which after conducting some additional analyses, he kindly did. Remember, at this time in early 2021, we had no readily available effective outpatient treatments COVID-19. Something inexpensive, safe, and widely available certainly would be most welcome.
After peer review and some revisions, with Andrew and his team reducing the survival effect size for ivermectin to 56% (still highly significant) due to some additional studies, we accepted the paper. We simultaneously solicited a thoughtful editorial from my Boston ID colleague Dr. Mark Siedner, entitled “Ivermectin for the Treatment of COVID-19 Disease: Too Good to Pass Up or Too Good to Be True?”
Well, we now know that the second part of Mark’s brilliant title turned out to be the case — too good to be true. Many of the studies on which the meta-analysis was based were highly flawed, and one was outright fraudulent. The fake data problem came to light just shortly after the meta-analysis appeared in print.
To his credit, Andrew promptly contacted me when the news broke. He immediately offered to retract the original paper, and even better to submit a detailed analysis of what went wrong.
This revised paper has just been published, entitled “Ivermectin for COVID-19: Addressing Potential Bias and Medical Fraud.” It includes this extremely telling figure, which shows how the effect size of ivermectin on survival drops to meaningless with exclusion of the fraudulent and potentially flawed studies:
Read the full paper! But if you don’t have time, here’s the lesson:
These revised results highlight the need for rigorous quality assessments, for authors to share patient-level data, and for efforts to avoid publication bias for registered studies. These steps are vital to facilitate accurate conclusions on clinical treatments.
Indeed. And for whatever role I played as an editor in sustaining the confusion — and sometimes heated conflicts — over this potential treatment for COVID-19, I deeply regret it and apologize. I hope this post, and even more, Andrew’s revision, explain what happened, and hope we all can learn something from this mistake. Certainly I did.
Meanwhile, several large placebo-controlled trials continue to test ivermectin for COVID-19 treatment in outpatients. It still might do something (though at this point I’m not very hopeful). At least one of the studies — COVID-OUT — is fully enrolled, and ACTIV-6 is far along, so more data will be forthcoming soon.
Will these results be enough to quell the controversy about whether ivermectin has a role in treatment COVID-19, settling the issue once and for all? Let’s hope so.
-
I have heard even Republicans in Colorado and elsewhere compliment the liberal Governor on this.
From NY Magazine
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-colorado-covid-playbook/ar-AATPCNa
I think they got through the whole Colo covid story without mentioning he is an openly gay Democrat governing something more significant than small town parking meters.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/098/794/296/original/a3f54311ae6677ed.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/098/794/296/original/a3f54311ae6677ed.jpg)
The ClotShot may result in clotting!
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/099/094/674/original/09f1174fca27d671.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/099/094/674/original/09f1174fca27d671.jpg)
Your child isn't damaged if we change the standard!
-
Wow , , ,
===================
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/ivermectin-fails/comments?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDkwMDI1NjIsIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY0NTIyMDQwNCwiZXhwIjoxNjQ1MjI0MDA0LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzYzMDgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.Ku2FfyigcNf-J8jsJyurnqfEVr61ucwdYKq-o0ENY2E&utm_source=url
-
I saw this study this am in my email
didn't post here because I figured I would just get people mad who would post back counter arguments and articles and would just be going in circles for no good reason.
I have only prescribed ivermectin once for corona to a chiropractor who keep insisting on it.
I have prescribed this now and then for parasites
like mites!
works great for that.
-
I think it safe to say the Berenson would have been glad to trumpet success for Ivermectin, so the clarity of his words here carries extra weight.
-
Omicron delivered more immunity than all vaccines combined
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/02/18/bill_gates_omicron_variant_has_delivered_more_immunity_around_the_world_than_we_have_done_with_vaccines.html
Also, mask mandates made no significant difference during Omicron:
https://reason.com/2022/02/18/there-is-little-evidence-that-mask-mandates-had-an-important-impact-during-the-omicron-surge/
-
I predict that in time, the ClotShot will end up having killed more people than the Kung Flu.
Omicron delivered more immunity than all vaccines combined
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/02/18/bill_gates_omicron_variant_has_delivered_more_immunity_around_the_world_than_we_have_done_with_vaccines.html
Also, mask mandates made no significant difference during Omicron:
https://reason.com/2022/02/18/there-is-little-evidence-that-mask-mandates-had-an-important-impact-during-the-omicron-surge/
-
China’s ‘Zero-Covid’ Policy Holds Lessons for Other Nations
Enormous resources, local cooperation enable China to suppress infections with less disruption to life than in countries where pandemic still rages
By Greg Ip
Follow
Updated Feb. 16, 2022 2:45 pm ET
Ever since China adopted its policy of stamping out every Covid-19 infection, outsiders have wondered whether it could last. With each new, more infectious variant, “zero Covid” has required more vigilant and frequent crackdowns on daily activity.
And yet it has lasted. And seen from inside China, the results are remarkable. Foreigners in Beijing for the Olympics may be confined to a dystopian bubble in constant fear of being quarantined. But outside the bubble, life in the city looks close to normal with stores, museums and offices operating and subway and road traffic in line with this time of year in 2019. Americans only now are moving on from the coronavirus. Most Chinese did so back in 2020.
It is difficult for westerners to evaluate China’s Covid-19 response dispassionately. Mistrust still runs high over China’s muzzling of information about the virus in Wuhan in late 2019, its refusal to accept that the pandemic originated there and failure to cooperate more with international investigations over its origins. China’s intrusive measures for tracking, tracing and isolating infected people are seen as an extension of a surveillance state that would be intolerable in a democracy with individual rights. Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party touts its Covid-19 success as proof its governance is superior to American-style democracy.
And yet this geopolitical tension tends to muddy zero Covid’s achievements and its lessons for other countries, including democracies. It appears to have delivered what every country sought two years ago: low deaths with the least possible economic disruption. While there are questions over the reliability of China’s official Covid death toll, it appears to rank among the world’s lowest on a per capita basis, and its gross domestic product finished 2021 roughly where pre-pandemic trends predicted.
China’s ‘Zero-Covid’ Policy Creates New Supply-Chain Worries
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
To keep out Covid-19, China closed some border gates late last year, leaving produce to rot in trucks. Restrictions like these and rules at some Chinese ports, the gateways for goods headed to the world, could cascade into delays in the global supply chain. Photo composite: Emily Siu
It is true, as critics claim, that zero Covid can’t be sustained indefinitely. China will eventually have to coexist with a virus that is permanently entrenched in the human population. Hong Kong’s spreading outbreak illustrates how difficult test, trace and isolate becomes once infections are widespread enough.
Yet it is worth studying how mainland China has sustained zero Covid this long. China put enormous resources behind the effort, most importantly on testing capacity: A city of fewer than five million people is expected to screen every inhabitant using sensitive PCR tests in two days, and a city of more than five million in three days. The port city of Tianjin tested its entire population of 14 million in 4.5 hours last month, state media reported. By contrast, testing became backlogged or unavailable for many in numerous U.S. cities during the Omicron wave.
Beijing also has modified zero Covid to make it less disruptive. The lockdown of Xi’an, a city of 13 million, for a month through late January is the exception. Under a more targeted approach dubbed “dynamic clearing,” restrictions typically cover just a district, a neighborhood or a building. “Some localities endure tough restrictions and disruption for a short period of time so that most of the country can exist without restrictions most of the time—a balance that so far has enjoyed reasonable popular support,” Cui Ernan of Gavekal Dragonomics, a China-focused research service, wrote last month.
This hasn’t been costless. China’s consumer spending has been hit hard by lockdowns and travel restrictions, though strong exports have offset the impact on overall growth. Yanzhong Huang, a health expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said 4.4 million small businesses closed in the first 11 months of last year while just 1.3 million new ones registered. China, he estimates, spent nearly $100 billion on domestic vaccines that are far less effective than western mRNA shots that it refuses to approve. Those under lockdown have suffered inconvenience, disrupted travel and family separations, he said.
Yet life was much less affected by Covid-19 in China than in other countries last year, according to an index of restrictions and mobility developed by Goldman Sachs. Elsewhere, waves of the pandemic have hurt business, closed schools and triggered mask mandates while incurring steep, unquantifiable costs in illness and death. Disruptions and deaths will no doubt mount when China eventually lifts zero Covid, but it has bought time to build up vaccines, therapies and healthcare facilities to mitigate the impact.
Of course, citizens deprived of their freedom or livelihoods can’t vote the Communist Party out of office or protest in the streets. Still, ordinary Chinese appear to support and willingly cooperate with zero Covid because they see its benefits.
That suggests there is more to China’s success than an absence of democracy. A recent study in Lancet sought to explain why some countries had lower Covid-19 infection and death rates through last September. It controlled for factors such as population density, per capita income, age and pre-existing conditions. One finding: “There is no relationship between democracy and performance that we could find in this pandemic,” said Thomas Bollyky, one of the authors and director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations. The death rate is low in autocratic China but high in autocratic Russia; low in democratic Taiwan but high in the democratic U.S.
What did make a difference, the study found, is trust. The more citizens trust the government, or each other, the more effectively a country dealt with Covid-19. Intuitively, citizens who trust the government are more likely to comply with social distancing, contact tracing and mask and vaccine mandates. Where trust is lacking, citizens are less likely to comply and governments less likely to ask. Interpersonal trust encourages citizens to do things that protect others, and to believe others will do the same.
According to the World Values Survey, trust in government is high in China and low in the U.S. Mr. Bollyky acknowledged survey respondents in autocratic countries may censor their views. But even leaving out China, he said the results held. Covid-19 outcomes generally are better where more people trust the government (New Zealand, South Korea) or each other (Denmark, Canada).
The lesson of China’s success, then, isn’t that autocracy is superior. It’s that U.S. democracy needs to work better.
-
"Yet life was much less affected by Covid-19 in China than in other countries last year, according to an index of restrictions and mobility developed by Goldman Sachs."
:-o
https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/2020/04/27/3a0089c7-c1d1-4243-8dbd-da6141a501be.html
our governor is another GS alumni
is this where he got his strict lock down measures from ?
-
China's stats are even less trustworthy than Fauci's.
"Yet life was much less affected by Covid-19 in China than in other countries last year, according to an index of restrictions and mobility developed by Goldman Sachs."
:-o
https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/2020/04/27/3a0089c7-c1d1-4243-8dbd-da6141a501be.html
our governor is another GS alumni
is this where he got his strict lock down measures from ?
-
I know, I know-- the irony is an article- in the WSJ yet!- about the role of trust actually trusting China.
-
https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1491814216289820691
-
Covid down 87% since the peak of Omicron
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10535335/FDA-considering-FOURTH-dose-COVID-19-vaccine-making-annual-shot.html
FDA considers 4th dose plus annual shot.
-
Covid down 87% since the peak of Omicron
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10535335/FDA-considering-FOURTH-dose-COVID-19-vaccine-making-annual-shot.html
FDA considers 4th dose plus annual shot.
No winter of severe illness and death? I was promised a winter of severe illness and death.
Must be time for the next bioweapon release.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/099/392/295/original/68a2b7a32b0bbdc5.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/099/392/295/original/68a2b7a32b0bbdc5.jpg)
Except for the ClotShot!
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/two-week-recap-denmark-ba2-and-boosters?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDg3NDIxODYsIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY0NTcxNzY5MCwiZXhwIjoxNjQ1NzIxMjkwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.WR7YXY6-w-MJhpk4OeQeiDWN5GAXAN5ldAZXGFvbI8A&utm_source=url
-
COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations Jump Among Vaccinated: CDC Data
By Zachary Stieber February 24, 2022 Updated: February 24, 2022biggersmaller Print
COVID-19 case and hospitalization rates increased among people who got a COVID-19 vaccine following the emergence of the Omicron virus variant, according to newly published data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to the data, which is submitted to the CDC by health departments across the country, the COVID-19 case rate in fully vaccinated people rose by more than 1,000 percent between Dec. 11, 2021, and Jan. 8, 2022.
Fully vaccinated refers to people who received two doses of the Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The CDC doesn’t count a person as fully vaccinated until 14 days have elapsed from his or her final shot.
The case rate among those who also received a booster dose skyrocketed as well, rising some 2,400 percent between the same dates.
While cases also rose among the unvaccinated, the jump in infections among the vaccinated closed the gap between the populations. As a result, people who haven’t received a vaccine were just 3.2 times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 in January.
COVID-19-associated hospitalizations also increased among the vaccinated, from 1.4 per 100,000 for the fully vaccinated for the week ending Dec. 18, 2021, to 35.2 per 100,000 in the week ending Jan. 8, according to data from a surveillance system managed by the CDC.
People who got a booster were less likely to require hospital care, but the hospitalization rate among the boosted also rose from December 2021 to January.
And deaths attributed to COVID-19 increased during the same time period among the vaccinated, including among the boosted.
Epoch Times Photo
(CDC)
Other data sources also point to vaccines performing worse after Omicron, including studies published by the CDC in January, which has narrowed the gap between the unvaccinated and vaccinated in terms of cases and hospitalizations.
Some research, though, signals that boosters restore much of the lost protection, including a study performed by researchers with Kaiser Permanente and Moderna published in Nature Medicine on Feb. 21.
“Our results suggest that third doses may be needed sooner than 6 months after the second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to protect against omicron infection,” Hung Fu Tseng, a Kaiser researcher, said in a statement. “Reassuringly, 3 doses provide strong protection against COVID-19 hospitalization due to either the omicron or delta variant.”
Just days after the study, though, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel told investors on a call that a second booster would be necessary because of waning protection from the vaccine, including the first booster.
“This year, we expect to see continued primary vaccination and boosting in the Southern Hemisphere in the first half, and a shift to boosters as a fourth dose booster in the Northern Hemisphere in the second half of the year, similar to flu vaccines,” Bancel said.
U.S. health officials have said they’re considering whether to authorize second boosters for the general public.
The CDC data also showed a jump in case, hospitalization, and death rates among the unvaccinated, but the increase wasn’t as significant as compared to that recorded among the vaccinated.
The CDC says unvaccinated adults were 2.6 times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 in January compared to fully vaccinated adults and 3.2 times more likely when compared to boosted adults; at least 30 times more likely to be hospitalized in December 2021 due to COVID-19 compared to boosted Americans 18 or older, 14 times more likely to die from COVID-19 in December 2021 compared to the fully vaccinated, and 41 times more likely to die in December 2021 versus the boosted.
Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have plummeted in both the unvaccinated and vaccinated in recent weeks, driving many states to rescind COVID-19 restrictions.
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/398017.php
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/398017.php
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=398052
Science!
-
https://www.today.com/news/news/stanford-womens-soccer-team-captain-katie-meyer-dies-age-22-rcna18455
-
https://www.today.com/news/sports/katie-meyer-death-parents-interview-rcna18694
but no further details
though she faced some sore of disciplinary action by the school
for 'defending another student'?
what?!
-
https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/img2553.jpeg
(https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/img2553.jpeg)
-
I think he was on some cable last night
first view of him in a while
but I was not paying attention
was doing something else
I haven't bothered with him in well over a yr.
-
https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/04/covid-vaccine-bombshells-you-probably-didnt-hear-about/
-
https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/04/covid-vaccine-bombshells-you-probably-didnt-hear-about/
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/fox-news-and-newsmax-took-biden-money?s=r
-
:-o :-o :-o
-
https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/04/covid-vaccine-bombshells-you-probably-didnt-hear-about/
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/fox-news-and-newsmax-took-biden-money?s=r
https://noqreport.com/2022/02/16/bombshell-report-insurance-companies-increase-u-s-mortality-expectations-by-300000-due-to-covid-and-indirect-covid-aka-the-jabs/
-
"And they actually think there’s going to be 300,000 excess deaths due to — they call it ‘Covid and indirect Covid,’ whatever that means — in the U.S. in 2022. "
I assume this means any deaths that have a corona link.
Guessing this includes
lack of access to care for medical services due to fear of getting corona, long wait times,
suicide from isolation , perhaps prolonged heart lung damage from corona infection, and agree would include
deaths from the vaccine (the most rare)
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/289/954/original/f08be6581d53219d.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/289/954/original/f08be6581d53219d.png)
I was told the science was settled and that this was impossible.
https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/04/covid-vaccine-bombshells-you-probably-didnt-hear-about/
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/fox-news-and-newsmax-took-biden-money?s=r
https://noqreport.com/2022/02/16/bombshell-report-insurance-companies-increase-u-s-mortality-expectations-by-300000-due-to-covid-and-indirect-covid-aka-the-jabs/
-
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1499567294770565121.html
It IS mRNA gene therapy.
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/289/954/original/f08be6581d53219d.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/289/954/original/f08be6581d53219d.png)
I was told the science was settled and that this was impossible.
https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/04/covid-vaccine-bombshells-you-probably-didnt-hear-about/
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/fox-news-and-newsmax-took-biden-money?s=r
https://noqreport.com/2022/02/16/bombshell-report-insurance-companies-increase-u-s-mortality-expectations-by-300000-due-to-covid-and-indirect-covid-aka-the-jabs/
-
Even Mild Cases of COVID-19 Can Lead to Brain Changes: Study
By Zachary Stieber March 8, 2022 Updated: March 8, 2022biggersmaller Print
Mild COVID-19 cases were linked to changes in the brain in a newly published study.
Approximately 785 people underwent a brain scan and about half later tested positive for COVID-19. All the people got a second brain scan, including those who had survived the disease.
Researchers from the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging at the University of Oxford analyzed the scans and found the participants infected with COVID-19 had a greater reduction in the thickness of grey matter, which helps humans perform various functions such as making decisions, and other negative outcomes.
“Despite the infection being mild for 96% of our participants, we saw a greater loss of grey matter volume, and greater tissue damage in the infected participants, on average 4.5 months after infection,” professor Gwenaëlle Douaud, the study’s lead author, said in a statement.
“They also showed greater decline in their mental abilities to perform complex tasks, and this mental worsening was partly related to these brain abnormalities. All these negative effects were more marked at older ages.”
The paper was published in Nature following peer review.
The scans were taken from the UK Biobank, a large-scale medical database that contains information on approximately 500,000 UK residents.
Those whose scans were analyzed were aged 51 to 81. The reason the study did not include younger people is that all participants in the scanning were 40 or older, Douaud told The Epoch Times in an email.
The scans were taken on average 38 months apart.
Epoch Times Photo
The red-yellow regions are the parts of the brain that researchers found shrunk the most in people who contracted COVID-19, compared with a non-infected cohort. (G. Douaud, in collaboration with Anderson Winkler and Saad Jbabdi, University of Oxford and NIH)
Researchers said the two cohorts—people who ended up getting infected and people who did not—were similar in terms of age, sex, and many risk factors.
Participants also engaged in cognitive tests, and the infected group was more likely to experience cognitive decline by the time of the second test.
The brain changes ranged from 0.2 to 2 percent additional change in the infected group.
Researchers described the study as the first in the world to compare images taken before COVID-19 infection with scans after infection.
COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2.
The study was funded by a Wellcome Trust award.
Limitations of the research include the lack of stratification of severity of the cases beyond the detail of whether they needed hospital care and most participants being white. The study also did not account for vaccination status.
Researchers said that further study is needed to see whether the negative impact can be partially reversed and whether the effects would persist over longer periods of time.
-
Did these people take the ClotShot?
Even Mild Cases of COVID-19 Can Lead to Brain Changes: Study
By Zachary Stieber March 8, 2022 Updated: March 8, 2022biggersmaller Print
Mild COVID-19 cases were linked to changes in the brain in a newly published study.
Approximately 785 people underwent a brain scan and about half later tested positive for COVID-19. All the people got a second brain scan, including those who had survived the disease.
Researchers from the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging at the University of Oxford analyzed the scans and found the participants infected with COVID-19 had a greater reduction in the thickness of grey matter, which helps humans perform various functions such as making decisions, and other negative outcomes.
“Despite the infection being mild for 96% of our participants, we saw a greater loss of grey matter volume, and greater tissue damage in the infected participants, on average 4.5 months after infection,” professor Gwenaëlle Douaud, the study’s lead author, said in a statement.
“They also showed greater decline in their mental abilities to perform complex tasks, and this mental worsening was partly related to these brain abnormalities. All these negative effects were more marked at older ages.”
The paper was published in Nature following peer review.
The scans were taken from the UK Biobank, a large-scale medical database that contains information on approximately 500,000 UK residents.
Those whose scans were analyzed were aged 51 to 81. The reason the study did not include younger people is that all participants in the scanning were 40 or older, Douaud told The Epoch Times in an email.
The scans were taken on average 38 months apart.
Epoch Times Photo
The red-yellow regions are the parts of the brain that researchers found shrunk the most in people who contracted COVID-19, compared with a non-infected cohort. (G. Douaud, in collaboration with Anderson Winkler and Saad Jbabdi, University of Oxford and NIH)
Researchers said the two cohorts—people who ended up getting infected and people who did not—were similar in terms of age, sex, and many risk factors.
Participants also engaged in cognitive tests, and the infected group was more likely to experience cognitive decline by the time of the second test.
The brain changes ranged from 0.2 to 2 percent additional change in the infected group.
Researchers described the study as the first in the world to compare images taken before COVID-19 infection with scans after infection.
COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2.
The study was funded by a Wellcome Trust award.
Limitations of the research include the lack of stratification of severity of the cases beyond the detail of whether they needed hospital care and most participants being white. The study also did not account for vaccination status.
Researchers said that further study is needed to see whether the negative impact can be partially reversed and whether the effects would persist over longer periods of time.
-
Dr. Peter McCullough: Findings From Early COVID-19 Vaccine Studies Potentially Alarming
'This is getting into human chromosomes'
By Beth Brelje March 8, 2022 Updated: March 8, 2022biggersmaller Print
How safe are COVID-19 vaccines? Should everyone be taking them? Are people who get vaccines more likely to get COVID-19? Can genetic material in the vaccines be incorporated into the human genome? These are some of the unknown questions that researchers around the world are currently investigating.
With more initial findings and hypotheses now released to the public, a group of free speech and information advocates last week during a presentation in Pennsylvania gave their “uncensored” take of the current science. They are currently traveling around the United States sharing concerns about how public health policy and debate throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has been handled.
The speakers were Dr. Peter McCullough, a renowned cardiologist whose own research is highly-cited; Dr. Bryan Ardis, a chiropractor; attorney Thomas Renz; and Steve Kirsch, a Silicon Valley philanthropist who supported early efforts searching for COVID-19 treatments in medicines already on the market. They were invited by the “Lions for Liberty,” a group of Penn State University students, faculty, and staff that sprang up in response to the university’s pandemic mitigation policies that require employees to get vaccinated for COVID-19.
The four spoke on numerous occasions; at Toftrees Resort in State College on March 3 and at Hershey Lodge on March 4 before which they testified at the Capitol Building in Harrisburg in a hearing hosted by state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who is a Republican running for governor.
They presented data from peer-reviewed studies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and government documents, and expressed their concerns that the COVID-19 vaccines recommended for all Americans were problematic from the start.
“It was clear vaccines weren’t sufficiently tested and important groups were excluded, like pregnant women,” McCullough said in Hershey. “With no data on safety and efficacy, pregnant women were encouraged, then later forced, to take the vaccines.”
He called the results of a newly released study disturbing. The study, titled “Immune imprinting, breadth of variant recognition, and germinal center response in human SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination,” shows that messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) from the vaccine stays in the body much longer than expected. Messenger RNA is a single-stranded molecule that carries genetic code, usually from the DNA in a cell’s nucleus, to ribosomes, the cell’s protein-making area.
“It shows the messenger RNA is in the lymph nodes months after the vaccine had been received. This is proven,” McCullough said. “The vaccines are not leaving the body. It’s found in the lymph nodes at 60 days. The thought in the FDA briefing book was that these vaccines were going to be in the body for a day or two, generate immunity, and then be out.”
He cited another paper published in February by a team of researchers led by Associate Prof. Yang De Marinis at the Department of Clinical Sciences of Lund University, Sweden, that shows “reverse transcription” is happening—that is, an enzyme makes a copy of DNA from RNA.
“This is getting into human chromosomes, at least this segment is. If it turns out that the entire code goes into human chromosomes, and if it expresses spike protein within cells—spike protein is an abnormal protein, it is not a human protein— if this protein is expressed within human cells on a regular basis or on demand, and it’s passed from parent cells to daughter cells, and it’s passed to the developing embryo, we’re in trouble.”
Now, the race is on to confirm this finding with additional studies, McCullough said.
“On the CDC website, it says the vaccines don’t change the human genome. This paper that just broke in the last week is strongly suggesting the CDC was gravely wrong,” McCullough said. “We should have had monthly safety reports to America. If we’re going to ask Americans to take an experimental vaccine or investigational vaccine, there should have been a safety report.”
Coming out of the clinical trials, what was reported in the briefing booklet looked OK, McCullough said. Through October, over 220 million people took a vaccine.
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has now recorded as many as 24,000 reports of people dying shortly after taking a COVID-19 vaccine, over 34,000 reports of myocarditis or pericarditis after taking a vaccine, and 44,000 reports from people permanently disabled with a host of conditions after taking a vaccine. These reports, which can be made by any member of the public, have yet to be definitively linked to COVID-19 vaccines and further research is needed to quantify the risk.
Now, a new study in The Lancet is pointing to potential multi-inflammatory syndrome in COVID-19 vaccinated children, McCullough said. “Some kids are on ventilators. These were perfectly healthy kids and now they’re on the ventilator fighting for their life.”
State Legislation
During the hearing in Harrisburg, a number of COVID-related bills were mentioned.
Mastriano is the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 471, dubbed the Medical Freedom Act, which proposed that the state government shall not impose a vaccination requirement on adults or children without consent. It also proposed to make it illegal for the government to mandate employers to require vaccination of their staff and ensures unemployment compensation for unvaccinated workers. The bill moved out of the Health and Human Services Committee in November, committee chair state Sen. Michele Brooks said at the hearing. She also advocated for her own legislation, Senate Bill 937, which prohibits the state from requiring COVID-19 vaccines for students in kindergarten through grade 12. It is now in the House Education Committee, Brooks said.
A companion bill, SB 1091/HB 1741 would increase access to off-label FDA approved medications in the early stages of COVID-19. This would allow physicians and pharmacists to prescribe and dispense drugs already approved by the FDA for off-label treatment of COVID-19, without penalty from licensing boards. And it would clarify that a pharmacy may not decline to fill a prescription of a COVID-19 early treatment drug based solely on their opinion of the drug. Mastriano is the prime sponsor of this Senate bill and Rep. Dawn Keefer sponsors the House version.
Ardis made a plea to lawmakers at the hearing, on behalf of doctors.
“Please let them practice medicine. Never in the history of the world has there been one protocol for every human. We are all genetically different,” Ardis said. “Please allow doctors, once again, to be protected to practice medicine. They are the only ones that have known the history of their patients. You cannot tell me there’s one solution or protocol for every American who gets a respiratory infection right now; it’s impossible. And then you’re going to take their license from them, destroy their livelihood and then slander them with their reputation, because they’re holding to their oath to do no harm? Please. Put legislation in place that they can never be punished for doing their best to do no harm, to treat their patients.”
Penn State Snubbed Event
Lions for Liberty invited two university policy makers, Penn State President Eric Barron and Provost Nick Jones, to attend the forum. But Barron and Jones were not among the combined 700 attendees.
“It is disconcerting, to say the least, that leadership from the university’s administration were unwilling to attend or engage in either of these events,” Arielle Girouard, Lions for Liberty press secretary told The Epoch Times. “It is unfortunate that one of the nation’s top universities in research, education, and innovation has repeatedly denied our attempts to have a discussion on the science that has driven public health and institutional, including university, policies over the past two years. President Barron acknowledges a growing lack of public trust in higher education. It is hard to see how refusal to engage with credentialed academics and professionals, from both within and outside of the Penn State community, does anything but sow further distrust in the public. Regardless, Lions for Liberty isn’t going anywhere. We are committed to fostering a community, open to all who seek truth, so we may make well-informed decisions regarding our health, among other individual liberties.”
Penn State did not respond to a request from The Epoch Times to explain why they did not attend.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and the Penn State chapter of Turning Point USA co-hosted the speakers with Lions for Liberty.
-
Nuremberg 2.0 is coming.
Dr. Peter McCullough: Findings From Early COVID-19 Vaccine Studies Potentially Alarming
'This is getting into human chromosomes'
By Beth Brelje March 8, 2022 Updated: March 8, 2022biggersmaller Print
How safe are COVID-19 vaccines? Should everyone be taking them? Are people who get vaccines more likely to get COVID-19? Can genetic material in the vaccines be incorporated into the human genome? These are some of the unknown questions that researchers around the world are currently investigating.
With more initial findings and hypotheses now released to the public, a group of free speech and information advocates last week during a presentation in Pennsylvania gave their “uncensored” take of the current science. They are currently traveling around the United States sharing concerns about how public health policy and debate throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has been handled.
The speakers were Dr. Peter McCullough, a renowned cardiologist whose own research is highly-cited; Dr. Bryan Ardis, a chiropractor; attorney Thomas Renz; and Steve Kirsch, a Silicon Valley philanthropist who supported early efforts searching for COVID-19 treatments in medicines already on the market. They were invited by the “Lions for Liberty,” a group of Penn State University students, faculty, and staff that sprang up in response to the university’s pandemic mitigation policies that require employees to get vaccinated for COVID-19.
The four spoke on numerous occasions; at Toftrees Resort in State College on March 3 and at Hershey Lodge on March 4 before which they testified at the Capitol Building in Harrisburg in a hearing hosted by state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who is a Republican running for governor.
They presented data from peer-reviewed studies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and government documents, and expressed their concerns that the COVID-19 vaccines recommended for all Americans were problematic from the start.
“It was clear vaccines weren’t sufficiently tested and important groups were excluded, like pregnant women,” McCullough said in Hershey. “With no data on safety and efficacy, pregnant women were encouraged, then later forced, to take the vaccines.”
He called the results of a newly released study disturbing. The study, titled “Immune imprinting, breadth of variant recognition, and germinal center response in human SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination,” shows that messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) from the vaccine stays in the body much longer than expected. Messenger RNA is a single-stranded molecule that carries genetic code, usually from the DNA in a cell’s nucleus, to ribosomes, the cell’s protein-making area.
“It shows the messenger RNA is in the lymph nodes months after the vaccine had been received. This is proven,” McCullough said. “The vaccines are not leaving the body. It’s found in the lymph nodes at 60 days. The thought in the FDA briefing book was that these vaccines were going to be in the body for a day or two, generate immunity, and then be out.”
He cited another paper published in February by a team of researchers led by Associate Prof. Yang De Marinis at the Department of Clinical Sciences of Lund University, Sweden, that shows “reverse transcription” is happening—that is, an enzyme makes a copy of DNA from RNA.
“This is getting into human chromosomes, at least this segment is. If it turns out that the entire code goes into human chromosomes, and if it expresses spike protein within cells—spike protein is an abnormal protein, it is not a human protein— if this protein is expressed within human cells on a regular basis or on demand, and it’s passed from parent cells to daughter cells, and it’s passed to the developing embryo, we’re in trouble.”
Now, the race is on to confirm this finding with additional studies, McCullough said.
“On the CDC website, it says the vaccines don’t change the human genome. This paper that just broke in the last week is strongly suggesting the CDC was gravely wrong,” McCullough said. “We should have had monthly safety reports to America. If we’re going to ask Americans to take an experimental vaccine or investigational vaccine, there should have been a safety report.”
Coming out of the clinical trials, what was reported in the briefing booklet looked OK, McCullough said. Through October, over 220 million people took a vaccine.
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has now recorded as many as 24,000 reports of people dying shortly after taking a COVID-19 vaccine, over 34,000 reports of myocarditis or pericarditis after taking a vaccine, and 44,000 reports from people permanently disabled with a host of conditions after taking a vaccine. These reports, which can be made by any member of the public, have yet to be definitively linked to COVID-19 vaccines and further research is needed to quantify the risk.
Now, a new study in The Lancet is pointing to potential multi-inflammatory syndrome in COVID-19 vaccinated children, McCullough said. “Some kids are on ventilators. These were perfectly healthy kids and now they’re on the ventilator fighting for their life.”
State Legislation
During the hearing in Harrisburg, a number of COVID-related bills were mentioned.
Mastriano is the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 471, dubbed the Medical Freedom Act, which proposed that the state government shall not impose a vaccination requirement on adults or children without consent. It also proposed to make it illegal for the government to mandate employers to require vaccination of their staff and ensures unemployment compensation for unvaccinated workers. The bill moved out of the Health and Human Services Committee in November, committee chair state Sen. Michele Brooks said at the hearing. She also advocated for her own legislation, Senate Bill 937, which prohibits the state from requiring COVID-19 vaccines for students in kindergarten through grade 12. It is now in the House Education Committee, Brooks said.
A companion bill, SB 1091/HB 1741 would increase access to off-label FDA approved medications in the early stages of COVID-19. This would allow physicians and pharmacists to prescribe and dispense drugs already approved by the FDA for off-label treatment of COVID-19, without penalty from licensing boards. And it would clarify that a pharmacy may not decline to fill a prescription of a COVID-19 early treatment drug based solely on their opinion of the drug. Mastriano is the prime sponsor of this Senate bill and Rep. Dawn Keefer sponsors the House version.
Ardis made a plea to lawmakers at the hearing, on behalf of doctors.
“Please let them practice medicine. Never in the history of the world has there been one protocol for every human. We are all genetically different,” Ardis said. “Please allow doctors, once again, to be protected to practice medicine. They are the only ones that have known the history of their patients. You cannot tell me there’s one solution or protocol for every American who gets a respiratory infection right now; it’s impossible. And then you’re going to take their license from them, destroy their livelihood and then slander them with their reputation, because they’re holding to their oath to do no harm? Please. Put legislation in place that they can never be punished for doing their best to do no harm, to treat their patients.”
Penn State Snubbed Event
Lions for Liberty invited two university policy makers, Penn State President Eric Barron and Provost Nick Jones, to attend the forum. But Barron and Jones were not among the combined 700 attendees.
“It is disconcerting, to say the least, that leadership from the university’s administration were unwilling to attend or engage in either of these events,” Arielle Girouard, Lions for Liberty press secretary told The Epoch Times. “It is unfortunate that one of the nation’s top universities in research, education, and innovation has repeatedly denied our attempts to have a discussion on the science that has driven public health and institutional, including university, policies over the past two years. President Barron acknowledges a growing lack of public trust in higher education. It is hard to see how refusal to engage with credentialed academics and professionals, from both within and outside of the Penn State community, does anything but sow further distrust in the public. Regardless, Lions for Liberty isn’t going anywhere. We are committed to fostering a community, open to all who seek truth, so we may make well-informed decisions regarding our health, among other individual liberties.”
Penn State did not respond to a request from The Epoch Times to explain why they did not attend.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and the Penn State chapter of Turning Point USA co-hosted the speakers with Lions for Liberty.
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/long-covid-mini-series-the-heart?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDg2MDkzNTQsIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY0Njg3NDgzMiwiZXhwIjoxNjQ2ODc4NDMyLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.gaCjQR6M1WbYOCGMmc9awIp5B_8poecf9xVqqLhAB04&s=r
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/long-covid-mini-series-the-heart?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDg2MDkzNTQsIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY0Njg3NDgzMiwiZXhwIjoxNjQ2ODc4NDMyLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.gaCjQR6M1WbYOCGMmc9awIp5B_8poecf9xVqqLhAB04&s=r
As always, did the victims have the ClotShot gene therapy ?
-
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2789369
FYI
I am not endorsing this
just posting for the board's interest.
-
Fauci - again - >. :roll:
remarkable to me how this guy will just not leave
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fauci-warns-americans-could-face-more-lockdowns-amid-spread-of-new-covid-19-variant
-
New Research Shows Higher Risk of Developing Diabetes After Covid-19 Infection
Study adds to growing evidence showing increased risk for a range of cardiometabolic conditions after Covid-19
By Sumathi Reddy
Follow
Updated March 21, 2022 7:52 pm ET
A large new study found that people who recovered from Covid-19 within the past year are 40% more likely to receive a new diagnosis of diabetes compared to those who weren’t infected.
The increased risk translates into 1% of people who have had Covid-19 developing diabetes who otherwise wouldn’t have, the study’s author says, resulting in potentially millions of new cases world-wide.
Most of the people with diabetes in the study, published online Monday in the journal Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, not Type 1. Some researchers say Covid-19 could also be triggering an entirely new type of diabetes in which certain cells mistakenly start to raise, rather than lower, blood sugar.
The study adds to evidence showing an increased post-Covid-19 risk of cardiometabolic conditions, such as diabetes as well as heart and kidney complications. Normally when people think of long-term Covid-19 symptoms, they think of problems such as cognitive issues, fatigue or shortness of breath. But scientists say there are likely different types of long Covid, and one appears to be defined by cardiometabolic problems that arise after Covid-19. So far, the World Health Organization estimates there have been more than 464 million cases of Covid-19, so even small percentages of those people developing long-term complications would be significant.
New studies offer clues about who might be more susceptible to long Covid, a term for lingering Covid-19 symptoms. WSJ breaks down the science of long Covid and the state of treatment. Illustration: Jacob Reynolds for The Wall Street Journal
“We’re finding out more and more that it’s not only respiratory problems or brain fog or only fatigue,” says Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System and a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the study. “There are heart manifestations, and clearly diabetes and kidney manifestations.”
Dr. Al-Aly’s group has recently published studies on those broader risks. One showed a higher risk of developing heart problems, including stroke and heart attack, in people who have had Covid-19 than in people who haven’t. Another showed post-Covid-19 patients were more likely to have declines in kidney function or kidney damage as much as six months after infection when compared to patients who hadn’t had Covid-19.
The researchers found only an association between Covid-19 and cardiometabolic conditions, without proving a cause. Some doctors say that new diagnoses of Type 2 diabetes and heart conditions could be influenced by weight gain or decreased activity during the pandemic, although lifestyle changes wouldn’t necessarily explain an increase specifically in people who have had Covid-19.
In the new diabetes study, Dr. Al-Aly and co-researchers analyzed the records of 181,000 Covid-19 patients in the Veterans Health Administration system who were diagnosed with Covid-19 within the past year and compared them to more than eight million people who didn’t have Covid-19. The VA study didn’t look at diabetes cases by vaccination status.
“When you look at the data on a national scale it’s clearly happening even in people who have no risk factors or very little risk factors,” Dr. Al-Aly said, adding that new diagnoses are happening even in young adults with a healthy weight and no previous history of high blood sugar.
Maren Laughlin, a program director at the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, said the study was very well done. Its main limitation, she noted, is that VA patients generally tend to be older and sicker and include more males than the broader population.
It hasn’t been determined why a Covid-19 infection might be leading to new cases of diabetes. One possibility is that the virus might damage the pancreas’s ability to secrete insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar. Another theory is that the strong immune response to Covid-19 generates an inflammatory cascade that results in low-grade inflammation, which interferes with insulin secretion and sensitivity.
All types of diabetes share the symptom of high blood sugars, but they are distinct conditions. Type 2 is the most common, and can be associated with diet and exercise. Typically in Type 2, people become resistant to the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar. The pancreas struggles to keep up with the body’s increased demand for insulin, leading to higher blood-sugar levels.
Type 1, by contrast, is an autoimmune disease in which the body destroys pancreatic cells that produce insulin. Other types of diabetes include gestational diabetes, which can develop in pregnant women.
The latest study follows other recent research that has found an increased risk of a diabetes diagnosis after a Covid-19 infection, including a January Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report looking at children.
In a March study in the journal Diabetologia, German researchers found that people who had Covid-19 had a roughly 28% increased risk of a new Type 2 diagnosis compared to those who had an acute upper-respiratory infection that wasn’t Covid-19. The researchers compared data from more than 35,000 Covid-19 patients to an equal number of people with infections that weren’t Covid-19. They didn’t find an increased risk for other types of diabetes.
And a February JAMA Network Open study found that people who tested positive for Covid-19 had roughly a two times greater risk of a new Type 2 diagnosis one to five months after their infection compared to those who tested negative for the virus. About 7% of hospitalized adults with Covid-19 received new diabetes diagnoses within five months, compared to 3.6% of adults without Covid-19.
There are many challenges in interpreting the data, says Jason Block, an internal-medicine physician and associate professor at Harvard Medical School who is senior author of the JAMA study. Many people hadn’t been to see a doctor for a while during the pandemic, so they might have had diabetes without knowing it. In addition, steroids—a commonly used medication for severe Covid-19 patients—can temporarily increase blood sugar and might also trigger diabetes in patients at risk for the condition.
There are several possible biological reasons why a diabetes diagnosis might follow a Covid-19 infection. Research has indicated that the virus can infect and damage beta cells in the pancreas so that they produce less insulin.
In one study, researchers found that when they added the coronavirus to beta cell samples, genetic changes occurred in the cells that significantly reduced their ability to make insulin. Instead, to the researchers’ surprise, the cells did something unusual: They started making a different hormone, glucagon, whose function is to increase blood-glucose levels.
“The beta cells lost their cell identity and turned into a different type of cell,” says Shuibing Chen, director of the diabetes program at Weill Cornell Medicine in Manhattan, who led the study.
Dr. Chen says Covid-19 infection appears to be triggering a new type of diabetes that isn’t Type 1 or Type 2. Dr. Chen says her team is studying treatments specifically for Covid-19 patients newly diagnosed with diabetes to see whether they can block the process by which the cells might change.
Stanford researchers in an August study published in the journal Cell Metabolism documented another possible clue to post-Covid-19 diabetes. Lab studies found that the virus selectively targeted beta cells in the pancreas.
“It reduced their viability pretty quickly and reduced their ability to secrete insulin in less than a day,” says Peter Jackson, a professor in the microbiology and immunology department at Stanford University School of Medicine, and senior author on the study. “It’s a strong effect.”
-
As always, my question is: did this population take the ClotShot?
New Research Shows Higher Risk of Developing Diabetes After Covid-19 Infection
Study adds to growing evidence showing increased risk for a range of cardiometabolic conditions after Covid-19
By Sumathi Reddy
Follow
Updated March 21, 2022 7:52 pm ET
A large new study found that people who recovered from Covid-19 within the past year are 40% more likely to receive a new diagnosis of diabetes compared to those who weren’t infected.
The increased risk translates into 1% of people who have had Covid-19 developing diabetes who otherwise wouldn’t have, the study’s author says, resulting in potentially millions of new cases world-wide.
Most of the people with diabetes in the study, published online Monday in the journal Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, not Type 1. Some researchers say Covid-19 could also be triggering an entirely new type of diabetes in which certain cells mistakenly start to raise, rather than lower, blood sugar.
The study adds to evidence showing an increased post-Covid-19 risk of cardiometabolic conditions, such as diabetes as well as heart and kidney complications. Normally when people think of long-term Covid-19 symptoms, they think of problems such as cognitive issues, fatigue or shortness of breath. But scientists say there are likely different types of long Covid, and one appears to be defined by cardiometabolic problems that arise after Covid-19. So far, the World Health Organization estimates there have been more than 464 million cases of Covid-19, so even small percentages of those people developing long-term complications would be significant.
New studies offer clues about who might be more susceptible to long Covid, a term for lingering Covid-19 symptoms. WSJ breaks down the science of long Covid and the state of treatment. Illustration: Jacob Reynolds for The Wall Street Journal
“We’re finding out more and more that it’s not only respiratory problems or brain fog or only fatigue,” says Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System and a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the study. “There are heart manifestations, and clearly diabetes and kidney manifestations.”
Dr. Al-Aly’s group has recently published studies on those broader risks. One showed a higher risk of developing heart problems, including stroke and heart attack, in people who have had Covid-19 than in people who haven’t. Another showed post-Covid-19 patients were more likely to have declines in kidney function or kidney damage as much as six months after infection when compared to patients who hadn’t had Covid-19.
The researchers found only an association between Covid-19 and cardiometabolic conditions, without proving a cause. Some doctors say that new diagnoses of Type 2 diabetes and heart conditions could be influenced by weight gain or decreased activity during the pandemic, although lifestyle changes wouldn’t necessarily explain an increase specifically in people who have had Covid-19.
In the new diabetes study, Dr. Al-Aly and co-researchers analyzed the records of 181,000 Covid-19 patients in the Veterans Health Administration system who were diagnosed with Covid-19 within the past year and compared them to more than eight million people who didn’t have Covid-19. The VA study didn’t look at diabetes cases by vaccination status.
“When you look at the data on a national scale it’s clearly happening even in people who have no risk factors or very little risk factors,” Dr. Al-Aly said, adding that new diagnoses are happening even in young adults with a healthy weight and no previous history of high blood sugar.
Maren Laughlin, a program director at the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, said the study was very well done. Its main limitation, she noted, is that VA patients generally tend to be older and sicker and include more males than the broader population.
It hasn’t been determined why a Covid-19 infection might be leading to new cases of diabetes. One possibility is that the virus might damage the pancreas’s ability to secrete insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar. Another theory is that the strong immune response to Covid-19 generates an inflammatory cascade that results in low-grade inflammation, which interferes with insulin secretion and sensitivity.
All types of diabetes share the symptom of high blood sugars, but they are distinct conditions. Type 2 is the most common, and can be associated with diet and exercise. Typically in Type 2, people become resistant to the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar. The pancreas struggles to keep up with the body’s increased demand for insulin, leading to higher blood-sugar levels.
Type 1, by contrast, is an autoimmune disease in which the body destroys pancreatic cells that produce insulin. Other types of diabetes include gestational diabetes, which can develop in pregnant women.
The latest study follows other recent research that has found an increased risk of a diabetes diagnosis after a Covid-19 infection, including a January Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report looking at children.
In a March study in the journal Diabetologia, German researchers found that people who had Covid-19 had a roughly 28% increased risk of a new Type 2 diagnosis compared to those who had an acute upper-respiratory infection that wasn’t Covid-19. The researchers compared data from more than 35,000 Covid-19 patients to an equal number of people with infections that weren’t Covid-19. They didn’t find an increased risk for other types of diabetes.
And a February JAMA Network Open study found that people who tested positive for Covid-19 had roughly a two times greater risk of a new Type 2 diagnosis one to five months after their infection compared to those who tested negative for the virus. About 7% of hospitalized adults with Covid-19 received new diabetes diagnoses within five months, compared to 3.6% of adults without Covid-19.
There are many challenges in interpreting the data, says Jason Block, an internal-medicine physician and associate professor at Harvard Medical School who is senior author of the JAMA study. Many people hadn’t been to see a doctor for a while during the pandemic, so they might have had diabetes without knowing it. In addition, steroids—a commonly used medication for severe Covid-19 patients—can temporarily increase blood sugar and might also trigger diabetes in patients at risk for the condition.
There are several possible biological reasons why a diabetes diagnosis might follow a Covid-19 infection. Research has indicated that the virus can infect and damage beta cells in the pancreas so that they produce less insulin.
In one study, researchers found that when they added the coronavirus to beta cell samples, genetic changes occurred in the cells that significantly reduced their ability to make insulin. Instead, to the researchers’ surprise, the cells did something unusual: They started making a different hormone, glucagon, whose function is to increase blood-glucose levels.
“The beta cells lost their cell identity and turned into a different type of cell,” says Shuibing Chen, director of the diabetes program at Weill Cornell Medicine in Manhattan, who led the study.
Dr. Chen says Covid-19 infection appears to be triggering a new type of diabetes that isn’t Type 1 or Type 2. Dr. Chen says her team is studying treatments specifically for Covid-19 patients newly diagnosed with diabetes to see whether they can block the process by which the cells might change.
Stanford researchers in an August study published in the journal Cell Metabolism documented another possible clue to post-Covid-19 diabetes. Lab studies found that the virus selectively targeted beta cells in the pancreas.
“It reduced their viability pretty quickly and reduced their ability to secrete insulin in less than a day,” says Peter Jackson, a professor in the microbiology and immunology department at Stanford University School of Medicine, and senior author on the study. “It’s a strong effect.”
-
A very good question and one not to be pushed under the carpet.
-
Newly Released Pfizer Documents Reveal COVID Jab Dangers
Joseph Mercola
Joseph Mercola
March 22, 2022 Updated: March 23, 2022biggersmaller Print
What really happened in the first 90 days of the jab rollout? How many adverse events and different health problems? How many deaths? The first tranche of documents were released March 1, 2022, and it proves beyond any shadow of a doubt—we’ve been sold down the river!
Story at-a-glance
A small batch of documents released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in mid-November 2021 revealed that in the first three months of the COVID jab rollout, Pfizer received 42,086 adverse event reports that included 1,223 deaths
The first really large tranche of Pfizer documents — some 10,000 pages — was released by the FDA March 1, 2022. Included are nine pages of recorded side effects, about 158,000 different health problems in all
An initial review of case report forms (CRFs) reveal significant data collection errors and anomalies
Problems included patients entered into the “healthy population” group who were far from healthy; serious adverse event (SAE) numbers that were left blank; sample barcodes that were missing; at least one death of a patient the day before being listed as being at a medical checkup; and second doses that were administered outside the three-week protocol window. There also are questions as to whether participants were properly observed for an adequate amount of time; plus adverse events were listed as “not serious” despite extended hospital stay and much more
A majority of the CRFs in this release were from Ventavia-run trial sites. Ventavia is currently facing a lawsuit brought by Brook Jackson, a former Ventavia regional director. Jackson was fired shortly after she brought concerns about potential data falsification and poor laboratory management to the attention of the FDA and higher-ups in the company
In September 2021, a group called Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to obtain the documentation used to approve Comirnaty, including safety and effectiveness data, adverse reaction reports and lists of active and inactive ingredients.
When, after a month, the FDA still had not responded to the FOIA request, the PHMPT sued.1 Pfizer and the FDA asked the judge to give them 75 years to release all the documents (doling out just 500 pages per month)2 but, fortunately, the judge ruled that they have to release them at a rate of 55,000 pages per month.
COVID Jab Supporter Gets Red-Pilled
In mid-November 2021, the FDA released the first 91 pages,3,4 which alone revealed the FDA has been aware of shocking safety issues since April 30, 2021. For nurse educator John Campbell, featured in the video above, these documents appear to have served as a “red pill,”5 waking him up to the possibility that the jabs may be far more dangerous than anyone expected, but he didn’t get around to reviewing them until now.
Cumulatively, through February 28, 2021, Pfizer received 42,086 adverse event reports, including 1,223 deaths. The latest tranche of Pfizer documents also includes a whopping nine pages of recorded side effects — 158,000 in all!
In his video, Campbell reviews the documents listed as “5.3.6. Postmarketing Experience,” which were originally marked “confidential.” They reveal that, cumulatively, through February 28, 2021, Pfizer received 42,086 adverse event reports, including 1,223 deaths.
As noted by Campbell, “It would have been good to know about this at the time, wouldn’t it?” referring to the rollout of the jabs. Campbell has been fairly consistent in his support of the “safe and effective” vaccine narrative, but “This has just destroyed trust in authority,” he says.
To have 1,223 fatalities and 42,086 reports of injury in the first three months is a significant safety signal, especially when you consider that the 1976 swine flu vaccine was pulled after only 25 deaths.
Now, the number of doses shipped has been redacted under a FOIA redaction code that stands for “Trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.” Why would the number of doses shipped be confidential?
Campbell is clearly bothered by this redaction, as you cannot calculate the incidence rate or side effects if you don’t know what the denominator is. As noted by Campbell, that number cannot be proprietary. It’s being withheld for some other reason (and I just stated what that might be).
Even without knowing the underreporting factor, Campbell is appalled by the number of reported side effects. It is very clear that this information red-pilled Campbell. For an overview of the types of side effects recorded, check out Campbell’s video. I’ve already reviewed that in previous articles.
Here, we’ll move on to the first really large tranche of Pfizer documents, which was released March 1, 2022. In all, the FDA has some 450,000 pages of data from Pfizer’s COVID jab trials, and we now have just over 10,000 of those pages. You can find them all on PHMPT.org.6
Findings From Early Review of Case Reports
March 7, 2022, investigative journalist Sonia Elijah published a review of her initial findings on Trial Site News,7 having glossed through some of the thousands of newly-released documents.
Her review centers primarily on the case report forms (CRFs). These are documents used in clinical research to record standardized data from each patient, including adverse events. As such, they’re a crucial part of the clinical trial process.
A majority of the CRFs in this release were from Ventavia-run trial sites. Ventavia is currently facing a lawsuit brought by Brook Jackson, a former Ventavia regional director. Jackson was fired shortly after she brought concerns about potential data falsification and poor laboratory management to the attention of the FDA and higher-ups in the company.
Her testimony was published November 2, 2021, in The British Medical Journal — the oldest and most prestigious medical journal in the world — by investigative journalist Paul Thacker.8 Facebook fact checkers actually tried to “debunk” this BMJ article and censored it.
In her review of the CRFs, Elijah found a number of errors and anomalies that seem to corroborate Jackson’s claims, including the following:9
Patients entered into the “healthy population” group who were far from healthy — For example, one such “healthy” participant was a Type 2 diabetic with angina, a cardiac stent and a history of heart attack.
Serious adverse event (SAE) numbers were left blank — Ventavia site No. 1085 has a particularly large number of missing SAE numbers.
Missing barcodes for samples collected — Without those barcodes, you can’t match the sample to the participant.
Suspicious-looking SAE start and end dates — For example, the so-called “healthy” diabetic suffered a “serious” heart attack October 27, 2020. The “end” date is listed as October 28, the next day, which is odd because it was recorded as serious enough to require hospitalization.
Also, on that same day, October 28, the patient was diagnosed with pneumonia, so likely remained hospitalized. “This anomaly raises doubt as to the accuracy of these recorded dates, potentially violating ALOCA-C clinical site documentation guidelines for clinical trials,” Elijah writes.
Unblinded teams were responsible for reviewing adverse event reports for signs of COVID cases, and to review severe COVID cases — Yet in some cases they appear to have dismissed the possibility of an event being COVID-related, such as pneumonia. This despite the fact that Pfizer’s protocol (section 8.2.4) lists “enhanced COVID-19” (i.e., antibody dependent enhancement) as a potential side effect to be on the lookout for. As noted by Elijah:
“Inadvertently, this could have led to bias, as the unblinded teams would have been aware which participants were assigned the placebo and those who received the vaccine. They might have been under pressure by the sponsor for the trial to go a certain way and for events like ‘COVID Pneumonia’ to be classified simply as pneumonia.”
Impossible dating — The diabetic who suffered a heart attack followed by pneumonia (which may have been unacknowledged COVID pneumonia) died, and the date of death is listed as the day before the patient supposedly went for a “COVID ill” visit.
Clearly, it’s impossible for a dead person to attend a medical visit, so something is wrong here. The clinical investigator note states: “There cannot be a date later than date of death. Please remove data from the COVID illness visit and add cough and shortness of breath as AEs (adverse events).” “What kind of pressure was being exerted here?” Elijah asks.
Adverse events listed as “not serious” despite extended hospital stay — In one case, the participant fell and suffered facial lacerations the day after the second dose and was hospitalized for 26 days, yet the fall was not reported as serious.
Other anomalies in this particular case include listing the fall as being caused by a “fall” unrelated to the study treatment, and the facial laceration being the result of “hypotension” (low blood pressure). The SAE number is also missing for the facial lacerations.
Elijah writes, “Doubts can be raised over the credibility of this information given the fall and facial lacerations were intrinsically related. So, if facial lacerations were due to ‘hypotension’ then the fall should be due to that too.” Might low blood pressure be an effect of the experimental shot? Possibly. Especially when you consider the patient fell the day after being given the second dose.
Even more suspicious: the causality for the fall was recorded as “related” (to the treatment) on the serious adverse event form, but listed as “not related” on the adverse event CRF. A note states, “Please confirm correct causality.”
Dismissing brand new health problems as unrelated to the treatment — For example, in one case, a female participant with no medical history of impaired kidney function was diagnosed with kidney stones and severe hypokalemia, requiring hospitalization, one month after her second dose. Yet despite her having no history of kidney problems, both events were dismissed as “not related” to the study treatment and no further investigation was done.
In closing, Elijah writes:10
“All the evidence gleaned over a limited time appears to back up whistleblower Jackson’s claims of poor trial site data management and raises questions as to how Ventavia conducted the Pfizer clinical trials.
The errors and anomalies in the CRFs also allude to her claims that the clinical research associates were not trained adequately, with many having had no prior clinical experience history. If such egregious findings are true at these sites, could they manifest at other trial sites around North America and beyond?”
Enormous List of Side Effects
The latest tranche of Pfizer documents also includes a whopping nine pages of recorded side effects — 158,000 in all! The picture below speaks louder than anything I can say about this list.
pfizer list release
Enormous Gap Between What We’ve Been Told and Reality
The Pfizer documents reveal an enormous gap between what we were told about the jab and what the FDA and Pfizer actually knew about it. In a recent article published by The Defender,11 Dr. Meryl Nass asks, “Pfizer, FDA documents contradict official COVID vaccine safety narrative — Is this fraud?”
As noted by Nass, what we’re told in the media is one thing, and what these documents reveal is another. And, importantly, the content of these documents “tell us what information Pfizer and the FDA are willing to stand by.” They also establish what the legal requirements for emergency use authorization and licensing.
“It may come as a shock, but what the FDA said when it issued both the EUA and the license for Pfizer’s vaccines was very different from what you heard from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the media and other sources,” Nass writes.12
CDC Guidance Contradicts Comirnaty Label
She also lists several instances where CDC statements to the public clearly contradict statements on the Comirnaty label. For example:13,14
• While the CDC initially claimed that anaphylactic reactions to the jab occur at approximately the same rate as other vaccines, they’ve since removed that claim, and both the CDC and the Comirnaty label now states that administration of Comirnaty is limited to facilities that can medically manage anaphylactic reactions.
“This is not the case for other vaccines,” Nass says, adding that research from Harvard hospitals reveal the rate of anaphylaxis in employees who got the COVID jab was 50 to 100 times higher than the rate claimed by the CDC, which calculates that rate based on reports in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Interestingly enough, this matches up with what we believe to be the underreporting factor for VAERS might be.
• While the CDC claims post-jab myocarditis is mild and resolves quickly, the Comirnaty label clearly states that “Information is not yet available about potential long-term sequelae.”
• The CDC recommends the COVID jab for pregnant women, yet the label states that “available data on Comirnaty administered to pregnant women are insufficient to inform vaccine associated risks in pregnancy.”
• The CDC, FDA and mainstream media contend that the COVID jab cannot cause cancer or fertility problems, yet the Comirnaty label clearly states that “Comirnaty has not been evaluated for the potential to cause carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, or impairment of male fertility.” If it has not been evaluated, how can they claim to know that it cannot cause these kinds of problems — especially considering the list of reported side effects, above?
• Even though the stated purpose of mass vaccination is to create “herd immunity,” the FDA did not require Pfizer to assess whether the jab could protect against asymptomatic infection or prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
What Was It All For?
With each passing week, the cracks in the official COVID narrative keep multiplying and widening. It’ll be interesting to see what finally breaks the proverbial dam.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is now out there pushing for a fourth shot,15 saying a second booster will be “necessary for most,” as three shots not only can’t protect against variants, but they rapidly wane in strength. For those same reasons, Americans must expect to get an annual booster each fall.
Under normal circumstances, that should have ripped the wool off of people’s eyes, but the COVID brainwashing has been so successful, many still can’t see just how badly they’ve been lied to. I believe the final salvo that will wake up the masses will either be revelations about harms, or the realization of what the planned social credit system would actually mean for the average American.
In 2018, Pfizer proudly partnered with a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) payment platform, Alipay, which was used to implement an early Chinese version of vaccine passports, called the “Internet + Vaccination” initiative, aimed at creating “Disease awareness via mobile devices.”16
According to the U.S. State Department, Alipay is a “tool” used by the CCP in its build-up of “technology-facilitated surveillance and social control” network, also known as a social credit system. The same sort of system is now being rolled out in other parts of the world, including the U.S., so it’s interesting to note Pfizer’s involvement with that early digital vaccine passport initiative.
Mid-March 2022, Bourla gave an interview with Washington Post Live (above), admitting the decision to use mRNA technology in the creation of a COVID “vaccine” was “counterintuitive,” as Pfizer has “good experience” with several other vaccine technologies, but only two years’ worth of experience with mRNA, which had never been used in a commercially available medicine before.
In the end, Bourla may come to regret that decision, as it has turned out to be an incredibly lethal one. Although I guess it will depend on whether he’s ever held to account for those choices.
Originally published March 22, 2022 on Mercola.com
Sources and References
1 The Defender, Nov. 19, 2021
2 Newsmax, Dec. 8, 2021
3, 6 PHMPT.org Pfizer documents
4 thekylebecker.substack.com, Nov. 21, 2021
5 Steve Kirsch Substack, March 11, 2022
7, 9, 10 Trial Site News, March 7, 2022
8 The BMJ 2021; 375:n2635
11, 13 The Defender, March 15, 2022
14 Meryl Nass Substack, March 14, 2022
15 NY Post, March 13, 2022
16 The National Pulse, Dec. 29, 2021
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/scientists-currently-developing-controversial-contagious-vaccines-can-spread-vaccinated-unvaccinated/
-
FK!!!
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/102/726/714/original/ee6ee654c529e7d4.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/102/726/714/original/ee6ee654c529e7d4.jpeg)
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/102/726/715/original/8105b70332fcc6b0.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/102/726/715/original/8105b70332fcc6b0.jpeg)
-
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/592457-the-cdc-is-finally-recognizing-natural-immunity-legislators-should-follow
-
https://freewestmedia.com/2022/03/28/in-march-three-cyclists-suffer-heart-attacks-two-die/
-
https://freewestmedia.com/2022/03/28/in-march-three-cyclists-suffer-heart-attacks-two-die/
https://freewestmedia.com/2022/04/02/tennis-world-shocked-after-scores-of-players-drop-out-of-miami-open/
-
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1510894373571117057.html
But it's safe, right?
-
https://summit.news/2022/04/04/mask-wearing-has-left-a-generation-of-toddlers-struggling-with-speech-and-social-skills/
-
https://i0.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/fauci-waiting-for-winter-severe-illness-death.jpg?w=480&ssl=1
(https://i0.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/fauci-waiting-for-winter-severe-illness-death.jpg?w=480&ssl=1)
Covid down 87% since the peak of Omicron
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10535335/FDA-considering-FOURTH-dose-COVID-19-vaccine-making-annual-shot.html
FDA considers 4th dose plus annual shot.
No winter of severe illness and death? I was promised a winter of severe illness and death.
Must be time for the next bioweapon release.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/numerous-health-problems-more-likely-due-to-covid-19-vaccines-than-coincidence-vaers-data-analysis_4380017.html?utm_source=Top5&utm_campaign=top5-2022-04-06&utm_medium=email&est=9cmgapl14acNyL%2Bb7VTRp5P9%2BC2FgCvjvQ1bpWCvIEVlIHj18jjfCL3GzM4ZMoDuq%2B5j
Numerous Health Problems More Likely Because of COVID-19 Vaccines Than Coincidence: VAERS Data Analysis
By Petr Svab April 3, 2022 Updated: April 5, 2022biggersmaller Print
Various health problems reported by people after receiving one of the COVID-19 vaccine shots are more likely to have been caused by the vaccines than to be coincidental, according to an analysis of data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
VAERS has been flooded with more than 1 million reports of various health problems and more than 21,000 death reports since the introduction of the vaccines in late 2020. Some experts and public officials have downplayed the significance of the reports, noting that just because a health problem occurs after getting the vaccine doesn’t mean the problem was caused by it.
However, a deeper analysis of the data indicates that many of the adverse effects are more than just a coincidence, according to Jessica Rose, a computational biologist who’s been studying the data for at least nine months.
“The safety signals being thrown off in VAERS now are off the charts across the board,” Rose told The Epoch Times.
There are multiple ways to parse the data in order to flesh out whether the causal link between an adverse event and the vaccination is real or illusory. For example, multiple COVID-19 vaccines come in two doses. A random adverse event unrelated to the vaccine should be dose-agnostic. A stroke randomly coinciding with a vaccination shouldn’t be picky about which dose it was.
In the VAERS data, however, a number of the reported problems are dose-dependent. Myocarditis in teenagers is reported several times more often after the second vaccine dose than after the first dose. Following a vaccine booster shot, in contrast, the frequency is significantly lower than after the first dose, Rose found.
Epoch Times Photo
A graph showing age against the absolute number of myocarditis reports filed to VAERS according to doses 1, 2, and 3 of the COVID-19 vaccines. (Jessica Rose)
Other researchers and health authorities have already acknowledged that the shots are associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis, especially in teenage boys, although they usually also say the risk is low.
Yet dose-dependency shows up in the VAERS data for other problems as well, including fainting and dizziness, which are more common after the first dose.
Epoch Times Photo
A graph showing age against the absolute number of syncope (fainting) reports filed to VAERS according to doses 1 and 2 of the COVID-19 vaccines. (Jessica Rose)
Rose acknowledged that statistical analysis seldom provides definitive answers. For instance, there could be some unknown factor that leads to more reports of unrelated health events after the first or second vaccine dose. In her view, however, the data leans away from such a conclusion.
Previous research shows that the majority of VAERS reports are filed by medical staff, who shouldn’t fail to report adverse events based on which dose is being administered. To Rose, it seems more likely that if people suffer health problems after an injection of a novel substance and if the problems substantially change between the first and the second shot, the substance probably had something to do with it.
“In lieu of being able to explain this happening for any other reason, it satisfies the dose-response point quite well, in my opinion,” she said of the myocarditis results.
As for why the reports dropped after the vaccine “booster” shots, Rose said she hasn’t found a definitive explanation. It could be that people who didn’t feel well after the first two shots would think twice about getting more. As such, those most at risk for an adverse reaction would be less likely to get the booster.
She arrived at the results after she evaluated the VAERS data from the perspective of the Bradford Hill criteria—a set of nine questions that are used by epidemiologists to determine whether any given factor is likely the cause of an observed health effect. She said she found evidence to answer all of the questions positively.
Rose encountered resistance in the establishment science circles when she first tried to publicize her analyses. Last year, right before her paper on VAERS myocarditis data was printed, the publisher pulled the paper for unclear reasons.
-
second
https://www.theepochtimes.com/covid-jab-is-far-more-dangerous-than-advertised_4381781.html?utm_source=Top5&utm_campaign=top5-2022-04-06&utm_medium=email&est=X7uELVMk2OQATVCqV8jYHnZLNSFPbFuNb1M3jh2EIxrmVsQlqJQTh1y9jPJQKwDhjAlo
COVID Jab Is Far More Dangerous Than Advertised
And that's for those over the age of 65.
BY JOSEPH MERCOLA TIMEAPRIL 4, 2022 PRINT
October 26, 2021, Global Research published an interview with Dr. Peter McCullough, in which he reviews and explains the findings of a September 2021 study published in the journal Toxicology Reports.
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
According to a September 2021 analysis, based on conservative, best-case scenarios, the COVID shots have killed five times more seniors (65+) than the infection
In younger people and children, the risk associated with the COVID shot, compared to the risk of COVID-19, is bound to be even more pronounced
Data show higher vaccination rates do not translate into lower COVID-19 case rates
50% of reported deaths after COVID-19 “vaccination” occur within 24 hours; 80% occur within the first week. According to one report, 86% of deaths have no other explanation aside from a vaccine adverse event. A Scandinavian study concluded about 40% of post-jab deaths among seniors in assisted living homes are directly due to the injection
The study in the journal Toxicology Reports, states: (1)
“A novel best-case scenario cost-benefit analysis showed very conservatively that there are five times the number of deaths attributable to each inoculation vs those attributable to COVID-19 in the most vulnerable 65+ demographic.
The risk of death from COVID-19 decreases drastically as age decreases, and the longer-term effects of the inoculations on lower age groups will increase their risk-benefit ratio, perhaps substantially.”
“A novel best-case scenario cost-benefit analysis showed very conservatively that there are five times the number of deaths attributable to each inoculation vs those attributable to COVID-19 in the most vulnerable 65+ demographic.
The risk of death from COVID-19 decreases drastically as age decreases, and the longer-term effects of the inoculations on lower age groups will increase their risk-benefit ratio, perhaps substantially.”
McCullough has impeccable academic credentials. He’s an internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist and a full professor of medicine at Texas A&M College of Medicine in Dallas. He also has a master’s degree in public health and is known for being one of the top five most-published medical researchers in the United States, in addition to being the editor of two medical journals.
Authors Defend Their Paper
Not surprisingly, the Toxicology Reports paper has received scathing critique from certain quarters. Still, corresponding author Ronald Kostoff told Retraction Watch that the criticism has actually been “an extremely small fraction” of the overall response, which by and large has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive. Kostoff went on to say: (2)
“Given the blatant censorship of the mainstream media and social media, only one side of the COVID-19 ‘vaccine’ narrative is reaching the public. Any questioning of the narrative is met with the harshest response …
I went into this with my eyes wide open, determined to identify the truth, irrespective of where it fell. I could not stand idly by while the least vulnerable to serious COVID-19 consequences were injected with substances of unknown mid and long-term safety.
We published a best-case scenario. The real-world situation is far worse than our best-case scenario, and could be the subject of a future paper.
What these results show is that we 1) instituted mass inoculations of an inadequately-tested toxic substance with 2) non-negligible attendant crippling and lethal results to 3) potentially prevent a relatively small number of true COVID-19 deaths. In other words, we used a howitzer where an accurate rifle would have sufficed!”
COVID Jab Campaign Has Had No Discernible Impact
Certainly, data very clearly show the mass “vaccination” campaign has not had a discernible impact on global death rates. On the contrary, in some cases the death toll shot up after the COVID shots became widely available. You can browse through covid19.healthdata.org (3) to see this for yourself. Several examples are also included at the very beginning of the video.
This trend has also been confirmed in a September 2021 study(4) published in the European Journal of Epidemiology. It found COVID-19 case rates are completely unrelated to vaccination rates.
Using data available as of September 3, 2021, from Our World in Data for cross-country analysis, and the White House COVID-19 Team data for U.S. counties, the researchers investigated the relationship between new COVID-19 cases and the percentage of the population that had been fully vaccinated.
Sixty-eight countries were included. Inclusion criteria included second dose vaccine data, COVID-19 case data and population data as of September 3, 2021. They then computed the COVID-19 cases per 1 million people for each country, and calculated the percentage of population that was fully vaccinated.
According to the authors, there was “no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last seven days.” If anything, higher vaccination rates were associated with a slight increase in cases. According to the authors: (5)
“[T]he trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people.”
The Kostoff Analysis
Getting back to the Toxicology Reports paper, (6) which is being referring to as “the Kostoff analysis,” McCullough says the analysis is definitely making news in clinical medicine. The paper focuses on two factors: assumptions and determinism.
Determinism describes how likely something is. For example, if a person takes a COVID shot, it’s 100% certain they got the injection. It’s not 50% or 75%. It’s an absolute certainty. As a result, that person has a 100% chance of being exposed to whatever risk is associated with that shot.
On the other hand, if a person says no to the injection, it’s not 100% chance they’ll get COVID-19, let alone die from it. You have a less than 1% chance of being exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and getting sick. So, it’s 100% deterministic that taking the shot exposes you to the risks of the shot, and less than 1% deterministic that you’ll get COVID if you don’t take the shot.
The other part of the equation is the assumptions, which are based on calculations using available data, such as pre-COVID death statistics and death reports filed with the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reports System (VAERS).
Mortality Data
As noted by McCullough, two reports have detailed COVID jab death data, showing 50% of deaths occur within 24 hours and 80% occur within the first week. In one of these reports, 86% of deaths were found to have no other explanation aside from a vaccine adverse event. McCullough also cites a Scandinavian study that concluded about 40% of post-jab deaths among seniors in assisted living homes are directly due to the injection. He also cites other eye-opening figures:
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports having more than 30,000 spontaneous reports of either hospitalizations and/or deaths among the fully vaccinated
Data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services show 300,000 vaccinated CMS recipients have been hospitalized with breakthrough infections
60% of seniors over age 65 hospitalized for COVID-19 have been vaccinated
COVID Shots Are ‘Failing Wholesale’
“When we put all these data together, we have clear-cut science that the vaccines are failing wholesale,” McCullough says. The shots are particularly useless in seniors.
Again, based on a best-case conservative scenario, seniors are five times more likely to die from the shot than they are from the natural infection. This scenario includes the assumption that the PCR test is accurate and reported COVID deaths were in fact due to COVID-19, which we know is not the case, and the assumption that the shots actually prevent death, which we have no proof of.
All things considered, you are FAR better off taking your chances with the natural infection, as McCullough says. The Kostoff analysis also does not take into account the fact that there are safe and effective treatments.
It bases its assumptions on the notion that there aren’t any. It also doesn’t factor in the fact that the COVID shots are utterly ineffective against the Delta and other variants. If you take into account vaccine failure against variants and alternative treatments, it skews the analysis even further toward natural infection being the safest alternative.
FDA and CDC Should Not Run Vaccine Programs
While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the CDC claim not a single death following COVID inoculation was caused by the shot, they should not be the ones making that determination, as they are both sponsoring the vaccination campaign.
They have an inherent bias. When you conduct a trial, you would never allow the sponsor to tell you whether the product was the cause of death, because you know they’re biased.
“We have actually fulfilled all of the Bradford Hill criteria. I’ll tell you right now that COVID-19 vaccine is, from an epidemiological perspective, causing these deaths or a large fraction.” ~ Dr. Peter McCullough
What we need is an external group, a critical event committee, to analyze the deaths being reported, as well as a data safety monitoring board. These should have been in place from the start, but were not.
Had they been, the program would most likely have been halted in February, as by then the number of reported deaths, 186, already exceeded the tolerable threshold of about 150 (based on the number of injections given). Now, we’re well over 17,000. (7) There’s no normal circumstance under which that would ever be allowed.
“The CDC and FDA are running the [vaccination] program. They are NOT the people who typically run vaccine programs,” McCullough says. “The drug companies run vaccine programs.
When Pfizer, Moderna, J&J ran their randomized trials, we didn’t have any problems. They had good safety oversight. They had data safety monitoring boards. The did OK. I mean I have to give the drug companies [credit].
But the drug companies are now just the suppliers of the vaccine. Our government agencies are now just running the program. There’s no external advisory committee. There’s no data safety monitoring board. There’s no human ethics committee. NO one is watching out for this!
And so, the CDC and FDA pretty clearly have their marching orders: ‘Execute this program; the vaccine is safe and effective.’ They’re giving no reports to Americans. No safety reports. We needed those once a month. They haven’t told doctors which is the best vaccine, which is the safest vaccine.
They haven’t told us what groups are to watch out for. How to mitigate risks. Maybe there are drug interactions. Maybe it’s people with prior blood clotting problems or diabetes. They’re not telling us anything!
They literally are blindsiding us, and with no transparency, and Americans now are scared to death. You can feel the tension in America. People are walking off the job. They don’t want to lose their jobs, but they don’t want to die of the vaccine! It’s very clear. They say, ‘Listen, I don’t want to die. That’s the reason I’m not taking the vaccine.’ It’s just that clear.”
Bradford Hill Criteria Are Met — COVID Jabs Cause Death
McCullough goes on to explain the Bradford Hill criterion for causation, which is one of the ways by which we can actually determine that, yes, the shots are indeed killing people. We’re not dealing with coincidence.
“The first question we’d ask is: ‘Does the vaccine have a mechanism of action, a biological mechanism of action, that can actually kill a human being?’ And the answer is yes! because the vaccines all use genetic mechanisms to trick the body into making the lethal spike protein of the virus.
It is very conceivable that some people take up too much messenger RNA; they produce a lethal spike protein in sensitive organs like the brain or the heart or elsewhere. The spike protein damages blood vessels, damages organs, causes blood clots. So, it’s well within the mechanism of action that the vaccine could be fatal.
Someone could have a fatal blood clot. They could have fatal myocarditis. The FDA has official warnings of myocarditis. They have warnings on blood clots. They have warnings on a fatal neurologic condition called Guillain-Barré syndrome. So, the FDA warnings, the mechanism of action, clearly say it’s possible.
The second criteria is: ‘Is it a large effect?’ And the answer is yes! This is not a subtle thing. It’s not 151 versus 149 deaths. This is 15,000 deaths. So, it’s a very large effect size, a large effect.
The third [criteria] is: ‘Is it internally consistent?’ Are you seeing other things that could potentially be fatal in VAERS? Yes! We’re seeing heart attacks. We’re seeing strokes. We’re seeing myocarditis. We’re seeing blood clots, and what have you. So, it’s internally consistent.
‘Is it externally consistent?’ That’s the next criteria. Well, if you look in the MHRA, the yellow card system in England, the exact same thing has been found. In the EudraVigilance system in [Europe] the exact same thing’s been found.
So, we have actually fulfilled all of the Bradford Hill criteria. I’ll tell you right now that COVID-19 vaccine is, from an epidemiological perspective, causing these deaths or a large fraction.”
Zero Tolerance for Elective Drugs Causing Death
There may be cases in which a high risk of death from a drug might be acceptable. If you have a terminal incurable disease, for example, you may be willing to experiment and take your chances. Under normal circumstances however, lethal drugs are not tolerated.
After five suspected deaths, a drug will receive a black box warning. At 50 deaths, it will be removed from the market. Considering COVID-19 has a less than 1% risk of death across age groups, the tolerance for a deadly remedy is infinitesimal. At over 17,000 reported deaths, which in real numbers may exceed 212,000,(8) the COVID shots far surpass any reasonable risk to protect against symptomatic COVID-19. As noted by McCullough:
“There is zero tolerance for electively taking a drug or a new vaccine and then dying! There’s zero tolerance for that. People don’t weigh it out and say, ‘Oh well, I’ll take my chances and die.’ And I can tell you, the word got out about vaccines causing death in early April [2021], and by mid-April the vaccination rates in the United States plummeted …
We hadn’t gotten anywhere near our goals. Remember, President Biden set a goal [of 70% vaccination rate] by July 1. We never got there because Americans were frightened by their relatives, people in their churches and their schools dying after the vaccine.
They had heard about it, they saw it. There was an informal internet survey done several months ago, where 12% of Americans knew somebody who had died after the vaccine.
I’m a doctor. I’m an internist and cardiologist. I just came from the hospital … I had a woman die of the COVID-19 vaccine … She had shot No. 1. She had shot No. 2. After shot No. 2, she developed blood clots throughout her body. She required hospitalization. She required intravenous blood thinners. She was ravaged. She had neurologic damage.
After that hospitalization, she was in a walker. She came to my office. I checked for more blood clots. I found more blood clots. I put her back on blood thinners. I saw her about a month later. She seemed like she was a little better. Family was really concerned. The next month I got called by the Dallas Coroner office saying she’s found dead at home.
Most of us don’t have any problem with vaccines; 98% of Americans take all the vaccines … I think most people who are still susceptible would take a COVID vaccine if they knew they weren’t going to die of it or be injured. And because of these giant safety concerns, and the lack of transparency, we’re at an impasse.
We’ve got a very labor-constrained market. We’ve got people walking off the job. We’ve got planes that aren’t going to fly, and it’s all because our agencies are not being transparent and honest with America about vaccine safety.”
Early Treatment Is Crucial, Vaxxed or Not
As noted by McCullough, the vast majority of patients require hospitalization for COVID-19 is because they’ve not received any treatment and the infection has been allowed free reign for days on end.
“To this day, the patients who get hospitalized are largely those who receive no early care at home,” he says. “They’re either denied care or they don’t know about it, and they end up dying.
The vast majority of people who die, die in the hospital; they don’t die at home. And the reason why they end up in the hospital, it’s typically two weeks of lack of treatment. You can’t let a fatal illness brew for two weeks at home with no treatment, and then start treatment very late in the hospital. It’s not going to work.
There’s been a very good set of analyses, one in the Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases … that showed, day by day, one loses the opportunity of reducing the hospitalization when monoclonal antibodies are delayed … No doctor should be considered a renegade when they order FDA [emergency use authorized] monoclonal antibody. The monoclonal antibodies are just as approved as the vaccines.
I just had a patient over the weekend, fully vaccinated, took the booster. A month after the booster she went on a trip to Dubai. She just came back, and she got COVID-19! … I got her a monoclonal antibody infusion that day. [The following day] she started the sequence of multidrug therapy for COVID-19. I am telling you, she is going to get through this illness in a few days …
Podcaster Joe Rogan just went through this. Governor Abbott was also a vaccine failure. He went through it. Former President Trump went through it. Americans should see the use of monoclonal antibodies in high risk patients, followed by drugs in an oral sequenced approach. This is standard of care!
It is supported by the Association of Physicians and Surgeons, the Truth for Health Foundation, the American Front Line Doctors, and the Front Line Critical Care Consortium. This is not renegade medicine. This is what patients should have. This is the correct thing! …
If we can’t get the monoclonal antibodies, we certainly use hydroxychloroquine, supported by over 250 studies, ivermectin, supported by over 60 studies, combined with azithromycin or doxycycline, inhaled budesonide … full-dose aspirin … nutraceuticals including zinc, vitamin D, vitamin C, quercetin, NAC … we do oral and nasal decontamination with povidone-iodine.
In acutely sick patients we do it every four hours, [and it] massively reduces the viral load … Fortunately, we have enough doctors now and enough patient awareness, patients who … understand that early treatment is viable, is necessary, and it should be executed.”
Originally published Nov 18, 2021 on Mercola.com
References
(1) Toxicology Reports September 2021; 8: 1665-1684
(2) Retraction Watch October 4, 2021
(3) Covid19.healthdata.org
(4) European Journal of Epidemiology September 30, 2021
(5) European Journal of Epidemiology September 30, 2021
(6) Toxicology Reports September 2021; 8: 1665-1684
(7) OpenVAERS Data as of October 15, 2021
(8) SKirsch.io/vaccine-resources
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times
-
third
Natural immunity to covid is powerful. Policymakers seem afraid to say so.
People making decisions about their health deserve honesty from their leaders.
Image without a caption
By Marty Makary
Marty Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, editor-in-chief of Medpage Today, and author of “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care — and How to Fix It."
September 15, 2021 at 12:45 p.m. EDT
President Biden visits the Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health in February, with Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and NIH director Francis Collins listening. (Evan Vucci/AP)
CORRECTION
A previous version of this article erroneously said Spectrum Health is in Detroit. It is in Grand Rapids, Mich. The article has been corrected.
It’s okay to have an incorrect scientific hypothesis. But when new data proves it wrong, you have to adapt. Unfortunately, many elected leaders and public health officials have held on far too long to the hypothesis that natural immunity offers unreliable protection against covid-19 — a contention that is being rapidly debunked by science.
More than 15 studies have demonstrated the power of immunity acquired by previously having the virus. A 700,000-person study from Israel two weeks ago found that those who had experienced prior infections were 27 times less likely to get a second symptomatic covid infection than those who were vaccinated. This affirmed a June Cleveland Clinic study of health-care workers (who are often exposed to the virus), in which none who had previously tested positive for the coronavirus got reinfected. The study authors concluded that “individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from covid-19 vaccination.” And in May, a Washington University study found that even a mild covid infection resulted in long-lasting immunity.
Coronavirus vaccines work. But this statistical illusion makes people think they don’t.
So, the emerging science suggests that natural immunity is as good as or better than vaccine-induced immunity. That’s why it’s so frustrating that the Biden administration has repeatedly argued that immunity conferred by vaccines is preferable to immunity caused by natural infection, as NIH director Francis Collins told Fox News host told Bret Baier a few weeks ago. That rigid adherence to an outdated theory is also reflected in President Biden’s recent announcement that large companies must require their employees to get vaccinated or submit to regular testing, regardless of whether they previously had the virus.
ADVERTISING
Downplaying the power of natural immunity has had deadly consequences. In January, February and March, we wasted scarce vaccine doses on millions of people who previously had covid. If we had asked Americans who were already protected by natural immunity to step aside in the vaccine line, tens of thousands of lives could have been saved. This is not just in hindsight is 20/20; many of us were vehemently arguing and writing at the time for such a rationing strategy.
One reason public health officials may be afraid to acknowledge the effectiveness of natural immunity is that they fear it will lead some to choose getting the infection over vaccination. That’s a legitimate concern. But we can encourage all Americans to get vaccinated while still being honest about the data. In my clinical experience, I have found patients to be extremely forgiving with evolving data if you are honest and transparent with them. Yet, when asked the common question, “I’ve recovered from covid, is it absolutely essential that I get vaccinated?” many public health officials have put aside the data and responded with a synchronized “yes,” even as studies have shown that reinfections are rare and often asymptomatic or mild when they do occur.
The tide may finally be shifting, as pressure has grown on federal officials. Last week on CNN, Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease specialist, hinted that the government may be rethinking its stance on natural immunity, saying, “I think that is something that we need to sit down and discuss seriously.” Some large medical centers, like Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, Mich., have already announced they will recognize natural immunity for their vaccine requirements. Some Republican governors have picked up on public frustration over how the scientific guidance is inconsistent with the data, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accusing the Biden administration of “not following science” by crafting its vaccine mandate without taking into consideration “infection-conferred immunity.”
Booster shots won’t stop the delta variant. Here’s the math to prove it.
The current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention position about vaccinating children also dismisses the benefits of natural immunity. The Los Angeles County School District recently mandated vaccines for students ages 12 and up who want to learn in person. But young people are less likely to suffer severe or long-lasting symptoms from covid-19 than adults, and have experienced rare heart complications from the vaccines. In Israel, heart inflammation has been observed in between 1 in 3,000 and 1 in 6,000 males age 16 to 24; the CDC has confirmed 854 reports nationally in people age 30 and younger who got the vaccine.
A second dose of the two-shot mRNA vaccine like that produced by Pfizer and Moderna may not even be necessary in children who had covid. Since February, Israel’s Health Ministry has been recommending that anyone, adult or adolescent, who has recovered from covid-19 receive a only single mRNA vaccine dose, instead of two. Even though the risk of severe illness during a reinfection is exceedingly low, some data has demonstrated a slight benefit to one dose in this situation. Other countries use a similar approach. The United States could adopt this strategy now as a reasonable next step in transitioning from an overly rigid to a more flexible vaccine requirement policy. For comparison, the CDC has long recommended that kids do not get the chickenpox vaccine if they had chickenpox infection in the past.
The incorrect hypothesis that natural immunity is unreliable has resulted in the loss of thousands of American lives, avoidable vaccine complications, and damaged the credibility of public health officials. Given the recent mandate announcement by the White House, it would be good for our public health leaders to show humility by acknowledging that the hypothesis they repeatedly trumpeted was not only wrong, but it may be harmful. Let’s all come together around the mounting body of scientific literature and real-world clinical experience that is telling us not to require the full vaccine regimen in people who recovered from covid in the past. Public health officials changing their position on natural immunity, after so much hostility toward the idea, would go a long way in rebuilding the public trust.
-
How are you going to "soft kill" the population if you let them avoid the ClotShot?
third
Natural immunity to covid is powerful. Policymakers seem afraid to say so.
People making decisions about their health deserve honesty from their leaders.
Image without a caption
By Marty Makary
Marty Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, editor-in-chief of Medpage Today, and author of “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care — and How to Fix It."
September 15, 2021 at 12:45 p.m. EDT
President Biden visits the Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health in February, with Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and NIH director Francis Collins listening. (Evan Vucci/AP)
CORRECTION
A previous version of this article erroneously said Spectrum Health is in Detroit. It is in Grand Rapids, Mich. The article has been corrected.
It’s okay to have an incorrect scientific hypothesis. But when new data proves it wrong, you have to adapt. Unfortunately, many elected leaders and public health officials have held on far too long to the hypothesis that natural immunity offers unreliable protection against covid-19 — a contention that is being rapidly debunked by science.
More than 15 studies have demonstrated the power of immunity acquired by previously having the virus. A 700,000-person study from Israel two weeks ago found that those who had experienced prior infections were 27 times less likely to get a second symptomatic covid infection than those who were vaccinated. This affirmed a June Cleveland Clinic study of health-care workers (who are often exposed to the virus), in which none who had previously tested positive for the coronavirus got reinfected. The study authors concluded that “individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from covid-19 vaccination.” And in May, a Washington University study found that even a mild covid infection resulted in long-lasting immunity.
Coronavirus vaccines work. But this statistical illusion makes people think they don’t.
So, the emerging science suggests that natural immunity is as good as or better than vaccine-induced immunity. That’s why it’s so frustrating that the Biden administration has repeatedly argued that immunity conferred by vaccines is preferable to immunity caused by natural infection, as NIH director Francis Collins told Fox News host told Bret Baier a few weeks ago. That rigid adherence to an outdated theory is also reflected in President Biden’s recent announcement that large companies must require their employees to get vaccinated or submit to regular testing, regardless of whether they previously had the virus.
ADVERTISING
Downplaying the power of natural immunity has had deadly consequences. In January, February and March, we wasted scarce vaccine doses on millions of people who previously had covid. If we had asked Americans who were already protected by natural immunity to step aside in the vaccine line, tens of thousands of lives could have been saved. This is not just in hindsight is 20/20; many of us were vehemently arguing and writing at the time for such a rationing strategy.
One reason public health officials may be afraid to acknowledge the effectiveness of natural immunity is that they fear it will lead some to choose getting the infection over vaccination. That’s a legitimate concern. But we can encourage all Americans to get vaccinated while still being honest about the data. In my clinical experience, I have found patients to be extremely forgiving with evolving data if you are honest and transparent with them. Yet, when asked the common question, “I’ve recovered from covid, is it absolutely essential that I get vaccinated?” many public health officials have put aside the data and responded with a synchronized “yes,” even as studies have shown that reinfections are rare and often asymptomatic or mild when they do occur.
The tide may finally be shifting, as pressure has grown on federal officials. Last week on CNN, Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease specialist, hinted that the government may be rethinking its stance on natural immunity, saying, “I think that is something that we need to sit down and discuss seriously.” Some large medical centers, like Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, Mich., have already announced they will recognize natural immunity for their vaccine requirements. Some Republican governors have picked up on public frustration over how the scientific guidance is inconsistent with the data, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accusing the Biden administration of “not following science” by crafting its vaccine mandate without taking into consideration “infection-conferred immunity.”
Booster shots won’t stop the delta variant. Here’s the math to prove it.
The current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention position about vaccinating children also dismisses the benefits of natural immunity. The Los Angeles County School District recently mandated vaccines for students ages 12 and up who want to learn in person. But young people are less likely to suffer severe or long-lasting symptoms from covid-19 than adults, and have experienced rare heart complications from the vaccines. In Israel, heart inflammation has been observed in between 1 in 3,000 and 1 in 6,000 males age 16 to 24; the CDC has confirmed 854 reports nationally in people age 30 and younger who got the vaccine.
A second dose of the two-shot mRNA vaccine like that produced by Pfizer and Moderna may not even be necessary in children who had covid. Since February, Israel’s Health Ministry has been recommending that anyone, adult or adolescent, who has recovered from covid-19 receive a only single mRNA vaccine dose, instead of two. Even though the risk of severe illness during a reinfection is exceedingly low, some data has demonstrated a slight benefit to one dose in this situation. Other countries use a similar approach. The United States could adopt this strategy now as a reasonable next step in transitioning from an overly rigid to a more flexible vaccine requirement policy. For comparison, the CDC has long recommended that kids do not get the chickenpox vaccine if they had chickenpox infection in the past.
The incorrect hypothesis that natural immunity is unreliable has resulted in the loss of thousands of American lives, avoidable vaccine complications, and damaged the credibility of public health officials. Given the recent mandate announcement by the White House, it would be good for our public health leaders to show humility by acknowledging that the hypothesis they repeatedly trumpeted was not only wrong, but it may be harmful. Let’s all come together around the mounting body of scientific literature and real-world clinical experience that is telling us not to require the full vaccine regimen in people who recovered from covid in the past. Public health officials changing their position on natural immunity, after so much hostility toward the idea, would go a long way in rebuilding the public trust.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/memo-reveals-state-department-assessed-in-early-2020-lab-leak-was-most-likely-origin-of-covid-19_4387879.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-04-07&utm_medium=email&est=Eat5IuPervrkeQjsjeFHc8E1Xv5uxpdgu8cL5U1DFrGdAa0DnTmFMsZDDo4DXq4c35lA
-
https://news.yahoo.com/second-covid-booster-shot-extends-012300452.html
:-o
-
It still works to produce clots, heart inflammation and cancer after that time period, right?
https://news.yahoo.com/second-covid-booster-shot-extends-012300452.html
:-o
-
look at the "science "
:-P
-
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/pelosi-covid-house/2022/04/07/id/1064723/
with of course the usual
"I am fully vaccinated and boosted!" comment
and "thank god for the vaccine"
the one she laughed about when trump wanted to push it through by the end of the yr
we are all praying for her safe recovery. :wink:
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mrna-vaccines-produce-persisting-spike-protein-likely-causing-clots-heart-inflammations-cancers-dr-ryan-cole_4407193.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-04-18-3&utm_medium=email&est=xUP5ATWjh68hC5tJHauIjV85DHcmZhN8%2FV%2F2VzC0lSw7k1S7lFkDgqhT7m4wrqj%2FM6Nr
-
Unsafe, but at least they don't work!
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mrna-vaccines-produce-persisting-spike-protein-likely-causing-clots-heart-inflammations-cancers-dr-ryan-cole_4407193.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-04-18-3&utm_medium=email&est=xUP5ATWjh68hC5tJHauIjV85DHcmZhN8%2FV%2F2VzC0lSw7k1S7lFkDgqhT7m4wrqj%2FM6Nr
-
https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/12/amp-fact-check-head-of-pfizer-research-did-not-say-covid-vaccine-is-female-sterilization.html
-
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/planning-for-pregnancy.html
-
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/planning-for-pregnancy.html
This site can’t be reachedThe webpage at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/planning-for-pregnancy.html might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.
Memory-holed?
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/the-dose-makes-the-poison?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTI2MTI2NzIsIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY1MDU4MTQ1MSwiZXhwIjoxNjUwNTg1MDUxLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzYzMDgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.5dA05wLrFWx3EUcaspFAGBm6UfVIALnO8v7xRB5KYMQ&s=r
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/heart-inflammation-higher-among-vaccinated-than-unvaccinated-study_4420652.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-04-23&utm_medium=email&est=8KON%2FbLHL7lVNNYILs%2FSjbeeIrQm94cBhV5o%2B5OIYPDI4%2B4YrGYa2ZQODFDRH2Dcr%2Fxy
-
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z
-
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z
I'm so old, I remember when the left was anti-GMO food products. Now they want people to become GMOs at government gunpoint.
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/04/29/what-ive-seen-in-the-last-2-years-is-unprecedented-physician-on-covid-vaccine-side-effects-on-pregnant-women/#more-267590
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/dept-defense-study-shows-pregnant-female-soldiers-experiencing-absolutely-catastrophic-rate-abnormalities-fetal-problems-dr-naomi-wolf-drops-bomb-war-room-video/
Nuremberg 2.0 may not have involve a courtroom in many cases.
-
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z
I'm so old, I remember when the left was anti-GMO food products. Now they want people to become GMOs at government gunpoint.
The GMO irony is quite good. We don't want that in our beef, corn or tomatoes but we would do it to ourselves?
Speaking of disinformation, I consented to a jab that was 95% effective against 'alpha' when, unbeknownst to me, the threat was now delta. I don't like relying on old data. Then got infected with Omicron 6 months later. Meanwhile, a relatively young close relative died of an unexplained blood clot. I don't like unexplained.
It's not a vaccine. It's a crapshoot.
-
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z
I'm so old, I remember when the left was anti-GMO food products. Now they want people to become GMOs at government gunpoint.
The GMO irony is quite good. We don't want that in our beef, corn or tomatoes but we would do it to ourselves?
Speaking of disinformation, I consented to a jab that was 95% effective against 'alpha' when, unbeknownst to me, the threat was now delta. I don't like relying on old data. Then got infected with Omicron 6 months later. Meanwhile, a relatively young close relative died of an unexplained blood clot. I don't like unexplained.
It's not a vaccine. It's a crapshoot.
https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/doctors-trial/nuremberg-code
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.
The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.
-
https://imgflip.com/i/6ejdmq
(https://i.imgflip.com/6ejdmq.jpg)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z
I'm so old, I remember when the left was anti-GMO food products. Now they want people to become GMOs at government gunpoint.
The GMO irony is quite good. We don't want that in our beef, corn or tomatoes but we would do it to ourselves?
Speaking of disinformation, I consented to a jab that was 95% effective against 'alpha' when, unbeknownst to me, the threat was now delta. I don't like relying on old data. Then got infected with Omicron 6 months later. Meanwhile, a relatively young close relative died of an unexplained blood clot. I don't like unexplained.
It's not a vaccine. It's a crapshoot.
https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/doctors-trial/nuremberg-code
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.
The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10772665/Bill-Gates-warns-weve-NOT-seen-worst-COVID.html
-
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2022/04/vaers-finger-counting.html
https://imgflip.com/i/6ejdmq
(https://i.imgflip.com/6ejdmq.jpg)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z
I'm so old, I remember when the left was anti-GMO food products. Now they want people to become GMOs at government gunpoint.
The GMO irony is quite good. We don't want that in our beef, corn or tomatoes but we would do it to ourselves?
Speaking of disinformation, I consented to a jab that was 95% effective against 'alpha' when, unbeknownst to me, the threat was now delta. I don't like relying on old data. Then got infected with Omicron 6 months later. Meanwhile, a relatively young close relative died of an unexplained blood clot. I don't like unexplained.
It's not a vaccine. It's a crapshoot.
https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/doctors-trial/nuremberg-code
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.
The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.
-
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/326734
Shocking!
-
https://dailycaller.com/2022/05/03/fda-covid-19-coronavirus-influenza-flu-vaccine-annual/
-
https://instapundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Screen-Shot-2022-05-06-at-9.50.18-AM-577x600.png
(https://instapundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Screen-Shot-2022-05-06-at-9.50.18-AM-577x600.png)
-
https://twitter.com/andrewbostom/status/1522676935662444547
-
The Triumph of Natural Immunity
BY MARTIN KULLDORFF TIMEMAY 7, 2022 PRINT
A new CDC study shows that around 75% of American children – and nearly 60% of adults – have already had covid. That means that they have strong natural immunity that protects them from covid infections as they get older. Despite this, the CDC, the FDA and other government agencies are pushing all of them to get vaccinated.
Why?
One important role of public health agencies during a pandemic is to conduct seroprevalence studies to determine how many people have developed antibodies to the disease from having been infected. That way we understand how the disease has spread and how it varies geographically and among different age groups. Spain did such a large, randomized survey early during the pandemic while Sweden did a series of smaller randomized surveys at regular intervals.
In the United States, this important task was left to individual scientists, but they only had resources to conduct small surveys in a limited area such as the Santa Clara County Study. The CDC has now finally got its act together with a national survey. The results are illuminating.
In April 2020, the Santa Clara study showed that 3% of its population had been infected. In February 2022, the CDC study shows that at least 58% percent of Americans have had covid, as evidenced by their anti-nucleocapsid antibodies, which are produced due to infections but not the vaccines. The numbers vary by age.
Epoch Times Photo
What does this mean? We know that natural immunity after covid recovery provides excellent protection against future infections, and while covid will be with us for the rest of our lives, it will be something that our immune system will cope with in the way it is handling the other four widely circulating coronaviruses.
It means that we are now transitioning from the pandemic stage to the endemic stage, and we will eventually reach herd immunity, the end point of every pandemic no matter what strategy is used.
Given these numbers, why are the CDC, the FDA and the government pushing hard for all children to get vaccinated against covid? Why are some schools and universities mandating covid vaccines for children and young adults? The majority already have superior natural immunity.
All of them are at minuscule risk from dying from covid even if they have not had it, a risk that is smaller than dying from any of a whole range of other causes such as motor vehicle accidents, drowning, homicide, suicide, drug overdoses or cancer. While anyone can get infected, there is more than a thousand-fold difference in covid mortality between older and younger people.
To sell a drug or a vaccine, we require pharmaceutical companies to conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to show that it works to prevent serious health outcomes or death. Pfizer and Moderna have not done that. For adults they only showed a reduction in symptomatic disease.
To remedy this, a recent Danish study used the RCTs to evaluate all-cause mortality. For every 100 who die in the placebo group, there are 103 deaths among mRNA vaccinees, with a 95% confidence interval of 63 to 171. This contrasts with the adenovirus-vector vaccines (AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson), with 37 deaths among the vaccinees (95% CI: 19-70).
For children, we do not even have this. The randomized covid vaccine trials show that they can prevent mild disease in children without a prior covid infection, but from observational studies we know that this protection wanes rapidly. The RCTs also show that the vaccines generate antibodies in children, but 75% of American children already have superior antibodies from natural infection.
There are no RCTs that show the vaccine prevents deaths or provides any other tangible benefit to children, while there could be harms. All vaccines come with some risks of adverse reactions, and while we know that they cause an increased risk of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) in young people, we do not yet have a complete picture of the safety profile for these vaccines.
The CDC, the FDA, schools, and universities are pushing covid vaccines without having shown any benefit to the majority of children who have already had covid. It is stunning how these institutions have abandoned 2,500 years of knowledge about natural immunity. For the minority of children without a prior covid infection, the RCTs only show a short-term reduction in mild disease.
The CDC could instead focus on catching up with regular childhood vaccines for measles, polio, and other serious childhood diseases. Those vaccinations were severely disrupted during lockdowns, and we now see an increase in measles and polio worldwide. Yet more collateral damage from two years of disastrous public health policy.
The medical establishment used to push for evidence-based medicine as a counterweight to “alternative medicine.” It is tragic how that philosophy has now been thrown out the window. If Pfizer and Moderna want these vaccines to be given to children, they should first conduct a randomized controlled trial that shows that they reduce hospitalization and all-cause mortality. They failed to do so for adults. They should not get away with that for our children.
-
The ClotShot is both profitable for the PTB, and a way to cull the herd.
The Triumph of Natural Immunity
BY MARTIN KULLDORFF TIMEMAY 7, 2022 PRINT
A new CDC study shows that around 75% of American children – and nearly 60% of adults – have already had covid. That means that they have strong natural immunity that protects them from covid infections as they get older. Despite this, the CDC, the FDA and other government agencies are pushing all of them to get vaccinated.
Why?
One important role of public health agencies during a pandemic is to conduct seroprevalence studies to determine how many people have developed antibodies to the disease from having been infected. That way we understand how the disease has spread and how it varies geographically and among different age groups. Spain did such a large, randomized survey early during the pandemic while Sweden did a series of smaller randomized surveys at regular intervals.
In the United States, this important task was left to individual scientists, but they only had resources to conduct small surveys in a limited area such as the Santa Clara County Study. The CDC has now finally got its act together with a national survey. The results are illuminating.
In April 2020, the Santa Clara study showed that 3% of its population had been infected. In February 2022, the CDC study shows that at least 58% percent of Americans have had covid, as evidenced by their anti-nucleocapsid antibodies, which are produced due to infections but not the vaccines. The numbers vary by age.
Epoch Times Photo
What does this mean? We know that natural immunity after covid recovery provides excellent protection against future infections, and while covid will be with us for the rest of our lives, it will be something that our immune system will cope with in the way it is handling the other four widely circulating coronaviruses.
It means that we are now transitioning from the pandemic stage to the endemic stage, and we will eventually reach herd immunity, the end point of every pandemic no matter what strategy is used.
Given these numbers, why are the CDC, the FDA and the government pushing hard for all children to get vaccinated against covid? Why are some schools and universities mandating covid vaccines for children and young adults? The majority already have superior natural immunity.
All of them are at minuscule risk from dying from covid even if they have not had it, a risk that is smaller than dying from any of a whole range of other causes such as motor vehicle accidents, drowning, homicide, suicide, drug overdoses or cancer. While anyone can get infected, there is more than a thousand-fold difference in covid mortality between older and younger people.
To sell a drug or a vaccine, we require pharmaceutical companies to conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to show that it works to prevent serious health outcomes or death. Pfizer and Moderna have not done that. For adults they only showed a reduction in symptomatic disease.
To remedy this, a recent Danish study used the RCTs to evaluate all-cause mortality. For every 100 who die in the placebo group, there are 103 deaths among mRNA vaccinees, with a 95% confidence interval of 63 to 171. This contrasts with the adenovirus-vector vaccines (AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson), with 37 deaths among the vaccinees (95% CI: 19-70).
For children, we do not even have this. The randomized covid vaccine trials show that they can prevent mild disease in children without a prior covid infection, but from observational studies we know that this protection wanes rapidly. The RCTs also show that the vaccines generate antibodies in children, but 75% of American children already have superior antibodies from natural infection.
There are no RCTs that show the vaccine prevents deaths or provides any other tangible benefit to children, while there could be harms. All vaccines come with some risks of adverse reactions, and while we know that they cause an increased risk of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) in young people, we do not yet have a complete picture of the safety profile for these vaccines.
The CDC, the FDA, schools, and universities are pushing covid vaccines without having shown any benefit to the majority of children who have already had covid. It is stunning how these institutions have abandoned 2,500 years of knowledge about natural immunity. For the minority of children without a prior covid infection, the RCTs only show a short-term reduction in mild disease.
The CDC could instead focus on catching up with regular childhood vaccines for measles, polio, and other serious childhood diseases. Those vaccinations were severely disrupted during lockdowns, and we now see an increase in measles and polio worldwide. Yet more collateral damage from two years of disastrous public health policy.
The medical establishment used to push for evidence-based medicine as a counterweight to “alternative medicine.” It is tragic how that philosophy has now been thrown out the window. If Pfizer and Moderna want these vaccines to be given to children, they should first conduct a randomized controlled trial that shows that they reduce hospitalization and all-cause mortality. They failed to do so for adults. They should not get away with that for our children.
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/rebounding-after-paxlovid?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTQxODYwNTIsIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY1MjIyMzAxOCwiZXhwIjoxNjUyMjI2NjE4LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.z6LVzwLMKprxu6imMeeOTaCHaTHbmHhUKICoeAN9Q2k&s=r
-
The Biggest Public Health Threat Is Not a Virus but a Weakened Immune System
BY CARLA PEETERS TIMEMAY 6, 2022 PRINT
A growing list of scientific studies have now shown that immunity following natural infection provides durable protection often far better than immunity following Covid-19 vaccination. Several governments focus on mandated vaccination. However natural immunity and a strong immune system are what are really needed to build full protection and a healthier population.
In most Western countries, vulnerable people and high-risk groups have been vaccinated with one of the four “Emergency Use Authorization” (EUA) Covid-19 vaccines. Remarkably, in the countries with the highest vaccination coverage (Israel, Iceland and England), we observe high numbers of positive tests.
Positive tests are called infections or cases, even though that may or may not be true (e.g., a PCR test may not distinguish between an active infection or a previous infection).
Contrary to inflated expectations, it appears that people who have been doubly vaccinated can test positive, carry a high viral load, potentially transmit the virus, and end up in the hospital. The effectiveness of vaccinations seems to be declining or disappearing. A “one size fits all” approach may become a dead end if we continue to pursue this current one-sided strategy with focus on just one virus.
In England, various immunologists have spoken out about the danger of a weakened immune system within the entire population, which increases the risk of infections and chronic diseases. As a result of the lockdowns and measures such as keeping one and a half meters distance and wearing masks, the immune system in many people may have weakened compared to the days before the pandemic.
The innate immune system is the first and not specific defense mechanism. It stops potential disease-causing organisms. This system is formed by physical barriers, such as skin, saliva, and mucous membranes. Switching to the adaptive immune system happens when the pathogen is able to break through the first barrier. Cells from the innate immune system present the pieces of the pathogen or foreign substance to B Cells and T cells of the adaptive immune system.
B cells are responsible for the release of antibodies. The antibodies formed move freely in the blood and can bind foreign pathogens. The pathogen – antibody complex is then broken down and cleared by macrophages, among others. There are also T cells that directly target pathogens that have invaded cells. They can help to destroy these infected cells and, on the other hand, enhance and rein in the antibody response by B cells.
The B and T cells can develop into memory cells and are activated much faster in a subsequent infection than with a first infection. Memory provides an increased antibody response, often with a stronger binding to a protein of the pathogen and a broader response against multiple pieces of the protein (epitope). This increases the chance that the pathogen will be cleared effectively and quickly. This is reflected in natural infections and also vaccinations.
Children and adults have come into less contact with other viruses and bacteria, so the immune system is less challenged and therefore less trained. Outbreaks of infectious diseases in isolated communities who had not been exposed to the corresponding pathogen for a long time and lacked immunity are well documented e.g. the outbreak of whooping cough in 1908 and 1918 in Papua New Guinea.
In addition, factors such as changed diet and lifestyle, exposure to toxic substances through frequent use of disinfectants and facemasks, and the increase in stress play an important role. As well, obesity is a correlating condition related to a serious Covid-19 condition, and the lockdowns have resulted in higher obesity rates in the UK, the US, and other Western nations. Obesity has long been associated with prognosis of viral infections. It was recognized as a predisposing factor for worse clinical outcomes and death in the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.
On the opposite side of obesity of the pandemic and its measures we see a rising problem of undernutrition with increased risks for pneumonia and mortality in children younger than 5 years of age. The problem of malnutrition, either due to over- or undernutrition, and as a consequence immune dysfunction may cause enormous damage for years and generations to come. The onset of heightened tuberculosis incidents is deeply troubling.
Drug use has also increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. Statistics from the Netherlands report that mental health in the Netherlands in the first quarter of 2021 was the lowest for the past twenty years. Nivel reports that the use of psychotropic drugs among young people aged 15-24 increased in the first quarter of 2021.
This has been seen before in England and the United States. The pandemic led to a stark rise in depressive and anxiety disorders in women (28%) and adolescents (26%) globally. Also the proportion of patients with dementia who has been prescribed antipsychotics substantially increased. More people with dementia died in 2020 as compared to previous years in the UK.
For many years Psycho Neuro-Immunology Studies demonstrated that mental health is important for a well-functioning immune system. Several researchers have shown a relationship between the increase in stress experiences and the risk of upper respiratory tract infections and mortality. A significant overall association between the susceptibility to sepsis and accelerated biological aging has been found as well as negative associations between mean cytokine levels and chronic stress. A long duration of the measures can weaken the innate and adaptive immune system and worsen a disease outcome.
The effective and efficient operation of the total immune system is crucial when the body encounters foreign substances, pathogens (disease-causing agents) or, for example, cancer cells. Studies on the effectiveness of the influenza vaccines have already shown that older people may not respond effectively to the influenza vaccine. Older people often have an aging immune system. That’s why we talk about immunosenescence, where the immune system changes with age.
As a result, “bullet-proof” protection cannot be generated, despite vaccination. A study in Norway among one hundred vulnerable elderly people who died shortly after a Covid-19 vaccination shows that weakened immunity probably played a role. In addition to elderly people, those with chronic diseases such as rheumatism, MS, or after organ transplantation can also have weakened immunity.
A significant proportion of the people with chronic diseases who participated in a Dutch study were unable to elicit a good antibody response after two vaccinations with one of the four Covid-19 vaccines. Do they need a third vaccination? The results of this are not yet known. Because the immune system is not working optimally in this group and the same vaccine is used for this third injection, no major improvements can be expected. The EMA and ECDC do not see an urgent need for a third booster for healthy groups, for the time being.
Vaccination will not provide good protection for everyone. The majority of people who are currently vaccinated do not know whether they have built up antibodies and/or T cell immunity. It is also possible that without vaccination, effective immunity has already been built up due to symptomatic or non-symptomatic (asymptomatic) infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus or previous infection from another coronavirus.
A study published in Nature demonstrates that seventeen years after natural infection with the SARS CoV-1 virus, protective T cell cross-reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 virus is still present. It’s a theory along with low obesity that explains why Asian countries have suffered few Covid-19 deaths despite hearty case counts. Many scientific studies, over a dozen in 2021, have now shown that immunity following natural infection provides better protection than immunity following Covid-19 vaccination. An Israelian study showed a 27 times less chance of reinfection and an eight times less chance of hospitalization after natural infection as compared to vaccination.
Another study also demonstrated more durable immunity following natural infection. This may be related to the fact that natural infection elicits a broader immune response against a wider variety of viral coat proteins. SARS-Cov-2 specific cellular and humoral immunities are durable at least until one year after disease onset.
Even before the Covid-19 vaccines were on the market, scientists warned of a possible danger of Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE)
A reduction in the effectiveness of the innate and adaptive immune systems can occur after an injection with an mRNA vaccine, which leads to a greater risk of a more severe course in subsequent infections, as shown in a not yet peer-reviewed study. Also, a wide range of side effects for the Covid-19 vaccines have been documented to VAERS, MHRA and Eudravigilance, far more as compared to previous vaccines. Therefore experts argue for thorough data analysis on the risk-benefits for booster injections…
Even before the Covid-19 vaccines were on the market, scientists warned of a possible danger of Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE), a well-known phenomenon observed in the development of previous coronavirus vaccines. This means that the body produces antibodies, but is unable to neutralize the virus, so by binding to antibodies present on the cell, the virus can enter the cell and multiply more easily.
In a study on vaccine breakthrough cases from the San Francisco Bay area California breakthrough infections were found to be associated with low or undetectable neutralizing antibody levels attributable to immunocompromised state or infection by an antibody resistant lineage. This is seen by several scientists as a possible explanation for the observed reinfections after vaccination. Research from the Mayo Clinic and Boston University shows that six months after the second injection of the Pfizer vaccine the effectiveness decreased from 76% to 42% and with Moderna from 86% to 76%.
Although politicians worldwide are talking about several injections with the same vaccine, scientists in Iceland, England and USA are hesitant about this. Natural immunity may be needed to build full protection in the population. The virus is now endemic and has a survival rate of 99.410% for people under 69 years of age and more than 99.997% for young people under 19 years of age.
Antibodies generated by the vaccines appear to decline after six months. The non-measurable presence of antibodies does not always mean that people are no longer immune. After a natural infection, antibody-producing B cells remain detectable in the bone marrow after the disappearance of measurable antibodies in the blood, which indicates the possibility of being able to react quickly after reinfection. Using a survey of healthcare workers at the Cleveland Clinic, it was shown that vaccinating people who have already gone through a natural infection is pointless.
The large increase in hospitalizations with RSV (cold virus) infections in children in South Wales and Australia may have been a result of lockdowns that suppress the functioning of the immune system, some English immunologists explain. An increase in RSV virus in children and people with black fungus in the lungs in the ICU has also recently been reported in the Netherlands and Belgium.
These infections rarely occur alone and mostly in people with very weak immune systems. As the pressure from lockdowns, nonpharmaceutical interventions, and large-scale vaccinations that target only one protein of the virus increases, there is a greater chance that mutations will occur in the virus that can make it more dangerous for vulnerable groups.
Now that a large part of society has already been vaccinated, it is much better, following the example of Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland, to lift all restriction measures and allow the virus to circulate in the course of normal social and market functioning, i.e. the freedom of movement and exchange.
This allows natural immunity to be built up and the immune system to be strengthened at the same time to keep other viruses, fungi and bacteria in check as well. Vaccination mandates with an experimental vaccine cannot provide broad protection.
A focus on vaccinations with (in)direct obligations creates an unscientifically justifiable discord in society. Above all, with shortages of healthcare personnel, continuing on the same path is an invitation to a devastating tsunami. Not only from Covid-19, but from other pathogens as well as sharp increases in cancer, cardiovascular disease and depression.
Indeed, the immune system is also involved in the prevention of chronic diseases. To prevent unnecessary harm for people and children, public health information on the risk and benefits of the vaccines needs to be honest and transparent. In this way people can make well-considered decisions about their own health and how to contribute and live in a safe and healthier world.
The government and insurance companies would be well served to provide at least children, the elderly, vulnerable welfare recipients, and healthcare workers with a clearer guidance on the crucial importance of a resilient immune system, and not compromise it with restrictions and mandates that risk our health.
From Brownstone Institute
-
https://sharylattkisson.com/2022/05/read-watchdog-documents-lipid-nanoparticles-from-covid-19-vaccines-travel-to-various-organs-in-the-body/
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/explaining-covid-19-vaccine-induced-autoimmunity-hepatitis-and-healing_4460668.html?utm_source=Health&utm_campaign=health-2022-05-14&utm_medium=email&est=l%2BIJd664FJamwX9%2Ferb6t8hJUwEQxSOHmU6BylgBkLmSt7zhvkG7LJ9g4%2BUJSY702yjx
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/rheumatologist-40-of-3000-vaccinated-patients-reported-vaccine-injury-5-still-injured_4466861.html?utm_source=Health&utm_campaign=health-2022-05-15&utm_medium=email&est=V5u8w82peT5KRkDkbYnml%2FnEu%2BsUt%2BD74gV38xf2hdFciCJM%2BN%2F3elHwuuHCYTMk6Bo6
Rheumatologist: 40% of 3,000 Vaccinated Patients Reported Vaccine Injury, 5% Still Injured
BY STEVE KIRSCH TIMEMAY 14, 2022 PRINT
Dr. Robert Jackson has been a physician for 35 years. In his practice, there are more than 5,000 patients, about 3,000 of whom got vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines.
What makes him unusual is that he is not afraid to speak out about what he is seeing in his patients. This is because he’s too valuable to fire.
Jackson said never in his career has he seen anything like what he’s seeing now: 40% of his vaccinated patients reported a vaccine injury, and 5% are still injured.
Nobody can argue his numbers are anecdotes because they were confirmed in the EULAR database and published in the BMJ: 37% had adverse events and 4.4% of patients had a flare-up of their disease after vaccination.
Also, he’s had 12 patients die following the jab. Normally in his patient base, he’ll see one or two deaths a year.
So if there is a question of whether all-cause mortality goes up or down after the jabs rolled out, his numbers make it crystal clear.
This is aggregated data from dozens of doctors in his practice: a .33% excess mortality rate among his patients after the vaccines rolled out (i.e., the vaccines likely killed 1 in 300 people in his patient base).
However, this is likely an undercount because he’s not the primary care physician.
This suggests a kill rate many times higher than the .2% we estimated from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.
However, these are deaths in rheumatology patients, so this may account for the higher estimate. But we are in the same ballpark as the death estimate from VAERS.
Of course, there COULD be an “unknown” thing that killed all these people. It would have to be massive and injected into all these patients to cause the symptoms observed. Wonder what else fits that description? Nobody will tell us.
Naturally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) doesn’t want you to know any of this and they would prefer it if you didn’t watch the video.
Jackson said about 5% of his patients developed a new condition that makes them susceptible to blood clotting. He notes that their observations about the increased rates of side effects have been confirmed in the literature.
Jackson also talked about remarkable results after treating COVID patients using a 30-minute infusion of mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes.
This is available for use by anyone. It can be used on hospitalized patients and long-haulers.
Here is a comment made on my Substack page from A Midwestern Doctor:
There are five important points to consider with this video, some of which may not be evident to people who do not work in this field:
Doctors tend to be very bad at catching adverse reactions. (I’m presently working on an article explaining some of the key reasons for this).
I believe the primary reason Jackson has such a high rate of adverse reactions in his practice is that he asks his patients what happened to them following vaccination — something most doctors don’t do. As a result, he “catches” reactions most doctors would not catch.
Rheumatology patients are more susceptible to having reactions to the vaccine than the general population.
For example, pre-exacerbation of an existing autoimmune condition was a common side effect found in the recent Israeli study of individuals receiving the booster.
However, these patients were excluded from the initial vaccine trials. People at risk of negative effects are rarely studied in clinical trials the companies don’t want to increase the adverse event rates.
This is particularly insidious here because autoimmune patients are typically the No. 1 group recommended for getting vaccinated on the premise that they are “immune-suppressed” and hence need the extra protection.
Jackson is a consultant, not a primary care physician, so he is most likely going to miss or not hear about most of the deaths that occur.
The only way he can sort of catch it is if he remembers a patient who was scheduled for follow-up but doesn’t show up for 6 months and then thinks to check if they are still alive … and at that point, it’s difficult to figure out the temporal correlation with vaccination.
If he was their PCP he’d see a much higher rate.
There is an extreme shortage/demand for rheumatologists in the midwest.
This explains why Jackson goes to so many hospitals in a wide area. This gives him a lot of wiggle-room other doctors don’t have since he does not have a central employer, and each of the eight hospitals that subcontract to him cannot afford to lose him.
Hence there is no corporate that can force him to vaccinate or censor his speech. Very few doctors are in this situation.
Antiphospholipid syndrome, a condition in which the immune system mistakenly creates antibodies that attack tissues in the body, is a common cause of blood clotting in patients with autoimmune disorders.
This provides an alternative mechanism to explain why so many blood clots are occurring and why Jackson is so concerned with screening his patients for this disorder.
I have had a few patients with COVID-19 for whom treatment with exosomes that exosomes were tremendously helpful for, but since they are costly, I’ve used them only on extremely ill people who tried home treatment and who I expected to be hospitalized and then die.
One of my colleagues has treated a larger number of very ill patients pre-hospitalization and had the same result, along with many post-hospitalization who had long-haul COVID-19 who had immediate recoveries.
I’ve looked at a lot of therapies. I believe exosomes are the most helpful, but there are cheaper ones that often help a great deal, so I’m more conservative with the exosomes due to trying to be price-conscious for my patients.
Summary
If the vaccines are safe and effective, this video is impossible to explain. A 1 in 300 death rate for a vaccine that doesn’t kill anyone? Someone is lying to you.
Originally published on Steve Kirsch’s Substack Page, republished from Children’s Health Defense
© 05/10/22 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/05/17/fda-limits-use-of-jj-vaccine-over-blood-clotting-disorder-but-experts-say-pfizer-moderna-shots-pose-similar-risk/
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/monkeypox-101-unanswered-questions?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDgwODIxNzksIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY1MzA1NzQ1NSwiZXhwIjoxNjUzMDYxMDU1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.os8DVlSQuiQenTlBAT3fCh3G1Rj79b9BWfhc_ZiCso8&s=r
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/monkeypox-101-unanswered-questions?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDgwODIxNzksIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY1MzA1NzQ1NSwiZXhwIjoxNjUzMDYxMDU1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.os8DVlSQuiQenTlBAT3fCh3G1Rj79b9BWfhc_ZiCso8&s=r
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/922/315/original/e72cf17f41b47cf9.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/922/315/original/e72cf17f41b47cf9.png)
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/how-has-monkeypox-suddenly-spread-all-over-globe-lightning-speed
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/monkeypox-101-unanswered-questions?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDgwODIxNzksIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY1MzA1NzQ1NSwiZXhwIjoxNjUzMDYxMDU1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.os8DVlSQuiQenTlBAT3fCh3G1Rj79b9BWfhc_ZiCso8&s=r
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/922/315/original/e72cf17f41b47cf9.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/922/315/original/e72cf17f41b47cf9.png)
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/937/749/original/8d950bcef4035944.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/937/749/original/8d950bcef4035944.jpg)
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/how-has-monkeypox-suddenly-spread-all-over-globe-lightning-speed
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/monkeypox-101-unanswered-questions?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDgwODIxNzksIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY1MzA1NzQ1NSwiZXhwIjoxNjUzMDYxMDU1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.os8DVlSQuiQenTlBAT3fCh3G1Rj79b9BWfhc_ZiCso8&s=r
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/922/315/original/e72cf17f41b47cf9.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/922/315/original/e72cf17f41b47cf9.png)
-
https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/strengthening-global-systems-to-prevent-and-respond-to-high-consequence-biological-threats/
Developed in consultation with technical and policy experts, the fictional exercise scenario portrayed a deadly, global pandemic involving an unusual strain of monkeypox virus that first emerged in the fictional nation of Brinia and spread globally over 18 months. Ultimately, the exercise scenario revealed that the initial outbreak was caused by a terrorist attack using a pathogen engineered in a laboratory with inadequate biosafety and biosecurity provisions and weak oversight. By the end of the exercise, the fictional pandemic resulted in more than three billion cases and 270 million fatalities worldwide.
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/937/749/original/8d950bcef4035944.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/937/749/original/8d950bcef4035944.jpg)
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/how-has-monkeypox-suddenly-spread-all-over-globe-lightning-speed
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/monkeypox-101-unanswered-questions?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDgwODIxNzksIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY1MzA1NzQ1NSwiZXhwIjoxNjUzMDYxMDU1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.os8DVlSQuiQenTlBAT3fCh3G1Rj79b9BWfhc_ZiCso8&s=r
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/922/315/original/e72cf17f41b47cf9.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/922/315/original/e72cf17f41b47cf9.png)
-
https://summit.news/2022/05/20/monkeypox-how-bad-is-it/
https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/strengthening-global-systems-to-prevent-and-respond-to-high-consequence-biological-threats/
Developed in consultation with technical and policy experts, the fictional exercise scenario portrayed a deadly, global pandemic involving an unusual strain of monkeypox virus that first emerged in the fictional nation of Brinia and spread globally over 18 months. Ultimately, the exercise scenario revealed that the initial outbreak was caused by a terrorist attack using a pathogen engineered in a laboratory with inadequate biosafety and biosecurity provisions and weak oversight. By the end of the exercise, the fictional pandemic resulted in more than three billion cases and 270 million fatalities worldwide.
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/937/749/original/8d950bcef4035944.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/937/749/original/8d950bcef4035944.jpg)
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/how-has-monkeypox-suddenly-spread-all-over-globe-lightning-speed
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/monkeypox-101-unanswered-questions?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1ODg4MTI0MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDgwODIxNzksIl8iOiI5UmZmVCIsImlhdCI6MTY1MzA1NzQ1NSwiZXhwIjoxNjUzMDYxMDU1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjgxMjE5Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.os8DVlSQuiQenTlBAT3fCh3G1Rj79b9BWfhc_ZiCso8&s=r
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/922/315/original/e72cf17f41b47cf9.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/922/315/original/e72cf17f41b47cf9.png)
-
And here is the URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XelBmRYCfqw&t=23s
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/05/fda-approves-new-intravenous-monkeypox-drug-treatment-pfizer-linked-siga-technologies/#disqus_thread
Almost like they knew...
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/first-mandatory-quarantines-for-monkeypox-as-white-house-warns-of-more-cases_4482806.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-22-4&utm_medium=email&est=pdVc%2F5sfjp3sBsZn3Mhn0OhRMtokN1kaJ39OJuCMi5%2BGM9neqO7DabNVnKMX3EzKWWfy
-
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/monkeypox-outbreak-uk-health-experts-warn-gay-bisexual-men-against-the-virus-101652968862137.html
https://hindustannewshub.com/world-news/did-the-bomb-of-monkeypox-explode-in-the-world-due-to-the-lgbt-festival-80000-people-took-part-many-infected/
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/monkeypox-likely-spread-sex-two-raves-europe-expert-says-rcna30055
and of course the predictable blowback from the woke:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/23/un-denounces-homophobic-and-racist-reporting-on-monkeypox-spread
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/top-airline-pilot-suffers-cardiac-arrest-between-flights-post-mandatory-covid-vaccination_4477128.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-23-3&utm_medium=email&est=IYUeB4GTnlTeNtNpRd4WPWnlquqJJQYYkc5UlSRBRTcw544Egfr3dwWoKZgNYS3f0v0a
-
https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/nyheter-och-press/nyhetsarkiv/2022/maj/ett-fall-av-apkoppor-rapporterat-i-sverige/
In the European cases, the skin problems have often been reported to be localized to the genitals, groin and skin around the opening.
==========
They are not alone in this assessment:
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63108
==============
OTOH the WHO is not on first , , , Quelle surprise , , ,
https://www.theepochtimes.com/monkeypox-outbreak-primarily-spreading-via-sexual-contact-who-officials_4484686.html?utm_source=Morningbrief-ai&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2022-05-24-ai&est=z6armT7NveqUs7yWM7Hbg1oxv3Hv60OWkZSAqPr%2Bw9JEpuUWPe%2BH6s1A58GVmMTzx6dy
-
well they use antivirals so men can have sex with men
without condoms
with virtually no risk of HIV contagion or transmission
called pre exposure prophylaxis
so now they are at it again - no condoms - and guess what?
-
well they use antivirals so men can have sex with men
without condoms
with virtually no risk of HIV contagion or transmission
called pre exposure prophylaxis
so now they are at it again - no condoms - and guess what?
Exchanging blood, semen and fecal matter with 300+ strangers a year, what could go wrong?
Sodomy is the second most holy sacrament for the left, child sacrifice to Baal being the most holy.
None may question their beliefs and their rituals.
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/05/27/stop-the-presses-cary-grant-died-suddenly-of-a-stroke-in-1986/
-
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2022/06/01/w-h-o-warns-monkeypox-could-have-been-spreading-undetected/
Gottlieb:
"Now that there’s been community spread, it may be hard to snuff this out. I don’t think it will become a major epidemic because this is a virus that’s difficult to spread. You need sustained close contact or sustain contact with the open source, but there’s so many cases now that are disconnected,” Gottlieb told CNBC. “This is spreading in the community and there may be a lot more inflection than what we’re picking up. It has a long incubation period, upwards of 21 days."
so many cased "disconnected".
me:
trying to put 2 and 2 together in NJ
-
"Brothas on the down low"
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2022/06/01/w-h-o-warns-monkeypox-could-have-been-spreading-undetected/
Gottlieb:
"Now that there’s been community spread, it may be hard to snuff this out. I don’t think it will become a major epidemic because this is a virus that’s difficult to spread. You need sustained close contact or sustain contact with the open source, but there’s so many cases now that are disconnected,” Gottlieb told CNBC. “This is spreading in the community and there may be a lot more inflection than what we’re picking up. It has a long incubation period, upwards of 21 days."
so many cased "disconnected".
me:
trying to put 2 and 2 together in NJ
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/06/tulsa-hospital-shooter-targeted-doctor-operated-botched-surgery/
-
https://www.sott.net/article/468242-Police-charge-big-pharma-boss-with-falsifying-his-Covid-vaccination-status
Why would anyone avoid it?
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/urgent-death-rates-are-soaring-again?s=r
-
just got my 4th shot
no blood clots
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/overall-deaths-in-australia-where?s=r
-
just got my 4th shot
no blood clots
Yet.
-
just got my 4th shot
no blood clots
Yet.
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/game-over-we-won?s=r
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10895067/Doctors-trying-determine-young-people-suddenly-dying.html
Gee, I wonder why...
-
https://summit.news/2022/06/08/monkeypox-patient-says-he-caught-virus-after-having-gay-sex-with-around-10-new-partners/
well they use antivirals so men can have sex with men
without condoms
with virtually no risk of HIV contagion or transmission
called pre exposure prophylaxis
so now they are at it again - no condoms - and guess what?
Exchanging blood, semen and fecal matter with 300+ strangers a year, what could go wrong?
Sodomy is the second most holy sacrament for the left, child sacrifice to Baal being the most holy.
None may question their beliefs and their rituals.
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10895067/Doctors-trying-determine-young-people-suddenly-dying.html
Gee, I wonder why...
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/108/468/773/original/5db901ced74a3a94.jpg)
-
https://archive.ph/NjLDN
So, no ClotShot, no heart inflammation from Covid, correct?
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/world-health-organization-finally-admits-covid-lab-leak-theory-possibility
You
Don't
Say...
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/military-official-predicted-mrna-covid-19-vaccines-might-be-paused-over-heart-inflammation
-
https://www.conservativereview.com/new-who-report-reverses-prior-findings-on-covid-19-lab-leak-theory-2657489745.html
gee , how could we know when you have a communist country covering it up
and witnesses silenced .......
and the investigative bodies get billions from the country being investigated
:roll:
-
I could have sworn this was a tin foil hatted conspiracy theory....
No?
So, funny how the USG isn't interested in punishing the PRC for releasing a bioweapon upon the world.
Perhaps the PRC has incriminating things the Deep State wants hidden.
https://www.conservativereview.com/new-who-report-reverses-prior-findings-on-covid-19-lab-leak-theory-2657489745.html
gee , how could we know when you have a communist country covering it up
and witnesses silenced .......
and the investigative bodies get billions from the country being investigated
:roll:
-
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/covid-vaccines-linked-to-new-type-of-incurable-fatal-degenerative-brain-disorder/
-
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/whats-graphene-oxide?s=r
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/covid-vaccines-linked-to-new-type-of-incurable-fatal-degenerative-brain-disorder/
-
Doctors: COVID Vaccinations for Children Is Criminal, Must Stop
BY JOE WANG AND JENNIFER MARGULIS TIMEJUNE 13, 2022 PRINT
Dr. Reni Moon has spent her entire career as an advocate for vaccines. A pediatrician who is double board certified in pediatric hospital medicine and pediatrics, Moon said she has counseled thousands of families and always encouraged them to vaccinate.
“I’ve trusted my governmental agencies to do the studies that needed to be done and the rigorous testing to make sure that what we are injecting into our kids is not going to harm them,” she said.
Until now.
Instead of unquestionably following the CDC’s recommendations without double checking, Moon has been tracking safety data about the mRNA injections herself.
She is so concerned about the safety signals she is seeing in the pediatric population, that, she said, giving COVID-19 vaccines for children is “the most appalling thing I’ve heard in medicine. The lack of regard for safety is highly unethical. I personally put it into the arena of crimes against humanity.”
Children More Vulnerable
Children’s bodies and brains are more vulnerable than adults’ to environmental toxicants. (1)
Since children are smaller than adults, they are more heavily exposed to toxicants, in proportion to their body weight.
Given their unique vulnerabilities, the safety threshold to give children any medication, medical intervention, or medical recommendation must be high, higher than for adults.
Children are the future of humanity. Protecting children is the duty of society.
Mild For Kids
The SARS-CoV-2 virus has always been a threat mainly to the elderly and to adults who have underlying health issues, while younger and healthy people have generally have done well and children have hardly gotten sick at all.
In fact, COVID deaths in children are “incredibly rare,” according to an article in the peer-reviewed science journal Nature. (2)
“All of the kids I know here at my institution had comorbidities,” explained a retired Colorado-based medical doctor and professor of ophthalmology and pediatrics who has a master’s degree in epidemiologist who worked at the state’s largest children’s hospital, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from his medical colleagues.
But Dr. Kirk Milhoan, M.D./Ph.D., a pediatric cardiologist who has had a long and successful career helping children with heart problems in both America and around the world, is speaking up.
Milhoan is the medical director of the non-profit For Hearts and Souls, which helps children with heart defects around the world. Based in Maui, he also works one week a month at the Texas Methodist Children’s Hospital in San Antonio.
Milhoan pointed out that the disease itself is mild for most children.
He cited a recent Turkish study that examined how many children were admitted for COVID versus for the flu. (3)
“They found that kids admitted for the flu went to the ICU at rates and ended up needing breathing machines more often than children admitted for COVID,” Milhoan pointed out.
Though he, like other medical doctors we spoke with, is concerned about putting his livelihood in jeopardy by telling the truth, Milhoan feels he has a moral obligation to speak publicly about the lack of safety, efficacy, and necessity of the COVID-19 vaccines for children.
He told us, given the damage these vaccines are causing, that it is unethical for doctors to stay silent.
Vaccinating Kids Does Not Slow the Spread
“Let’s be honest,” Milhoan said. “It’s not stopping anything. Omicron is blowing through the vaccinated more so than the unvaccinated. After five months, for children, the vaccine has negative efficacy. It’s going to do more harm than good. What we’re seeing is that with those who are vaccinated they are more likely to get the infection than if they had nothing at all.”
Despite a concerted effort to massage the data to fit an orthodox narrative, high vaccination rates have not correlated in lowering COVID-19 cases or severity.
According to Milhoan, vaccinating children actually has the opposite effect: It encourages more—not less—viral spread.
But, despite this, there has been a push in the United States, Canada, and countries around the world to vaccinate even the youngest children. Even if the vaccine is not necessary or won’t protect them, parents are being told to get it for their infants, toddlers, small children, tweens, and teens for the sake of others.
Meanwhile, the country is saturated with the virus, which is quickly becoming endemic, as we have written about before. Testing reveals that COVID is everywhere, and that the vast majority of Americans and Canadians have already been exposed to it.
Vaccination rates among adults are high. The virus continues to behave like other endemic coronaviruses, mutating over time and continuing to cause milder illness and reinfections as few, if any, people are immunologically naïve to it.
The real irony is that the government had to roll back its early claim that the vaccine would prevent the spread of the virus after that was shown to be completely untrue. Yet the vaccine for kids is still being pushed for the sake of slowing the viral spread.
COVID-19 Vaccines Hurt Kids
We have spoken with over twenty-five medical doctors practicing in different states. They told us that COVID-19 vaccines side effects on children are real and very serious.
Their clinical experience is backed up by a growing body of peer-reviewed articles in the scientific literature that show that the vaccines can cause myocarditis (heart inflammation) and pericarditis (inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart) in all age categories, but particularly in young men. There is also evidence that the vaccines can cause clotting disorders, facial paralysis, tinnitus, and other serious side effects. (4) (5) (6)
But what about long-term side effects? Children have a longer shelf life than adults, so to speak. They have many more years of life ahead of them than we do, so early exposure to pollution or endocrine disruptors or unsafe vaccines can result in longer-term ill effects.
Milhoan wrote his doctoral thesis on cardiac inflammation. “The vaccine is dangerous for adolescent males. Absolutely without a doubt, you’re more likely to go to the hospital with a vaccine injury than from COVID,” he said. “For many kids it’s all risk and no benefit. What are we doing?”
The race to vaccinate children has not been driven by the need to protect them. It is being pushed on parents in pursuit of the goal to vaccinate everyone. Parents, bombarded with messages of fear, have been duped. Many are eagerly vaccinating their children in the hope of protecting them, without realizing that the cure is by and far more dangerous than the disease.
This Crime Against Children Must Be Stopped
We cannot assume something is safe for children without proof. We invoke the precautionary principle here—the idea that a new product (like the vaccines against COVID-19) cannot simply be assumed safe in the absence of definitive proof that they are causing harm. The precautionary principle is a modern restatement of the Hippocratic oath that all doctors must adhere to” I will keep them from harm and injustice.”
Following the precautionary principle, the burden of proof is on the manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccines. These companies have an ethical obligation to prove they are safe. But in violation of this ethical principle, the vaccines were rushed to the public without adequate testing. Now that we have ample proof that they are causing harm to children, it is time to stop using them.
Just this week Milhoan treated a 14-year-old who was perfectly healthy until getting a second COVID-19 vaccine. Now this young adolescent has a major scar on the left ventricle of the heart. Scarring like this, Milhoan said, can cause sudden death now or in the future in these children.
“I was in the military. I’ve gotten every vaccine,” Milhoan said. “I’ve had my second dose of smallpox, the whole series of anthrax. I am a scientist and a physician. I have seen the benefit that vaccines have had for children. This one has no benefit and all risk.”
References
(1). Carroquino MJ, Posada M, Landrigan PJ. Environmental Toxicology: Children at Risk. Environmental Toxicology. 2012;239-291. Published 2012 Dec 4. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-5764-0_11
(2). Ledford, H. (2021). Deaths from covid ‘incredibly rare’ among children. Nature, 595(7869), 639–639. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01897-w
(3). Yılmaz K, Şen V, Aktar F, Onder C, Yılmaz ED, Yılmaz Z. Does Covid-19 in children have a milder course than Influenza? Int J Clin Pract. 2021 Sep;75(9):e14466. doi: 10.1111/ijcp.14466. Epub 2021 Jun 27. PMID: 34107134; PMCID: PMC8237020.
(4). Lee, Eun-Ju et al. “Thrombocytopenia following Pfizer and Moderna SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.” American journal of hematology vol. 96,5 (2021): 534-537. doi:10.1002/ajh.26132
(5). Wan EYF, Chui CSL, Lai FTT, Chan EWY, Li X, Yan VKC, Gao L, Yu Q, Lam ICH, Chun RKC, Cowling BJ, Fong WC, Lau AYL, Mok VCT, Chan FLF, Lee CK, Chan LST, Lo D, Lau KK, Hung IFN, Leung GM, Wong ICK. Bell’s palsy following vaccination with mRNA (BNT162b2) and inactivated (CoronaVac) SARS-CoV-2 vaccines: a case series and nested case-control study. Lancet Infect Dis. 2022 Jan;22(1):64-72. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(21)00451-5. Epub 2021 Aug 16. PMID: 34411532; PMCID: PMC8367195.
(6). “Vaccine Researcher Who Developed Tinnitus After COVID Calls for Further Study,” MedPage Today. https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/97592
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Joe Wang, Ph.D., was a lead scientist for Sanofi Pasteur’s SARS vaccine project in 2003. He is now the president of New Tang Dynasty TV (Canada).
Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning journalist and author of “Your Baby, Your Way: Taking Charge of Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Parenting Decisions for a Happier, Healthier Family.” A Fulbright awardee and mother of four, she has worked on a child survival campaign in West Africa, advocated for an end to child slavery in Pakistan on prime-time TV in France, and taught post-colonial literature to non-traditional students in inner-city Atlanta. Learn more about her at JenniferMargulis.net
-
Nuremberg 2.0
Doctors: COVID Vaccinations for Children Is Criminal, Must Stop
BY JOE WANG AND JENNIFER MARGULIS TIMEJUNE 13, 2022 PRINT
Dr. Reni Moon has spent her entire career as an advocate for vaccines. A pediatrician who is double board certified in pediatric hospital medicine and pediatrics, Moon said she has counseled thousands of families and always encouraged them to vaccinate.
“I’ve trusted my governmental agencies to do the studies that needed to be done and the rigorous testing to make sure that what we are injecting into our kids is not going to harm them,” she said.
Until now.
Instead of unquestionably following the CDC’s recommendations without double checking, Moon has been tracking safety data about the mRNA injections herself.
She is so concerned about the safety signals she is seeing in the pediatric population, that, she said, giving COVID-19 vaccines for children is “the most appalling thing I’ve heard in medicine. The lack of regard for safety is highly unethical. I personally put it into the arena of crimes against humanity.”
Children More Vulnerable
Children’s bodies and brains are more vulnerable than adults’ to environmental toxicants. (1)
Since children are smaller than adults, they are more heavily exposed to toxicants, in proportion to their body weight.
Given their unique vulnerabilities, the safety threshold to give children any medication, medical intervention, or medical recommendation must be high, higher than for adults.
Children are the future of humanity. Protecting children is the duty of society.
Mild For Kids
The SARS-CoV-2 virus has always been a threat mainly to the elderly and to adults who have underlying health issues, while younger and healthy people have generally have done well and children have hardly gotten sick at all.
In fact, COVID deaths in children are “incredibly rare,” according to an article in the peer-reviewed science journal Nature. (2)
“All of the kids I know here at my institution had comorbidities,” explained a retired Colorado-based medical doctor and professor of ophthalmology and pediatrics who has a master’s degree in epidemiologist who worked at the state’s largest children’s hospital, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from his medical colleagues.
But Dr. Kirk Milhoan, M.D./Ph.D., a pediatric cardiologist who has had a long and successful career helping children with heart problems in both America and around the world, is speaking up.
Milhoan is the medical director of the non-profit For Hearts and Souls, which helps children with heart defects around the world. Based in Maui, he also works one week a month at the Texas Methodist Children’s Hospital in San Antonio.
Milhoan pointed out that the disease itself is mild for most children.
He cited a recent Turkish study that examined how many children were admitted for COVID versus for the flu. (3)
“They found that kids admitted for the flu went to the ICU at rates and ended up needing breathing machines more often than children admitted for COVID,” Milhoan pointed out.
Though he, like other medical doctors we spoke with, is concerned about putting his livelihood in jeopardy by telling the truth, Milhoan feels he has a moral obligation to speak publicly about the lack of safety, efficacy, and necessity of the COVID-19 vaccines for children.
He told us, given the damage these vaccines are causing, that it is unethical for doctors to stay silent.
Vaccinating Kids Does Not Slow the Spread
“Let’s be honest,” Milhoan said. “It’s not stopping anything. Omicron is blowing through the vaccinated more so than the unvaccinated. After five months, for children, the vaccine has negative efficacy. It’s going to do more harm than good. What we’re seeing is that with those who are vaccinated they are more likely to get the infection than if they had nothing at all.”
Despite a concerted effort to massage the data to fit an orthodox narrative, high vaccination rates have not correlated in lowering COVID-19 cases or severity.
According to Milhoan, vaccinating children actually has the opposite effect: It encourages more—not less—viral spread.
But, despite this, there has been a push in the United States, Canada, and countries around the world to vaccinate even the youngest children. Even if the vaccine is not necessary or won’t protect them, parents are being told to get it for their infants, toddlers, small children, tweens, and teens for the sake of others.
Meanwhile, the country is saturated with the virus, which is quickly becoming endemic, as we have written about before. Testing reveals that COVID is everywhere, and that the vast majority of Americans and Canadians have already been exposed to it.
Vaccination rates among adults are high. The virus continues to behave like other endemic coronaviruses, mutating over time and continuing to cause milder illness and reinfections as few, if any, people are immunologically naïve to it.
The real irony is that the government had to roll back its early claim that the vaccine would prevent the spread of the virus after that was shown to be completely untrue. Yet the vaccine for kids is still being pushed for the sake of slowing the viral spread.
COVID-19 Vaccines Hurt Kids
We have spoken with over twenty-five medical doctors practicing in different states. They told us that COVID-19 vaccines side effects on children are real and very serious.
Their clinical experience is backed up by a growing body of peer-reviewed articles in the scientific literature that show that the vaccines can cause myocarditis (heart inflammation) and pericarditis (inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart) in all age categories, but particularly in young men. There is also evidence that the vaccines can cause clotting disorders, facial paralysis, tinnitus, and other serious side effects. (4) (5) (6)
But what about long-term side effects? Children have a longer shelf life than adults, so to speak. They have many more years of life ahead of them than we do, so early exposure to pollution or endocrine disruptors or unsafe vaccines can result in longer-term ill effects.
Milhoan wrote his doctoral thesis on cardiac inflammation. “The vaccine is dangerous for adolescent males. Absolutely without a doubt, you’re more likely to go to the hospital with a vaccine injury than from COVID,” he said. “For many kids it’s all risk and no benefit. What are we doing?”
The race to vaccinate children has not been driven by the need to protect them. It is being pushed on parents in pursuit of the goal to vaccinate everyone. Parents, bombarded with messages of fear, have been duped. Many are eagerly vaccinating their children in the hope of protecting them, without realizing that the cure is by and far more dangerous than the disease.
This Crime Against Children Must Be Stopped
We cannot assume something is safe for children without proof. We invoke the precautionary principle here—the idea that a new product (like the vaccines against COVID-19) cannot simply be assumed safe in the absence of definitive proof that they are causing harm. The precautionary principle is a modern restatement of the Hippocratic oath that all doctors must adhere to” I will keep them from harm and injustice.”
Following the precautionary principle, the burden of proof is on the manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccines. These companies have an ethical obligation to prove they are safe. But in violation of this ethical principle, the vaccines were rushed to the public without adequate testing. Now that we have ample proof that they are causing harm to children, it is time to stop using them.
Just this week Milhoan treated a 14-year-old who was perfectly healthy until getting a second COVID-19 vaccine. Now this young adolescent has a major scar on the left ventricle of the heart. Scarring like this, Milhoan said, can cause sudden death now or in the future in these children.
“I was in the military. I’ve gotten every vaccine,” Milhoan said. “I’ve had my second dose of smallpox, the whole series of anthrax. I am a scientist and a physician. I have seen the benefit that vaccines have had for children. This one has no benefit and all risk.”
References
(1). Carroquino MJ, Posada M, Landrigan PJ. Environmental Toxicology: Children at Risk. Environmental Toxicology. 2012;239-291. Published 2012 Dec 4. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-5764-0_11
(2). Ledford, H. (2021). Deaths from covid ‘incredibly rare’ among children. Nature, 595(7869), 639–639. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01897-w
(3). Yılmaz K, Şen V, Aktar F, Onder C, Yılmaz ED, Yılmaz Z. Does Covid-19 in children have a milder course than Influenza? Int J Clin Pract. 2021 Sep;75(9):e14466. doi: 10.1111/ijcp.14466. Epub 2021 Jun 27. PMID: 34107134; PMCID: PMC8237020.
(4). Lee, Eun-Ju et al. “Thrombocytopenia following Pfizer and Moderna SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.” American journal of hematology vol. 96,5 (2021): 534-537. doi:10.1002/ajh.26132
(5). Wan EYF, Chui CSL, Lai FTT, Chan EWY, Li X, Yan VKC, Gao L, Yu Q, Lam ICH, Chun RKC, Cowling BJ, Fong WC, Lau AYL, Mok VCT, Chan FLF, Lee CK, Chan LST, Lo D, Lau KK, Hung IFN, Leung GM, Wong ICK. Bell’s palsy following vaccination with mRNA (BNT162b2) and inactivated (CoronaVac) SARS-CoV-2 vaccines: a case series and nested case-control study. Lancet Infect Dis. 2022 Jan;22(1):64-72. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(21)00451-5. Epub 2021 Aug 16. PMID: 34411532; PMCID: PMC8367195.
(6). “Vaccine Researcher Who Developed Tinnitus After COVID Calls for Further Study,” MedPage Today. https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/97592
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Joe Wang, Ph.D., was a lead scientist for Sanofi Pasteur’s SARS vaccine project in 2003. He is now the president of New Tang Dynasty TV (Canada).
Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning journalist and author of “Your Baby, Your Way: Taking Charge of Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Parenting Decisions for a Happier, Healthier Family.” A Fulbright awardee and mother of four, she has worked on a child survival campaign in West Africa, advocated for an end to child slavery in Pakistan on prime-time TV in France, and taught post-colonial literature to non-traditional students in inner-city Atlanta. Learn more about her at JenniferMargulis.net
-
https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/2022-06-15_0.png?itok=MjcEetIK
(https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/2022-06-15_0.png?itok=MjcEetIK)
-
good luck :roll:
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2022/06/17/cdc-issues-safer-sex-and-monkeypox-directives/
-
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/us-congressman-sean-castin-is-responsible
-
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/us-congressman-sean-castin-is-responsible
Just bad luck, just like our economy.
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/another-conspiracy-theory-comes-true-e41
-
https://dossier.substack.com/p/america-is-now-the-only-country-in
Many Nuremberg 2.0 trials will take place in parking lots.
-
vaccines for infants or children below 12 is absurd
the chance they would die or have to go to hospital is so infinitely remote
the risks outweigh it.
Plus the shots are not even preventing spread
though they clearly reduce risk of hospitalization and death in older people
I cannot explain rationale for giving shots in children
other then it sounds corrupt
-
Planned depopulation.
vaccines for infants or children below 12 is absurd
the chance they would die or have to go to hospital is so infinitely remote
the risks outweigh it.
Plus the shots are not even preventing spread
though they clearly reduce risk of hospitalization and death in older people
I cannot explain rationale for giving shots in children
other then it sounds corrupt
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/06/23/risk-benefit-of-the-vaccines-is-negative-according-to-a-new-paper-from-stanford-ucla-others-whoops/#more-272504
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/06/23/risk-benefit-of-the-vaccines-is-negative-according-to-a-new-paper-from-stanford-ucla-others-whoops/#more-272504
https://covidmythbuster.substack.com/p/can-vaccines-be-dangerous-to-pregnant
-
".Re: Whoops! ClotShot more dangerous than beneficial!"
obviously a non biased source of information "
" Covid Myth Buster Series "
Objective about vaccines, just like you.
Clot shot over and over again
we get it , you don't like it.
so don't take it
-
Did you bother to read the paper cited in the first article?
“Don’t like it, don’t take it” would be fine if I didn’t face a multitude of threats from various levels of government.
Aren’t you the least bit bothered by the sudden spike in various illnesses and deaths that have manifested recently?
".Re: Whoops! ClotShot more dangerous than beneficial!"
obviously a non biased source of information "
" Covid Myth Buster Series "
Objective about vaccines, just like you.
Clot shot over and over again
we get it , you don't like it.
so don't take it
-
well I am not against asking questions and continued monitoring
but I have still not read anything that convinces me about all the claims
that can "theoretically " be made , and so far I am not bothered by such reports.
as for children I do not think they should be getting these shots
it their case the risks are NOT outweighed by any benefits
it might be different if the vaccines really worked to prevent infection ( the young from infecting the old)
but after I am seeing several cases of corona sufferers a day clearly they don't work well in that regard
but they are preventing hospitalizations and deaths in older folks who are at higher risk
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/cdc-confirmed-post-vaccination-death-blood-clotting-two-weeks-alerting-public-emails
-
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/us/politics/fauci-paxlovid-covid.html
CDC has not recommend this
so what about following the science?
pfz studies showed rebound 1 - 2 % but clearly it is more
generally we are told rebound is less severe
so how common is Fauci's experience
I am looking into this.
-
If not for the boosters, he would have died!
:roll:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/us/politics/fauci-paxlovid-covid.html
CDC has not recommend this
so what about following the science?
pfz studies showed rebound 1 - 2 % but clearly it is more
generally we are told rebound is less severe
so how common is Fauci's experience
I am looking into this.
-
Moderna Vaccine Increases Myocarditis Risk by 44 Times in Young Adults: Peer-Reviewed Study
The risk was 13 times higher with Pfizer vaccination
By Enrico Trigoso June 28, 2022 Updated: June 28, 2022biggersmaller Print
A French peer-reviewed study concluded that for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the risk of myocarditis skyrockets a week after vaccination.
The risk of myocarditis after mRNA vaccination was 8 times and 30 times greater than unvaccinated control groups for BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) and mRNA-1273 (Moderna), respectively.
The largest association for myocarditis following the Moderna jab was 44 times higher risk for persons aged 18 to 24 years.
As for the Pfizer shot, in relation to the same age group, the risk was 13 times higher.
Infection with the Chinese Communist Party virus yielded, by comparison, a 9 times greater risk of the same condition.
Myocarditis refers to the inflammation of the heart muscle—a life-threatening condition. There are many established causes for this heart condition. The leading cause—according to modern science’s most recent discoveries—is viruses; but during the pandemic, COVID mRNA vaccines have earned a place as a top suspect for myocarditis.
The new study’s goal was to provide an assessment of association with vaccines across sex and age groups.
“Both SARS-CoV2 infection and COVID mRNA vaccines have been associated with myocarditis. Knowing the spike protein’s affinity to ACE2 receptors in the heart and spike protein’s injury to cardiomyocytes (cells of the heart), the association of myocarditis with SARS-CoV2 virus or spike protein-based mRNA vaccination was not entirely unexpected,” Dr. Sanjay Verma, a cardiologist, told The Epoch Times via email.
Verma also thinks the CDC’s analysis “erroneously suggests” that risk of myocarditis after SARS-CoV2 infection is greater than after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.
“For the cases of myocarditis after SARS-CoV2, CDC uses officially confirmed PCR+ ‘cases,’ even though their own seroprevalence data demonstrates that far more people have been infected than officially conformed PCR+ ‘cases.’ For example, seroprevalence data as of Feb 21, 2022, reveals 75 percent (about 54 million) of all children have been infected compared to 12 million officially confirmed PCR+ ‘cases’ (i.e., the actual number of kids infected is 4.5 times greater than PCR+ ‘cases’). Therefore, calculating the risk of myocarditis after SARS-CoV2 infection, the rate noted by CDC would therefore need to be reduced by 4.5 times. Thus far, CDC has not adjusted its COVID-19 morbidity and mortality data accordingly,” said the cardiologist, who practices in Coachella Valley, California.
The study analyzed 1,612 cases of myocarditis and 1,613 cases of pericarditis in France from May 12, 2021, to Oct. 31, 2021, involving 32 million people aged 12 to 50 years who received 46 million doses of mRNA vaccines.
It is limited by using solely hospital discharge diagnoses. Therefore, it does not include those who may have died before being hospitalized or those whose symptoms were not severe enough to be hospitalized.
“There have been reports (pdf) of autopsy-proven myocarditis after vaccination and anecdotal evidence of patients being dismissed by ER and never being hospitalized. Adjusting for these excluded subsets may yield even higher risk than reported in this study. Follow-up of the patients in this study was limited to one month after discharge. However, a previous cardiac MRI study found about 75 percent of patients with vaccine-associated myocarditis can have persistent MRI abnormalities 3–8 months after initial diagnosis,” Verma said.
The authors of the study didn’t analyze the effect of booster vaccination since it is not yet recommended for young adults in France.
In the United States, however, booster injections are mandated by colleges and universities, employers, and even some state public health departments irrespective of age or prior infection.
“In a preprint follow-up to their peer-reviewed study of myocarditis after vaccination, analysis found continued incremental risk of myocarditis after booster vaccination. In fact, while many countries have refrained from recommending COVID vaccination in very young children because the risks do not justify the benefits, the U.S. stands alone in recommending it in the youngest of kids,” Verma said.
A research paper published on May 18 studied the pandemic control measures—which included vaccine and mask mandates, as well as isolation and contact tracing—of Cornell University, which was almost completely vaccinated, and found these policies were “not a match” for the Omicron variant and its rapid spread.
Sudden Adult Death Syndrome
Recently, a new term has been highlighted in media outlets: “sudden adult death syndrome,” or SADS.
Underlying factors for SADS include undiagnosed myocarditis, inflammatory conditions, and other conditions that cause irregularities in the electrical system of the heart, thereby triggering cardiac arrest.
Data compiled by the International Olympic Committee shows 1,101 sudden deaths in athletes under age 35 between 1966 and 2004, giving an average annual rate of 29, across all sports. Meanwhile, between March 2021 and March 2022 alone—a single year—at least 769 athletes have suffered cardiac arrest, collapsed, or have died on the field, worldwide.
Denmark Finland Euro 2020 Soccer
Denmark’s Christian Eriksen is taken away on a stretcher after collapsing on the pitch during the Euro 2020 soccer championship group B match between Denmark and Finland at Parken Stadium in Copenhagen, on June 12, 2021. (Stuart Franklin/Pool via AP)
Among EU FIFA (soccer/football) athletes, sudden death increased by 420 percent in 2021. Historically, about five soccer players have died while playing the game each year. Between January and mid-November 2021, 21 FIFA players died from sudden death.
Joseph Mercola contributed to this report.
The Epoch Times reached out to the CDC for comment.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/110/187/629/original/a26f3629bfec8869.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/110/187/629/original/a26f3629bfec8869.jpg)
-
so we are warned not to stigmatize gay men:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/01/who-says-monkeypox-cases-triple-in-europe-in-two-weeks-urgent-action-needed-to-contain-spread.html
Ok but not lets not hide the truth either .
-
https://nypost.com/2021/10/21/nih-admits-us-funded-gain-of-function-in-wuhan-despite-faucis-repeated-denials/
They all keep coming out to be correct.
-
For the record we should note that was 10/2021
=================================================
ET
The Collective Assault on Vaccine Myocarditis Research
Rav Arora
Rav Arora
July 4, 2022 Updated: July 4, 2022biggersmaller Print
Vaccine myocarditis—deemed a vastly exaggerated risk used to promote anti-vaccine hysteria—has been demonstrated in a multitude of studies to be an alarming population-level risk in men under the age of 40. The rates of vaccine myocardial injury in young men are consistent in peer-reviewed studies across the world (Canada, Hong Kong, Norway, etc.).
A new study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports adds to the body of vaccine myocarditis research, this time showing a possible association between mass vaccination and increased emergency cardiovascular events.
Using nationalized health care data in Israel, researchers from MIT compared Emergency Medical Services (EMS) calls for acute cardiac events (cardiac arrest and acute coronary syndrome) in the 16 to 39-year-old population with the timeline of mass distribution of the first and second vaccine doses.
The study specifically uses cardiac arrests because undetected myocarditis is a leading cause, including in cases of cardiac arrest-induced sudden death. Acute coronary syndrome is also measured because it’s often erroneously diagnosed in those who have myocarditis.
Here’s what the study finds:
As first doses of the vaccine were administered, cardiac arrest EMS calls rose precipitously. When second doses of the vaccine peaked around March 7, cardiac arrest calls were also at their highest. As the researchers state, they have identified a robust correlation between emergency calls and the rates of administered first and second vaccine doses in the 16 to 39-year-old population.
For both cardiac arrest and acute coronary syndrome EMS calls, the study finds a more than 25 percent rise during the interval January–May 2021 (when vaccines were rolled out), compared with the years 2019–2020.
Interestingly, while both vaccine administration and cardiac arrest calls congruently fell in March, EMS calls begin to surge again in mid-April (with no corresponding association with vaccination).
This suggests undetected myocarditis post-vaccination may result in sudden cardiac arrest weeks later. For this reason, the authors recommend making the public more aware of cardiac symptoms following vaccination to prevent serious damage in the long term:
“t is essential to raise awareness among patients and clinicians with respect to related symptoms (e.g., chest discomfort and shortness of breath) following vaccination or COVID-19 infection to ensure that potential harm is minimized,” the authors wrote.
The 33-year-old Canadian law enforcement member I interviewed in my recent investigative vaccine myocarditis article almost died due to ignorance of vaccine myocarditis. As I describe:
“Against his will, he got his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine (which has significantly lower rates of myocarditis) on Oct. 29. That night he experienced intense heart palpitations, but they entirely subsided by the next day. He didn’t think of linking it to the vaccine.
“Thirty days later Desh got his second dose with no immediate side effects.
“Then on the night of Dec. 11, he came within an hour or so of dying from heart failure.”
The public health authorities have done an abysmal job of warning the public of cardiac side effects—perhaps because doing so would discourage many young people from getting vaccinated. The government has been massively influenced by Big Pharma and self-selected “top epidemiologists” who strangely hold the same views surrounding COVID-19 policy.
Self-identifying objective journalists and fact-checkers lost all credibility in combating supposed “Covid misinformation.” Reuters published a piece debunking the false claim that the Israeli study “proves COVID-19 vaccines cause heart problems.”
Except, both of the examples they use of social media users making this claim didn’t make that claim. Their prime example, Rep. Thomas Massie, correctly quotes the study from an article on justthenews.com:
“COVID-19 vaccination was significantly associated with a 25% jump in emergency medical services for heart problems in 16-39 year-olds in Israel, whose vaccination rate is among the world’s highest, according to a peer-reviewed study by MIT researchers.”
Needless to say, the study in itself doesn’t “prove” mRNA vaccines cause a surge in emergency cardiovascular events. The authors don’t claim otherwise. However, given the volume of existing data surrounding vaccine myocarditis in light of this new study, it’s possible there’s a causal relationship between mass vaccination and cardiac arrests.
After first falsely asserting social media users are claiming causation, Reuters outrageously claimed the study doesn’t even show correlation: “The study itself does not prove a correlation with COVID-19 vaccines, though social media posts suggest that it does.”
Here’s a direct quote from the study which apparently Reuters didn’t have time to read:
“Using Negative Binomial regression models, the weekly emergency call counts were significantly associated with the rates of 1st and 2nd vaccine doses administered to this age group but were not with COVID-19 infection rates.” [emphasis added]
(This also disproves the pro-vaccine talking point of “Covid also frequently results in severe cardiac damage.”)
Reuters is far more guilty of spreading misinformation given the following abjectly false statement backed by cherry-picked epidemiologists:
“The overall risks of COVID-19 infection far outweigh the risks associated with developing myocarditis after a COVID-19 vaccination, even for young men, experts say.”
What’s worst, big tech and social media platforms are doing Big Pharma and the government’s dirty work in marginalizing and censoring content that may discourage some people from getting vaccinated.
Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg—an esteemed epidemiologist who has testified in Congress on COVID-19 policy—has been repeatedly maligned and attacked for raising awareness on the dangers of vaccinating the young, specifically young men, on a population level. In June of last year, Twitter labeled her tweet “misleading” for the crime of correctly stating that post-vaccine myocarditis rates were above baseline.
Last month, Twitter cracked down on Hoeg in an even more egregious manner. This time, not for tweeting misinformation herself, but for critiquing Twitter for censoring a trained bioethicist’s tweet of the Israeli EMS call study. Her tweet was also labeled “misleading.”
The original tweet Hoeg was commenting on from Euzebiusz Jamrozik, a bioethics Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford, didn’t opine about the miscalculated vaccine distribution in young males or broader dangers of mass vaccination. It simply stated the results of the Israeli study showing “mRNA vaccines in young people (age 16-39) are associated with cardiac arrests” with a link and screenshot.
Given all the controversy surrounding the study, on May 5 the journal’s editor made a note:
“Readers are alerted that the conclusions of this article are subject to criticisms that are being considered by the Editors. A further editorial response will follow once all parties have been given an opportunity to respond in full.”
The first population-level national study showing a correlation between mRNA vaccination and emergency cardiovascular events proved to be highly damaging not just to the reputations of the researchers, but to those who posted it on social media and critiqued Twitter for its egregious censorship.
Big Pharma, the academy, social media, and mainstream media in collusion are sending signals loud and clear: you must not critique or discourage vaccination in any way, even by quoting a peer-reviewed scientific study. Undoubtedly, such incentives prevent future research surrounding the risks of mRNA vaccination and force critical-thinking scientists from speaking out.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Rav Arora
Rav Arora
Follow
Rav Arora is an independent journalist based in Vancouver, Canada. He has appeared on The Ben Shapiro Show, Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, The Hill, and other programs. His Substack newsletter on mental health, spirituality, and vaccine side effects is “Noble Truths with Rav Arora.” Follow him on Twitter at @ravarora1
-
Hey, it's just lifelong heart problems so you can avoid a virus that is 99.9 percent survivable.
For the record we should note that was 10/2021
=================================================
ET
The Collective Assault on Vaccine Myocarditis Research
Rav Arora
Rav Arora
July 4, 2022 Updated: July 4, 2022biggersmaller Print
Vaccine myocarditis—deemed a vastly exaggerated risk used to promote anti-vaccine hysteria—has been demonstrated in a multitude of studies to be an alarming population-level risk in men under the age of 40. The rates of vaccine myocardial injury in young men are consistent in peer-reviewed studies across the world (Canada, Hong Kong, Norway, etc.).
A new study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports adds to the body of vaccine myocarditis research, this time showing a possible association between mass vaccination and increased emergency cardiovascular events.
Using nationalized health care data in Israel, researchers from MIT compared Emergency Medical Services (EMS) calls for acute cardiac events (cardiac arrest and acute coronary syndrome) in the 16 to 39-year-old population with the timeline of mass distribution of the first and second vaccine doses.
The study specifically uses cardiac arrests because undetected myocarditis is a leading cause, including in cases of cardiac arrest-induced sudden death. Acute coronary syndrome is also measured because it’s often erroneously diagnosed in those who have myocarditis.
Here’s what the study finds:
As first doses of the vaccine were administered, cardiac arrest EMS calls rose precipitously. When second doses of the vaccine peaked around March 7, cardiac arrest calls were also at their highest. As the researchers state, they have identified a robust correlation between emergency calls and the rates of administered first and second vaccine doses in the 16 to 39-year-old population.
For both cardiac arrest and acute coronary syndrome EMS calls, the study finds a more than 25 percent rise during the interval January–May 2021 (when vaccines were rolled out), compared with the years 2019–2020.
Interestingly, while both vaccine administration and cardiac arrest calls congruently fell in March, EMS calls begin to surge again in mid-April (with no corresponding association with vaccination).
This suggests undetected myocarditis post-vaccination may result in sudden cardiac arrest weeks later. For this reason, the authors recommend making the public more aware of cardiac symptoms following vaccination to prevent serious damage in the long term:
“t is essential to raise awareness among patients and clinicians with respect to related symptoms (e.g., chest discomfort and shortness of breath) following vaccination or COVID-19 infection to ensure that potential harm is minimized,” the authors wrote.
The 33-year-old Canadian law enforcement member I interviewed in my recent investigative vaccine myocarditis article almost died due to ignorance of vaccine myocarditis. As I describe:
“Against his will, he got his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine (which has significantly lower rates of myocarditis) on Oct. 29. That night he experienced intense heart palpitations, but they entirely subsided by the next day. He didn’t think of linking it to the vaccine.
“Thirty days later Desh got his second dose with no immediate side effects.
“Then on the night of Dec. 11, he came within an hour or so of dying from heart failure.”
The public health authorities have done an abysmal job of warning the public of cardiac side effects—perhaps because doing so would discourage many young people from getting vaccinated. The government has been massively influenced by Big Pharma and self-selected “top epidemiologists” who strangely hold the same views surrounding COVID-19 policy.
Self-identifying objective journalists and fact-checkers lost all credibility in combating supposed “Covid misinformation.” Reuters published a piece debunking the false claim that the Israeli study “proves COVID-19 vaccines cause heart problems.”
Except, both of the examples they use of social media users making this claim didn’t make that claim. Their prime example, Rep. Thomas Massie, correctly quotes the study from an article on justthenews.com:
“COVID-19 vaccination was significantly associated with a 25% jump in emergency medical services for heart problems in 16-39 year-olds in Israel, whose vaccination rate is among the world’s highest, according to a peer-reviewed study by MIT researchers.”
Needless to say, the study in itself doesn’t “prove” mRNA vaccines cause a surge in emergency cardiovascular events. The authors don’t claim otherwise. However, given the volume of existing data surrounding vaccine myocarditis in light of this new study, it’s possible there’s a causal relationship between mass vaccination and cardiac arrests.
After first falsely asserting social media users are claiming causation, Reuters outrageously claimed the study doesn’t even show correlation: “The study itself does not prove a correlation with COVID-19 vaccines, though social media posts suggest that it does.”
Here’s a direct quote from the study which apparently Reuters didn’t have time to read:
“Using Negative Binomial regression models, the weekly emergency call counts were significantly associated with the rates of 1st and 2nd vaccine doses administered to this age group but were not with COVID-19 infection rates.” [emphasis added]
(This also disproves the pro-vaccine talking point of “Covid also frequently results in severe cardiac damage.”)
Reuters is far more guilty of spreading misinformation given the following abjectly false statement backed by cherry-picked epidemiologists:
“The overall risks of COVID-19 infection far outweigh the risks associated with developing myocarditis after a COVID-19 vaccination, even for young men, experts say.”
What’s worst, big tech and social media platforms are doing Big Pharma and the government’s dirty work in marginalizing and censoring content that may discourage some people from getting vaccinated.
Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg—an esteemed epidemiologist who has testified in Congress on COVID-19 policy—has been repeatedly maligned and attacked for raising awareness on the dangers of vaccinating the young, specifically young men, on a population level. In June of last year, Twitter labeled her tweet “misleading” for the crime of correctly stating that post-vaccine myocarditis rates were above baseline.
Last month, Twitter cracked down on Hoeg in an even more egregious manner. This time, not for tweeting misinformation herself, but for critiquing Twitter for censoring a trained bioethicist’s tweet of the Israeli EMS call study. Her tweet was also labeled “misleading.”
The original tweet Hoeg was commenting on from Euzebiusz Jamrozik, a bioethics Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford, didn’t opine about the miscalculated vaccine distribution in young males or broader dangers of mass vaccination. It simply stated the results of the Israeli study showing “mRNA vaccines in young people (age 16-39) are associated with cardiac arrests” with a link and screenshot.
Given all the controversy surrounding the study, on May 5 the journal’s editor made a note:
“Readers are alerted that the conclusions of this article are subject to criticisms that are being considered by the Editors. A further editorial response will follow once all parties have been given an opportunity to respond in full.”
The first population-level national study showing a correlation between mRNA vaccination and emergency cardiovascular events proved to be highly damaging not just to the reputations of the researchers, but to those who posted it on social media and critiqued Twitter for its egregious censorship.
Big Pharma, the academy, social media, and mainstream media in collusion are sending signals loud and clear: you must not critique or discourage vaccination in any way, even by quoting a peer-reviewed scientific study. Undoubtedly, such incentives prevent future research surrounding the risks of mRNA vaccination and force critical-thinking scientists from speaking out.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Rav Arora
Rav Arora
Follow
Rav Arora is an independent journalist based in Vancouver, Canada. He has appeared on The Ben Shapiro Show, Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, The Hill, and other programs. His Substack newsletter on mental health, spirituality, and vaccine side effects is “Noble Truths with Rav Arora.” Follow him on Twitter at @ravarora1
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/110/397/366/original/60cfd358b1fb02e9.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/110/397/366/original/60cfd358b1fb02e9.png)
-
COVID Vaccines Increase Menstrual Irregularities Thousandfold, Fetal Abnormalities Hundredfold: Doctors’ VAERS Analysis
By Enrico Trigoso July 1, 2022 Updated: July 1, 2022biggersmaller Print
0:00
6:15
1
New disturbing pharmacovigilance signals from VAERS surrounding the use of the COVID vaccines on women of reproductive age prompted a group of doctors to call for a ban on the gene therapy COVID-19 vaccines.
Over the past two weeks, Dr. James Thorp, a maternal-fetal medicine expert, painstakingly analyzed and verified the most recent Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data related to COVID-19 vaccines and compared them to the influenza vaccines.
“COVID-19 vaccines compared to the influenza vaccines are associated with increases in menstrual disorders, miscarriage, fetal chromosomal abnormalities, fetal cystic hygroma, fetal malformations, fetal cardiac arrest, fetal cardiac arrhythmias, fetal cardiac disorders, fetal vascular mal-perfusion abnormalities, abnormal fetal surveillance testing, abnormal fetal growth patterns, placental thrombosis, and fetal death,” Thorp told The Epoch Times last week.
His findings are listed below:
Abnormal uterine bleeding (menstrual irregularity) is 1000-fold greater
Miscarriages are 50-fold greater
Fetal chromosomal abnormalities are 100-fold greater
Fetal malformation is 50-fold greater
Fetal cystic hygroma (a major malformation) is 90-fold greater
Fetal cardiac disorders are 40-fold greater
Fetal arrhythmia is 50-fold greater
Fetal cardiac arrest is 200-fold greater
Fetal vascular mal-perfusion is a 100-fold greater
Fetal growth abnormalities are 40-fold greater
Fetal abnormal surveillance tests are 20-fold greater
Fetal placental thrombosis is 70-fold greater
Thorp said that he verified his analysis with a DOD (Department of Defense) statistical consultant that agreed to help him on the condition of anonymity.
Lack of Safety Testing
Regarding the VAERS data, vaccinologist Dr. Robert Malone, a key contributor of mRNA technology, told The Epoch Times on Thursday: “The risky strategy of authorizing the emergency use of mRNA ‘vaccine’ products prior to completion of rigorous non-clinical animal testing for reproductive and genotoxicity risks, followed by advocacy of widespread use in pregnancy, now appears to have resulted in substantial and avoidable reproductive toxicity.”
“Prior non-clinical (animal model) data from the Pfizer Emergency Use Authorization data package, together with the absence of adequate data and testing of safety during pregnancy have resulted in avoidable reproductive and fetal toxicities,” Malone further noted.
He stressed that expectant mothers should avoid the “experimental” COVID vaccines and that their infants should not be injected with them.
“These new VAERS data and analyses demonstrate that both reproductive-aged mothers and their infants have been damaged by accepting unlicensed, inadequately tested, emergency use authorized genetic vaccines,” Malone said.
Earlier this year Jessica Rose Ph.D. co-authored a VAERS analysis that got withdrawn by the academic journal Elsevier.
She told The Epoch Times that Thorp’s analysis aligns perfectly with hers.
“I do believe it is not only important, but necessary, to pull these products from pregnant/breastfeeding women and infants since there is no long-term safety data and the short-term data looks bad. As per both Moderna and Pfizer’s safety documents presented to VRBPAC pre-EUA granting for 0- 4-year-olds, this applies. They both showed terrible risk,” Rose said.
Christiane Northrup, MD., a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, also stands by the analysis.
“Having been on the front lines of the DES disaster as a young OB/GYN, I am astounded that we are repeating the same kind of mistake but on a far more devastating level. COVID-19 shots must be stopped immediately in all pregnant women before further damage is done to the next generation,” Northrup told The Epoch Times.
Epoch Times Photo
Dr. Christiane Northrup speaks at Broadway Rally For Freedom in Manhattan, New York, on Oct. 16, 2021. (Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times)
Thorp continued: “All of these adverse outcomes are statistically significant (p value < 0.0001)–in other words, the probability of these adverse outcomes occurring by chance alone is less than 1 in 10,000. It was incumbent upon the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, FDA, CDC, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, and American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology to have demanded this safety data prior to pushing these dangerous ‘vaccines’ in pregnancy.”
“These institutions have violated the golden rule of pregnancy: new substances be it nutraceuticals, drugs, or vaccines have NEVER been allowed in pregnancy until long-term outcome data are available. Now, the COVID-19 vaccines make prior obstetrical disasters of diethyl stilbesterol (DES) and thalidomide look like prenatal vitamins. I am calling for a worldwide ban and moratorium on the use of any experimental gene therapy and/or COVID-19 ‘vaccines’ in pregnancy until long-term safety data are irrefutable,” Thorp stated.
Epoch Times Photo
Dr. James Thorp (Courtesy of James Thorp)
According to medalerts.org, “The U.S. Government collects reports of adverse health events that follow the administration of a vaccine” and can be seen in the VAERS database publicly.
According to OpenVAERS, “VAERS is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System put in place in 1990. It is a voluntary reporting system that has been estimated to account for only 1% of vaccine injuries.”
The VAERS official disclaimer, however, states: “While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness.”
-
how can this be ? :wink:
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-monkeypox-cases-double-in-a-week-more-vaccines-days-away/3762104/
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/110/397/366/original/60cfd358b1fb02e9.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/110/397/366/original/60cfd358b1fb02e9.png)
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/crock-fake-news-media-called-experts-trying-tell-us-huge-spike-sudden-arrhythmic-death-syndrome/
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/haiti-not-vaccinate-citizens-current-vax-rate-1-4-yet-country-one-lowest-covid-death-rates-world-weird-huh/
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/new-study-contradicts-experts-shows-unvaccinated-adults-found-no-increase-myocarditis-pericarditis-following-covid-infection/
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/orwellian-new-emails-confirm-cdc-officials-scrambled-change-problematic-definition-vaccine-vaccinated-experimental-mrna-jab-not-qualify-old-definition/
-
Natural Immunity 97 Percent Effective Against Severe COVID-19 After 14 Months: Study
By Zachary Stieber July 9, 2022 Updated: July 11, 2022biggersmaller Print
0:00
3:00
1
The protection against severe illness from so-called natural immunity remains superior to that bestowed by COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new study.
People who survived COVID-19 infection and weren’t vaccinated had sky-high protection against severe or fatal COVID-19, researchers in Qatar found.
“Effectiveness of primary infection against severe, critical, or fatal COVID-19 reinfection was 97.3 percent … irrespective of the variant of primary infection or reinfection, and with no evidence for waning. Similar results were found in sub-group analyses for those ≥50 years of age,” Dr. Laith Abu-Raddad of Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar and colleagues said after studying long-term natural immunity in unvaccinated people.
That percentage is higher than the protection from COVID-19 vaccines, according to other studies and real-world data.
Swedish researchers, for instance, found in May that two doses of a vaccine were just 54 percent effective against the Omicron variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.
South African scientists, meanwhile, found the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines peaked at 88 percent and quickly dropped to 70 percent or lower.
The Qatar group found that natural immunity after a person’s first infection “remains very strong, with no evidence for waning, irrespective of variant, for over 14 months.”
The study was published ahead of peer review on the website medRxiv.
Few researchers have studied natural immunity long term among unvaccinated persons, in part because many of the people have eventually received a COVID-19 vaccine.
The vaccines, meanwhile, have waned against both infection and severe illness over time, triggering recommendations for booster doses, with some Americans even getting five doses within 10 months.
Natural Immunity Performs Poorly Against Omicron Reinfection
The vaccines were once said to provide close to 100 percent protection against symptomatic infection. They now provide less than 50 percent protection against infection after a short period of time, even after booster doses, following the emergence of Omicron.
That strain and its subvariants are dominant in countries around the world, including the United States and Qatar.
Natural immunity was thought to provide strong protection against reinfection. But the Qatari researchers found it provides poor protection against reinfection from Omicron.
Pre-Omicron primary infection against pre-Omicron reinfection was as high as 90.5 percent, and remained around 70 percent by the 16th month, according to the study. But pre-Omicron primary infection against Omicron reinfection was just 38 percent effective, although it was higher among people infected with the original Wuhan strain or with the Delta variant, and lower among those who got sick from the Alpha or Beta strains.
Modeling signaled a drop to zero percent protection by 18 months, but the shielding still appears to last longer than that of vaccines, researchers said.
“Vaccine immunity against Omicron subvariants lasts for <6 months, but pre-Omicron natural immunity, … may last for just over a year,” they wrote.
Limitations of the study included differences in testing frequency among the cohorts studied, and depletion of the groups who had a COVID-19 infection, due to their deaths.
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/ba5-is-here-time-to-ride-the-wave?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
More on Paxlovid from 12/2021
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/here-come-the-antivirals
-
omicron subvariants
have been circulating like mad
major spike of omicron 12/21 - 3/22
then a temporary respite that picked up on 5/22 through present
a good percentage of our calls are corona at this time ( as high as any time in epidemic)
paxlovid indicated for those at moderate to high risk
to reduce hospitalizations and death
I do not prescribe to those at low risk
vaccination history is considered since those who are vaccinated are at lower risk of dying or having to go to hospital
kidney function and other medicines need to be considered if going to take paxlovid as some interactions
are possible
rebound corona symptoms can occur ~ 2 to 8 days after finishing the 5 days of paxlovid
not clear to me how frequent this is. Original pfizer studies found 1 to 2 % had this,
though I suspect almost certainly higher
if rebound occurs, paxlovid is not recommended to be done over
(unless you are the God of Science - anthony fauci)
-
Exactly the practical big picture overview I was hoping for. Thank you.
-
https://jamesroguski.substack.com/p/pandemic-of-the-vaxxinated
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3ea60a6a-4d11-4787-868f-0646af5f1946_1260x900.jpeg
(https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3ea60a6a-4d11-4787-868f-0646af5f1946_1260x900.jpeg)
-
https://gab.com/VigilantFox/posts/108647484672309088
At least now he can't catch a virus with a 99.9% survival rate! Oh wait, he still can catch it. And still spread it.
But allegedly, he won't get as sick. :roll:
-
COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Effectiveness Quickly Wanes: Study
By Zachary Stieber July 15, 2022 Updated: July 17, 2022biggersmaller Print
The effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine booster doses dropped well under 50 percent after four months against subvariants of the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines provided just 51 percent protection against emergency department visits, urgent care encounters, and hospitalizations related to COVID-19 during the time BA.2 and BA.2.12.1, subvariants of the Omicron virus variant, were predominant in the United States, CDC researchers found.
Both vaccines are administered in two-dose primary series.
After 150-plus days, the effectiveness dropped to just 12 percent.
A first booster upped the protection to 56 percent, but the effectiveness went down to 26 percent after four months, according to the study, which drew numbers from a network of hospitals funded by the CDC across 10 states called the VISION Network.
The subvariant was predominant between late March and mid-June.
Pfizer and Moderna did not respond to requests for comment.
The effectiveness was lower against BA.2 and BA.2.12.1 than against BA.1, which was displaced by BA.2.
Against BA.1, the vaccines provided 44 percent protection against the healthcare visits linked to COVID-19 initially and 39 percent after 150 days. A first booster increased the protection to 84 percent, and the protection barely decreased for patients 50 years or older after four months. But for people aged 18 to 49, the protection plummeted to 29 percent after 120 days.
Underlining the waning effectiveness against severe illness, the majority of patients admitted to the hospitals between December 2021 and June 2022 had received at least two doses of the vaccines.
Further, the percentage of unvaccinated patients dropped during the later period, going from 41.6 percent to 28.6 percent (hospitalized patients) and from 41.4 percent to 31 percent (emergency department and urgent care patients), researchers found.
The researchers, some of whom work for the CDC, theorized that the protection—known as natural immunity—many unvaccinated people enjoy from having had COVID-19 could be a factor in the drop in effectiveness of the vaccines, even though adults with documented prior infection were excluded from the study.
“If unvaccinated persons were more likely to have experienced recent infection, and infection-induced immunity provides some protection against re-infection, this could result in lower VE observed during the BA.2/BA.2.12.1 period,” they wrote. VE stands for vaccine effectiveness.
“Although adults with documented past SARS-CoV-2 infection were excluded, infections are likely to be significantly underascertained because of lack of testing or increased at-home testing. In addition, although time since receipt of the second or third vaccine dose was stratified by time intervals, on average the time since vaccination was longer during the BA.2/BA.2.12.1 period,” they added.
SARS-CoV-2, also known as the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, causes COVID-19.
The CDC published the research in its quasi-journal, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Most articles it publishes are not peer-reviewed, and the articles are shaped to reflect CDC policy.
Top U.S. officials are considering authorizing second booster doses, or fourth doses, for all Americans. They’re currently only available to Americans aged 50 and older.
A second booster increased protection for that age group from 32 percent to 66 percent, according to the new study. But those who received a fourth dose were only followed for a median of 27 days. Other research has indicated that the protection from a fourth dose quickly wanes as well.
-
https://twitter.com/P_McCulloughMD/status/1548401443706523649
-
https://twitter.com/P_McCulloughMD/status/1548401443706523649
https://twitter.com/emmakennytv/status/1548633505046880257
-
https://twitter.com/P_McCulloughMD/status/1548401443706523649
https://twitter.com/emmakennytv/status/1548633505046880257
https://gatesofvienna.net/2022/07/the-mysterious-increase-in-demand-for-coffins-for-young-people/
-
https://twitter.com/P_McCulloughMD/status/1548401443706523649
https://twitter.com/emmakennytv/status/1548633505046880257
https://gatesofvienna.net/2022/07/the-mysterious-increase-in-demand-for-coffins-for-young-people/
https://gatesofvienna.net/2022/07/the-vax-death-lottery/
-
From an email I received today from American College of Physicians
New COVID-19 vaccine authorized; reviews analyze myocarditis, drug treatments
The FDA gave the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine emergency use authorization for adults. One recent review found lower myocarditis risk with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine than the Moderna vaccine, and another looked at the strength of evidence supporting COVID-19 drug treatments.
The Novavax COVID-19 vaccine received an emergency use authorization from the FDA on July 13. The adjuvanted vaccine is administered as two doses three weeks apart and is authorized for patients 18 years of age and older. Authorization was based on a placebo-controlled study conducted in the U.S. and Mexico before the emergence of the delta and omicron variants. It found that the vaccine was 90.4% effective in preventing mild, moderate, or severe COVID-19 in the overall study population and 78.6% effective in those 65 years of age and older. The most commonly reported side effects included pain/tenderness, redness and swelling at the injection site, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, joint pain, nausea/vomiting, and fever.
A new review looked at the risk of myocarditis or pericarditis after vaccination with either of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. The living evidence synthesis, published by The BMJ on July 13, included 46 studies and found that incidence of myocarditis after vaccination was highest in teenage and young men (50 to 139 cases per million [low certainty] in those ages 12 to 17 years and 28 to 147 per million [moderate certainty] in those ages 18 to 29 years). Fewer than 20 cases per million were found in girls and boys ages 5 to 11 years and women ages 18 to 29 years. With moderate certainty, the review found higher incidence of myocarditis with the Moderna vaccine than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Low-certainty evidence supported reduced risk of myocarditis with a dosing interval of more than 30 days, but data specific to men ages 18 to 29 years indicated that the dosing interval might need to increase to 56 days or more to substantially drop myocarditis or pericarditis incidence. “A clinical course of mRNA related myocarditis appeared to be benign, although longer term follow-up data were limited,” the authors observed.
Another living systematic review related to COVID-19 was updated and published by The BMJ on July 13. This latest analysis of drugs for COVID-19 included 463 treatment trials with 166,581 patients, slightly more than half of whom were not included in the last update. The new review found (with moderate certainty) that three drug classes reduced COVID-19 mortality, mostly in patients with severe disease: systemic corticosteroids, interleukin-6 receptor antagonists when given with corticosteroids, and Janus kinase inhibitors. Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir and molnupiravir probably reduce risk of hospital admission compared to standard care, and remdesivir may reduce hospitalization risk, the review showed. Only molnupiravir had moderate-quality evidence supporting a reduction in time to symptom resolution, but other drugs showed a possible benefit for that outcome. Several drugs were tied to increased adverse effects, including hydroxychloroquine, which probably increased the risk of mechanical ventilation.
-
Thanks ccp for sharing this.
"incidence of myocarditis after vaccination was highest in teenage and young men (50 to 139 cases per million"...
Let's see, 100 per million equals 30,000 per 300 million, that's probably consistent with all these anecdotal reports we see, and one sudden death relative. Quite a bit higher than the zero risk I was told when I consented to two doses a little over a year ago.
-
https://fee.org/articles/natural-immunity-offered-more-protection-against-omicron-than-3-vaccine-doses-new-england-journal-of-medicine-study-finds/
-
2 doses of vaccine no good with later variants or and waning immunity
but 3 does + history of corona infection is best.
recommend getting 3rd shot:
"“The combination of prior, full vaccination and prior infection was maximally protective,” researchers said in a summary of the study’s findings released last month by the Weill Cornell Medicine Newsroom. “Individuals with prior infection and three doses of either mRNA vaccine were, overall, nearly 80 percent protected from symptomatic infection during the omicron wave.”
But the study also found that two doses of vaccines offered “negligible” protection against Omicron infection.
“A key finding was that a history of vaccination with the standard two doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccine, but no history of prior infection, brought no significant protection against symptomatic omicron infection,” researchers said.
-
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2022/07/20/expert-u-s-doesnt-have-what-it-needs-to-fight-monkeypox-we-are-already-stretched-to-capacity/
what obvious logic is missing?
can anyone think of anything?
:x
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/place-where-biden-face-planted-bike-named-brandon-falls-google-maps?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=792
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/place-where-biden-face-planted-bike-named-brandon-falls-google-maps?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=792
Check the link.
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/no-mrna-covid-vaccines-do-not-offer?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
No, mRNA Covid vaccines do not offer long-term protection from serious illness
Data from the Dutch government show the opposite - after seven months they substantially RAISE the risk of hospitalization and intensive care
Alex Berenson
10 hr ago
mRNA vaccine advocates have one final defense against the failure of their billion-person experiment.
Okay, the shots won’t stop you from getting Covid. Or spreading it. Or having symptoms.
But they will stop you from getting very sick, and that protection lasts long after they stop working against infection.
Only it doesn’t.
Not against Omicron, anyway. And Omicron is only variant that matters now, since it’s the only variant that exists now.
An official government report from the Netherlands earlier this month has the truth.
On July 5, the RIVM - a research institute that is part of the Dutch Ministry of Health - reported a basic two-dose Covid vaccination offered no protection against Covid hospitalization. Worse, vaccinated people were 20 percent more likely to need intensive care than the unvaccinated.
“There was hardly any visible protective effect of the COVID-19 basic vaccination series against hospital and ICU - intensive care- intake,” the researchers wrote (understating the case).
SOURCE
—
The topline figures are bad enough.
The report is based on hospitalizations across the Netherlands from March 15 through June 28, not a small sample. And like the United States, the Dutch relied overwhelmingly on mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna - the supposed gold standard for Covid shots.
But the details in the report are even more disturbing.
The researchers stratified the risks of hospitalization and intensive care by time from vaccination and the age of the infected person - and those show that the risks increase over time.
After seven months, vaccinated people in their fifties and sixties had a 68 percent higher risk of being hospitalized for Covid compared to the unvaccinated. They had a 41 percent higher risk of needing intensive care.
The trends were similar for people 70 and over, though most of them had been boosted or received a fourth shot, so comparisons were harder to make.
(Negative vaccine effectiveness, it’s a thing. A very bad thing.)
Again, this negative effectiveness is against severe disease - hospitalizations and intensive care.
Not infection, severe disease.
—
The report also showed that boosters and fourth shots did reverse the negative efficacy against hospitalization and intensive care and provide some protection. That fact led the researchers to call for vaccinated people to receive boosters.
But the effectiveness of boosters and fourth shots against severe disease also sharply and quickly declined.
In people 70 and over, the effectiveness of a booster against hospitalization fell from 85 percent in the first month to under 50 percent by five months out. The trends for the fourth shot were similar, but worse. Though the researchers did not have five months of data for the fourth shot, by roughly three months, protection had fallen to 60 percent.
—
The results could not be clearer, or grimmer.
The mRNA vaccines fail within a few months and then begin to raise the risk of serious outcomes.
Why?
The promise that the mRNA shots will produce durable T-cell protection against severe disease appears faulty. Any protection the shots offer against hospitalization or death probably results from their antibody-driven protection against infection, which lasts only a few months.
Repeated shots can reverse the trend, but they too fail, and each additional shot appears to do less and fail more quickly. Worst of all, because the shots cause recipients to produce antibodies to the original coronavirus rather than Omicron’s mutated spike, vaccinated people now have a higher risk of Omicron infection - which means they have a higher risk of hospitalization or death.
Worst of all, the Dutch collected this data during the spring, when the existing Omicron subvariant was relatively mild. Now Omicron has mutated again, and we do not at this point know if the new variant is more or less dangerous.
But the trends from countries like New Zealand - which are test cases for Omicron’s potential virulence because they are highly mRNA vaccinated and have little preexisting natural immunity - are not promising.
Buckle up.
-
berenson makes a good case to keep up to date with vaccines
like getting flu shots yearly as flu mutates every season
:-P
-
berenson makes a good case to keep up to date with vaccines
like getting flu shots yearly as flu mutates every season
:-P
Not at all.
Unlike flu shots, the mRNA therapy DOESN'T make you immune. It DOES cause a number of serious and sometimes fatal medical conditions.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/covid-vaccines-ade_4607583.html?utm_source=Bright&utm_campaign=bright-2022-07-23&utm_medium=email&est=6WoaSK4LOy1JtXkm1TwTvUnvkmN37%2FteMoX2TZ1ugLhVBq9l3d9Hm5qEiZn7%2Bh5MXaUm
Could Vaccines Make Omicron Infection Worse? Scientists Weigh in on Antibody Dependent Enhancement
BY JENNIFER MARGULIS AND JOE WANG TIMEJULY 19, 2022 PRINT
0:00
10:27
1
In October 2020, when the world was under the dark cloud of COVID-19, and the United States was in the midst of massive political upheaval, some scientists were working hard to make sense of the virus. Others were trying to figure out effective treatment and public health protocols. Others, knowing the ongoing expedited vaccine development might compromise safety, tried to warn us of the risk of a phenomenon called Antibody Dependent Enhancement, or ADE. ADE happens when non-neutralizing antibodies generated from vaccination exacerbate viral infection, making the disease the vaccine is supposed to prevent worse for some people.
Of particular note was an article by an international team of scientists, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
This article outlined the characteristics and mechanisms of ADE, before the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out.
The scientists explained that “ADE and ERD (enhanced respiratory disease) have been reported for SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV both in vitro and in vivo.”
In other words, the closest relatives to SARS-CoV-2, the SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV viruses, both have the problem of ADE. It would be reasonable to investigate the “extent to which ADE contributes to COVID-19 immunopathology,” the scientists wrote.
According to the authors, ADE “can occur when non-neutralizing antibodies or antibodies at sub-neutralizing levels bind to viral antigens without blocking or clearing infection.”
The team called ADE a “real risk … for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and antibody-based interventions.”
We know now that it is common for people vaccinated against COVID-19 to be infected and re-infected by SARS-CoV-2. The antibodies generated from the vaccines are not sterilizing (that is, they are not clearing infection), and non-neutralizing.
This begs the question: Do the vaccines actually help the virus infect people through ADE? If so, should the vaccines be pulled, as many doctors are now advising?
Lessons From the Dengue Fever Debacle
A closer look at what happened with the dengue fever vaccine is instructive. Dengue fever is an infection so painful that people in the Philippines and other countries where it’s endemic call it “breakbone fever.”
A viral illness passed to humans from mosquitoes, there are different serotypes of dengue fever. So even if you get it once, you can be infected up to four times, according to the World Health Organization.
Between 2000 and 2010, cases of dengue reported to the WHO increased sharply. Worldwide, there is thought to be 50 million infections every year and 22,000 deaths, mostly in the youngest children, according to the National Institutes of Health.
So in 2016 when a little girl from the Philippines sporting a T-shirt that read “Dengue is dangerous” got a shot in her arm to protect against Dengue fever, there was a feeling of relief and optimism in southeast Asia.
The Philippines, led by Health Secretary Dr. Janette Garin, launched an aggressive campaign with a goal to vaccinate a million children with the brand-new vaccine, called Dengvaxia.
Developed by a French pharmaceutical giant, Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine underwent large safety trials, the results of which were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Co-authored by nearly 25 eminent scientists, the study found that “risk of hospitalization among children 2 to 16 years of age was lower in the vaccine group than in the control group.”
This industry-sponsored peer-reviewed study was the green light the world needed to get a needle in the arms of children where dengue fever could make them sick.
But there was a problem. When some children caught dengue fever after being vaccinated, they sometimes had worse outcomes than children who had not been vaccinated. In fact, the vaccine seemed to cause a complication called plasma leakage syndrome, a potentially lethal vascular disorder also associated with the disease itself.
At Least 600 Children Died After Dengue Vaccine
It took almost two years, but the WHO’s recommendation to vaccinate children ages 9 to 16 against dengue fever was rescinded.
Interestingly, it was the company itself—Sanofi Pasteur—that found that children who had not previously had dengue could not be safely vaccinated.
But by then at least 10 families in the Philippines spoke out publicly that the vaccine had caused their children to die.
In April of 2019, the South China Morning Post reported that forensic investigators were looking into the cause of death of some 600 children who died after the vaccine. The bodies of these children exhibited swollen organs and internal hemorrhaging, especially in the brain and lungs, according to the article.
Antibody Dependent Enhancement Explained
The body’s immune response to viral and bacterial infections—as well as to other assaults that it considers foreign—is complicated and multi-faceted. After a virus or a bacterium invades, the body develops an adaptive immune response, which is specific to the pathogen. Antibodies are one facet of this response.
Antibodies are Y-shaped proteins that can neutralize infectious agents so they don’t cause harm. When the system works well, these protective proteins, produced by white blood cells, attach to the foreign substances and remove them from the body. During an infection, millions of antibodies will be released into your bloodstream and lymphatic system.
But some pathogens override the body’s immune response by using the antibodies themselves to enter your cells. When this happens, your body’s immune response can actually cause the disease to be more severe. This is called antibody dependent enhancement (ADE).
Unfortunately, ADE occurred in some children who were vaccinated against dengue fever. The vaccine-induced antibodies actually helped the virus infect more cells than it would have on its own.
With children who had not previously had dengue fever, the effect seemed to be the most pronounced.
Because of the risk of ADE, the WHO no longer recommends dengue fever vaccines for children with no prior history of infection.
“Most diseases do not cause ADE,” explains an article about antibody dependent enhancement and vaccines on the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s website. Dengue fever, the article goes on, “has four different forms … [that are] very similar, but the slight differences among them set the stage for ADE.”
The article also points out that we have seen ADE with other vaccines, including an early version of a vaccine against the measles that was made with formaldehyde, as well as a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, RSV.
Children given the RSV vaccine in clinical trials were more likely to sicken and die from pneumonia after an RSV infection than children who were not vaccinated.
To date, scientists have not successfully developed a safe vaccination against RSV. However, both Moderna and Pfizer are fast-tracking the development of mRNA vaccines to protect against this disease.
SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines and ADE
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists have raised concerns about the possibility that vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 could cause ADE. Dr. Scott Halstead, one of the world’s foremost experts on dengue fever, is a scientist who sounded the safety alarm many times over about Dengvaxia.
Writing in The Journal of Infectious Diseases in December of 2020, Halstead and his co-author asserted that ADE was “unlikely” because the SARS-CoV-2 virus did not seem to have the same attributes as the dengue virus.
However, the same article pointed out that, “Live virus challenge of animals given SARS or MERS vaccine resulted in vaccine hypersensitivity reactions … similar to those in humans given inactivated measles or respiratory syncytial vaccines,” concluding that in order to create a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines scientists must avoid vaccine hypersensitivity reactions.
Since early 2021 scientists have stated that ADE is a real risk (in their words, “non-theoretical”). Seven months later, a 2021 article in The International Journal of Immunopathology and Pharmacology confirmed that ADE does exist for SARS-CoV-2, and explored the possible mechanisms and how to avoid it.
More recent research, including a 2022 in vitro study in Nature, also shows that ADE happens in SARS-CoV-2 infections.
Scientist James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., told The Epoch Times that although the antibodies against the original strain of the virus were “nominally tested” for ADE, they have “not been sufficiently tested” for ADE against the more recent variants.
According to Lyons-Weiler, who has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles and is the founder of the Institute of Pure and Applied Knowledge, a non-profit that conducts scientific research in the public interest, “Given the repeated rounds of studies showing negative effectiveness with real-world data, and the fact of higher incidence of COVID-19 diagnoses and higher numbers of hospitalizations from COVID-19, and higher rates of severe COVID-19 infections in the vaccinated, we can only conclude that ADE must be occurring.”
Lyons-Weiler called it “unconscionable” that the FDA and CDC have turned a blind eye to the myriad health problems associated with these vaccines.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/peer-reviewed-study-finds-monkeypox-primarily-transmitted-sexually-by-men_4616663.html?utm_source=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2022-07-23&utm_medium=email&est=4A%2FQDMwUcDzVo9VwkZSl6PNg87nHmR6PZs4Zmo%2F%2Bh0T1nb2j4GlpPVW8PSh8O86iv7%2Bv
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/111/699/445/original/af3e1f9a0a59a4ea.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/111/699/445/original/af3e1f9a0a59a4ea.jpeg)
-
https://gatesofvienna.net/2022/07/nobody-is-listening-to-what-im-saying/
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/111/962/192/original/90f4b78a26f36fbc.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/111/962/192/original/90f4b78a26f36fbc.png)
-
https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/28/doctors-said-the-vaccine-was-safe/
-
https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/response/2022/us-map.html
-
https://twitter.com/P_McCulloughMD/status/1553558550231846912
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-africa-advantage-real-reasons-underdeveloped-countries-unaffected-by-covid_4627935.html?utm_source=Health&utm_campaign=health-2022-07-31&utm_medium=email&est=4nXlXb5KyU5bRyM3crpkv%2BF5U0f5j%2BcABoKA3VsKKYiBmIJA4OZj%2BobLKACjOpkvKhE1
-
https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/2022/07/newborn-babys-arm-amputated-after-mom-took-covid-vaccines-and-baby-suffered-blood-clots-in-the-womb
-
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/how-is-monkeypox-spread?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
-
meaning spend spend and more spending
the Dems answer to everything:
https://whyy.org/articles/monkeypox-public-health-emergency-cdc/
I don't understand this
A president can make a political gesture by declaring anything an emergency
thus bypass the legislature
why can't congress do their job and control the purse strings?
-
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/cdc-monkeypox-virus/2022/08/05/id/1081988/
-
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1556098678636658688
There will be lots of small Nuremberg 2.0 trials taking place informally.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/vaccines-are-bringing-back-a-nearly-eradicated-deadly-virus_4650115.html?utm_source=Health&utm_campaign=health-2022-08-12&utm_medium=email&est=T563p6c6rPWmvf8X4yCsusR3%2Fltuh%2BkvclQphyzcYhWtKXpmLnphUfYCjp6Ov%2F9xogeZ
-
How Masking Contributes to Long COVID
BY CARLA PEETERS TIMEAUGUST 15, 2022 PRINT
0:00
14:32
1
Commentary
If You Have Toenail Fungus Try This at Home (It's Genius!)
SPONSORED CONTENT
If You Have Toenail Fungus Try This at Home (It's Genius!)
BY WELLNESSGUIDE101.COM
A lingering disorder that can last for months or years is affecting an increasing proportion of the workforce. The symptoms that contribute to Long COVID could be a result of pandemic measures and masking in particular. Increased exposure to microplastics, nanoparticles, chemicals in masks, and nasopharyngeal tests parallel many of the symptoms that define Long COVID.
Surveys among thousands of people suggest 7 percent to 30 percent of people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 virus experienced one or more symptoms for a period longer than 12 weeks. Some people who got COVID-19 early in the pandemic still haven’t recovered.
The syndrome Long COVID is complex as symptoms may fluctuate and people go through different stages. Symptoms have been protracted by patients at ICU and those with organ damage, but also occurred in people with only a mild infection. A list of sixty-two different symptoms define the syndrome of Long COVID. Fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness, anxiety, depression, and a loss of smell and taste are among the most frequently found symptoms.
Most scientists and medical doctors—including media—link Long COVID symptoms to the SARS-CoV-2 infection. This would be the first Coronavirus in history causing long-lasting chronic symptoms in a high percentage of the workforce. People with Long COVID can experience social isolation and stigma because of their inability to perform. The rise of Long COVID has created millions of new people with disabilities.
The root cause of the disease is still mysterious. In several case studies and an excellent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that investigated many diagnostic parameters in people with and without Long COVID, no biological change could explain a link to Long COVID. Some scientists relate the symptoms of Long COVID to other complex diseases of multidisciplinary origin like Alzheimer’s disease, Lyme disease, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or hyperventilation syndrome.
Many countries have started special clinics and funded research especially for studying lingering effects. A one-size-fits-all successful treatment has not been found yet. Thousands or maybe over a hundred million are frustrated at the lack of treatment available. Doctors and scientists prefer a holistic approach, but medical and social services are often understaffed.
Desperate patients with Long COVID symptoms are traveling abroad to private clinics for blood apheresis and the prescription of anti-coagulation drugs, though treatments are still experimental and evidence on effectiveness is still lacking. For some patients these treatments have been successful, for others not.
COVID-19 vaccination has been a hot topic in speeches of politicians and advertising in the media as a motivation for preventing Long COVID. However, a large study among 13 million people published in Nature Medicine could only demonstrate a small effect.
A study published in the Italian Journal of Pediatrics demonstrated that physical symptoms were restored much faster as compared to mental symptoms, suggesting Long COVID could be related to pandemic measures rather than a viral infection. The risks for Long COVID symptoms have shown to be increased for people with existing chronic diseases, increasing age, and lower income, women being more susceptible than men.
Fear, social isolation, depression, and worries for education and decreased income are thought to be related to the symptoms of Long COVID in children with and without a positive PCR test. As the emergency of the pandemic continues a worrying spike in chronic diseases, suicide, and excess mortality are noticed at the global level. This indicates the deprivation of a resilient immune system with an increased susceptibility for lingering symptoms of Long COVID.
Symptoms of Long COVID Link to MIES
At this point there has been limited attention for a possible relation of Long COVID and exposure to chemicals in masks, nasopharyngeal tests, and disinfectants. In a meta-analysis by an interdisciplinary team of German physicians, a potential risk of Mask Induced Exhaustion Syndrome (MIES) has been found. The most frequently observed symptoms (fatigue, headaches, dizziness, lack of concentration) as described for MIES overlap with important symptoms for Long COVID syndrome.
The lack of smell and taste during COVID-19 seems to be different as compared to symptoms during the flu. A lack of taste and smell are frequently observed after chemotherapy in cancer treatments and has been linked to malnutrition, inflammation, and depression. Also, brain fog is a symptom occurring after chemotherapy. It seems likely that harmful effects by long-term mask-wearing and frequent nasopharyngeal testing with increased exposure to chemicals (not naturally found products) can accelerate symptoms and contribute to Long COVID.
Up to now, the safety of long-term and frequent wearing of masks and taking nasal swab samples in a delicate area in the nose, often by hardly experienced persons, have been poorly investigated. Severe nose bleedings (epistaxis), cerebrospinal fluid leakage, vomiting, dizziness, and fainting have been reported. Most frequently used masks and nasopharyngeal tests are derived from China with less strict controls and measures for the presence of hazardous materials.
In several countries masks and nasopharyngeal tests delivered by governments were taken from the market. Microplastics, nanoparticles (graphene oxide, titanium dioxide, silver, ethylene oxide, coloring compounds, fluorocarbon (PFAS) and heavy metals have been found in masks and nasopharyngeal tests. Unfortunately, not all masks and tests used during the pandemic are controlled. A report from the Dutch Public Health institute (RIVM) released in November 2021 stated “the safety of masks cannot be guaranteed.”
The short- and long-term impact of frequent exposure on the physiology and physical and mental functioning of the human body is unknown. Harmful effects for children, who are less able to detoxify, could result in a compromised immune and nervous system resulting in repeated and rare infections with more chronic diseases during aging and less healthy future generations.
Microplastics and nanoparticles withdraw proteins, vitamins, and minerals forming bio-corona (microclots), accumulating in important organs (blood, liver, gut, lung tissue), and disturb important physiological and immunological processes
The liver, lungs, and gut are important organs in energy metabolism, detoxification and surveillance by the innate immune system. Disrupting a delicate gut-liver-brain axis can relate to fatigue and exhaustion.
Seeking More Answers for a Long COVID Mystery
The Belgium Public Health Institute, Sciensano, found titanium dioxide in 24 types of masks. A recent publication in Gut showed that exposure to titanium dioxide could exacerbate inflammation of the colon (Colitis Ulcerosa) weakening the innate immune system. Furthermore, titanium dioxide can enter directly into the brain and cause oxidative stress in glial cells (or mast cells), cells with an important role in the proper functioning of the innate immune system and nervous system. Maternal exposure to titanium dioxide during pregnancy may result in impaired memory in the infant. Long-term exposure and high concentrations could even cause DNA damage. Unfortunately, masks with titanium dioxide are still available on the market.
Mental problems, anxiety and depression, have been linked to a change in the microbiome. Researchers from Stanford University observed in patients with gut inflammation (Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome, Colitis Ulcerosa) a link to missing gut microbes as compared to healthy persons. A significantly increased risk of a new onset of psychiatric illness is concentrated in the early post-acute phase of a COVID-19 infection.
A team of Japanese scientists discovered the presence of pathogens (bacteria and fungi) on the inner and outer side of various masks. In case of a disrupted growth of pathogenic bacteria and fungi the body is exposed to a higher concentration of (myco)toxins that often leads to feeling fatigue and sickness.
Overgrowth of facultative anaerobe bacteria (bacteria needing less oxygen) for example methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has been related to mask acne and mask mouth. Staphylococcus aureus may cause pneumonia, sepsis, and blood poisoning. Many of the exotoxins and secreted enzymes secreted by these bacteria suppress the T cell repertoire of the immune system. The excreted products can also cause aggregation of phagocytes, decreasing phagocytosis resulting in an impaired innate and adaptive immune system.
A long-term albeit small change in the O2/CO2 gases in the inhaled air may influence an unfavorable change in the microbiome on the skin, mouth, nose, lungs and gut. Both oxygen and carbon dioxide are the primary gaseous substrate and product respectively, of oxidative metabolism in each cell. Variations in the levels of these gases outside the physiological range can lead to pathological conditions including respiratory and heart problems, permanent injury, immune suppression, increased aging, and altered gene expression for fertility and death. Carbon dioxide poisoning is recognized as an often-forgotten cause of intoxication in the emergency department. Several studies found an increased level of carbon dioxide when wearing masks. This phenomenon was more pronounced during sports.
The laboratory of a South Africa scientist has found significant microclot formation in Long COVID patients and acute COVID patients. Acute COVID-19 is not only a lung disease but affects the vascular and coagulation system. Unfortunately, inflammatory molecules are missed in normal blood tests as they are entrapped in the fibrinolytic resistant microclots. The presence of the microclots and hyperactivated platelets perpetuates coagulation and vascular pathology, resulting in cells not getting enough oxygen. Oxygen deprivation damages every single organ. Many COVID patients have low oxygen in the blood and are treated with oxygen therapy.
Oxygen deprivation at the cellular level is also described for bio-corona that are formed in the human body when exposed to graphene-oxide and microplastics. Graphene-oxide and microplastics are found in masks and nasopharyngeal swabs and may enter the human body via airways, eyes, or food.
Two and a half years into the pandemic the immune system is disrupted by O2 deprivation and exposure to microplastics, nanoparticles, and other toxic chemicals. This leads to an unfavorable change in the microbiome, brain damage, inflammation, and the formation of microclots. Microclots could be amyloids formed by excreted bacterial products and/or bio-corona, formed by nanoparticle and microplastics. The microclots cannot naturally break down by fibrinolysis and accelerates O2 deprivation in capillaries and at the cellular level.
Wearing Masks and Nasopharyngeal Swabs Could Lead to (Sudden) Death
The results of Foegen’s observational study published in Medicine strongly suggest that mask mandates caused 50 percent more deaths compared to no mask mandates. Dr. Foegen theorized that hyper-condensed droplets caught by masks are reinhaled and introduced deeper into the respiratory tract responsible for higher viral loads and an increased mortality rate (The Foegen effect). Exposure to microplastics may result in lung fibrosis.
Also, a peer-reviewed study published in April 2022 on mask usage across Europe noted a moderate positive correlation between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe.
Not Harm, Supporting Lives Is the Purpose of Life
The policy of politicians and advisory experts promoting a reintroduction of pandemic measures is a high risk for a disastrous effect for a now chemically poisoned population with a weakened immune system.
In many countries in the world excessive mortality and sickness is observed. Each of the measures including COVID-19 vaccination might have their own contribution to the weakened immune system.
The observed microclots in patients with Long COVID and acute COVID, independent of COVID-19 vaccination, is indicating that any measure that may cause oxygen deprivation or inflammation is a risk for sudden death, and more severe infectious and chronic diseases (liver, heart problems. and neurodegenerative diseases). At this moment it is not known which concentration of microclots and oxygen deprivation may result in severe symptoms or even death.
Above all, after two and a half years into the pandemic, neglecting the basic principles of Public Health, the pandemic measures do not show benefits in reduction of COVID-19 infection and COVID-19 deaths. The policy of mask-wearing and frequent testing is ineffective, expensive, and causes harm to humanity and the environment. Therefore, mask-wearing and frequent testing should be halted immediately worldwide.
The priority need is a political will and governmental funding to focus on strengthening the immune system, preventing malnutrition and famine for all. Moreover, millions of individuals suffering from Long COVID, or side effects of COVID-19 vaccines have the right for personal and financial support. Otherwise many people may become disabled as a result of poor management of this crisis.
From the Brownstone Institute
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
-
second
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/first-dog-infected-monkeypox-after-sharing-bed-gay-couple?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=859
-
I would like to think this led to arrests. Where is the animal rights crowd on this?
-
I would like to think this led to arrests. Where is the animal rights crowd on this?
In the left's caste system, LGBTPedo outranks animal rights.
-
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/cdc-quietly-removes-a-massive-claim
-
https://dossier.substack.com/p/military-whistleblowers-dods-legally?r=7ys8v&s=r
They can't suppress this forever.
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/114/055/347/original/f03af67ad2dac38f.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/114/055/347/original/f03af67ad2dac38f.jpg)
Sure.
Why not?
-
one can make some theoretical association
between climate change and
EVERY ailment known to human kind
AND come up with some "study" that suggests there is an association
(as this post by "dr netty dastmalchi")
remember : most studies are complete BS and meaningless as is their data.
-
"one can make some theoretical association
between climate change and
EVERY ailment known to human kind
AND come up with some "study" that suggests there is an association ..."
---------------------------------
They lost me when both flooding and drought were both attributable to climate change.
Trying to have it both ways, don't you think?
Which recent, thousand year period pre-industrial age did not have climate change? Why were the 1930s hotter than now?
Every data point in their favor is climate; every counter point is weather.
Kind of hard to argue with people who were seeking this, a way to shut down freedom and enterprise, before they found it.
--------------------------------------
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/1934-had-worst-drought-of-last-thousand-years/
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/08/dan-bongino-reveals-getting-covid-vaccinated-greatest-regret-life/
-
HEALTH
Your first brush with coronavirus could affect how a fall booster works
As omicron-specific boosters near, scientists debate how ‘original antigenic sin’ will influence immune responses
Image without a caption
By Carolyn Y. Johnson
August 23, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
(Melanie Lee for The Washington Post)
In the beginning, when the coronavirus was new, the quest for a vaccine was simple. Everyone started out susceptible to the virus. Shots brought spectacular protection.
But the next chapters of life with the virus — and the choice of booster shots for the fall and beyond — will be complicated by the layers of immunity that now ripple through the population, laid down by past infections and vaccinations.
When it comes to viral infections, past is prologue: The version of a virus to which we’re first exposed can dictate how we respond to later variants and, maybe, how well vaccines work.
It’s a phenomenon known by the forbidding name of original antigenic sin, and, in the case of the coronavirus, it prompts a constellation of questions. Are our immune systems stuck still revving up defenses against a version of the virus that has vanished? Will updated booster shots that are designed to thwart variants be much better than the original vaccine? How often will we be reinfected? Is there a better way to broaden immunity?
The answers to those questions will influence our long-term relationship with the coronavirus — and the health of millions of people. But more than two years into the pandemic, the quest to unravel these riddles underscores the seemingly unending complexity of the battle against a new pathogen.
When the virus emerged, no one had encountered SARS-CoV-2 before, so our immune systems started in pretty much the same vulnerable spot — what scientists call “naive.”
Now, people have been infected, vaccinated, boosted, reinfected and boosted again — in varying combinations. People’s immune systems are on slightly different learning curves, depending on when they were infected or vaccinated, and with what variants or vaccines.
Should you get a second coronavirus booster? Here's what to know.
“There are no cookie-cutter answers here,” said John P. Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine. “An omicron infection after vaccination doesn’t mean you’re not going to get another one a bit further down the road. How long is a bit further down the road?”
How omicron broke through vaccines
3:29
Coronavirus cases spiked globally in the first weeks of 2022, despite record-high vaccination rates. Here’s how the omicron variant took off. (Video: Jackie Lay, John Farrell/The Washington Post)
Scientists are watching in real time as original antigenic sin plays out against the coronavirus — and debating how it will influence future vaccine strategy. Contrary to its biblical thunderclap of a name, the phenomenon is nuanced — more often beneficial or neutral than harmful.
It helps explain why vaccines based on the original virus continue to keep people out of the hospital, despite challenging new variants. But it may also mean that revamped fall boosters have limited benefits, because people’s immune memories are dominated by their first experience with the virus.
“We may have gotten about as much advantage out of the vaccine, at this point, as we can get,” said Barney Graham, an architect of coronavirus vaccines who now focuses on global health equity at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. Graham emphasizes that the vaccines are doing exactly what they were designed to do: keep people out of the hospital. Retuning them will have benefits, albeit limited.
“We can tweak it and maybe evolve it to match circulating strains a little better,” Graham said. “It will have a very small, incremental effect.”
Echoes of immunity
More than 60 years ago, a virologist named Thomas Francis Jr., observed that influenza infections in childhood had lifelong repercussions. For decades after, people’s immune systems carry an imprint from their first flu, activating defenses primarily against the original version of the virus they encountered. He called it “the doctrine of original antigenic sin.”
The same thing is happening with the coronavirus. A growing number of studies show that when the omicron variant infects, it causes the immune system to rapidly activate immune memory cells that are already on standby, created by previous vaccinations or infections.
“People are now walking around with different immune-imprinted covid responses, depending on what vaccine schedules they’ve had — one, two or three doses — and what infections they have had in the past,” said Rosemary Boyton, a professor of immunology and respiratory medicine at Imperial College London. “Imprinting is different according to where you live in the world, what vaccines you received — and that’s determining the subsequent immune response.”
In flu, the immunological echoes of original antigenic sin have real consequences: When flu strains are similar to the ones encountered in childhood, people are better protected against severe illness. The 1918 flu pandemic was caused by an H1N1 strain, which continued to circulate for decades afterward. When the 2009 H1N1 pandemic occurred, older people who were exposed to H1N1 in childhood had stronger immune responses than younger people who had been infected with other strains. When a flu strain is a more distant relative of that initial exposure, people may be more susceptible.
There’s not a consensus on how original antigenic sin plays out with the coronavirus — and it’s a touchy subject among immunologists. Many quarrel about whether “sin” is the appropriate word for a phenomenon that undergirds our immune system’s ability to provide partial protection against changing viruses.
But time is of the essence: Companies are already manufacturing fall boosters based on a new recipe. Many scientists think that, in the absence of certainty, moving forward with retuned boosters is the best strategy — even if they may offer short-term protection, mostly against severe illness.
When you have covid, here's how you know when you're no longer contagious
“Maybe 10 to 15 years from now, we live in a world where the vaccine is birth-year specific or make strain selection decisions that take into account different immune histories in the population,” said Katelyn Gostic, a researcher at the University of Chicago. “I think we need and are actively developing better technologies and better techniques to try to work at the science fiction frontier here, of figuring out these imprinting questions.”
How the immune system learns to recognize a virus
After a virus invades, dendritic cells grab pieces of virus.
The dendritic cells then look for helper T cells that match features of the viral pieces.
The activated B cells turn into plasma cells that churn out virus-blocking antibodies to fight the infection. Some become memory B cells.
Once matched, an activated helper T cell then locates
B cells that also match the virus's distinct features.
Antibodies flood the body and latch on to the virus to block it from infecting more cells.
Original
virus
Dendritic
cells
Helper
T cells
Plasma
cell
Antibodies attached
to virus
B cells
Antibodies
Memory B cells remain in the body after the first infection is cleared. They can then quickly reactivate to produce more antibodies if the same virus is encountered again.
‘A dog’s dinner’
The most gloomy interpretation of original antigenic sin holds that the immune system is stuck fighting an old war. Each new infection leaves behind no useful immune memory, instead summoning defenses against antiquated versions of the virus.
“Your coronavirus immunity repertoire is such a dog’s dinner it might actually enhance immunity to past variants a little bit, in ways that aren’t useful anymore,” said Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London.
Antibodies match and latch on to the original virus.
But the older antibodies are not
a good match for newer variants.
Antibodies
to original virus
Match
Mismatch
Original
virus
New
variant
He and Boyton published a Science paper in June that suggested people who were infected with the original version of the coronavirus and later vaccinated and reinfected with omicron mustered subpar immune responses to omicron. Their interpretation: People’s immune systems were locked into a fight against older iterations of the virus.
Not so fast, say others, who think there may be explanations other than original antigenic sin.
An essential element of how the immune system works is memory, the ability to recall viruses that have infected people before. Although virus-fighting antibodies naturally drop over time, memory B cells kick into action and churn them out on demand when a virus intrudes.
When viruses evolve, as is happening with the coronavirus variants, this memory can still be quite useful. Viruses typically swap out only bits of their costume. Parts of the spike protein of omicron look very different, but other bits look the same.
Antibodies to the original virus may still be able to attach to some parts of a newer variant that have not changed.
Mismatch
New
variant
Match
“What our immune system likes to do best is recognize things it already has seen. It responds very quickly to these parts of the virus that haven’t changed,” said Matthew S. Miller, a viral immunologist at McMaster University. “The vaccines are still doing an exceptionally good job in preventing us from getting severe illness. The reason is that is, essentially, original antigenic sin.”
This hair-trigger immune response isn’t fine-tuned to block the new virus; people can still get infected. But a suboptimal response that’s ready to go, many scientists think, is better than waiting for the body to create one from scratch.
“Essentially, original antigenic sin is often a very good thing,” said Laura Walker, chief scientific officer of Adagio Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on developing monoclonal antibody drugs. Walker recently published a paper showing that vaccinated people who came down with an omicron infection had an initial immune response driven by the immune cells created by their original vaccination.
This burst of antibodies capable of recognizing a new variant is not surprising to experts. It’s Immunology 101. And in the case of the coronavirus, it helps.
“It’s not a sin. It’s a natural progression of our immune response,” said Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “We should not think of it as a glitch.”
How the lucky few to never get coronavirus could teach us more about it
New memories
What scientists don’t know yet is what happens in the weeks and months after an infection or new vaccine.
One possibility: The immune system creates a new memory of the new variant. The next time a descendant of omicron comes along, the body can draw from an expanded memory bank to mount its next defense.
Another, more worrisome scenario: The fast-draw immune response interferes with the creation of new memories. The next time a version of the virus comes along, the body simply reactivates the existing response — and eventually, a variant comes along that is so changed it is unrecognizable.
“The question is: Is that memory pool going to get broadened, or is it going to get fixated?” said Wayne A. Marasco, an immunologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
The Food and Drug Administration asked companies in June to update coronavirus boosters for the fall, to a shot that includes two components: one that targets the original strain; and the other tailored to fight the most recent variants, BA.4 and BA.5.
Companies showed preliminary data that vaccines containing those versions of the virus can trigger stronger immune responses in the weeks after vaccination. But the advantage of a switch was modest, and long-term effects of those vaccines will depend in part on whether they help create new memories. If they simply provide a short-term boost of the existing memory response, many scientists are debating a change in vaccine strategy.
“This is not in my mind going to be the dramatic change to limit symptomatic omicron infection,” said Robert Seder, chief of the Cellular Immunology Section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Seder showed in a primate study this year that an omicron booster did no better than an additional shot of the original vaccine. He has focused his efforts on a change in tactics, such as a nasal vaccine that could help block infections and spread of the virus.
Even though a revamped vaccine is unlikely to be a game changer, many scientists favor an update. Rafi Ahmed, an immunologist at Emory University, argues that an omicron-based booster is urgently needed.
“There is no point continuing to vaccinate someone with a strain that is not circulating,” Ahmed said. Even if a new omicron-specific memory does not coalesce, the variant-specific vaccine will recruit and rev the part of the memory response capable of recognizing omicron.
Some scientists think a new memory response will also develop over time. Others think it might take an additional shot. Ahmed’s work on influenza showed that while a first shot against the H5N1 strain primarily activated an existing memory response, a second shot recruited new B cells targeting the strain.
But not all “sin” is created equal. For a virus like dengue, original antigenic sin can be harmful. For flu, it may help in some scenarios and hinder immunity in others. The limited data has left experts in a familiar place during this pandemic: watching what happens next.
“I’m struggling to say: Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” said Christian Gaebler, an assistant professor of clinical investigation at the Rockefeller University. “If someone says they fully understood this, they would be lying.”
Graphics by Aaron Steckelberg.
Coronavirus: What you need to know
The latest: The CDC has loosened many of its recommendations for battling the coronavirus, a strategic shift that puts more of the onus on individuals, rather than on schools, businesses and other institutions, to limit viral spread.
Variants: BA.5 is the most recent omicron subvariant, and it’s quickly become the dominant strain in the U.S. Here’s what to know about it, and why vaccines may only offer limited protection.
Vaccines: For people under 50, second booster doses are on hold while the Biden administration works to roll out shots specifically targeting the omicron subvariants this fall. Immunizations for children under 5 became available this summer. Here’s what to know about how vaccine efficacy could be affected by your prior infections and booster history.
Guidance: CDC guidelines have been confusing — if you get covid, here’s how to tell when you’re no longer contagious. We’ve also created a guide to help you decide when to keep wearing face coverings.
Where do things stand? See the latest coronavirus numbers in the U.S. and across the world. The omicron variant is behind much of the recent spread.
-
https://i0.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-havent-had-coivd-superior-every-person-planet.jpg?w=500&ssl=1
(https://i0.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-havent-had-coivd-superior-every-person-planet.jpg?w=500&ssl=1)
HEALTH
Your first brush with coronavirus could affect how a fall booster works
As omicron-specific boosters near, scientists debate how ‘original antigenic sin’ will influence immune responses
Image without a caption
By Carolyn Y. Johnson
August 23, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
(Melanie Lee for The Washington Post)
In the beginning, when the coronavirus was new, the quest for a vaccine was simple. Everyone started out susceptible to the virus. Shots brought spectacular protection.
But the next chapters of life with the virus — and the choice of booster shots for the fall and beyond — will be complicated by the layers of immunity that now ripple through the population, laid down by past infections and vaccinations.
When it comes to viral infections, past is prologue: The version of a virus to which we’re first exposed can dictate how we respond to later variants and, maybe, how well vaccines work.
It’s a phenomenon known by the forbidding name of original antigenic sin, and, in the case of the coronavirus, it prompts a constellation of questions. Are our immune systems stuck still revving up defenses against a version of the virus that has vanished? Will updated booster shots that are designed to thwart variants be much better than the original vaccine? How often will we be reinfected? Is there a better way to broaden immunity?
The answers to those questions will influence our long-term relationship with the coronavirus — and the health of millions of people. But more than two years into the pandemic, the quest to unravel these riddles underscores the seemingly unending complexity of the battle against a new pathogen.
When the virus emerged, no one had encountered SARS-CoV-2 before, so our immune systems started in pretty much the same vulnerable spot — what scientists call “naive.”
Now, people have been infected, vaccinated, boosted, reinfected and boosted again — in varying combinations. People’s immune systems are on slightly different learning curves, depending on when they were infected or vaccinated, and with what variants or vaccines.
Should you get a second coronavirus booster? Here's what to know.
“There are no cookie-cutter answers here,” said John P. Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine. “An omicron infection after vaccination doesn’t mean you’re not going to get another one a bit further down the road. How long is a bit further down the road?”
How omicron broke through vaccines
3:29
Coronavirus cases spiked globally in the first weeks of 2022, despite record-high vaccination rates. Here’s how the omicron variant took off. (Video: Jackie Lay, John Farrell/The Washington Post)
Scientists are watching in real time as original antigenic sin plays out against the coronavirus — and debating how it will influence future vaccine strategy. Contrary to its biblical thunderclap of a name, the phenomenon is nuanced — more often beneficial or neutral than harmful.
It helps explain why vaccines based on the original virus continue to keep people out of the hospital, despite challenging new variants. But it may also mean that revamped fall boosters have limited benefits, because people’s immune memories are dominated by their first experience with the virus.
“We may have gotten about as much advantage out of the vaccine, at this point, as we can get,” said Barney Graham, an architect of coronavirus vaccines who now focuses on global health equity at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. Graham emphasizes that the vaccines are doing exactly what they were designed to do: keep people out of the hospital. Retuning them will have benefits, albeit limited.
“We can tweak it and maybe evolve it to match circulating strains a little better,” Graham said. “It will have a very small, incremental effect.”
Echoes of immunity
More than 60 years ago, a virologist named Thomas Francis Jr., observed that influenza infections in childhood had lifelong repercussions. For decades after, people’s immune systems carry an imprint from their first flu, activating defenses primarily against the original version of the virus they encountered. He called it “the doctrine of original antigenic sin.”
The same thing is happening with the coronavirus. A growing number of studies show that when the omicron variant infects, it causes the immune system to rapidly activate immune memory cells that are already on standby, created by previous vaccinations or infections.
“People are now walking around with different immune-imprinted covid responses, depending on what vaccine schedules they’ve had — one, two or three doses — and what infections they have had in the past,” said Rosemary Boyton, a professor of immunology and respiratory medicine at Imperial College London. “Imprinting is different according to where you live in the world, what vaccines you received — and that’s determining the subsequent immune response.”
In flu, the immunological echoes of original antigenic sin have real consequences: When flu strains are similar to the ones encountered in childhood, people are better protected against severe illness. The 1918 flu pandemic was caused by an H1N1 strain, which continued to circulate for decades afterward. When the 2009 H1N1 pandemic occurred, older people who were exposed to H1N1 in childhood had stronger immune responses than younger people who had been infected with other strains. When a flu strain is a more distant relative of that initial exposure, people may be more susceptible.
There’s not a consensus on how original antigenic sin plays out with the coronavirus — and it’s a touchy subject among immunologists. Many quarrel about whether “sin” is the appropriate word for a phenomenon that undergirds our immune system’s ability to provide partial protection against changing viruses.
But time is of the essence: Companies are already manufacturing fall boosters based on a new recipe. Many scientists think that, in the absence of certainty, moving forward with retuned boosters is the best strategy — even if they may offer short-term protection, mostly against severe illness.
When you have covid, here's how you know when you're no longer contagious
“Maybe 10 to 15 years from now, we live in a world where the vaccine is birth-year specific or make strain selection decisions that take into account different immune histories in the population,” said Katelyn Gostic, a researcher at the University of Chicago. “I think we need and are actively developing better technologies and better techniques to try to work at the science fiction frontier here, of figuring out these imprinting questions.”
How the immune system learns to recognize a virus
After a virus invades, dendritic cells grab pieces of virus.
The dendritic cells then look for helper T cells that match features of the viral pieces.
The activated B cells turn into plasma cells that churn out virus-blocking antibodies to fight the infection. Some become memory B cells.
Once matched, an activated helper T cell then locates
B cells that also match the virus's distinct features.
Antibodies flood the body and latch on to the virus to block it from infecting more cells.
Original
virus
Dendritic
cells
Helper
T cells
Plasma
cell
Antibodies attached
to virus
B cells
Antibodies
Memory B cells remain in the body after the first infection is cleared. They can then quickly reactivate to produce more antibodies if the same virus is encountered again.
‘A dog’s dinner’
The most gloomy interpretation of original antigenic sin holds that the immune system is stuck fighting an old war. Each new infection leaves behind no useful immune memory, instead summoning defenses against antiquated versions of the virus.
“Your coronavirus immunity repertoire is such a dog’s dinner it might actually enhance immunity to past variants a little bit, in ways that aren’t useful anymore,” said Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London.
Antibodies match and latch on to the original virus.
But the older antibodies are not
a good match for newer variants.
Antibodies
to original virus
Match
Mismatch
Original
virus
New
variant
He and Boyton published a Science paper in June that suggested people who were infected with the original version of the coronavirus and later vaccinated and reinfected with omicron mustered subpar immune responses to omicron. Their interpretation: People’s immune systems were locked into a fight against older iterations of the virus.
Not so fast, say others, who think there may be explanations other than original antigenic sin.
An essential element of how the immune system works is memory, the ability to recall viruses that have infected people before. Although virus-fighting antibodies naturally drop over time, memory B cells kick into action and churn them out on demand when a virus intrudes.
When viruses evolve, as is happening with the coronavirus variants, this memory can still be quite useful. Viruses typically swap out only bits of their costume. Parts of the spike protein of omicron look very different, but other bits look the same.
Antibodies to the original virus may still be able to attach to some parts of a newer variant that have not changed.
Mismatch
New
variant
Match
“What our immune system likes to do best is recognize things it already has seen. It responds very quickly to these parts of the virus that haven’t changed,” said Matthew S. Miller, a viral immunologist at McMaster University. “The vaccines are still doing an exceptionally good job in preventing us from getting severe illness. The reason is that is, essentially, original antigenic sin.”
This hair-trigger immune response isn’t fine-tuned to block the new virus; people can still get infected. But a suboptimal response that’s ready to go, many scientists think, is better than waiting for the body to create one from scratch.
“Essentially, original antigenic sin is often a very good thing,” said Laura Walker, chief scientific officer of Adagio Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on developing monoclonal antibody drugs. Walker recently published a paper showing that vaccinated people who came down with an omicron infection had an initial immune response driven by the immune cells created by their original vaccination.
This burst of antibodies capable of recognizing a new variant is not surprising to experts. It’s Immunology 101. And in the case of the coronavirus, it helps.
“It’s not a sin. It’s a natural progression of our immune response,” said Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “We should not think of it as a glitch.”
How the lucky few to never get coronavirus could teach us more about it
New memories
What scientists don’t know yet is what happens in the weeks and months after an infection or new vaccine.
One possibility: The immune system creates a new memory of the new variant. The next time a descendant of omicron comes along, the body can draw from an expanded memory bank to mount its next defense.
Another, more worrisome scenario: The fast-draw immune response interferes with the creation of new memories. The next time a version of the virus comes along, the body simply reactivates the existing response — and eventually, a variant comes along that is so changed it is unrecognizable.
“The question is: Is that memory pool going to get broadened, or is it going to get fixated?” said Wayne A. Marasco, an immunologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
The Food and Drug Administration asked companies in June to update coronavirus boosters for the fall, to a shot that includes two components: one that targets the original strain; and the other tailored to fight the most recent variants, BA.4 and BA.5.
Companies showed preliminary data that vaccines containing those versions of the virus can trigger stronger immune responses in the weeks after vaccination. But the advantage of a switch was modest, and long-term effects of those vaccines will depend in part on whether they help create new memories. If they simply provide a short-term boost of the existing memory response, many scientists are debating a change in vaccine strategy.
“This is not in my mind going to be the dramatic change to limit symptomatic omicron infection,” said Robert Seder, chief of the Cellular Immunology Section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Seder showed in a primate study this year that an omicron booster did no better than an additional shot of the original vaccine. He has focused his efforts on a change in tactics, such as a nasal vaccine that could help block infections and spread of the virus.
Even though a revamped vaccine is unlikely to be a game changer, many scientists favor an update. Rafi Ahmed, an immunologist at Emory University, argues that an omicron-based booster is urgently needed.
“There is no point continuing to vaccinate someone with a strain that is not circulating,” Ahmed said. Even if a new omicron-specific memory does not coalesce, the variant-specific vaccine will recruit and rev the part of the memory response capable of recognizing omicron.
Some scientists think a new memory response will also develop over time. Others think it might take an additional shot. Ahmed’s work on influenza showed that while a first shot against the H5N1 strain primarily activated an existing memory response, a second shot recruited new B cells targeting the strain.
But not all “sin” is created equal. For a virus like dengue, original antigenic sin can be harmful. For flu, it may help in some scenarios and hinder immunity in others. The limited data has left experts in a familiar place during this pandemic: watching what happens next.
“I’m struggling to say: Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” said Christian Gaebler, an assistant professor of clinical investigation at the Rockefeller University. “If someone says they fully understood this, they would be lying.”
Graphics by Aaron Steckelberg.
Coronavirus: What you need to know
The latest: The CDC has loosened many of its recommendations for battling the coronavirus, a strategic shift that puts more of the onus on individuals, rather than on schools, businesses and other institutions, to limit viral spread.
Variants: BA.5 is the most recent omicron subvariant, and it’s quickly become the dominant strain in the U.S. Here’s what to know about it, and why vaccines may only offer limited protection.
Vaccines: For people under 50, second booster doses are on hold while the Biden administration works to roll out shots specifically targeting the omicron subvariants this fall. Immunizations for children under 5 became available this summer. Here’s what to know about how vaccine efficacy could be affected by your prior infections and booster history.
Guidance: CDC guidelines have been confusing — if you get covid, here’s how to tell when you’re no longer contagious. We’ve also created a guide to help you decide when to keep wearing face coverings.
Where do things stand? See the latest coronavirus numbers in the U.S. and across the world. The omicron variant is behind much of the recent spread.
-
if not already obvious
wonder who these "liberal elites are"
I doubt we ever find out and know no one will be held accountable:
https://nypost.com/2022/08/25/nate-silver-liberal-elites-pressured-pfizer-to-delay-covid-vaccine/
-
if not already obvious
wonder who these "liberal elites are"
I doubt we ever find out and know no one will be held accountable:
https://nypost.com/2022/08/25/nate-silver-liberal-elites-pressured-pfizer-to-delay-covid-vaccine/
And now despite their best efforts, the truth about the ClotShot is getting out, so now the narrative is switching to “OrangeManBad killed/maimed everyone with the ClotShot “!
-
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2022/08/24/trump-white-house-exerted-pressure-on-fda-for-covid-19-emergency-use-authorizations-house-report-finds-00053428
We have always been at war with the ClotShot.
-
Tucker had an outstanding opening rant on this last night.
Meanwhile , , ,
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/another-week-with-deaths-far-above?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
-
Tucker had an outstanding opening rant on this last night.
Meanwhile , , ,
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/another-week-with-deaths-far-above?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
https://twitter.com/KCPayTreeIt/status/1562827469568483330
I suspect GLOBAL WARMING!
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/another-week-with-deaths-far-above?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
this is curious and deserves investigation , I agree,
but again
please do beware data whether from certified epidemiologists or otherwise
they can lead one down a rabbit hole
that said I got 4 shots and am still alive
yet I admit not sure about a 5th one
I know some one who has diabetes and since taking the shots her sugars went completely out of control for no other reason
the endocrinologist said he sees that a lot with corona infection
but no over vaccine
it is possible this person had a mild short corona infection
so unclear
-
https://twitter.com/DrEliDavid/status/1563848349777887234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1563848349777887234%7Ctwgr%5E530c9ebc516360f6d09b62b68a7c6d1781d59e5a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theburningplatform.com%2F
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/another-week-with-deaths-far-above?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
this is curious and deserves investigation , I agree,
but again
please do beware data whether from certified epidemiologists or otherwise
they can lead one down a rabbit hole
that said I got 4 shots and am still alive
yet I admit not sure about a 5th one
I know some one who has diabetes and since taking the shots her sugars went completely out of control for no other reason
the endocrinologist said he sees that a lot with corona infection
but no over vaccine
it is possible this person had a mild short corona infection
so unclear
-
https://twitter.com/DrEliDavid/status/1563848349777887234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1563848349777887234%7Ctwgr%5E530c9ebc516360f6d09b62b68a7c6d1781d59e5a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theburningplatform.com%2F
https://www.independentsentinel.com/unknown-cause-is-the-top-cause-of-death-in-canada/?utm_source=wnd&utm_medium=wnd&utm_campaign=syndicated#
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/535/795/original/2153de037a501a0a.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/535/795/original/2153de037a501a0a.png)
-
Let’s Declare the Pandemic Over and Peacefully Coexist With COVID—Here’s How
If more people knew how this worked, they might not have been shaken by fear
BY DR. YUHONG DONG AND MERCURA WANG TIMEAUGUST 25, 2022 PRINT
The COVID-19 pandemic has lasted for more than two and a half years. With SARS-CoV-2’s constant mutations, neither COVID-19 vaccines nor previous infections are able to protect us completely from the newest emerging strains, as demonstrated by the recent Omicron BA.4/5 subvariants.
As a matter of fact, the primary effect of vaccination is to generate neutralizing antibodies. However, the neutralizating antibody is only a tiny part of our sophisticated natural immune system. In other words, so reduced antibody binding does not mean that we are losing our natural immunity to the mutant strains. The human body is innately capable of defending against SARS-CoV-2 and emerging viruses via natural immunity regardless of any mutations or viruses, and this article will detail how.
What Is Immunity?
Immunity is the ability of an organism to resist a particular infection or toxin.
Humans have two levels of immunity, natural and acquired. We are born with natural (innate) immunity, which protects us from all types of pathogens, instead of specific ones. Acquired (adaptive) immunity is achieved by inoculation or getting infected by specific pathogens including viruses and germs.
In a UK human challenge trial published in the journal Nature, 36 healthy volunteers aged 18 to 29 without evidence of previous COVID-19 infection or vaccination underwent 14 days of inoculation with the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 virus intranasally. Among those who participated, 17 of them had no infection at all. There was a single asymptomatic patient in whom, although no virus was detected in the participant’s throat, the researchers found antibodies in the bloodstream. The remaining 18 subjects were symptomatically infected. Both the virus and antibodies were present in their bloodstreams.
According to Dr. Yuhong Dong, Chief Scientific Officer of a Swiss biotech company and expert in antiviral drug development and infectious diseases, the natural immunity of the first 18 people was strong enough to win the battle against the virus without breaking a sweat. In comparison, the natural immunity of the latter half group was weaker. Their adaptive immunity had to intervene to fight off the virus, which resulted in the creation of antibodies, and the levels of inflammatory proteins in their bloodstream also increased. In the end, the infection was eradicated at the cost of sacrificing countless immune cells such as macrophages or natural killer cells.
So when being exposed to the same virus in the same way, why is it that some people don’t get infected and some do? To understand the mechanisms behind this, we first need to take a look at the human immune system.
5 Barriers of Human Immunity
Human immunity is similar to a multi-layered defense network and is composed of five barriers.
Physical barrier
The first barrier of our immunity includes our skin, nose, and eyes. When viruses enter the body through breathing, the nose hairs will first try to block them, which become stimulated, resulting in sneezing. The nasal discharge and the mucus on the surface of the throat, trachea, and bronchus can trap the viruses, which are later expelled from the body by sneezing or coughing. The eyes work in a similar way by secreting tears to kill and remove viruses and toxins from the body.
Epoch Times Photo
Epithelial cell barrier and interferon
Epithelial cells are on the surface of our nose, throat, trachea, bronchi, and lungs; they make up the inner surfaces of our breathing organs.
When viruses invade epithelial cells, the latter automatically start their antiviral mechanism, mainly by producing interferons, which are important antiviral substances that can prevent the replication of viruses. In people with strong immunity, the mechanism of interferon secretion alone is sufficient to eliminate the viruses.
Interferons are produced by many immune cells (e.g. leukocytes, natural killer cells, natural killer T cells, and T cells). They don’t directly kill viruses. Instead, interferons “interfere” by instructing cells to produce many antiviral proteins and by enhancing the virus-killing mechanisms including intracellular pathways and activating innate immune cells.
The interferons produced in the early stage of a viral infection can delay the viruses’ replication and so delay their spreading to the entire body, thus buying time for the body to clear the viruses so that the chance of developing any illness is reduced.
Dr. Vincent Feuillet from the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) published an article in 2021 in the journal Trends in Immunology. According to the article, the outcome of a COVID-19 infection depends on an individual’s ability to produce type I interferons (IFNa/ß) rapidly. If the body has this ability in the early stages of the infection, the viruses can be eliminated directly and quickly, and there is little room for them to survive. On the contrary, if the body does not produce any interferon, or the body is in a state of chronic inflammation, one cannot quickly eliminate the viruses and the result is a harmful inflammatory response.
Therefore, the body’s rapid ability to produce interferons ensures the success of the battle with a virus, like the first and second groups of the UK challenge trial.
Epoch Times Photo
This study has shown the proven important role of interferon in COVID-19. People who secrete more interferons in the early stages of the COVID-19 infection will most likely have a mild disease. Researchers from the University of Louisville published an article in 2021 in the journal Nature, stating that there is a strong inverse correlation between the interferon response induced at the early stages of an infection and the severity of the disease. That is, the higher the interferon expression, the milder the disease will be.
Innate immune cellular barrier
As the Omicron subvariants have greater transmissibility than the previous strains, scientists are concerned about the possibility of immune evasion and are actively developing new vaccines to deal with new variants. In fact, there’s no need to panic, as if the first three human immune barriers are strong enough, and they can resist all kinds of COVID-19 variants independent of gene codes and solve the problem of immune evasion.
The third barrier is composed of innate immune cells, such as granulocytes, macrophages, dendritic cells, and natural killer cells.
Epoch Times Photo
There are three types of granulocytes, including neutrophils, eosinophils, and basophils.
Neutrophils are the most numerous of the three in the body and are produced very quickly. They are the first responders to infections and play a police-like role in innate immunity.
Eosinophils are very effective in fighting against parasites. Parasites are multicellular organisms that immune cells have difficulty swallowing. However, rather than swallowing parasites, eosinophils attack them by releasing chemicals that penetrate their cell membranes, so eosinophils play the role of a “disinfection worker.” In addition, eosinophils trigger inflammatory reactions in the body by releasing chemicals. They are common factors in allergic reactions, like “firefighters.”
Macrophages can engulf pathogens in large numbers. In comparison with neutrophils, macrophages have a higher capability to attack pathogens and are able to fight them for a longer period of time. In addition to macrophages, there is also a type of dendritic cells that can swallow pathogens.
After macrophages and dendritic cells swallow a pathogen, they will analyze it and pass the relevant information to the acquired immune system for further action against the “enemies.” They are the “communication bridge” or “messenger” between the innate and acquired immune systems. Although their functions are similar, they have their own strengths. Macrophages are stronger in phagocytosis, like the “riot police”; while dendritic cells are better at analyzing and transmitting information, like “signalers.”
Natural killer cells are also part of the advance troops, the vanguard and frontline of the natural immune system, mainly responsible for killing virus-infected cells and mutated cancer cells in the body.
The complementary system is like bullets that can destroy various pathogens, bacteria, viruses or abnormal cells. In addition, it also promotes the ability of phagocytes to engulf pathogens through its “conditioning effect.” In other words, if pathogens were mashed potatoes then the complementary system would be the gravy that adds flavor to them, and encourages phagocytes to consume more pathogens. Furthermore, the complementary system can promote other immune responses, such as inflammatory responses and the secretion of immune-modulating substances.
Epoch Times Photo
T cell barrier
T cells are lymphocytes, and they play a key role in the adaptive immune response.
Generally speaking, there are two major types of T cells, including the helper T cells and the cytotoxic T cells. The former “help” other cells of the immune system, while the latter kill virally infected cells and tumors. T-cells have many receptors on their surfaces, and they can only bind to one shape of antigen. When a T-cell receptor fits with its viral antigen on an infected cell, the cytotoxic cell will releases cytotoxins to kill that cell. Cytotoxic cells can also kill foreign and cancer cells.
T helper cells take a leading role in the fight against viruses and are like the “generals” of adaptive immunity.
B cell barrier
The last immune barrier is composed of B cells, which are another type of lymphocytes. B cells create antibodies, which bind to pathogens or toxins to neutralize them. In addition, B cells can present antigens and secrete cytokines.
Compared with the first three lines of barriers, the reactions of T and B cells are relatively slow, and they are greatly affected by the specific viral genes and proteins. For instance, different COVID-19 variants require different T and B cells.
Therefore, it’s necessary to attack the cells directly infected by the virus according to the characteristics of the antigen.
If the B cells were mainly activated by vaccination, when a new variant emerges with a lot of mutations, the original antigens may not work, and new vaccines must be continuously developed to keep up with the viral mutations.
A Sensible Way Forward
If we are purely relying on the vaccine to fight against SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 vaccines need to be continuously updated to keep up with the different strains’ constant mutations.
However the time to produce a new COVID vaccine is on average at least 8 months, which is far behind the speed at which the virus can mutate. A major new mutation has taken the stage every four or five months, as we have witnessed at least seven major strains (original strain, D614G, alpha, beta, delta, omicron BA1, BA4/5) during the past 32 months of the pandemic.
Luckily, people have the first four front layers of immunity, which could help us defend well against any virus, independent of the B cells or neutralizing antibodies.
According to Dr. Dong, a more sensible, rational, and effective way to avoid COVID-19 infection is to boost our natural innate and adaptive immunity so that it’s strong enough to protect us, just like the first two groups of subjects in the UK human experiment trial mentioned earlier.
We can do several things to improve our innate and acquired immunity. For instance, a diet rich in nutrition, a healthy work and rest schedule, and a stable and cheerful mood are all important. Furthermore, although it may sound inconceivable, honoring traditional values, as well as being more considerate for others can significantly improve the overall immunity of our cells.
Once we have a strong immunity, it’s possible for us to peacefully coexist with COVID-19 viruses without worrying about mutantations or expired vaccines.
Fuel Your Immune System
We need to pay attention to our intake of basic nutrients, and properly supplement vitamins and trace elements to maintain the normal structure and function of our first immune barrier.
Besides providing fuel and building blocks for the immune systems to function and produce proteins and new cells, diet provides the nutrients used in immune cell metabolism and antiviral functions.
Adequate micronutrient intake should include:
Vitamin C: It can help with the differentiation and proliferation of T and B cells. A lack of vitamin C will lead to impaired immunity and higher susceptibility to infections.
Vitamin D: It can reduce the incidence and severity of virus infection. A study has shown that adequate serum vitamin D level could protect us against severe COVID-19.
Zinc: It helps activate white blood cells (i.e. immune cells) and is essential for wound healing. Zinc-rich foods in daily life include meat, spinach, and nuts.
Furthermore, vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc, selenium, and omega-3 fatty acids can protect the body from oxidative and inflammatory stress.
Things to avoid include:
High intake of salt: It destroys beneficial gut bacteria, thus increasing chronic inflammation in the intestines, which is detrimental to the immune system’s antiviral efforts.
High intake of sugar: It damages phagocytic cells (which swallow germs) and gut microbes. Consumption of sugar causes chronic inflammation, harms the interferon secretion in epithelial cells, and impedes the antiviral function of natural immune cells, T cells, and B cells.
Healthy Habits
In order to reduce the chance of COVID-19 infection, please pay attention to personal hygiene. For example, wash our hands and shower frequently, to remove the viruses if we have been exposed to them.
We can quit smoking, as it damages the structure of the skin, accelerates skin aging, and destroys the ability of respiratory epithelial cells to produce interferons. Furthermore, smoking has been found to be associated with more severe illness and an increased risk of death after hospitalization due to COVID-19 infection.
On a similar note, we can also avoid drinking alcohol, as it damages epithelial cells, T cells, and B cells.
Maintaining a healthy work and rest schedule, including getting quality and adequate sleep at night, is important for our immune system to self-recover and operate at its full capacity. During sleep, important hormones (growth hormone and melatonin) are released by the body, and melatonin enhances both innate and cellular immunity.
Make some time to exercise and be close to nature. For example, forest bathing trips can boost natural killer cell functions. These are short leisurely visits to a forest. A series of studies have discovered that such trips resulted in an increase in natural killer cell activity, as measured by increases in the number of natural killer cells and the elevated levels of certain cytolytic immune proteins.
Exercising can also help us maintain a healthy body weight, as obesity triggers a chronic inflammatory state and counteracts the immune system’s antiviral abilities.
Epoch Times Photo
We can also practice sitting in meditation to enhance our immunity, as meditation reduces chronic inflammation, maintains cell rejuvenation, and enhances antiviral ability. A large number of studies have suggested that meditation, Tai Chi, and qigong have positive impacts on the immune system, boosting our innate antiviral immunity and keeping us away from chronic inflammation.
Mental Health and the Spirit
In an article published in the journal Brain, Behavior, Immunity in February 2021, several scholars from the United Kingdom and Taiwan suggested that in addition to the current pharmacological treatments for COVID-19, psychological support should also be implemented to improve people’s mental health and enhance their psychoneurological immunity to the pandemic.
Due to the virus’s complexity and variability, traditional medication or allopathic treatment alone does not work well. We may consider tapping into the spiritual aspect, and use healthy lifestyle and psychological interventions to enhance our overall immunity and self-healing ability.
Inner Peace
According to a paper published in the journal Brain, Behavior, Immunity, depressed people have reduced lymphocyte responses, weakened T-cell immune responses to viruses, and reduced NK-cell activity, resulting in an overall trend of reduced antiviral immunity in the human body, making people vulnerable to viral and bacterial infections.
In addition, depression also increases the production of inflammatory substances, such as pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, leading to a chronic inflammatory state. Furthermore, negative emotions combined with stress can reduce the body’s immunity, adding to the vicious cycle that makes people more susceptible to the COVID-19 infections.
To break the vicious cycle, we may have to put down those painful secular goals so as to achieve better inner peace. Letting things naturally unfold is sometimes a release, and maintaining a cheerful mental status helps nourish our immunity.
Here is an example. Typically, the immunity of the elderly is reduced. However, a 117-year-old French nun, Europe’s oldest person, notably recovered from a COVID-19 infection in early 2021. According to Dr. Dong, this woman’s recovery is probably due to her “kind and peaceful state of mind related to her belief.”
How can one achieve inner peace? Staying honest is another way.
Dishonesty harms our immunity. When someone lies, his cortisol level is higher than normal. In fact, cortisol reactivity is significantly higher in people who lie than in truth tellers.
The higher the cortisol reactivity, the more likely that this stress hormone’s level is elevated in the body. Corticosteroids have a suppressive effect on immune cells, thus inhibiting the body’s ability to fight viruses. Therefore, in the midst of the pandemic, dishonest behavior can lead to a decrease in one’s own immunity.
Epoch Times Photo
Follow Traditional Values
Believe it or not, following traditional values can also improve the overall immunity of cells. An article published in 2021 in the journal Anxiety, Stress & Coping suggests that three strategies developed from evidence-based medical research can help people reduce anxiety, stress, and depression, and can help them get out of the pandemic faster.
These three strategies are following typical traditional values: fostering a sense of social belonging, practicing compassion, and engaging in kindness.
Compassion and Kindness
In a 2013 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the immune system indicators of people with two different views of well-being were examined. One view is eudaimonic well-being, which is inclined to pursue human justice and noble goals, and hedonic well-being, which is more inclined to pursue personal sensory enjoyment. It was discovered that people of eudaimonic well-being have higher gene expression of interferons, higher antibody production ability, and significantly lower expression of inflammatory genes. The overall effect of their gene expression is more favorable for their body to fight against viruses, including SARS-CoV-2.
Epoch Times Photo
According to Dr. Dong, in the midst of the pandemic, there’s much more one can do to boost immunity than simply diet and lifestyle. It’s also of great benefit to advocate for the traditional values of honesty, kindness, and tolerance. Tapping into spirituality can also help enhance the body’s antiviral potential, and help people better cope with the lingering effects of the pandemic, and any other emerging viruses as well.
References
Virological characteristics of the novel SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants including BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 | bioRxiv
Safety, tolerability and viral kinetics during SARS-CoV-2 human challenge in young adults | Nature Medicine
https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1471-4906%2820%2930261-1
Induction of interferon response by high viral loads at early stage infection may protect against severe outcomes in COVID-19 patients | Scientific Reports
Nutrition and immunity: lessons for COVID-19 | European Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Vitamin C and Immune Function – PMC
Pre-infection 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 levels and association with severity of COVID-19 illness | PLOS ONE
Mechanisms in Which Smoking Increases the Risk of COVID-19 Infection: A Narrative Review – PMC
Melatonin, immune function and aging – PMC
Effect of forest bathing trips on human immune function – PMC
The Effects of Tai Chi and Qigong on Immune Responses: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis – PMC
https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2110455118
The three frontlines against COVID-19: Brain, Behavior, and Immunity – PMC
Depressive disorders and immunity: 20 years of progress and discovery
Europe’s oldest person, 117-year-old French nun, survives COVID-19 | Reuters
https://haas.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/Carney.HowPowerCorrupts.pdf
Social belonging, compassion, and kindness: Key ingredients for fostering resilience, recovery, and growth from the COVID-19 pandemic
A functional genomic perspective on human well-being | PNAS
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/08/29/over-30-deaths-of-young-healthy-canadian-doctors-cannot-be-explained-any-other-way-than-they-were-killed-by-the-vaccine/
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/08/confirmed-new-study-reveals-disposable-face-masks-contain-four-times-acceptable-carcinogen-exposure-levels/
-
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/06/covid-19-vaccines-saved-estimated-20-million-lives-1-year
here is another:
https://www.nber.org/digest-202205/estimating-lives-saved-covid-vaccines
and another :
https://www.vox.com/22894978/covid-19-vaccine-lives-saved-deaths-avoided-omicron-chart
it is also true that the subvariants of omicron now circulating are not as virulent
BOTTOM LINE
as I have pointed out for yrs
one can gather data find data and interpret data in any way they choose
it seems
GM chooses to find data that suits him
others choose data to suit them
My personal opinion is to take "data' always with a grain of salt
It seems there is more and more "studies " based on data
then ever
due to the data age
and most of it is horse shit
like data that comes out and states antidepressants do not work
when in practice they OBVIOUSLY do.
or a recent cholesterol / statin drug Cochrane review ( I do not trust these at all)
that tells me statins do not cause muscle pain
when indeed in practice they OBVIOUSLY do.
as we have known and witnesses many many times over 30 + yrs.
-
How long are vaccines normally tested to ensure they are safe and effective?
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/06/covid-19-vaccines-saved-estimated-20-million-lives-1-year
here is another:
https://www.nber.org/digest-202205/estimating-lives-saved-covid-vaccines
and another :
https://www.vox.com/22894978/covid-19-vaccine-lives-saved-deaths-avoided-omicron-chart
it is also true that the subvariants of omicron now circulating are not as virulent
BOTTOM LINE
as I have pointed out for yrs
one can gather data find data and interpret data in any way they choose
it seems
GM chooses to find data that suits him
others choose data to suit them
My personal opinion is to take "data' always with a grain of salt
It seems there is more and more "studies " based on data
then ever
due to the data age
and most of it is horse shit
like data that comes out and states antidepressants do not work
when in practice they OBVIOUSLY do.
or a recent cholesterol / statin drug Cochrane review ( I do not trust these at all)
that tells me statins do not cause muscle pain
when indeed in practice they OBVIOUSLY do.
as we have known and witnesses many many times over 30 + yrs.
-
https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/30/excess-deaths-in-america-are-still-excessive/
-
https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/30/excess-deaths-in-america-are-still-excessive/
-
https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/30/excess-deaths-in-america-are-still-excessive/
Anecdotal evidence of nothing: I lost a friend yesterday, dropped dead in the first set of a racquet sport outing that I could have been part of. Age 64, believed healthy, doing a skill game exercise he had done thousands of times before.
[Last winter lost a relative to a 'blood clot. She was 60 and healthy.]
If these have any tie to covid or vaccinations, we will never know.
It is impossible to know an "excess death" even if he/she drops right in front of you.
-
sorry about your friend
sounds like at least he did not suffer
yes
*Anecdotal evidence*
to conclude excess deaths are from vaccine
while not impossible (hypothesis)
is a bit of a stretch
but in MHO does not deserve Tucker with the Berensons' et al saying corona vaccine are the "only" explanation
or whoever Hannity or Laura etc
-
The global phenomenon of excess deaths that just started in the last few years is caused by?
sorry about your friend
sounds like at least he did not suffer
yes
*Anecdotal evidence*
to conclude excess deaths are from vaccine
while not impossible (hypothesis)
is a bit of a stretch
but in MHO does not deserve Tucker with the Berensons' et al saying corona vaccine are the "only" explanation
or whoever Hannity or Laura etc
-
why not simply related to corona pandemic itself
or simply I don't know
due to vaccine - possible
I am not saying it is not
just that it is just a data point association
made by people with agenda
otoh denying the possibility would be also from people with agenda
I simply don't know
I admit.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/covid-19-vaccine-effectiveness-plunges-against-omicron-cdc-data_4704255.html?utm_source=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2022-09-02&utm_medium=email&est=mVXMGNaTCKnCqrZ12Rs5Yt2pvh8ti9vBEnq7CfNb9XkmuTCcWLN2uCsbkHPmnUY1EzOk
-
https://blog.medcram.com/covid-19/near-infrared-light-can-reduce-inflammation-sars-cov-2-virus/
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/did-lockdowns-cause-increased-mortality-rates_4706698.html?utm_source=Health&utm_campaign=health-2022-09-06&utm_medium=email&est=mq5kOdLbJMSzim2YYQ%2FPcICFoXSubgFBK%2Fa2SoHWs9vBh250z%2BwHmeGJcmj67Xly35lk
HEALTH VIEWPOINTS
Did Lockdowns Cause Increased Mortality Rates?
BY JOSEPH MERCOLA TIMESEPTEMBER 2, 2022 PRINT
Emerging statistics paint an alarming picture – far more have died after the rollout of this ‘super potion’ than during the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020. Yet the mainstream media are desperately trying to divert your attention from this elephant in the room.
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Emerging statistics on excess mortality rates paint an alarming picture. Far more people died in 2021, after the rollout of the COVID shots, and in 2022, than during the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020
Mainstream media are trying to divert your attention from the elephant in the room — mass injection with experimental gene transfer technology — to anything and everything but that
The Telegraph blames the unexplained excess deaths on lockdown effects. Many didn’t have access to routine medical care during lockdowns, and are now dying from chronic diseases that went untreated
U.K. Office for National Statistics (ONS) data released August 16, 2022, show excess deaths in England and Wales were, as of August 5, 14.4% higher than the five-year average, which works out to 1,350 more deaths per week than normal. A majority of these excess deaths were cardiovascular in nature — a primary adverse effect of the COVID jabs
In the U.S., we lost 349,000 younger Americans to something besides COVID and non-natural death between April 3, 2021 and August 13, 2022, and that’s not counting the tens of thousands of death records that the CDC has inexplicably deleted. As much as 15% to 25% of the death reports that could indicate a COVID jab death are missing. Other data show that during the fall of 2021, Millennials, aged 25 to 44, had an 84% increase in excess deaths
Emerging statistics on excess mortality rates paint an alarming picture. Far more people died in 2021, after the rollout of the COVID shots, and in 2022, than during the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020. I will review some of those shocking statistics — which are mirrored around the world — in a moment.
But while rational people look at these figures and ask themselves what the most apparent and likely cause behind this sudden rise in deaths of working-age adults and younger people might be, mainstream media are trying to divert your attention from the elephant in the room — mass injection with experimental gene transfer technology — to anything and everything but that.
Lockdowns Blamed for Excess Deaths
In an August 18, 2022, article,1 Telegraph science editor Sarah Knapton blames the “unexplained excess deaths” on “the effects of lockdown.” She writes:2
“Figures for excess deaths from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that around 1,000 more people than usual are currently dying each week from conditions other than the virus.
The … Department of Health has ordered an investigation into the figures amid concern that the deaths are linked to delays to and deferment of treatment for conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Over the past two months, the number of excess deaths not from Covid dwarfs the number linked to the virus …
Dr. Charles Levinson, the chief executive of Doctorcall, a private GP service, said his company was seeing ‘far too many’ cases of undetected cancers and cardiac problems, as well as ‘disturbing’ numbers of mental health conditions.
‘Hundreds and hundreds of people dying every week — what is going on?’ he said. ‘Delays in seeking and receiving healthcare are no doubt the driving force, in my view.’”
Cardiovascular Problems Kill in Record Numbers
ONS data released August 16, 2022, show excess deaths in England and Wales were, as of August 5, 14.4% higher than the five-year average, which works out to 1,350 more deaths per week than normal, Knapton reports.3 As you can see in the graph4 below, COVID is only involved in a small number of those deaths.
Epoch Times Photo
In all, non-COVID deaths are now more than three times that of COVID-related deaths. According to the U.K. Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, a majority of these excess deaths were “preventable heart and stroke and diabetes-related conditions.”
However, while lack of routine health care — people avoiding seeing their doctors for fear of COVID or due to various restrictions — may well have played a role, cardiovascular problems such as heart attacks and strokes are the primary side effects of the jab as well.
A Look at US Mortality Data
The identical trend is also seen in the U.S. In Part 1 of a three-part series,5 The Ethical Skeptic — self-described as a former intelligence officer and strategies for nations facing corruption challenges — reviews data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics showing “stark increase trends beginning in the first week of April 2021.”
“This date of inception is no coincidence, in that it also happens to coincide with a key inflection point regarding a specific body-system intervention in most of the U.S. population,” The Ethical Skeptic notes.
He describes how, at the very end of May 2021, an “odd signal” developed in his COVID tracking models. This odd signal came in the form of an ICD death code (International Classification of Diseases code) called R00-R99, which stands for “Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified.” In other words, deaths from undetermined causes.
As a result of this odd signal, he started tracking these R00-R99 deaths, along with 11 other ICD-10 (the 10 stands for 10th revision, which is the most recent), such as suicides and overdoses, as well as a statistic called “Excess non-COVID natural cause deaths.” The data The Ethical Skeptic used for his models were derived from three primary databases:
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Weekly Counts of Deaths by State and Select Causes, 2014-20196
The CDC’s Weekly Provisional Counts of Deaths by State and Select Causes, 2020-20227
The CDC’s Wonder: Provisional Mortality Statistics, 2018 through Last Month – Query by Constraint Engine8
CDC Is Scrubbing Death Records
Non-COVID mortality saw a mild uptick in October 2020, an effect The Ethical Skeptic attributes to “the systemic damage which the SARS-CoV-2 infection and virus spike protein can produce in the human body. An erstwhile COVID delayed death if you will.”
The noticeable explosion of non-COVID deaths didn’t occur until Week 14, 2021, and “by the end of 2021 it had become abundantly clear that U.S. citizens were not just dying of COVID-19 to the excess, they were also now dying of something else, and at a rate which eventually became higher than that of COVID itself,” he writes.
Disturbingly, he discovered that death records were inexplicably being redacted and deleted during a very crucial time period — Weeks 4 through 20 in 2022. “It is hard to envision a scenario explaining this 52,000-record data tampering across the most at-risk weeks … of 2022, as not constituting malicious obfuscation of U.S. citizen mortality data,” he writes.
Deep Dive Into US Death Statistics
His article is chockfull of charts for those who want to take a deeper dive into the statistics, but here are some extracts of his findings:
“The charts of particular concern … include the charts featuring stark post MMWR Week 14, 2021 rises in mortality. Specifically, they are
Excess non-COVID natural cause, 5+ sigma
Cancer and lymphomas, 9+ sigma
Other respiratory conditions, 2 sigma
Nephritis/Nephrotic syndrome, 4 sigma
Septicemia, 2 sigma
Heart diseases and ailments, 2 sigma
All other ICD-10 tracked natural cause deaths, 4 sigma
… While there are indeed increases in deaths incumbent inside the other ICD-10 codes, those increases appeared to plausibly conform to their same arrival patterns for 2020 as well. In other words, they appeared to be heavily Covid-related in their dynamics, both before and after the Week 14 2021 inflection.
Of particular concern, are those deaths which relate to body-wide regulatory systems as opposed to specific organs or causes. In other words, cancer and lymphomas, heart, autonomous myocarditis/pericarditis/conductive disorders, injuries to the liver and kidneys, etc.
These are not only the canaries in the coal mine in terms of pathology, but may serve to indicate as well that a pervasive systemic disruption is at play inside the average U.S. citizen human physiology, especially over the last 71 weeks. These are the death groups which exhibit the most stark trend of increase post MMWR Week 14, 2021 …
[Let] us for a moment also review the compelling rationale behind the MMWR Week 14 2021 inflection date. This date is a critical matter of concern for no small reason. Its derivation is no coincidence. The ‘Doses and Deaths Comparison Chart’, Exhibit B below, outlines why.
Epoch Times Photo
Exhibit B — The MMWR Week 14, 2021 inflection date also happens to correspond to the fastest velocity in administered vaccine doses inside the U.S. population. The red line is Excess Non-COVID Natural Cause Mortality extracted from the data behind Exhibit E below.”
According to The Ethical Skeptic, three types of death record codes in particular are signaling “population-wide systemic health disruption,” and those are: “Excess malignant neoplasm and lymphoma” deaths (coded C00-C97), “Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified” deaths (R00-R99) and “Excess non-COVID natural cause” deaths. All three trend very sharply against historical baselines.
Without a shadow of a doubt, we have established that right now there exists a problem in terms of U.S. citizen health and mortality. One which is differentiated from COVID-19 itself, and began in earnest MMWR Week 14 of 2021.
— The Ethical Skeptic
For example, cancer and lymphoma deaths are now at a 9+ Sigma level, although it could potentially be higher. According to The Ethical Skeptic, 43,935 death records relating to “potential myocarditis, cancer, pericarditis, conductive, nephrosis, liver, and/or lymphoma deaths” have been removed from the CDC data sets, and as of his writing of that article had not been put back in or reassigned to another ICD code.
“That is 7% of the total deaths for the period in question, and possibly 15 to 25% of these highly concerning death ICD-10 groups’ trend data — missing. Even absent this data however, the entailed trends are alarming,” he writes.9
US Excess Non-COVID Natural Cause Deaths
The Ethical Skeptic continues:10
“Finally, we end with the most important chart of all — the chart which indicates deaths which are not from accidents, suicide, addiction, assault, abuse, despair, disruption, nor COVID-19. The Excess Non-COVID Natural Cause Mortality chart which we began monitoring on May 29th 2021. What I called then, the ‘What the hell is this?’ chart.
As one can see, we have lost 349,000 younger Americans to something besides COVID and non-natural death, during the period from 3 April 2021 to 13 August 2022.
The current rate of mortality in this ICD categorization, is around 5,000 – 8,000 per week … which exceeds most weeks of the COVID pandemic itself (save for the absolute peak periods). By now, if all these mortality excesses were indeed a holdover from COVID-19 itself, they should have already begun to tail off. Unfortunately, they are not only not tailing off, in many cases they are still increasing.
Epoch Times Photo
Exhibit E — Excess Non-COVID Natural Cause Deaths are at an all time high as of MMWR Week 32 of 2022. 349,000 U.S. citizens have died of some additional factor since MMWR Week 14 of 2021. The current rate of excess mortality represents a five-week average of 5+ sigma in excess (hedging conservatively for lag).
Accordingly, and without a shadow of a doubt, we have established that right now there exists a problem in terms of U.S. citizen health and mortality. One which is differentiated from COVID-19 itself, and began in earnest MMWR Week 14 of 2021.”
COVID Jabs Impair Immune Function
Kenji Yamamoto with the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Okamura Memorial Hospital in Japan has also sounded the alarm, specifically highlighting the COVID jabs’ ability to impair your immune function. In a commentary published in the Virology Journal June 5, 2022, Yamamoto noted:11
“Recently, The Lancet published a study12 on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and the waning of immunity with time. The study showed that immune function among vaccinated individuals 8 months after the administration of two doses of COVID-19 vaccine was lower than that among the unvaccinated individuals …
The decrease in immunity can be caused by several factors such as N1-methylpseudouridine, the spike protein, lipid nanoparticles, antibody-dependent enhancement, and the original antigenic stimulus …
As a safety measure, further booster vaccinations should be discontinued. In addition, the date of vaccination should be recorded in the medical record of patients … In conclusion, COVID-19 vaccination is a major risk factor for infections in critically ill patients.”
It’s important to understand that when your immune function is impaired, you become vulnerable to all kinds of infections and disease, including cancer. As such, the COVID jab may well be responsible for any number of diseases resulting in death.
A Not-so-Comforting Fact Check by Reuter
s
A recent Thai study13 found teenagers, aged 13 through 18, who received two doses of Pfizer’s mRNA jab suffered a variety of heart problems. A Reuters “fact check” notes:14
“A study of 301 teens in Thailand found mild and temporary heart rhythm changes after a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine among one in six teenagers, not one-third as social media posts claim. The study also saw possible signs of heart inflammation in just seven of those teens with rhythm changes and confirmed myocarditis in only one of the seven.”
Should we throw a victory parade over the fact that the jab causes heart problems in JUST 1 in 6 teens? Really?! Whether it’s 1 in 3 or 1 in 6, this is not “good news” and surely not worthy of the dismissive tone used by Reuters. As reported directly from the study in question:15
“The most common cardiovascular effects were tachycardia (7.64%), shortness of breath (6.64%), palpitation (4.32%), chest pain (4.32%), and hypertension (3.99%). Seven participants (2.33%) exhibited at least one elevated cardiac biomarker or positive lab assessments.
Cardiovascular effects were found in 29.24% of patients, ranging from tachycardia, palpitation, and myopericarditis. Myopericarditis was confirmed in one patient after vaccination. Two patients had suspected pericarditis and four patients had suspected subclinical myocarditis. Conclusion: Cardiovascular effects in adolescents after BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccination included tachycardia, palpitation, and myocarditis.”
Millennials Died at Staggering Rates in Late 2021
I recently interviewed Ed Dowd, a former equity portfolio manager for BlackRock and hedge fund “guru,”16 but have not yet posted it. In early March 2022 he shared disturbing CDC mortality statistics by age group on Steve Bannon’s War Room.17
During the fall of 2021, Millennials, aged 25 to 44, had an 84% increase in excess mortality. “It’s the worst-ever excess mortality, I think, in history,” Dowd told Bannon. Between the summer and fall of 2021, 61,000 Millennials died who otherwise wouldn’t. To quote Dowd:18
“Basically, Millennials experienced a Vietnam War in the second half of 2021. 58,000 people died in the Vietnam War, U.S. troops [over the course of 10 years], so this generation just experienced a Vietnam War [in 6 months] …
We’ve had 1.1 million excess deaths since the pandemic began, many of which occurred in the second half of [2021] …
I think this is the smoking gun: that the vaccines are causing excess mortality in all age groups … So, I’m going to put a word out there. It’s an old word but it should be re-introduced into the conversation. It’s called democide: Death by government. So the government, through the mandates has killed people …
If you’re on Wall Street and you still think Pfizer and Moderna are good buys, I’ve got news for you: there’s some catalysts coming that are probably not going to be good for holding those stocks.”
The following pdf was posted on Dowd’s GETTR account, March 11, 2022.19 (A GETTR user called MiloMac also reproduced Dowd’s findings using public CDC data, creating additional graphs.20)
Epoch Times Photo
The Elephant in the Room
In a March 15, 2022, commentary and follow-up on Dowd’s revelations, Steve Kirsch wrote:21
“I called Ed to clarify where he got the chart and then looked for verification of this. I found the verification. Then I verified that the deaths couldn’t be explained by the COVID delta variant. OK, so what caused all the deaths? The only explanation is the vaccine because the deaths are so massive.”
Kirsch posted a WhatsApp conversation with Marc Girardot, a French-American biotech innovator, who believes the COVID jab may, in some people, age their arteries by as much as 50 years in just a few months. If true, that could certainly trigger rapid onset of cardiovascular disease leading to early death.
Epoch Times Photo
Teens and Young Adults Die at Higher Rates in New Zealand
In an August 16, 2022, Substack article,22 independent journalist Alex Berenson (a former New York Times reporter and novelist) highlighted COVID jab statistics from New Zealand,23 which includes observed post-jab deaths. He explained:
“New Zealand’s Ministry of Health publishes regular and detailed reports on COVID vaccine safety, including specific lists of adverse events it has received. As part of the reports, the ministry also counts all deaths of people who have received the jabs in the previous 21 days …
New Zealand has a national COVID immunization registry and a national death registry, so the records and matching should largely be accurate … The ministry breaks down the deaths by age, ranging from 0-9 through over 80.
It then compares the actual number of people who died in the three weeks after the shots to the ‘expected’ number. That figure is simply the number of deaths demographers would have expected over a random three-week period based on actuarial tables estimating mortality …”
In summary, between February 19 and April 30, 2022, people over the age of 30 had lower than normal death rates in the 21 days’ post-jab, but people younger than 30 (ages 10 to 29) for some reason died at higher rates. (The lack of observed deaths in the under-10 age group is likely due to reporting lag.)
Epoch Times Photo
According to the health ministry, the slightly elevated deaths in the under-30 group is likely due to “chance.” And as noted by Berenson, “the ministry does not provide any information on the causes of death in any age range, so it is impossible to determine whether myocarditis or other cardiac conditions played a major role in the higher-than-expected figures.”
While these data are nowhere near as alarming as some others, it’s still a red flag that something odd is happening. Young people who should have decades of life left are dying.
And it’s worth noting that New Zealand, just like the U.S. claims there are NO potential safety issues with the jabs — not a single one — despite thousands of serious injury reports.24 Considering the age group that is dying at a higher than normal rate — teenagers and young adults in their 20s — even a small increase ought to be taken very seriously, but is not.
To end where we started, which is the more likely culprit in these deaths? Past lockdowns temporarily preventing routine medical care, resulting in chronic diseases that kill even young people within a couple of years? Or the mass injection of experimental gene transfer shots that have never been used in humans before?
Originally published September 02, 2022, on Mercola.com
Sources and References
1, 2, 3, 4 The Telegraph August 18, 2022 (Archived)
5, 9, 10 The Ethical Skeptic August 20, 2022 Part 1
6 US Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Weekly Counts of Deaths by State and Select Causes, 2014-2019
7 US Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Weekly Provisional Counts of Deaths by State and Select Causes, 2020-2022
8 US Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Wonder: Provisional Mortality Statistics, 2018 through Last Month
11 Virology Journal June 5, 2022; 19(1): 100
12 Lancet February 26, 2022; 399(10327): 814-823
13, 15 Trop. Med. Infect. Dis. 2022; 7: 196
14 Reuters August 18, 2022
16 Totality of Evidence Ed Dowd
17, 18 Lew Rockwell March 22, 2022
19 GETTR Ed Dowd March 11, 2022
20 GETTR MiloMac March 13, 2022
21 The Burning Platform March 15, 2022
22 Substack Alex Berenson August 16, 2022
23 MedSafe NZ
24 MedSafe NZ, See ”New safety signals” boxes for Pfizer and AstraZeneca
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
-
second post
Why Your Natural Immunity Against COVID Is so Durable and How to Boost It
BY DR. YUHONG DONG AND HEALTH 1+1 TIMESEPTEMBER 3, 2022 PRINT
With some countries rolling out their 5th booster shot against COVID-19, many are putting the necessity of the next dose in question. For some, the extra shots are recommended by the CDC, but this does not mean we should all jump on the vaccine wagon.
Given that almost 1 in every 3.5 Americans have already had a confirmed COVID-19 infection and that our natural immunity is said to be more resilient than a booster shot, there are more ways to bolster your own antiviral immunity.
But does natural infection induce a stronger immunity than a vaccine? If so, why?
Is Natural Immunity Stronger Than the Vaccine?
It’s true that people who have been previously infected with COVID are more resilient against it.
When your body is infected with any virus, it means that our innate immunity is not strong enough to stop the virus at the front line of physical barrier or epithelium layers. As a result, the adaptive immunity will be activated.
In respect to antiviral adaptive immunity, there are two main pathways that can be triggered, the Th1 or Th2 pathway.
Regardless of what type of virus we may confront, a leading Th1 cellular immune response and its downstream cytotoxic T cell antiviral function play a critical role in eradicating the virus from our body. The Th2 pathway with activated B lymphocyte responses takes a secondary or complementary role in the whole antiviral battle.
If Th1 type immune response is not strong enough or Th2 response overweighs the Th1 type response, there is more difficulty in clearing the virus out from our body.
For people who have had a natural COVID infection, their Th1 pathway should have been their leading responding mechanism to intruding viruses as it secretes plenty of interferons and activates cytotoxic T cells to develop a more comprehensive defense against an incoming heavy infection. A multi-clonal, and rigorous antiviral battle has taken place in the patients, resulting in an enduring immune memory including much longer and much higher level of antibodies.
Whereas, most COVID-19 vaccines are designed to activate the B lymphocyte response rather than Th1 cellular responses. This Th2 pathway activates many B-lymphocytes yet is only a fraction of the whole adaptive immune system.
What the vaccine does is it mainly stimulates the B-lymphocytes through the Th2 pathway, while the complete, natural defense mechanism, namely the combination of Th1 taking the lead and Th2 as an adjutant, can only be developed through a real, natural infection.
This is why current COVID-19 vaccines are, in nature, functionally limited in nature.
The stronger Th1 pathway, induced by a previous infection, also lasts longer. In a cohort study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, immune responses from COVID-19 patients in Nicaragua with a previous infection and those vaccinated were compared. According to the study, “protection was higher against more severe outcomes” in COVID-19 patients infected for the second time.
Epoch Times Photo
In this Home Influenza Cohort Study (HICS), 2353 participants in 437 households, with an age range starting with newborn infants to 94 year old adults, were observed for confirmed COVID-19 infection. Vaccinated individuals were excluded from the study.
Using the percent protection formula, which is 100 percent subtracted by the hazard ratio of seropositive and seronegative subjects, the rate of protection against a COVID-19 infection was calculated. The percentage protection are as follows:
Prior infection provides a 78.9 percent protection against moderate to severe reinfection
Prior infection guarantees a 68.1 percent protection against a symptomatic reinfection
Prior infection offers a 63.9 percent protection against any types of second COVID-19
The protection rate against COVID-19 from a previous infection is around 63.9 percent as of October 2021, which is lower than the 93.6 percent protection rate calculated with data back in March 2021. This is likely due to the much longer follow-up period for observed infection as well as the advantages newer COVID-19 variants have over previous strains.
An Israeli study conducted in August 2021 reported that vaccinated individuals, who were not previously infected, were up to 13 times more likely to contract COVID-19 than those already infected during the time when the Delta strain was at its peak.
The study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease, and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, yet this likely also applies to newer variants as well.
In this retrospective study, two groups of individuals were compared.
Individuals without a COVID-19 infection history who received two doses of the Pfizer BNT162b2 primary series and who are 16 years and older, count = 673’676
Unvaccinated and previously infected individuals, count = 62’883
After applying three multiple logistic regression models, the study assessed four outcomes: COVID-19 breakthrough infection, symptomatic infection, hospitalization, and death. No deaths were, fortunately, reported during this study.
Compared with the individuals who were unvaccinated and were previously infected (group 2), vaccinated people without a history of COVID-19 infection (group 1) were much more likely to be at risk of infection.
Using the first model, group 1 was around 13 times more likely to have a breakthrough infection, 27 times more likely to have symptoms, and around eight times more likely to be hospitalized when compared to group 2.
The second model predicted that group 1 was about six times more likely to have a breakthrough infection, and about seven times more likely to experience symptoms or be hospitalized when compared with group 2.
Epoch Times Photo
This study again reaffirms that our innate immunity provides a more resilient and enduring protection against infection, symptomatic disease, and hospitalization caused by the Delta COVID-19 variant. This study has yet to be officially published, since last August.
Is There Anything to Boost Natural Immunity?
Regardless of the vaccines you take, how healthy you are is still going to play the deciding role against any incoming infections.
Nature is a huge gold mine. There are quite a lot of natural ingredients from medicinal herbs that enhance the Th1 immune response in order to increase their antiviral effects.
One of the many great supplements is spirulina, a blue-green algae reportedly consumed by the Aztecs already during the 16th century. Usually available as a dietary supplement in pharmacies and some supermarkets, spirulina is high in protein, lipids, vitamins, essential amino acids, as well as minerals and many bioactive substances.
Not only spirulina, but many other algae-derived active compounds are widely used due to their antioxidant-rich, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and immune-enhancing properties. They are beneficial to the point where NASA and the European Space Agency designates them as a must-have for astronauts.
In the March 2021 issue of The International Journal of Applied and Basic Nutritional Sciences, one article was dedicated to evaluate the prospect of spirulina and other algae derived nutraceuticals as a supplement to help combat a COVID-19 infection.
Given that bioactive compounds derived from spirulina contain substantial amounts of natural ACE inhibitors, antioxidants, and antiviral compounds, the use of spirulina will serve to comprehensively bolster the immune system by a long shot.
When spirulina was given to healthy men between ages 40 and 65, their levels of interferons produced by immune cells when stimulated by IL-12, an agent associated with activating the Th1 immune pathway, was much higher than levels from the control group. This means that spirulina as a supplement can effectively boost the natural immune system of the human body in a holistic fashion.
Epoch Times Photo
It is very much recommended that you purchase supplements, particularly spirulina but also others, from brands that source their raw materials reasonably, as heavy metal contamination is a considerable issue in this particular dietary supplement.
So now the question remains, should you even get a booster? What about bivalent boosters with that promised Omicron effect? The new booster shots will still help reduce the mortality rate. They will increase your immunity, but boosters, bivalent or not, are still not as effective as a previous infection and a healthy immune system. If you are immunocompromised, then a booster will probably come into question for you to generate antibodies.
However, you should still keep in mind that whichever antibodies generated by whichever vaccines would diminish over time.
In any case, you need to strengthen your own immunity as the starting point. A traditional healthy lifestyle, balanced diet, and positive attitude can work wonders.
-
COVID-19 Vaccines Didn’t Work, so CDC Changed the Definition of ‘Vaccine’
Public health officials rewrote the rules, and companies profited from the pandemic
BY JENNIFER MARGULIS AND JOE WANG TIMESEPTEMBER 1, 2022 PRINT
0:008:22
1
In early 2020, when the public first learned that a novel virulent virus was making people sick in China and around the world, it made sense to institute public health measures to protect against it.
But, instead of encouraging doctors and scientists to look for ways to treat the virus and ways to keep sick people away from healthy people, as has been done during other pandemics in modern human history, government authorities actively prevented doctors from treating patients.
Tech companies quickly censored and deplatformed doctors who were discussing potentially effective treatment options, and scientific debate was silenced.
Instead of open, honest discussion about the effectiveness of preventative measures and the different treatment options, the world was told that the only way out of the Wuhan coronavirus crisis was via mass vaccination. If the public understood that there were options for treating COVID-19 and that the infection was mild in more than 99 percent of the people who contracted it, they wouldn’t be as motivated to get a vaccine.
As someone born and raised in China, I, Joe Wang, saw firsthand how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) runs a well-oiled machine, controlling every aspect of people’s lives, not for the good of the country, but for the personal gain of Party members. In the West, too, drawing from the CCP’s playbook, some quickly realized that they could capitalize on human fear and turn the pandemic into an opportunity for profit. The CCP used COVID-19 as yet another way to expand authoritarian control, which wasn’t surprising. But Western countries, too, weaponized people’s fear in order to roll out unprecedented control over people’s freedom.
Profits Over People
Fear, it seems, is more contagious than any given infection. An imminent—or ongoing—apocalypse sells newspapers, blows up social media platforms, and can be parlayed into a breathtaking amount of financial gain.
According to Forbes, 493 people became billionaires in 2021. China minted 205 of these. The United States, in second place, had 98. Sixty-one of the world’s newest billionaires were in health care fields, among them were an Italian billionaire whose family makes the glass vials for COVID-19 vaccines; an Indian medical doctor whose hospital chain doubled its stock when it shifted its focus to COVID-19; the co-founder of BioNTech, the German company that worked with Pfizer to make its vaccine; as well as the CEO of the American-based pharmaceutical giant Moderna.
‘The Doctor Will Lie to You Now’
So, when Jerry Daniels, founder of Brothers Media Group, opened a panel during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas in August, with the insight that “COVID has everything to do with marketing,” for a session titled “The Doctor Will Lie to You Now,” it isn’t surprising that practically the entire audience was nodding in agreement.
“What is marketing supposed to do?” Daniels continued. “It’s supposed to influence people to take action and do something.”
And much of public health’s job is “messaging,” that is, marketing the behaviors they want the public to adopt.
In the case of COVID-19, the action people have been most influenced to take was to get vaccinated. The marketing campaign surrounding COVID-19 vaccines has been so effective that, as of August 29, more than 12.6 billion shots have been put in people’s arms worldwide.
Given the growing body of scientific evidence that shows quite clearly that the vaccines don’t work to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, as well as the hundreds of studies and clinical testimonials showing that the vaccines can have severe and even devastating health consequences, especially for young people, the fact that so many people continue to accept them is baffling.
It is, according to Daniels, a triumph of marketing.
The Vaccine Doesn’t Work, so the Definition Was Changed
For nearly 15 years, from November 2007 to August 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) working definition of “vaccine” was: “A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from the disease. Vaccines are usually administered through needle injections, but can also be administered by mouth or sprayed into the nose.”
But in September 2021, according to Daniels, U.S. public health authorities changed the definition of “vaccine.”
The new definition, which the curious reader can find under the title “Vaccine Basics” on the CDC’s BAM! Body and Mind webpage, a classroom resource for teachers, became: “A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases. Vaccines are usually administered through needle injections, but some can be administered by mouth or sprayed into the nose.”
The CDC had deleted a key part of the definition of vaccines. You will no longer find anywhere on its website the assertion that a vaccine “stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from the disease.” However, a 2015 World Health Organization document (pdf) cites the CDC’s previous vaccine definition.
Epoch Times Photo (Slide No. 4 from “Module 2: Vaccines and Drugs,” a presentation by World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Advocacy and Training in Pharmacovigilance, in Accra, Ghana, on Sept. 7–18, 2015.)
The COVID-19 vaccines don’t produce immunity protecting people who are vaccinated from getting the illness. This fact should have spurred the CDC and every other health authority in the world to stop the current vaccination program and work overtime to create a better, more effective, and safer vaccine.
But, instead, the CDC is working hard to dupe the American people by claiming that the mission of these vaccines was never to stop the spread of coronavirus in the first place.
Are They Really Vaccines?
Three doctors participated in the CPAC panel in Dallas on August 5: Drs. Robert Malone, Peter McCullough, and Brooke Miller.
According to Malone, it’s highly problematic to call any of the injectables being used currently against SARS-CoV-2 “vaccines.”
The term “vaccine” traditionally refers to a product that provides “prophylactic protection against an infectious disease,” said Malone, a physician and research scientist who was part of the team that developed the mRNA technology used in several brands of the COVID-19 injections.
“We now have clear documentation that these products are not protecting against infection, replication, or spread of the virus, and the multiply-inoculated actually are having longer periods of infection.”
The COVID-19 injections, Malone said, don’t meet the criteria for a vaccine.
“Disagreement is the method by which we make scientific progress,” said McCullough, a cardiologist who has publicly voiced his concerns about the safety of the vaccines.
Miller, a family physician based in Virginia, said that he felt enormous pressure not to speak openly about his concerns about vaccine safety, and to not even ask questions about what the government health officials were saying about the safety, efficacy, and necessity of the COVID-19 injections.
“Fear is, in part, a business model,” Malone said. “You need to understand that CNN is generating profit by scaring our children and scaring our elders. It’s a profitable enterprise. We call it ‘fear porn.’”
But it was perhaps Daniels’ question that resonated most with us.
“Why in the world are we still giving a genetic ‘jab’ to people when we know that it’s killing them at record rates?” he asked. “Where is the sanity in that?”
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/hospital-study-shows-this-can-prevent-covid-19-infection_4708648.html?utm_source=Health&utm_campaign=health-2022-09-06&utm_medium=email&est=zqFQ3AnJ1zNzyCyHGIZBzL5vcoJ3YHnDllDPVCDkfy9XrBKPmaL9rfuhfcOkhqGubg83
Hospital Study Shows This Can Prevent COVID-19 Infection
BY JOSEPH MERCOLA TIMESEPTEMBER 3, 2022 PRINT
The dramatic results from this hospital study showed a simple, at-home strategy can effectively prevent COVID-19 even better than the jab.
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
A hospital study published in June 2022 revealed that hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) mouthwash, gargle and nasal rinse protected against COVID-19 better than the jab
When food grade H2O2 is nebulized for approximately 30 minutes in normal saline it also reaches your sinuses and lungs where it can kill the virus, augment your natural defense system and may help stop an ongoing infection in the lungs and upper respiratory tract
Taxpayers recently spent $275 million, or $1,833 per dose, on a new monoclonal antibody drug. It is approved for people who are most vulnerable and at high risk for progression to severe disease despite the risks not being known at this time
Paxlovid is another drug purchased with taxpayer dollars at up to $530 per five-day course of treatment. People are requiring a second course of treatment when the infection rebounds with worse symptoms, as it did with quadruple-vaccinated Dr. Anthony Fauci
Although health authorities would like to keep you chained to new and not thoroughly tested drugs, you have choices including highly successful protocols that cost less and use supplements and drugs that have been sold for many years
Most health experts agree that early and aggressive treatment for COVID-19 helps to reduce the potential for long COVID symptoms and reduces the risk of severe disease. From the beginning, the pharmaceutical industry has sought to develop new and expensive antiviral drugs to treat the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 with an aim at profits. The newest drug — monoclonal antibody treatment bebtelovimab from Eli Lilly[1]— is no exception.
For example, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s favorite drug used early in the pandemic on hospitalized patients — remdesivir — cost the taxpayers over $70.5 million to develop.[2] A five-day course of treatment costs private insurance companies $3,120 and the government $2,340,[3] which is doubled at $6,240 for private companies and $4,680 for the government for a 10-day course.
This is well above the drug maker’s estimated cost for production, which is between $10 and $600 for a 10-day course.[4] Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), has been the face of the public health initiatives against COVID since the pandemic was announced by the World Health Organization in March 2020.
In the first year or more of the pandemic, patients were told to suffer at home until they were near death and then go to the hospital where they were placed on deadly ventilator treatment.[5][6]
In my interview with Dr. Pierre Kory,[7] one of the leaders in the movement to provide early treatment for COVID infection, he recalled how he refused to remain in leadership at the University of Wisconsin Medical Center where the hospital insisted on providing supportive care only to their patients.[8]
However, as the pharmaceutical industry has released a variety of drugs or treatments, including monoclonal antibodies, Paxlovid and remdesivir, the perspective has changed.
Hospitals and physicians now offer pharmaceutical treatments approved under emergency use authorization (EUA) with unknown long-term side effects but continue to refuse to use well-established drugs with known side effect profiles that have proven to be effective. Hydrogen peroxide is one of those preventive measures and treatments.
Hospital Study Shows H2O2 Prevents COVID-19
In August 2022, a study[9][10] of over 4,000 patients and 89 health care staff in a hospital in Ghana revealed the results of those who used hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) mouthwash, gargle and nasal rinse daily as a preventive against COVID-19.[11]
The researchers compared the data between two hospitals in Ghana where individuals who were vaccinated or not vaccinated either used H2O2 prophylactically or did not. The effect on inpatients was also recorded. They found that in the 89 health care staff members who used the H2O2 preventively, only one contracted COVID-19 and that person had discontinued using the rinses.
None of the greater than 4,000 patients who were treated with H2O2 got COVID-19. In another hospital, 424 staff members were fully vaccinated; 34 of those used hydrogen peroxide and none developed COVID-19. Of the remaining 390 health care staff, 53 developed COVID-19.
In another group of 78 unvaccinated staff, 23 used hydrogen peroxide and none of them contracted COVID-19. In the remaining group, 35 got COVID-19. The results from this study suggested that H2O2 was more effective at preventing COVID-19 than the jab.
The participants used 1% hydrogen peroxide mouthwash and diluted hydrogen peroxide to 0.5% for the nasal cavity rinse. The treatment was done only once daily.
The researchers concluded, “Regular, daily HPA [hydrogen peroxide antisepsis] protects HCWs [health care workers] from COVID-19 and curtails nosocomial spread of SARS-CoV-2.”[12] This is important since infections in the hospital are more easily transmitted when staff have greater face-to-face exposure with patients and each other.
The data from the August 22 study confirmed an earlier observational report[13] by the same team on two groups of health care workers. In the earlier results, the researchers found that 89 of 944 health care workers who did not use hydrogen peroxide tested positive for COVID-19 in the study period. During the same time, 154 health care workers used the hydrogen peroxide treatment and 100% of those tested negative.
A Nebulizer Drives the Hydrogen Peroxide Even Deeper
In April 2021, I interviewed Dr. Thomas Levy,[14] board-certified cardiologist who is best known for his work with vitamin C. We discussed the use of nebulized hydrogen peroxide, which has become my favorite intervention for the treatment and prevention of viral illnesses.
H2O2 is part of your body’s natural defense system, so using nebulized H2O2 just augments your body’s natural defense system. However, as I discuss in the video above, it’s essential that you mix the solution appropriately, use normal saline to protect your lung tissue and use the treatment until all the fluid in the chamber has evaporated, often taking approximately 30 minutes.
Nebulized hydrogen peroxide also requires the use of a food-grade product that does not have the stabilizers and chemical preservatives found in the H2O2 bottle on drugstore shelves. It is also important to use distilled water or saline, since tap water can contain a deadly amoeba.[15] Your gastrointestinal tract can adequately take care of this pathogen but inhaling it into your lungs can cause significant damage.
One of the benefits of nebulizing hydrogen peroxide is that it disperses the H2O2 throughout your mouth, nasal cavity, sinuses, throat and lungs. This is especially powerful if you have been exposed to a viral illness or are sick.
Nebulized H2O2 can help kill viral particles in your respiratory tract but does not reach any viral particles in the rest of your body. Therefore, using nebulized H2O2 after exposure or in the early hours of a respiratory infection may help stop an infection in its tracks.
If you miss the early window to prevent an infection, using the treatment also helps to protect your lungs from developing pneumonia, which can be deadly in those with COVID-19[16][17] or flu.[18]
Taxpayers Spend $1,833 per Dose on Monoclonal Antibody Drug
In February 2022, the FDA[19] approved an EUA for a new monoclonal antibody treatment for the COVID-19 omicron variant. The drug — bebtelovimab — was developed by Eli Lilly. The government immediately ordered 600,000 doses, spending $1.08 billion or $1,800 per dose.[20] According to Endpoint News,[21] another order for 150,000 doses was approved for $275 million, the equivalent of $1,833 per dose.
The $33 per dose increase in price occurred in just four months. While this may not sound like a lot of money for a single dose, spread over 150,000 doses it means the U.S. taxpayers shelled out an extra $4.9 million for the same drug just four months later.
According to the announcement by the FDA,[22] the EUA was approved for the treatment of mild to moderate infection in adults and children 12 years of age and older who are at least 88 pounds. The individuals must have a positive COVID-19 test and have indications that they are:
“… at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death, and for whom alternative COVID-19 treatment options approved or authorized by the FDA are not accessible or clinically appropriate.”
In other words, for an illness that has a track record of 99% recovery,[23] the U.S. government has thus far spent $1.35 billion on 750,000 doses of a drug that by the FDA’s own evaluation should only be used for individuals who are at high risk of severe COVID-19.
According to CDC data[24] there were a total of slightly over 1 million deaths from COVID-19 over a 2.5-year period. However, as even the CDC has admitted, many of the deaths attributed to COVID-19 have actually been people died WITH COVID-19, not FROM it.
One of the more infamous cases of death certificates recording a COVID death was from a motorcycle accident,[25] which may have been following the CDC’s own guideline for reporting deaths:[26]
“In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID cannot be made but is suspected or likely (e.g. the circumstances are compelling with a reasonable degree of certainty) it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as ‘probable’ or ‘presumed.'”
As has been widely reported, while the omicron virus is more transmissible, it is also less virulent and doesn’t cause the severe illness that the variants before it.[27] Additionally, if the government drinks their own Kool-Aid, those who are vaccinated are protected from severe disease.[28]
Thus, there should be no need for 750,000 doses of a monoclonal antibody that should only be prescribed to those at “high risk”[29] of severe illness. Added to this, Drugs.com reports, “Not many people have received bebtelovimab. Serious and unexpected side effects may happen. All of the risks are not known at this time.”[30]
Rebound Illness After Antiviral Paxlovid
Fierce Pharma[31] reported that Pfizer also scored a huge deal when the U.S. doubled their order for the antiviral Paxlovid from 10 million to 20 million courses of treatment. The first 10 million cost the U.S. taxpayers $5.29 billion and contributed to Pfizer’s anticipated revenue of $101.3 billion in 2022.
Fierce Pharma[32] also reported that one analyst, writing to clients, reported that Paxlovid had a “leg up” on molnupiravir because of its “superior efficacy and safety profile.”
Paxlovid joins a long list of drugs developed specifically for COVID-19 that have not proven to be effective. Reports are emerging[33] that patients treated with a five-day course will sometimes experience severe rebound when the course is completed. Government officials are planning to study the rate of rebound, the extent to which the drug causes rebound and whether a longer regimen will reduce the effect.
Virologist David Ho described the post-Paxlovid rebound he experienced in April to Bloomberg.[34] After getting sick, his doctor prescribed Paxlovid. Days later his symptoms dissipated, and the tests were negative. However, 10 days after getting sick, the symptoms returned and the tests were positive again.
He sequenced the virus in his body and found that the infection before and after taking Paxlovid were from the same strain, confirming that the virus didn’t mutate or become resistant to the drug. Pfizer, meanwhile, insists the increase in viral load post-treatment “is unlikely to be related to Paxlovid” because viral rebound was found in “a small number” of both the treatment and placebo groups in Pfizer’s final-stage study.[35]
Subsequently, quadruple-vaccinated Fauci reported that he tested positive for COVID-19 and experienced mild symptoms.[36] Reportedly his age placed him at high risk for complications and he was then prescribed Paxlovid.[37] CNN reported he described the “interesting course” of his COVID-19 infection during an appearance at Foreign Policy’s Global Health Forum.
Fauci told the group that after five days he was negative for three consecutive days on an antigen test. Apparently, three negative tests weren’t enough, so he tested himself again on the fourth day “just to be absolutely certain.” By that time, he had reverted to a positive test. “It was sort of what people are referring to as a Paxlovid rebound,” he said.[38]
Low Cost, Low Side Effect, Effective Treatment Available
Fauci reported that his symptoms were worse when they returned the second time after treatment. He was prescribed another course of Paxlovid and at the time of the interview, he was on day 4 of a 5-day course. He reportedly felt “reasonably good” although “not completely without symptoms.”[39]
The cost of Paxlovid can be as much as $530[40] for a five-day course, but consumers get it for “free” since it was purchased with their tax dollars. During these past two years, the government has spent billions of dollars buying medication for an infectious illness that has been proven to be successfully treated at home using far less expensive medications and supplements.
For example, the overall survival rate across all age groups and all risk strata is 99%, but the Zelenko Protocol[41] has demonstrated a 99% survival rate in high-risk patients. His published treatment protocol includes over-the-counter supplements vitamins C and D3, elemental zinc and quercetin for low-risk patients.
Patients who have a moderate or high risk of severe disease are treated with vitamin C and D3, elemental zinc, azithromycin, doxycycline, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.
The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance[42] has developed several protocols[43] aimed at prevention, early treatment, long-haul COVID treatment, post-vaccine recovery and hospital treatment. First-line therapies in early treatment include over-the-counter zinc, vitamin C, melatonin, quercetin, probiotics, curcumin, aspirin, mouthwash and nasal spray. Prescription medications include ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
Both protocols are highly successful with known side effect profiles since the medications and supplements have been used for many years. Both protocols are based on the premise that early treatment can reduce the risk of long-haul COVID symptoms and the potential to develop severe disease. Most of the therapies are inexpensive and easily purchased over the counter.
The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance[44] also maintains a list of physicians who follow the protocols and provide in-office and telehealth services. I believe one of the most powerful strategies you can use preventively and in early treatment is nebulized hydrogen peroxide.
As the featured study demonstrated, even with store-bought hydrogen peroxide diluted for nasal wash, mouthwash and gargling once daily, you can effectively prevent infection. Although health authorities would like to limit your treatment choices and keep you chained to new and not thoroughly tested drugs where “all the risks are not known at this time,”[45] you have choices and can take control of your health.
Originally published Jul 24, 2022, on Mercola.com
References
[1] Food and Drug Administration, February 11, 2022
[2] Public Citizen, May 7, 2020 para 1
[3] CNBC, June 29, 2020
[4] Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, November 10, 2020, Methods, para 2, page 4
[5] A Special Interview With Dr. Pierre Kory, December 2021, page 2-4
[6] Bitchute, December 8, 2021, 5:30
[7] Bitchute, December 8, 2021
[8] A Special Interview With Dr. Pierre Kory, December 2021, page 2 para 3
[9] Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, June 29, 2022
[10] Journal of Hospital Infection, 2022;126
[11] Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, June 29, 2022
[12] Journal of Hospital Infection, 2022;126
[13] Journal of Hospital Infection, 2021;118 Table 1
[14] BitChute, April 2, 2021
[15] NBC News, September 16, 2013
[16] National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, January 19, 2021
[17] Nature, January 11, 2021
[18] Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases, 2017;80(4)
[19] Food and Drug Administration, February 11, 2022
[20] Endpoint News, June 29, 2022
[21] Endpoint News, June 29, 2022
[22] Food and Drug Administration, February 11, 2022
[23] Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2021;99:19 Findings Median IFR 0.23%
[24] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, June 29, 2022, Table 1
[25] Sharyl Attkisson, July 17, 2020
[26] Fox News, April 9, 2020
[27] American Medical Association, April 22, 2022
[28] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, June 28, 2022
[29] Food and Drug Administration, February 11, 2022
[30] Drugs.com, Bebtelovimab
[31] Fierce Pharma, January 4, 2022
[32] Fierce Pharma, January 4, 2022
[33] Bloomberg April 29, 2022 (Archived)
[34] Bloomberg April 29, 2022 (Archived)
[35] Bloomberg April 29, 2022 (Archived)
[36] CNBC, June 15, 2022
[37] CNN, June 30, 2022
[38] CNN, June 30, 2022
[39] CNN, June 30, 2022
[40] GoodRx, December 22, 2021
[41] Dr. Vladimir Zelenko
[42] Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance
[43] Front Line, COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, Protocols
[44] Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, COVID-19 Care Providers
[45] Drugs.com, Bebtelovimab
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/foreign-metal-like-objects-some-appearing-as-graphene-family-superstructures-found-in-94-percent-of-people-who-took-mrna-vaccines-italian-doctors_4702330.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-09-07&utm_medium=email&est=qi6Pb0Bg2jLX64BOCnBRWetpbssMVfmUYulxFQk3TcglHH1H0z0TuixI3gxhAtLguNGY
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/09/uk-bans-covid-vax-kids-investigation-finds-vaccine-affects-sexual-development-little-boys-video/
There are only so many you can convince to get their genitals mutilated.
Mass sterilization is much more cost effective.
-
I bet he and the Podesta brothers will hit it off!
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1567861469974331392.html
-
great resume :roll:
-
‘Unethical’ and up to 98 Times Worse Than the Disease: Top Scientists Publish Paradigm-Shifting Study About COVID-19 Vaccines
BY JENNIFER MARGULIS AND JOE WANG TIMESEPTEMBER 10, 2022 PRINT
A team of nine experts from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and other top universities has published paradigm-shifting research about the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccines and why mandating vaccines for college students is unethical.
This 50-page study, which was published on The Social Science Research Network at the end of August, analyzed CDC and industry-sponsored data on vaccine adverse events, and concluded that mandates for COVID-19 boosters for young people may cause 18 to 98 actual serious adverse events for each COVID-19 infection-related hospitalization theoretically prevented.
The paper is co-authored by Dr. Stefan Baral, an epidemiology professor at Johns Hopkins University; surgeon Martin Adel Makary, M.D., a professor at Johns Hopkins known for his books exposing medical malfeasance, including “Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Heath Care”; and Dr. Vinay Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist, who is a professor in the UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, as well as the author of over 350 academic and peer-reviewed articles.
But among this team of high-profile international experts who authored this paper, perhaps the most notable is Salmaan Keshavjee, M.D., Ph.D., current Director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Global Health Delivery, and professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Keshavjee has also worked extensively with Partners In Health, a Boston-based non-profit co-founded by the late Dr. Paul Farmer, on treating drug-resistant tuberculosis, according to his online biography.
Risking Disenrollment
As the study pointed out, students at universities in America, Canada, and Mexico are being told they must have a third dose of the vaccines against COVID-19 or be disenrolled. Unvaccinated high school students who are just starting college are also being told the COVID-19 vaccines are “mandatory” for attendance.
These mandates are widespread. There are currently 15 states which continue to honor philosophical (personal belief) exemptions, and 44 states and Washington, D.C. allow religious exemptions to vaccines. But even in these states, private universities are telling parents they will not accept state-recognized vaccine exemptions.
Based on personal interviews with some half a dozen families, The Epoch Times has learned that administrators at some colleges and universities are informing students that they have their own university-employed medical teams to scrutinize the medical exemptions submitted by students and signed by private doctors. These doctors, families are being told, will decide whether the health reasons given are medically valid.
5 Ethical Arguments Against Mandated Boosters
Though rarely reported on in the mainstream media, COVID-19 vaccine boosters have been generating a lot of controversy.
While some countries are quietly compensating people for devastating vaccine injuries, and other countries are limiting COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, the United States is now recommending children 12 and older get Pfizer-BioNTech’s Omicron-specific booster, and young adults over the age of 18 get Moderna’s updated shot.
At the same time, public health authorities in Canada are suggesting Canadians will need COVID-19 vaccines every 90 days.
Against a backdrop of confusing and often changing public health recommendations and booster fatigue, the authors of this new paper argue that university booster mandates are unethical. They give five specific reasons for this bold claim:
1) Lack of policymaking transparency. The scientists pointed out that no formal and scientifically rigorous risk-benefit analysis of whether boosters are helpful in preventing severe infections and hospitalizations exists for young adults.
2) Expected harm. A look at the currently available data shows that mandates will result in what the authors call a “net expected harm” to young people. This expected harm will exceed the potential benefit from the boosters.
3) Lack of efficacy. The vaccines have not effectively prevented transmission of COVID-19. Given how poorly they work—the authors call this “modest and transient effectiveness”—the expected harms caused by the boosters likely outweigh any benefits to public health.
4) No recourse for vaccine-injured young adults. Forcing vaccination as a prerequisite to attend college is especially problematic because young people injured by these vaccines will likely not be able to receive compensation for these injuries.
5) Harm to society. Mandates, the authors insisted, ostracize unvaccinated young adults, excluding them from education and university employment opportunities. Coerced vaccination entails “major infringements to free choice of occupation and freedom of association,” the scientists wrote, especially when “mandates are not supported by compelling public health justification.”
The consequences of non-compliance include being unenrolled, losing internet privileges, losing access to the gym and other athletic facilities, and being kicked out of campus housing, among other things. These punitive approaches, according to the authors, have resulted in unnecessary psychosocial stress, reputation damage, loss of income, and fear of being deported, to name just a few.
22,000 to 30,000 Previously Unaffected Young Adults Must be Vaccinated to Prevent Just 1 Hospitalization
The lack of effectiveness of the vaccines is a major concern to these researchers. Based on their analysis of the public data provided to the CDC, they estimated that between 22,000 and 30,000 previously uninfected young adults would need to be boosted with an mRNA vaccine to prevent just a single hospitalization.
However, this estimate does not take into account the protection conferred by a previous infection. So, the authors insisted, “this should be considered a conservative and optimistic assessment of benefit.”
In other words, the mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 are essentially useless.
Mandated Booster Shots Cause More Harm Than Good
But the documented lack of efficacy is only part of the problem. The researchers further found that per every one COVID-19 hospitalization prevented in young adults who had not previously been infected with COVID-19, the data show that 18 to 98 “serious adverse events” will be caused by the vaccinations themselves.
These events include up to three times as many booster-associated myocarditis in young men than hospitalizations prevented, and as many as 3,234 cases of other side effects so serious that they interfere with normal daily activities.
At a regional hospital in South Carolina, the desk clerk sported a button that read: “I’m Vaccinated Against COVID-19” with a big black check mark on it.
“What about the boosters?” a hospital visitor asked. “It’s starting to seem like we need too many shots.”
“It does seem like a lot,” the clerk agreed. “It’s hard to know what to do.” But she did have some advice for the visitor: “Just keep reading and educating yourself, so you can make an informed decision.”
This new paper is essential reading for anyone trying to decide if they need more vaccines. The authors concluded their study with a call to action. Policymakers must stop mandates for young adults immediately, be sure that those who have already been injured by these vaccines are compensated for the suffering caused by mandates, and openly conduct and share the results of risk-benefit analyses of the vaccines for various age groups.
These measures are necessary, the authors argued, to “begin what will be a long process of rebuilding trust in public health.”
May the Force Be With Brave Scientists
The two co-first authors, Dr. Kevin Bardosh and Allison Krug, both thanked their families for supporting them to “publicly debate Covid-19 vaccine mandates” in the acknowledgments section of the paper.
As we wrote in May, an increasing number of scientists and medical doctors are speaking out about the dubious efficacy and disturbing safety issues surrounding these fast-tracked COVID-19 vaccines. They do so fully aware of the personal and professional risks involved. They deserve our encouragement and support.
-
vaccine should only be given to those at high risk
elderly (me) or those with conditions .
it does save lives in those groups .
-
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/challenge-maintain-worlds-focus-global-040233019.html
with regards to corona
it would never have been unleashed into the world without that Wuhan lab
so instead of helping
gates et al
caused this with very risky research
-
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2022/09/12/101st-airborne-intelligence-official-dies-on-europe-deployment/
"Natural causes"
-
quote author=ccp
with regards to corona
it would never have been unleashed into the world without that Wuhan lab
so instead of helping
gates et al
caused this with very risky research
----------------------------------------
That's right. We never figured out if it was released intentionally on the world or it was released unintentionally. The difference is genocide or negligence with the exact same consequence as genocide. Both are criminal acts killing millions and shutting down civilization. Besides never investigating the Chinese government on this, we never investigated the American involvement. We (taxpayers) financed a lab that was doing "risky research (understatement!) with lax security. But Congress doesn't know and Fauci lied to Congress and retires with full pension.
Once again, why isn't there a recorded vote in Congress anytime the federal government of the United States wants to spend money? Conservatives aren't sufficiently appalled IMHO and liberals actually favor being governed, badly, killed in this case, by technocrats.
Our government's procedures before and reaction after Covid are remarkably the same as that of communist, totalitarian PRC.
-
vaccine should only be given to those at high risk
elderly (me) or those with conditions .
it does save lives in those groups .
Agreed.
"Excess deaths"
"The number of deaths in 2021 was 21% higher than in 2019."
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
I have 3 funerals for sports friends this week, died in their mid-60s. Most likely all were recently vaccinated. No way to know what involvement if any that had - and no one will look into it.
I have no idea, but did gain respect for Aaron Rodgers, Novak Djokavic and people I know who do other things to strengthen their bodies and their immune system.
We shouldn't have put the entire human race under an unknown genetic modification.
-
The PTB will never allow the truth about the damage and deaths inflicted by their policies to come out.
vaccine should only be given to those at high risk
elderly (me) or those with conditions .
it does save lives in those groups .
Agreed.
"Excess deaths"
"The number of deaths in 2021 was 21% higher than in 2019."
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
I have 3 funerals for sports friends this week, died in their mid-60s. Most likely all were recently vaccinated. No way to know what involvement if any that had - and no one will look into it.
I have no idea, but did gain respect for Aaron Rodgers, Novak Djokavic and people I know who do other things to strengthen their bodies and their immune system.
We shouldn't have put the entire human race under an unknown genetic modification.
-
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/exclusive-proof-that-the-top-israeli
-
https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/09/09/well-steal-your-soul-bidens-monkeypox-spox-has-a-penchant-for-pentagrams-occultism-and-satanism/
I bet he and the Podesta brothers will hit it off!
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1567861469974331392.html
-
https://news.yahoo.com/lancet-report-claiming-covid-could-132931783.html
Partisan Democrat self righteous Jeff Sachs
I posted about him yrs ago
after I listened to him give a commencement speech at Lehigh University in '09.
It was when listening to his speech the what LEFT was all about :
one Earth - one nation
climate change is everything
no national borders
Reagan was EVIL
Carter was GOOD
so now I trust him as far as I can spit
this is obvious BS from him to distract from China .
Typical lib
so full of themselves
-
https://khn.org/news/article/new-omicron-targeted-vaccines-authorization/
-
https://khn.org/news/article/new-omicron-targeted-vaccines-authorization/
Now, with faster clotting!
-
https://twitter.com/JesseKellyDC/status/1571573571322773509
Nothing new or horrific...
-
https://gatesofvienna.net/2022/09/the-blood-clots-from-hell/
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/09/21/mrna-shots-are-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving/
Now, they'll kill you with the ClotShot, then say "I was told it was safe".
-
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/09/21/mrna-shots-are-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving/
Now, they'll kill you with the ClotShot, then say "I was told it was safe".
https://www.frontpagemag.com/destroying-women-poisoning-breast-milk-murdering-babies-and-hiding-the-truth/
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/116/448/171/original/f36ea3c5185f5d15.png
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/116/448/171/original/f36ea3c5185f5d15.png)
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/09/washington-post-finally-reports-frontline-doctors-warned-along-covid-vaccine-can-change-timing-menstrual-cycle/
You don't say!
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/117/045/740/original/96b62c501a81adba.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/117/045/740/original/96b62c501a81adba.jpeg)
-
"am I unique"
No but uncommon
and alive
-
"am I unique"
No but uncommon
and alive
Until pericarditis/myocarditis or some clot or a new and exciting cancer shows up.
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/117/190/525/original/54ed8f7b4460fbd3.png
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/117/190/525/original/54ed8f7b4460fbd3.png)
-
got this in email today :
An outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease due to the Sudan virus was declared in Uganda on September 20,2022. There are currently no identified cases in the U.S. or Maryland. The Maryland Department of Health is providing clinical recommendations and resources for healthcare providers for your reference.
-
Has anyone here had COVID lately? If yes, what were the symptoms?
Doc ccp, what are you seeing?
-
Has anyone here had COVID lately? If yes, what were the symptoms?
Doc ccp, what are you seeing?
As far as I know, I have never had it.
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/117/762/222/original/5e6d6bcc91880945.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/117/762/222/original/5e6d6bcc91880945.jpg)
-
I am holding boosting
this time
I am reluctant to get new vaccine with zero human data
some of my colleagues posted articles on FDA and CDC explanations on why human data is not needed to begin recommending people. get it after I posted my concern
but I am not buying this time
I got 4 vaccs
but am not running out to get this latest bivalent one
of note my relative who has diabetes type 1 noticed spikes in her blood sugars after vaccines
she probably recently had corona inf. ( we never checked for sure ) and now her sugars are all over the place
the diabetes specialist said corona infection is very bad for DM 1
so which is worse infection or vaccine
while the med establishment likes to take credit for decrease in deaths from corona being due to people already being infection and vaccine
it is mostly due to the virus circulating now is much less virulent not with regards to contagion
but in regards to severity of illness is causes
just my latest take
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/go-researchers-now-say-video-games-can-cause-heart-attacks-children-get-excited/
Strange how all these heart issues just suddenly manifested in the last few years!
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/022/969/original/ee1a0ca7c099f1d1.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/022/969/original/ee1a0ca7c099f1d1.jpg)
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/022/975/original/12b882f1e074e970.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/022/975/original/12b882f1e074e970.jpg)
-
https://ncrenegade.com/they-really-think-we-are-this-stupid/
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/canadian-doctor-urges-canadian-medical-association-investigate-unusual-death-80-young-doctors-since-vaccine-rollout-800-baseline-expected-number/
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/172/531/original/802eb287602bd580.png
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/172/531/original/802eb287602bd580.png)
-
https://www.foxnews.com/us/boston-university-lethal-covid-strain-lab
Non-existent ethics: There are an awful lot of things going on in bio-medicine that it seems to me we have no business tampering with. Physical gender change for example, and superbugs.
Can't even atheists have some respect for God's creations? If not, maybe a cost benefit analysis?
We didn't want Saddam to do this. We don't want Xi to do it. Why are we doing it?
-
https://www.foxnews.com/us/boston-university-lethal-covid-strain-lab
Non-existent ethics: There are an awful lot of things going on in bio-medicine that it seems to me we have no business tampering with. Physical gender change for example, and superbugs.
Can't even atheists have some respect for God's creations? If not, maybe a cost benefit analysis?
We didn't want Saddam to do this. We don't want Xi to do it. Why are we doing it?
Fauci had to go to the ER after he heard about this. His erection lasted more than four hours.
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/surprise-ecohealth-landed-1-million-grant-work-80-mouse-death-boston-university-future
-
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/10/18/until-proven-otherwise-it-is-likely-covid-mrna-vaccines-played-a-significant-role-in-all-unexplained-heart-attacks-since-2021-renowned-cardiologist/
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/314/739/original/f3a9f259b43b3eee.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/314/739/original/f3a9f259b43b3eee.jpg)
-
the "esteemed" cardiologist from India *may well be full of shit* who plays with the data
as I have stated 100 times is rampant these days:
https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/article-by-cardiologist-aseem-malhotra-made-unsupported-claims-about-benefits-risks-covid-19-vaccination/
-
the "esteemed" cardiologist from India *may well be full of shit* who plays with the data
as I have stated 100 times is rampant these days:
https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/article-by-cardiologist-aseem-malhotra-made-unsupported-claims-about-benefits-risks-covid-19-vaccination/
How did it pass peer review pre-publication?
-
How did it pass peer review pre-publication?
"Journal of Insulin Resistance"
not to my knowledge a top journal ; indeed I never heard of it, but then again there must be hundreds if not thousands of journals I never heard of.
and what does corona vaccines have to do with "insulin resistance"?
-
Thank you CCP!
Presumably the science here is stronger!
=================================
ET
The Science Behind Florida’s Recent Recommendation Against mRNA COVID Vaccines for Men 18–39
HEALTH SCIENCE
Dr. Yuhong Dong
DR. YUHONG DONG
Oct 17 2022
(Shutterstock)
(Shutterstock)
IN-BRIEF
Florida is the first state to recommend against mRNA COVID vaccination of children and men up to age 39, but it joins the UK, Sweden, and Denmark in some regards.
The Florida Department of Health conducted a self-controlled case series (SCCS) with a 25-week observation period, similar to an analysis done in the UK. The Florida study found an elevated risk of cardiac death among men ages 18 to 39 in the 28 days following mRNA COVID vaccination.
Medical literature shows myocarditis after COVID vaccination can be both immediate and severe, with rates as high as 1 in 1,862, for males ages 18–24.
There are several hypotheses about how the spike protein can cause this cardiac damage, particularly in young male populations. A worldwide registry of cases would help shed light on risk factors.
Worry about post-vaccination symptoms can create a negative feedback loop. Instead, try some of these management tips:
To manage anxiety, try taking a deep breath in (count to 4), hold for 4 counts, and slowly exhale for 8 counts. If you have a blood pressure cuff at home, try using biofeedback to watch your blood pressure come down using the same techniques. You will regain confidence in your body’s ability to regulate stress by asking the parasympathetic nervous system to turn off the alarms set off by the sympathetic nervous system.
While the recent guidance from Florida is rather shocking to some in the United States, it is reassuring to see that critical thinking is alive and well. Medicine is not stagnant, nor one-size-fits-all.
Florida surgeon general Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD, announced on Oct. 7, 2022 that the state now recommends against mRNA COVID-19 vaccination of males ages 18 to 39 years given the results of a recent study which found an 84 percent increase in the risk of cardiac death among young adult males within 28 days of mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.
This follows guidance issued in March 2022 recommending against mRNA COVID-19 vaccination of healthy children and adolescents younger than 18. As such, Florida is the only U.S. state to recommend against mRNA vaccination of healthy children and adults, but it joins the U.K., Sweden, and Denmark in removing the recommendation to vaccinate healthy children younger than 11 years (UK) or 18 years (Sweden) and even 50 years (Denmark).
Dr. Ladapo encourages Floridians “to discuss all the potential benefits and risks of receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines with their health care provider.” People in Florida can opt to get their child vaccinated based upon their individual risk tolerance, and this guidance does not preclude families from seeking vaccination through pharmacies and physician offices if desired.
Why?
The Florida Department of Health conducted a self-controlled case series (SCCS) to evaluate the risk of all-cause death and cardiac death after vaccination. The SCCS is an established method employed frequently to assess vaccine-related adverse events. The advantage of this method is that matched controls are not necessary because each case serves as its own control. The study period includes an exposure (vaccination) and follows the case through to the outcome being assessed (death).
The study excluded patients with a known COVID infection, so the findings do not directly compare the relative risk of vaccination versus disease, one of the drawbacks of this study.
However, the question the authors sought to answer is motivated by the fact that at least 67 percent of young adults now have infection-acquired immunity. Compared to the pre-Omicron era when fewer people had already recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection, the landscape of immunity is now different. Most people have immunity through either vaccination, infection, or both.
This makes it hard to detect an overall benefit of vaccination in people who are already low-risk, and likely immune, against the backdrop of a vaccine-associated cardiac risk. In fact, the Florida guidance states as much: “With a high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group.”
Males over 60 years of age had a 10 percent increased risk of cardiac-related death within 28 days of mRNA COVID-19 vaccination, and non-mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were not found to have these increased risks among any population. This study also looked at cardiac mortality among women, but the trends were not statistically significant.
A similar study was conducted in the U.K. and released as a preprint, using nearly identical methods, such as the code on the death certificate (ICD-10 I30-I52) but did not find an elevated risk of cardiac death in young people following mRNA vaccination. The U.K. study did, however, find a risk of cardiac death among the unvaccinated in the risk period after infection. The Florida study restricted its analysis to the vaccinated.
Some other differences in study design are worth noting. First, the Florida study included all fully vaccinated (two doses for an mRNA vaccine) individuals but excluded those with booster doses, whereas the U.K. study included those who were boosted. Second, the U.K. study included ages 12 to 29 whereas the Florida study included ages 18 to 39. Third, the comparison periods were weeks 6 to 12 post-vaccination for the U.K. study and weeks 5–25 post-vaccination for the Florida study. Fourth, the data capture window for the U.K. study was through February 2022, whereas the Florida study closed data capture on June 1, 2022 to allow for a 25-week observation period.
Finally, the baseline and risk periods differed as well. In the U.K. study, the risk period was the 6 weeks after vaccination while in the Florida study, the risk period was the 28 days after vaccination. The shorter risk period in the Florida study should help exclude cardiac issues related to MIS-A (the inflammatory condition which can follow a SARS-CoV-2 infection by 4–6 weeks).
It is uncertain whether the U.K. investigators made an adjustment for the high proportion of incidental infections among those admitted to the hospital. For instance, a cardiac death related to a drug overdose might be coded as a SARS-CoV-2 cardiac death when infection may not have been the underlying cause of death. In these cases, SARS-CoV-2 is considered “incidental” to the death. For instance, on Oct. 11, 2022, the Massachusetts Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard reported that of the 856 COVID-positive hospitalized patients, 293 (34 percent) were hospitalized primarily for COVID-19 (66 percent were incidental).
Both studies are subject to limitations, such as missing data on deaths not registered within the follow-up period. In addition, the U.K. vaccine program used predominantly Pfizer (58 percent) and adenovirus vector (Astra-Zeneca 35 percent) vaccines with very little Moderna (6 percent) administered according to the NHS (as of 28 September 2022).
The United States, in contrast, relied heavily on mRNA (97 percent, including 59 percent Pfizer and 38 percent Moderna); the adenovirus-vectored vaccine (Janssen) accounted for only 3 percent of doses administered according to Statista (as of September 2022). Such a dramatic difference in mRNA vaccination usage may be a factor to consider when comparing study outcomes.
Finally, the U.K. National Health Service recommended an extended dosing interval for the primary series (12 weeks) which is thought to reduce the risk of myocarditis, and did not begin offering vaccination to adolescents until September 2021, whereas the United States began recommending vaccination in May 2021, thus potentially limiting the observation period for capturing rare events in the U.K.
Taking these methodological factors into consideration, epidemiologist Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD, says “It’s important to keep in mind that, although the Florida study found an 84 percent increase in relative incidence of cardiovascular deaths in males 18–39 post mRNA vaccine, the total number of excess cases was in the single digits, so we are not talking about a large number of deaths (though of course all deaths are a tragedy, especially of young people). It is far from conclusive whether or not these deaths were attributable to the vaccine due to the uncertainties outlined well in the analysis.” Dr. Høeg provides additional perspective on how this study fits with the current literature on cardiac risk following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination in a recent commentary.
Dr. Høeg has collaborated on several vaccine-associated myocarditis research projects, including serving as senior author, along with Allison Krug, MPH and Josh Stevenson, on a stratified risk-benefit analysis of mRNA vaccination in adolescents ages 12–17.
“The confidence interval on the (Florida cardiac mortality) estimate was also wide and the lower end was very close to 1,” she explains, “so we may just be talking about a couple of deaths that created this signal. We also don’t have information on whether or not there were excess deaths after the 28 day ‘risk period’ due to the design of the study. The signal of increased cardiac death risk post-mRNA vaccine should be taken seriously, particularly because of what we know about the risk of post-vaccination myocarditis, but this study should only be used in the context of other studies and other lines of evidence.”
One should also note that the Florida study did not include booster doses nor adolescents younger than 18 years. When looking at vaccine-associated myocarditis (heart inflammation) we note that excess risk is associated with the primary series in younger adolescent males, a concern which prompted Florida’s March 2022 guidance against vaccinating healthy children and adolescents younger than 18 years.
The CDC has reported 200.3 per million post-booster myocarditis risk in males ages 16 to 17 (or 1 in 5000, VSD data, slide 25), higher than ages 18-29 (47.6 to 70.3 per million, slide 34). A potentially useful follow-on study might consider expanding the Florida age groups down to 12 years as the U.K. did and include boosters as exposures in addition to primary series doses.
Clinical Evidence Supports This Guidance
The data thus far on cardiac outcomes following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination are compelling for myocarditis among males younger than 40 years, both with the primary series and booster. Rates of myopericarditis after the second mRNA COVID-19 vaccination dose are 1 in 2650 among males 12–17 and 1 in 1862 among males ages 18–24. After the booster among males ages 18–39, the rate is 1 in 7000.
Although media reports of myopericarditis frequently describe cases as “mild” with rapid recovery, the published literature—including from the CDC—demonstrate otherwise. A 22-year-old Korean man developed chest pain 5 days after the first dose of BNT162b2 (Pfizer) vaccination and died of autopsy-confirmed myocarditis in 7 hours. Even among those hospitalized then discharged, the long-term prognosis of myocarditis with respect to sudden cardiac death or all-cause mortality is not yet known. Several follow-up case series and survey studies have found concerning rates of persistent inflammation on cardiac MRI in approximately 70-80 percent of cases 3–8 months later.
In a recent CDC VAERS study published in The Lancet, 93 percent of myocarditis cases were hospitalized, one in four were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and one was put on the most invasive life-saving equipment available (ECMO).
Cardiologist Anish Koka, MD, reviewed the CDC paper and finds the conclusions all but reassuring. “The current study should dispel the ludicrous notion that clinical myocarditis—a disease entity that comes to light when you have chest pain because cells in your heart are dying—is mild.”
By a minimum of 90 days (median 143 days) after initial hospitalization, a third of patients were not fully recovered, 31 percent had activity restrictions, and 26 percent were still on cardiac medications (beta blockers and colchicine, predominantly).
Cardiologist Sanjay Verma, MD, FACC, concurs in a recent commentary on CDC’s findings. “It is important to note that on follow-up, 50 percent of children still had symptoms, a staggering 60 percent were lost to follow-up or were excluded from analysis, and 80 percent had no prior underlying health concerns.”
Basic Research Evidence and Hypotheses Regarding Cardiac Damage
Why are both disease and vaccination a risk? And why might vaccination be a particular risk in the younger population?
The spike protein gains entry to the cell via a transmembrane protein (TMPRSS2) and the ACE2 receptor, which is expressed in the airways, the gut, heart, liver, blood vessels, and kidneys.
Research during the past two years has elucidated several hypotheses related to the direct and indirect impacts of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein on the heart and microvasculature. An exaggerated immune response may also play a role in cardiac injury. This affinity of the spike protein for ACE2 also explains why SARS-CoV-2 can have broad systemic effects if the immune system is not able to stop it in its tracks quickly.
Infection-related cardiac injury
Direct cardiac damage and abnormal cardiac rhythms can occur with even a mild SARS-CoV-2 infection. Two studies of heart rhythm found evidence of cell-to-cell spread via spike protein-mediated fusion (syncytia) in the heart, allowing the virus to spread surreptitiously from cell to cell.
Following the death of a young 3-month postpartum, 35-year-old Hispanic woman after a week of mild fever, evaluation of the myocardium found evidence of cardiomyocytes with SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein in linearly arrayed t-tubules. The investigators hypothesized that the woman’s sudden cardiac death was caused by immune cells carrying SARS-CoV-2 to the myocardium. Intercellular connections created by the spike glycoprotein created membrane fusions which then triggered abnormal electrophysiological activity and a fatal arrhythmia.
To further explore these arrhythmias, another study used pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes to detect specific abnormalities related to the formation of spike-mediated syncytia. The infected cells produced multinucleated giant cells (syncytia) with increased cellular capacitance (the ability to store an electrical charge). The syncytia also showed CA2+ handling abnormalities, including sparks and large “tsunami”-like waves.
In another SCCS study among the U.K. population, Pantone, et al., found an increased risk of arrhythmias following SARS-CoV-2 infection, particularly among people ages 40 and older. This study also evaluated the risk of arrhythmias following vaccination, stratified by age <40 years or 40+ years. In short, the relative risks of cardiac rhythm abnormalities associated with infection increased with age, while those for vaccination decreased with age (Supplemental table 3a).
The spike protein may also affect the microvasculature by causing disruptions to the pericytes (cells involved in contracting blood vessels). In an in vitro study, exposure to the spike protein caused signaling and functional alterations which suggest that the spike protein may prompt pericyte dysfunction and contribute to microvascular injury.
Infection can also cause indirect cardiac injury through an exaggerated cytokine response resulting in an autoimmune attack on the heart. In a laboratory study which treated cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells) with spike protein, the cardiomyocytes did not demonstrate increased apoptosis (cell death). Instead, the investigators found “significantly suppressed viability” when the cardiomyocytes were exposed to peripheral blood mononuclear cells (lymphocytes, including T cells, B cells and natural killer (NK) cells) pre-conditioned with exposure to spike protein. In other words—they tried seeing if the cardiomyocytes died upon exposure to spike protein directly, or if they died following exposure to cytokines primed by contact with the spike protein. The investigators concluded that SARS-CoV-2 infection may cause heart injury indirectly through over-activated cytokines.
Vaccination-associated cardiac injury
Other research to elucidate the pathway by which mRNA COVID-19 vaccination might increase the risk of myopericarditis among young males focuses on the role of catecholamines.
While this hypothesis requires further investigation, a scoping review of the literature found concluded that “The epidemiological, autopsy, molecular, and physiological findings unanimously and strongly suggest a hypercatecholaminergic state is the critical trigger of the rare cases of myocarditis due to components from SARS-CoV-2, potentially increasing sudden deaths among elite male athletes.”
This elevated catecholaminergic state is potentiated by mRNA spike protein produced in the adrenal medulla chromaffin cells (responsible for catecholamine production). This leads to enhanced noradrenaline activity which is associated with a higher resting catecholamine production in male athletes and increased sensitivity in the presence of androgens.
In other words, the increased risk of myocarditis among young males strongly suggests an androgenic (male sex hormone) link coupled with the established effects of spike protein on the cardiac myocytes. Taken together, this intriguing hypothesis suggests that, in addition to age and sex, androgen expression and athletic activity may predispose the occurrence of myopericarditis following mRNA vaccination.
Another theory was explored in a study of antibody-mediated heart inflammation conducted by German doctors among a group of 61 patients, 40 of whom were found to have biopsy-confirmed myocarditis following SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination. Young age (<21 years) seemed to be correlated with presence of anti–IL1-RA antibodies: 9 of 12 patients (75 percent) under 21 had the antibodies compared with 3 of 28 patients (11 percent) 21 years or older.
These antibodies were not found in patients lacking evidence of myocarditis. Presence of these antibodies seemed to be associated with early onset of symptoms, generally after dose two of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, and a milder course of myocarditis compared to those who were lacking the antibodies.
Why might age be a factor?
Systemic adverse events (reactogenicity) following vaccination include fever, muscle aches, headache and other systemic effects which disrupt daily activities. Due to the waning vigor of the immune system with age (called immune senescence), reactogenicity has been found to be higher among younger adults (<50 years).
Mixing products from different manufacturers (heterologous dosing) also increases reactogenicity, ostensibly because the difference in antigens between manufacturers stimulates the immune system. Systemic adverse events also appear to be twice as likely if the person had SARS-CoV-2 previously because the ancestral vaccine antigen is not only different than the most recent viral exposure, the vaccine is serving as a booster on top of immunity derived from infection.
Another study conducted among healthcare workers found that prior SARS-CoV-2 infection tripled the risk of a systemic reaction disrupting work or daily activities after the first dose. These considerations underscore the importance of carefully weighing risks and benefits of vaccination according to age, history of infection, and underlying health status.
Although the precise mechanism of cardiac injury following infection and vaccination is not fully understood, the following trends are generally supported by the literature: 1) cardiac damage following infection tends to increase with age; 2) cardiac damage following vaccination tends to be higher among those younger than 40 years, and males in particular; 3) younger age increases the likelihood of systemic adverse effects disrupting work and daily activities.
Other Contributory Factors to Sudden Death
Several other lines of research are exploring factors which may contribute to sudden death, such as foreign materials and fibrous clot formation following vaccination. The pandemic has contributed to global cooperation in health research at an unprecedented level, opening doors to collaboration on research related to vaccine safety as well.
To this end, an important contribution to understanding the etiology of myopericarditis and cardiac mortality would be to establish a registry of cases worldwide. Such a registry would facilitate research regarding potential risk factors beyond age and sex.
For instance, if androgens are important to catecholamine expression, what role might T-boosting (testosterone replacement therapy) among young male athletes and bodybuilders play in vaccine-associated myopericarditis or sudden cardiac death? Does exertion exacerbate cardiac injury and arrhythmias? What about genetic markers, such as HLA haplotype?
Suggestions for Those Struggling with Anxiety
Those who were anxious about vaccination may be particularly worried about post-vaccination side effects. This can create an unfortunate negative feedback loop, inducing more stress, anxiety, and even a panic attack. The symptoms associated with panic—chest pain, tightness, shortness of breath, and heart palpitations—can be difficult for a patient to tease apart from cardiac concerns.
The following general advice about managing anxiety in no way serves as medical guidance following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination adverse events. It is important to seek care immediately if you have any adverse reactions following vaccination of any kind.
To manage anxiety, try drawing a deep breath in (count to 4 while inhaling), hold your breath for 4 counts, and slowly exhale for 8 counts. If you have a blood pressure cuff at home, try using this method to bring your blood pressure down. You will regain confidence in your body’s ability to regulate stress by asking the parasympathetic nervous system to turn off the alarms set off by the sympathetic nervous system.
Muscle aches, headache, and other complaints (such as fever) can be treated with over-the-counter pain relief. These symptoms affect at least 1 in 3 people who receive an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, and are more common among those younger than 50 years, those who received different brands (heterologous dosing), or have previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2 (most of us at this point).
Get enough rest, eat well, avoid caffeine, and do something enjoyable and distracting (humor is important!).
Remember that your own brain can produce some of the most powerful neurotransmitters on the planet. Getting together with loved ones or friends and having a good laugh releases oxytocin. Eating dinner with a glass of wine releases dopamine (so does exercise or doing something challenging that requires focus). If playing a strategy game helps you unwind, do that. Listen to a podcast, or perhaps if you are learning a second language, try listening to a podcast in your target language. Simple activities like mowing the lawn, weeding, walking the dog, doing a crossword puzzle or playing Wordle can be meditative, too.
Perspective
The value of mRNA COVID-19 vaccination is in reducing death among those at highest risk, especially those with immunocompromising conditions or the most elderly. Strategic boosting of those at highest risk is the way forward, according to Paul Offit, M.D., Director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In a recent discussion on This Week in Virology he advocates focusing on the elderly, those living in long term care facilities and those with immunocompromising conditions. A study conducted in Sweden supports this approach: a booster dose provided 40 percent to 70 percent reductions in all-cause mortality among the most frail during the Omicron wave.
While the recent guidance from Florida is rather shocking to some in the United States, it is reassuring to see that critical thinking is alive and well in policy formation. It is uncomfortable to reconsider past policy in the light of new evidence, but this is what medicine is all about—it is not a stagnant, formulaic practice. The pandemic has taught us that rigid, binary thinking and one-size-fits-all policy sometimes causes unintended harms. It is time to move past a rigid, narrow focus on eliminating COVID-19, conduct properly powered clinical trials, make person-level trial data available for independent research on adverse events, and open risk-benefit analyses to public scrutiny before public health policy decisions are made.
Not all high-tech are wise to deploy.
Not all viruses need a vaccine.
Not all vaccines are good or protective.
Not everyone needs a vaccine.
References
https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20221007-guidance-mrna-covid19-vaccines-doc.pdf
http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/press-release-assets/g2-jtr_QWBT4hJpqr_20220308-1923.pdf
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/top-causes-of-death-in-us-during-covid-19-pandemic_4646957.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/are-recombinant-covid-vaccines-related-to-these-deaths_4445732.html
Cardiac death studies:
Florida study: 20221007-guidance-mrna-covid19-vaccines-analysis.pdf (floridahealthcovid19.gov)
UK Study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.22.22272775v1.full.pdf
Clinical Evidence:
Follow-up cardiac magnetic resonance in children with vaccine-associated myocarditis – PubMed (nih.gov)
Clinically Suspected Myocarditis Temporally Related to COVID-19 Vaccination in Adolescents and Young Adults: Suspected Myocarditis After COVID-19 Vaccination – PubMed (nih.gov)
Cardiovascular magnetic resonance techniques and findings in children with myocarditis: a multicenter retrospective study – PMC (nih.gov)
Outcomes at least 90 days since onset of myocarditis after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in adolescents and young adults in the USA: a follow-up surveillance study (thelancet.com)
Persistent Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings in a Cohort of Adolescents with Post-Coronavirus Disease 2019 mRNA Vaccine Myopericarditis – The Journal of Pediatrics (jpeds.com)
The latest CDC paper on vaccine myocarditis is NOT reassuring (substack.com)
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” | by Sanjay Verma, MD FACC | Sep, 2022 | Medium
IL-1RA Antibodies in Myocarditis after SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination (nejm.org)
Basic Research Evidence:
SARS-CoV-2 direct cardiac damage through spike- mediated cardiomyocyte fusion
B-AB18-03 SARS-COV-2 DIRECT CARDIAC DAMAGE THROUGH SPIKE-MEDIATED CARDIOMYOCYTE FUSION MAY CONTRIBUTE TO INCREASED ARRHYTHMIC RISK IN COVID-19 – Heart Rhythm
Risks of myocarditis, pericarditis, and cardiac arrhythmias associated with COVID-19 vaccination or SARS-CoV-2 infection
https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41591-021-01630-0/MediaObjects/41591_2021_1630_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
The SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein disrupts human cardiac pericytes function through CD147 receptor-mediated signalling: a potential non-infective mechanism of COVID-19 microvascular disease – PMC
The S Protein of SARS-CoV-2 Injures Cardiomyocytes Indirectly through the Release of Cytokines Instead of Direct Action – PMC
Catecholamines Are the Key Trigger of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine-Induced Myocarditis: A Compelling Hypothesis Supported by Epidemiological, Anatomopathological, Molecular, and Physiological Findings
https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMc2205667?articleTools=true&fbclid=IwAR3WoaKiB0nH8x4-mxBLPJPBp04ZPp9dulcntNid6mx2WSzPCOB7u74RA9g
Real-world data shows increased reactogenicity in adults after heterologous compared to homologous prime-boost COVID-19 vaccination, March−June 2021, England – PMC
Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccine Type and Adverse Effects Following Vaccination
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00194-2/fulltext
Dr. Yuhong Dong
Dr. Yuhong Dong
MD, PHD
Dr. Yuhong Dong, a medical doctor who also holds a doctorate in infectious diseases, is the chief scientific officer and co-founder of a Swiss biotech company and former senior medical scientific expert for antiviral drug development at Novartis Pharma in Switzerland.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/6-main-factors-increase-risk-of-covid-19-vaccine-injury_4805558.html?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2022-10-21&src_cmp=health-2022-10-21&utm_medium=email&est=Jkz9gg17i6CuU8VHbO1pU5mafqidshmtx6IODFHlpneS4Dx4N6dZ70wQYuLdRF01l02n
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/scientists-doctors-parents-speak-out-about-harms-of-covid-19-vaccines_4802738.html?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2022-10-21&src_cmp=health-2022-10-21&utm_medium=email&est=sVaBoSvI3NF2CvDlGGsn3WLU4lQNsNr%2Brfx3EWagIdHW7GCLEVIZRn6Ef8Nst9Bn%2BAVb
-
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-authorities-are-our-enemies/
-
From the article, this point in particular:
"Adding the mRNA shots to the official vaccine schedule will make permanent the liability shield their makers enjoy under the current emergency use authorization (EUA). Pfizer and Moderna are now off-the-hook for any responsibility, unless fraud over the vaxxes is proven in a court of law."
-
"Presumably the science here is stronger!"
yes. thank you.
good information
better analysis more objective of the "data"
good example as the often difficulty in interpreting the "data"
sometimes it is a never ending cycle
study done - leads to more questions then answers - conclusion - >. we need more studies !
Like Bill O'Reilly stated last night - he (and I got 4 shots) but we both are not (for now) getting the 5th bivalent shot
-
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/deborah-birx-covid-wuhan/2022/10/28/id/1093921/
of course the tie-less wonder boy
Jake Tapper
had Fauci come on immediately to bash the report and any Republican they could think of at the same time
Fauci:
reviewed to evolutionary viral papers in high grade peer review journals and they both conclude the covid 19 did not start in lab
me:
fauci is a lying little shit
of course it was a leak from the lab ......
jake the snake of course does NOT ask :
"so why did the Chinese cover it up and destroy or hide the evidence "
Just because Fauci and some evolutionary virologists can claim it did not lead from a lab
does not mean it did not leak from a lab that does that research , gain of function research , with CCP military ties, reports that lab workers got sick
the outbreak spread from Wuhan
and then to to world, that Fauci funded some research at same lab, that he is on record of saying gain of function research is worth the risk ( thanks douche bag)
and he himself has been covering for the Chinese from day one (and himself)
-
Another new study - yes, a SECOND one - says the "Omicron-specific" mRNA Covid boosters are worthless
ALEX BERENSON
OCT 31
SAVE
For the second time in a week, top scientists have reported that “Omicron specific” Covid mRNA boosters are a $5 billion taxpayer-financed marketing gimmick.
The new shots work no better than the original mRNA shots to produce antibodies specifically targeting the Omicron variant.
And the Omicron shots are even WORSE than the original boosters in producing T-cells that target Omicron, according to the researchers, part of a group led by Dr. Dan Barouch, a highly respected virologist. This finding is of particular concern because T-cells, the second line of the immune system, keep infections from becoming too severe.
—
Boosters using the original mRNA formulation have been largely phased out, because - as public health bureaucrats now admit - they stop working against Omicron infection within weeks. In fact, real-world data from many countries suggest they increase the risk of infection within months.
The “Omicron-specific” boosters were supposed to solve that problem. Regulators approved them in August, despite a lack of any clinical trial evidence they reduced coronavirus infections or serious cases of Covid in people. The Federal government agreed to pay Pfizer and Moderna $5 billion for 171 million doses of them.
But both Dr. Barouch’s study and another last week from Dr. David Ho, another top virologist, found that Omicron-specific boosters work no better than the original boosters against Omicron. Both studies showed the antibodies our immune systems produce after the Omicron shot are more effective against the original and now essentially extinct version of Sars-Cov-2 than against Omicron variants.
This phenomenon is called “original antigenic sin” or “immune imprinting,” and can occur after any vaccination - or infection. But the mRNA shots appear particularly likely to cause it, probably because they stimulate such high levels of anti-spike antibodies when they are first given.
The findings help explain why so many people, including Centers for Disease Control director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, have recently tested positive shortly after being boosted.
But Dr. Barouch’s group went further than Dr. Ho’s, examining T-cells as well. It found the same problem; following both the Omicron and the old booster, T-cells focused much more on the original Sars-Cov-2 than Omicron variants.
T-cells are a crucial second line of immune defense, helping the body keep infections from becoming too severe. Because Omicron is not very dangerous to most people, so a weak T-cell response does not matter much against it. But if a future Sars-Cov-2 variant is more dangerous, the relative lack of a T-cell response could put vaccinated people may be at serious risk.
(Bivalent is a fancy word for “Omicron-specific.” Except the Omicron-specific booster isn’t Omicron-specific at all, which is why T-cells targeting Omicron hardly rise at all following the bivalent booster, while they more than double after the original booster.)
As the researchers concluded:
Our findings suggest that immune imprinting by prior antigenic exposure may pose a greater challenge than currently appreciated for inducing robust immunity to SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Such a polite way to say, we gave a billion-plus people mRNA shots that probably opened them to future Sars-Cov-2 infections forever.
No worries! Lessons learned and all that.
-
Pandora's Box.
Come without a shadow, leave without a trace.
JOHN ELLIS
OCT 29, 2022
ProPublica:
Like many scientific institutes in China, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is state-run and funded. The research carried out there must advance the goals of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). As one way to ensure compliance, the CCP operates 16 party branches inside of the WIV, where members including scientists meet regularly and demonstrate their loyalty.
Week after week, scientists from those branches chronicled their party-building exploits in reports uploaded to the WIV’s website. These dispatches, intended for watchful higher-ups, generally consist of upbeat recitations of recruitment efforts and meeting summaries that emphasize the fulfillment of Beijing’s political goals. “The headlines and initial paragraphs seem completely innocuous,” Reid says. “If you didn’t take a close look, you’d probably think there’s nothing in here.”
But much like imperfect propaganda, the dispatches hold glimmers of real life: tension among colleagues, abuse from bosses, reprimands from party superiors. The grievances are often couched in a narrative of heroism — a focus on problems overcome and challenges met, against daunting odds.
As (US Senate investigator Toy Reid) burrowed into the party branch dispatches, he became riveted by the unfolding picture. They described intense pressure to produce scientific breakthroughs that would elevate China’s standing on the world stage, despite a dire lack of essential resources. Even at the BSL-4 lab, they repeatedly lamented the problem of “the three ‘nos’: no equipment and technology standards, no design and construction teams, and no experience operating or maintaining [a lab of this caliber].”
And then, in the fall of 2019, the dispatches took a darker turn. They referenced inhumane working conditions and “hidden safety dangers.” On Nov. 12 of that year, a dispatch by party branch members at the BSL-4 laboratory appeared to reference a biosecurity breach.
“Once you have opened the stored test tubes, it is just as if having opened Pandora’s Box. These viruses come without a shadow and leave without a trace. Although [we have] various preventive and protective measures, it is nevertheless necessary for lab personnel to operate very cautiously to avoid operational errors that give rise to dangers. Every time this has happened, the members of the Zhengdian Lab [BSL4] Party Branch have always run to the frontline, and they have taken real action to mobilize and motivate other research personnel.”
Reid studied the words intently. Was this a reference to past accidents? An admission of an ongoing crisis? A general recognition of hazardous practices? Or all of the above? Reading between the lines, Reid concluded, “They are almost saying they know Beijing is about to come down and scream at them.”
And that, in fact, is exactly what happened next, according to a meeting summary uploaded nine days later. (Read the rest. Source: propublica.org)
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/nov/24/gop-won-3-million-more-votes-this-year-but-not-whe/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=yaLIW176BXiN6knoGefNpzFo0h5Xwx3g2GrozSmuAgLRwi%2FAO0KaVGg9hZNDZ%2BLM&bt_ts=1669312393928
-
"Intelligence is the amount of time it takes to forget a lesson."
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/zombie-virus-reanimated-after-50000-years-siberian-permafrost?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1101
"Life is tough. It is tougher when you are stupid."
What could go wrong?
-
second
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/3130328/important-europe-update-read-this-series-of-messages
-
and they even name it this to boot:
***Pandoravirus*** yedoma
:-o
-
Someone has a warped sense of humor , , ,
Anyway, here is this:
================
Vaccinated People Make Up Majority of COVID-19 Deaths: CDC Data
COVID-19
Marina Zhang
Marina Zhang
Dec 1 2022
biggersmaller
A medical worker treats an intubated unvaccinated 40 year old patient who is suffering from the effects of Covid-19 in the ICU at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut on January 18, 2022. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
A medical worker treats an intubated unvaccinated 40 year old patient who is suffering from the effects of Covid-19 in the ICU at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut on January 18, 2022. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
0:00
9:36
1
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that vaccinated and boosted people made up most of the COVID-19 deaths in August.
Of the total 6,512 deaths recorded in August 2022, 58.6 percent of the deaths were attributed to vaccinated or boosted people, and seem to be a sign of a growing trend where vaccinated individuals are increasingly becoming the majority in COVID-19 mortalities.
In January 2022, COVID-19 mortalities in the vaccinated was still the minority with 41 percent of the data related to vaccinated or boosted individuals.
However, analysis of the CDC data from June and July showed over 50 percent of deaths were being reported in vaccinated individuals, with 62 and 61 percent reported respectively.
“We can no longer say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Cynthia Cox, the vice-president of the Kaiser Family Foundation told the Washington Post in an article dated Nov. 23.
Epoch Times Photo
COVID mortality data from September 2021 to August 2022 (Courtesy of the Kaiser Family Foundation)
Cox, while in support of COVID-19 vaccination, gave three reasons that may explain why.
One was that the majority of Americans have at least been given the primary series. Her second reason is that elderly, who have the greatest risk of dying from COVID, are also more likely to take up vaccinations.
Cox’s final reason was that the potency of the vaccine will wane over time and as variants become more resistant, and therefore recommended more booster uptake.
COVID-19 vaccinations has been shown to wane dramatically over the period of a few months, sometimes falling into negligible efficacy.
Professor Jeffrey Townsend from Yale University, biostatistician, and lead author to a research study evaluating natural and vaccinated immunity against COVID-19, wrote in an email to The Epoch Times that at this stage in the pandemic, rather than comparing the vaccinated against the unvaccinated, it is more helpful to look at an individual’s time since last exposure instead, with exposures meaning vaccinations or infections.
“Most people have had some kind of exposure, the time since last exposure, along with what the last exposure was, dictates the level of immunity and can explain most variation in susceptibility, morbidity, and mortality,” Townsend wrote.
Long term studies on immunity against COVID-19 have shown that whether a person is vaccinated or infected with COVID-19, their immunity wanes over time, though research that compared natural immunity with vaccinations often showed that vaccination tend to wane at a much higher rate than that of natural infection.
Some scientists also posited that mRNA vaccines may interfere with the body’s natural immune response. Since the current technology used in mRNA vaccines may “hide the mRNA from cellular defenses and promote a longer biological half-life and high production of spike protein,” according to a June 2022 paper published in Food and Chemical Toxicology. The spike protein is the main pathogenic part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Clinicians Question ‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated’ Narrative
Internal medical physician and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough told The Epoch Times that the pandemic was only driven by the unvaccinated in 2020, where there were no vaccines available, and from 2021 it was mostly the vaccinated people who were dying from COVID-19. He reasoned that it is simply because the vaccine did little to control mortality.
“[The CDC data] is far too late in drawing that conclusion, [the vaccinated] probably assumed the majority sometime during 2021,” said McCullough.
In 2020, more than 385,000 COVID deaths were documented by the CDC, whereas in 2021, when vaccinations were rolling out, there were more than 463,000 COVID-19 deaths.
By June of 2021, around 53 percent of the U.S. population had received their first dose and 44 percent were fully vaccinated.
Yet there was little difference in COVID-19 mortality cases between the first half of 2021 and the second half, with over 244,000 cases (more than 50 percent of the whole year) reported from July to December.
“It certainly can’t be a situation where we blame the unvaccinated for COVID deaths. And we certainly wouldn’t conclude that the vaccines made any impact on us as the majority of deaths happened during the era of vaccinations,” said McCullough.
Data from other countries have also demonstrated higher rates of vaccinated patients being hospitalized with COVID as vaccination rates overall rose.
As early as January 2022, hospitalization data coming out from the state of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia showed that a greater proportion of hospitalized patients were vaccinated. The vaccinated contributed to 50.3 percent of ICU presentations as compared to the 49.1 percent who were unvaccinated.
NSW was the only state that continued to track and publicize the vaccine status of the people being hospitalized in Australia. It is one of the most vaccinated places; by Nov. 24, over 80 percent of people over the age of 16 received their first boosters.
The most recent weekly data from NSW continued to show that the vaccinated make up the majority of COVID hospitalizations, ICU admission, and deaths. The most recent report, dated to Nov. 12, showed that unvaccinated patients contributed to 21 percent of COVID deaths, and less than 1 percent of hospitalizations and ICU admissions.
However, it should be noted that there was only 24 cases of COVID deaths reported in the report, with 440 hospitalizations and 40 ICU admissions, suggestive of a decline in disease severity.
Mortality data from Manitoba in Canada in the week July 31 to Aug. 6, 2022 also showed that while the boosted population made up 70 percent of all COVID mortalities, the unvaccinated contributed to less than 10 percent of deaths. This is with 43 percent of the population boosted.
Reports out of the UK also showed similar findings. A report (pdf) published on March 31, 2022 showed that almost 73 percent of COVID mortalities were in boosted individuals while 10 percent were attributed to unvaccinated people. At the time, over 57 percent of the population received a booster shot and 73 percent received their primary doses.
Unvaccinated Mortality Rates May Not Reflect the Whole Picture
McCullough added that with the decrease in overall disease severity with Omicron, the data may not present an accurate understanding on COVID deaths.
“The CDC death data has to be interpreted with caution, because they’re not adjudicated as dying of COVID. They can actually die with COVID.”
The CDC’s website currently estimates that only 10 percent of COVID-19 deaths have COVID as the contributor of deaths. Therefore, there may be cases counted as a COVID mortality even if COVID was not the primary driver for the death.
McCullough gave the example that a person may be admitted to the hospital for a heart attack and test positive on the COVID test from having contracted the disease 6 months ago.
This could imply that, for some deaths, “whether they’re vaccinated or unvaccinated is relatively irrelevant,” said McCullough.
McCullough said that studies that assess COVID hospitalizations but do not adjudicate for COVID diseases or respiratory illnesses may also not be directly reflective on the prevalence or significance of COVID diseases.
“Patients can be intermittently positive for COVID for many months after the illness. So if a patient comes in for an ankle sprain or unrelated problem, they can count it as COVID hospitalization.”
McCullough also warned that hospital studies on disease outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals often collected vaccine data that was unsynchronized with the U.S. vaccine administration record.
“The hospital electronic medical records assume that the patient is unvaccinated unless the patient really makes the case that they are indeed vaccinated. Many patients who are on the ventilator are in the ICU, they can’t produce their vaccine card.” The CDC’s MMWR reports list people who were vaccinated but received their two primary shots less than 14 days before the initial infection as unvaccinated; another report wrote that unvaccinated also included people who could not be matched to the registry.
Correction: The Epoch Times cited percentage in COVID deaths where COVID is the sole morbidity, rather than percentage of COVID-contributed mortality. The percentage has been updated to 10 percent. The Epoch Times regret this error.
-
Author has a weak resume:
========================
Trading COVID for Heart Disease Buys You Both
HEALTH VIEWPOINTS
Colleen Huber
Colleen Huber
Dec 1 2022
biggersmaller
(Explode/Shutterstock)
(Explode/Shutterstock)
The COVID vaccines are alarmingly and irredeemably unsafe, as well as ineffective for the advertised purposes. Here is the proof.
It is increasingly recognized by physicians, scientists and laypeople throughout the world that the COVID-19 vaccines are neither safe nor effective nor reversible, and I will provide the proof in this paper. Adults, youth, parents, scientists and especially healthcare workers, first responders and other frontline workers are aware, in ever greater numbers, that the vaccines were authorized by the FDA under “emergency use authorization,” but that there has obviously been no emergency that warrants their use, and I say that for the following reason.
US mortality data at the end of 2020 did not support the allegation of a pandemic, because there was no more of an outlying peak in excess deaths in 2020 than other peaks throughout the past two decades. The CDC shows that 3,382,000 people died from all causes in the US in 2020, [1] remaining at about one percent of the total population, as in each of the previous three years, in which there was no pandemic. Notably, December 2020 had by far the highest deaths of any month in 2020 in the US, 32% higher than the average of the previous 11 months of what had been advertised to be the worst pandemic in a century, but in fact had no more than typical numbers of deaths in the US during that alleged pandemic. December 2020 was also the month that the vaccines became available to the public. The last two weeks of 2020 and early 2021 has shown striking excess deaths, and the COVID vaccine was the new factor, beginning the same week as excess deaths. Furthermore, January to November 2020 show an average of 274,000 deaths in the US per month, but since December 2020, according to the same CDC tables of data, the average deaths per month has jumped to 292,000. I will show in this paper that this increase in deaths in the US is most likely due to the new COVID vaccines that became available in December 2020, the same months deaths in the US significantly increased.
The Pfizer COVID vaccines first became available for mass vaccination in the US on December 14, 2020, followed by the Moderna vaccine a few days later. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine would not become available till February 27, 2021. As soon as the earlier vaccines became distributed en masse, the total number of deaths per week for the rest of 2020 from all causes in the US jumped from over 63,340 to over 84,896 which is a 34% increase, unlikely to be attributable to any other cause but the vaccines.
It can be seen from the CDC data, that the deaths per week in the US in each of the first seven weeks following the Pfizer and Moderna rollout all exceeded even the deadliest weeks of 2020 (the two weeks ending April 11 and April 18 of 2020).[2] This should be enough to make anyone hesitant about the vaccines, and logically, more fearful of the vaccines than of COVID. In this paper, I will share more published data and the latest scientific understanding of why the COVID vaccines are alarmingly and irredeemably unsafe, as well as ineffective for the advertised purposes of reducing COVID transmission, incidence, morbidity or mortality, with the understanding that the advertised purposes and media publicity surrounding the vaccines have changed for each of those four aforementioned goals during the time of their availability, and even with accelerating reversal.
The COVID Vaccines Have Negative Efficacy, and What That Means
The COVID vaccines are so ineffective against COVID that they have negative efficacy. I will explain what that is. Negative efficacy means that you have a greater likelihood of infection and / or hospitalization from COVID after having received the vaccine than not receiving it. The COVID vaccines have not only failed to reduce cases and hospitalizations from Omicron and COVID generally, but they have actually increased the incidence of both. Results of negative efficacy of the COVID vaccines are seen all over the world. Here is data to prove that:
Analysis of data from 145 countries shows that the COVID vaccines cause more COVID cases per million and more COVID-associated deaths per million over the vast international scope of this study.[3] The study found “a marked increase in both COVID-19 related cases and death due directly to a vaccine deployment . . . “ The results in the US were 38% more cases per million [4] and 31% more deaths per million [5] caused by the COVID vaccines.
In order to comprehend this vast worldwide destructive effect of the COVID vaccines, let’s now look at analyses of this phenomenon of negative efficacy of the vaccines in specific countries.
This recent Danish study[6] showed that both Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines show negative efficacy against the Omicron variant within only 90 days of administration, and that that decline in efficacy is even faster for Omicron than for the Delta variant, which is no longer the predominant variant in the world at present. This sharp decline is illustrated in the following graph.
Epoch Times Photo
The above graph shows that both of the mRNA COVID vaccines predispose toward increased risk, due to negative efficacy, for Omicron.
89.7% of people infected with Omicron in Denmark are either “fully vaccinated” or had their first booster. 77.9% of the Danish population is fully vaccinated.[7] Therefore, the vaccinated are more predisposed to Omicron infection than the unvaccinated in Denmark.
In Delhi, India, of 34 Omicron cases at a hospital, 33 are fully vaccinated (97%). However, India’s COVID vaccination rate is only 40%.[8]
Data from the UK government, Office for National Statistics, shows that each successive vaccine dose has increased the likelihood of testing positive for the Omicron variant, in a stunning display of negative vaccine efficacy.[9] Please note the “Estimated likelihood . . .” column, comparing each of the four categories of vaccination status.
Epoch Times Photo
The COVID vaccines do not work against the Delta strain either. In July 2021, in the United States, in Massachusetts, at a time and place that Delta was predominant, of a total of 469 new COVID cases, 346 of those (74%) were in people who were partially or fully vaccinated, and 274 of the vaccinated were symptomatic.[10]
Some of the most damning evidence for negative efficacy of the COVID vaccines comes from the 4,020 vaccinated cases of Omicron in Germany on December 31, 2021. Of those, 1,137 were boosted. There were only 1097 unvaccinated Omicron cases [11][12][13] However, there are similar numbers of people in the three categories of “boosted,” “fully vaccinated” and “unvaccinated” in Germany as of 12/31/21.
As we can see, the unvaccinated have a strong advantage against Omicron, which is the prevalent COVID strain throughout the world now.
If the COVID vaccines merely predisposed one to higher risk of the common cold now known as the Omicron variant (because that is what we are calling the common cold these days, with indistinguishable signs and symptoms), then we might simply laugh off these vaccines as a frivolous and superstitious activity. However, the safety data are nothing less than horrifying.
As of this time, no children have died in the United States with a COVID diagnosis except for those having terminal leukemia and other advanced cancers and grave terminal illnesses. It has been calculated that seasonal flu, lightning and being a passenger in a motor vehicle are all more life-threatening to children and adolescents than any of the COVID variants.
The COVID Vaccines Are Not Safe
The decision to vaccinate and its impacts are irreversible. There is now considerable evidence of harm and deaths caused by the COVID vaccines. The COVID vaccines are known to be hazardous, because of the over 1,500 types of adverse reactions, many of them known to be permanently disabling, as documented in court-ordered FDA document release on the adverse events observed after administration of the Pfizer vaccine in the clinical trials.[14][15][16] The clinical trials of the Pfizer vaccine showed tremendously concerning data, which was not initially shared with the general public, and has had to be extracted by court order and numerous FOIA requests. This document summarizes the problems with the trial, and the vaccine hazards that became apparent from the trial.[17]
The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting Service (VAERS) was established by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to track vaccine related injuries and deaths. It is the only central database for vaccine injuries and deaths in the US for healthcare providers to record such events. More deaths and injuries have now been reported on VAERS following the COVID vaccines in just one year of use than for all other vaccines combined over the last 30 years of reporting.[18][19]
Independent data analysts have determined, using nine different types of analysis, that the number of Americans that have been killed by the COVID vaccines now likely numbers approximately 388,000, but is at least 150,000.[20][21] This number is consistent with the increase in weekly deaths reported by the CDC in the first seven weeks of vaccine availability. There was an average of 84,896 all-cause deaths in the US per week in those first horrific seven weeks of vaccine rollout, as referenced in the first page of this report. Whereas there were only 63,340 all-cause deaths in the US per week throughout 2020 (during allegedly the worst pandemic in a century) prior to vaccine rollout, there was an average of 84,896 deaths during those seven weeks post-rollout. This is an estimated excess of 150,885 Americans killed during those seven weeks beginning with the Pfizer rollout. (For perspective, the swine flu vaccine was pulled off the US market in 1976 after only 25 deaths.)
World renown microbiologist Sucharit Bhakdi shows that 93% of people who died after the COVID vaccine were killed by the vaccine, and that the pathology of those autopsied showed life-threatening effects throughout the body.[22]
The preponderance of evidence so far is that the principal mechanism of damage to various bodily organs is by means of micro-clotting, due to disruption of normally smooth, laminar, unimpeded liquid blood flow through the circulatory system, now cluttered with jutting spike proteins from the endothelium into the lumen of capillaries, where a now overburdened heart must push – no longer smooth liquid blood – but now turbulent, and then micro-clotted and somewhat jellied blood through where liquid blood used to flow easily, freely and without obstruction. Endnotes 29 and 30 explain this further.
In summary, I agree with the World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that boosters should not be used to kill children.[23] Why would he suggest that the vaccines are being used to kill children, when enthusiastic adults want to give the COVID vaccines to their children? Perhaps his warning has to do with these concerns from the Canadian COVID Care Alliance:
“Recent studies [24][25][26] suggest that the spike protein produced in response to vaccination, may bind and interact with various cells throughout the body, via their ACE2 receptors, potentially resulting in damage to various tissues and organs. This risk, no matter how theoretical, must be investigated prior to the vaccination of children and adolescents.”
The Canadian COVID Care Alliance calls on the Canadian government “to immediately halt the mass vaccination program of children and adolescents until such time as studies are conducted and the uncertainties about the potential pathogenicity of the spike protein can be addressed.” Here is their letter, signed by 21 scientists, to Ontario Premier Ford regarding the same.[27] I agree with this, and I urge governments and health care leaders and providers and independently thinking citizens to take the precautionary principle with regard to human health. It would be reckless to vaccinate either children or adults, given the abundant and growing evidence that we have seen of the dangers and negative efficacy of the COVID vaccines.
It is important to keep in mind that those of us who have been warning about the lethal nature of the COVID vaccines – and I have been warning the public against them since February 2021[28] – expect that most of the deaths to be caused by the vaccines have not yet happened, as these vaccines cause slow cumulative damage to especially the heart, [29][30] the brain [31] and the liver.[32] The COVID vaccines are highly concerning for subsequent development of cancer, because of the abundant spike proteins produced by the vaccines, and their observed role in inhibiting DNA damage repair.[33] This means that although the COVID vaccines have already been disastrous in terms of lives lost, the larger vaccine catastrophe is likely yet to arrive, even if no more injections are given.
Reposted from the author’s Substack
References
[1] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Vital Statistics System. State and national provisional counts. Monthly and 12-month ending number of live births, deaths and infant deaths: United States. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/provisional-tables.htm
[2] Ibid.
[3] K Beattie. Worldwide Bayesian causal impact analysis of vaccine administration on deaths and cases associated with COVID-19: A big data analysis of 145 countries. Preprint. Nov 15 2021. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DLlRa9rUqvW9pG1vNEsWMEydWwsmSMbe/view
[4] Ibid. p 41.
[5] Ibid. p 39.
[6] C Hansen, A Schelde, et al. Vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection with the Omicron or Delta variants following a two-dose or booster BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 vaccination series: A Danish cohort study. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.20.21267966v3.full.pdf
[7] Status of the SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron in Denmark. COVID-19 Omicron variant report. Dec 31 2021. Statens Serum Institut. https://files.ssi.dk/covid19/omikron/statusrapport/rapport-omikronvarianten-31122021-ct18
[8] A Dutt. Out of 34 Omicron cases at Delhi hospital, 33 are fully vaccinated. The Indian Express. Dec 23 2021. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/out-of-34-omicron-cases-at-delhi-hospital-33-are-fully-vaccinated-7686188/
[9] Office for National Statistics. Coronavirus (COVID-19) infection survey, UK: Characteristics related to having an Omicron compatible result in those who test positive for COVID-19. Dec 21 2021. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/adhocs/14107coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveyukcharacteristicsrelatedtohavinganomicroncompatibleresultinthosewhotestpositiveforcovid19
[10] G Kampf. COVID-19 stigmatising the unvaccinated is not justified. Nov 20 2021. The Lancet. 398: 10314. P 1871.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02243-1/fulltext
[11] Robert Koch Institut. COVID-19 in Germany. https://www.rki.de/EN/Home/homepage_node.html
[12] Wochentlicher Lagebericht des RKI zur Coronavirus-Krankheit-2019 (COVID-19) [article in German] Dec 30 2021. Robert Koch Institut. https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/Wochenbericht/Wochenbericht_2021-12-30.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
[13] El gato malo. German Omicron Data. Dec 31 2021.
[14] Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency Documents vs Food and Drug Administration. Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief. Sep 16 2021. US District Court, Northern District of Texas. https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/001-Complaint-101021.pdf
[15] Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency Documents. https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf
[16] Celia Farber. Court-ordered Pfizer documents they tried to have sealed for 55 years show 1223 deaths, 158,000 adverse events in 90 days post EUA release. Dec 5 2021.
[17] Canadian COVID Care Alliance. The Pfizer inoculations for COVID-19: More harm than good. https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/The-COVID-19-Inoculations-More-Harm-Than-Good-REV-Dec-16-2021.pdf
[18] Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Dept of Health and Human Services.
https://vaers.hhs.gov/
[19] Open VAERS. COVID vaccine data. https://openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality
[20] S Kirsch, J Rose, M Crawford. Estimating the number of COVID vaccine deaths in America. Dec 24 2021. https://www.skirsch.com/covid/Deaths.pdf
[21] S Kirsch. Latest VAERS estimate: 388,000 Americans killed by the COVID vaccines. Dec 14 2021. Steve Kirsch’s Newsletter.
[22] S Bhakdi, A Burkardt. On COVID vaccines: why they cannot work, and irrefutable evidence of their causative role in deaths after vaccination. https://doctors4covidethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/end-covax.pdf
[23] Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. World Health Organization.
[24] S Suresh, Y Suzuki. SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and lung vascular cells. Dec 11 2020. J Respir 2021 1 (1) 40-48. https://www.mdpi.com/2673-527X/1/1/4/htm
[25] Y Suzuki, S Gychka. SARS-CoV-2 spike protein elicits cell signaling in human host cells: implications for possible consequences of COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccines. Jan 2021. 9 (1): 36. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC7827936/
[26] S Zhang, Y Liu, et al. SARS-CoV-2 binds platelet ACE2 to enhance thrombosis in COVID-19. Sep 4 2020. J Hem Onc. https://jhoonline.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13045-020-00954-7
[27] Canadian COVID Care Alliance. Hands off our children. Nov 6 2021. https://jhoonline.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13045-020-00954-7
[28] C Huber. COVID-19 vaccine considerations. PrimaryDoctor. https://www.primarydoctor.org/covidvaccine
[29] S Gundry. Abstract 10712: Observational findings of PULS cardiac test finding for inflammatory markers in patients receiving mRNA vaccines. Nov 8 2021. Circulation. 2021; 144: A10712. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712
[30] C Huber. Heart damage from the COVID vaccines: Is it avoidable? Jul 14 2021. PDMJ. https://pdmj.org/papers/myocarditis_paper
[31] T Buzhdygan, B DeOre, et al. The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein alters barrier function in 2D static and 3D microfluidic in-vitro models of the human blood-brain barrier. Neurobiol Dis. Dec 2020. 146: 105131. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC7547916/
[32] C Huber. Are the COVID vaccines bio-weapons? Aug 21 2021. The Defeat Of COVID.
[33] H Jiang, Y Mei. SARS-CoV-2 spike impairs DNA damage repair and inhibits V(D)J recombination in vitro. Aug 20 2021. Viruses 2021. 13 (10) 2056. https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/10/2056/htm?fbclid=IwAR1qAZFKzfHaIhN2Jjqfl1gMa4aJSo0TMs_JFk9iL6aysk5w-Zbz8BL0qHM
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
Colleen Huber
Author, The Defeat Of COVID, Manifesto for a Cancer Patient, and Choose Your Foods Like Your Life Depends On Them, all on Amazon. Naturopathic Medical Doctor (NMD) x 15 years.
-
I do agree with
not vaccinating children
and always thought that was at best very "iffy"
we are still told the vaccines prevent death and hospitalization
so I am not sure what "data" showing more deaths now in vaccinated then unvaccinated
means
since most people are already vaccinated
and many who got the vaccine where the higher risk ( such as elderly) suggesting this "data " may be totally misleading people to think it is the vaccines themselves killing people
that said I personally have not gotten pfizer's latest booster.........
-
"so I am not sure what "data" showing more deaths now in vaccinated then unvaccinated means since most people are already vaccinated
and many who got the vaccine where the higher risk ( such as elderly) suggesting this "data " may be totally misleading people to think it is the vaccines themselves killing people"
Agreed.
The author's background as a naturopath gives pause and may be the cause of the weak scientific reasoning you note.
That said I think it fair to say that this gives us data to work with to question the condescending hubristic arrogance of the vaxx totalitarians.
-
New Study Finds Evidence of ‘Long-Term’ Natural Immunity to COVID-19
COVID NEWS
Zachary Stieber
Zachary Stieber
Dec 10 2022
biggersmaller
Colorized scanning electron micrograph of a cell (purple) infected with a variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (pink), isolated from a patient sample. (NIAID via The Epoch Times)
Colorized scanning electron micrograph of a cell (purple) infected with a variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (pink), isolated from a patient sample. (NIAID via The Epoch Times)
People who recovered from COVID-19 still had protection a year later, according to a new study.
Recovery from COVID-19 often grants a form of protection known as natural immunity.
Studies have consistently shown that severe COVID-19 induces natural immunity, but researchers in the Netherlands sought to see if people who did not require hospital care still experienced the protection.
They detected COVID-19 antibodies, or signs of a past infection, among 95 participants out of 497. About 70 percent had high levels of antibodies. Out of that subset, all but one remained “strongly seropositive” at all follow-up visits, which lasted up to one year.
Low rates of antibody decay were found, “suggesting long-term natural immunity,” Dymphie Mioch, a health researcher in the Netherlands and one of the researchers who carried out the study in the province of North Brabant, wrote with colleagues in the paper.
“The study verifies what we know about immunity after infection—it persists,” Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Southern California who was not involved in the research, told The Epoch Times in an email.
Study Details
The study, funded by regional health authorities and the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, was a prospective cohort study that involved analyzing blood samples from participants, who gave blood every three months for one year.
None of the participants were hospitalized.
Participants also filled out questionnaires, answering questions about their work, exposure, and history.
They were followed for up to one year or until they received a COVID-19 vaccine. The last followup was conducted in mid-2021.
Researchers analyzed the levels of total antibodies and Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies. The presence of antibodies suggests the body is shielding against reinfection and severe disease.
Most studies examining natural immunity look at populations who experienced severe COVID-19, or groups of health care workers.
“However, such populations may not adequately represent the general population, while it is especially important for policymakers to have knowledge on the duration of protective immunity in the overall population,” the Dutch researchers said.
A smaller number of papers looked at the immune response to infection in generic populations, including U.S. researchers who found a response was detectable in more than 90 percent of participants for more than 5 months after infection, and Lithuanian researchers who found evidence of protection six months after infection in 95 percent of the individuals studied.
Those papers “report contrasting data regarding the duration of detectable antibody levels,” highlighting a need for longitudinal studies, or studies that examine people over time to measure changes, the Dutch researchers said.
The paper was published on Nov. 24 by the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.
More on Findings
Among the participants, 38 had decreasing levels of IgG antibodies and 44 did not. Most participants who did experience declines lost protection slowly. Eleven percent experienced a decrease of more than 50 percent in a three-month period; the majority had a decrease of 9 to 50 percent. Among the rest, an increase was recorded.
Across the entire year, IgG antibody declines were primarily recorded in the first six months.
For 37 people who completed all four visits, all had detectable antibodies on the fourth visit. Most had strong IgG antibody levels.
Researchers said they tried identifying a reason for the decay, but did not find one that was statistically significant. There were indications that people with a chronic disease saw the biggest declines, while women seemed to have drops less frequently.
Some studies have indicated that people who experience more severe cases of COVID-19 have higher levels of antibodies but researchers found the difference in their cohort was not significant when taking that factor, measured as who had a fever, into account.
“Although participants who reported fever generally had higher antibody levels in our cohort, these differences were not significant, potentially due to the small sample size or recall bias,” the researchers said.
“In conclusion, after an initial immune response due to a natural SARS-CoV-2 infection, we observed a reduction in antibody levels in approximately half of the studied seropositive hairdressers and hospitality staff in the Netherlands. However, most participants continued to have detectable antibody levels for up to one year,” they wrote. “Therefore, our real-world data results suggest long-term immune protection after natural infection. Future studies should investigate whether this detectable natural immune response also results in less (severe) reinfections after one year, especially considering that this virus is continuously evolving into new variants.”
Both natural immunity and vaccination can protect against severe illness, though studies indicate that the former is much more protective, particularly since Omicron started circulating in late 2021. Klausner, the California professor, noted that a number of papers have indicated that neither natural immunity nor vaccine-triggered protection shields for long against reinfection in the Omicron era.
“The challenge is that not all immunity is the same,” Klausner said. “Healthy people have strong immunity due to vaccination or infection that protects against serious or critical disease or death. That immunity however does not provide durable protection against infection. People can get reinfected 3–6 months after vaccination or recovery.”
-
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lincolnbrown/2022/12/14/judicial-watch-releases-new-information-on-the-moderna-vaccine-n1653605
-
How a viral siege is making some people sick for weeks, even months
It’s like ‘a big bomb’ of viruses went off, says pediatrician treating kids with flu, RSV, strep and covid
Image without a caption
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
December 15, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Pediatrician Christina Lane, who has been inundated with sick kids this fall and winter, listens to Birdie Stewart, 3, and her grandmother Susie Stewart at her New Albany, Ind., medical practice on Dec. 6. (Luke Sharrett for The Washington Post)
It started in mid-September with Vance, 5, who came down with RSV and wheezed so badly that his skin was pulling in and out of his ribs with every breath. His little brother Banks, then 11 months old, caught it too. Things were just starting to get better in October, when the boys caught a nasty cold that resulted in more sleepless nights. In November, the flu hit, bringing fevers of 102 degrees.
“It feels like a never-ending cycle,” said their mom, Michelle Huber of Louisville. “We are beyond exhausted.”
The 2022 winter season has been one of prolonged misery for many American families, full of sniffles, sore throats, coughs and trips to the emergency room as bugs kept at bay during the pandemic have been unleashed by the resumption of our old lives.
It’s like “a big bomb of viruses went off,” said Christina Lane, who runs a pediatric practice in New Albany, Ind., and has seen a crush of several hundred children with respiratory symptoms in the past three months.
Parainfluenza, respiratory syncytial virus, rhinovirus, adenovirus, influenza A and influenza B. Respiratory enterovirus and human metapneumovirus, too. And then, there’s the rebounding coronavirus: The seven-day average of new daily cases is above 66,000, with hospitalizations above 38,000 as of Dec. 8, the highest those numbers have been since mid-September and late August, respectively.
As we approach year four of the coronavirus pandemic, Lane and other doctors agree the overlapping viral surges and how they are playing out are unusual and concerning: Patients with back-to-back respiratory illnesses. Simultaneous infection with three or more viruses. Otherwise healthy people suffering for weeks, rather than days, with simple colds.
But there is no consensus about whether it’s a once-in-many-years phenomenon — perhaps some of it due to the hypervigilance of Americans who have become accustomed to scrutinizing every ache and pain for signs of infection with a potentially deadly virus — a change in how viruses behave that may be with us for a while, or something else entirely.
What is the `tripledemic`?
The U.S. is experiencing an unusually high uptick in both flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections, while covid cases continue to linger. Combined, the spread of these three viruses has prompted the CDC to issue advisories.
If you’re experiencing symptoms, here’s how to tell the difference among the three viruses. We also talked to experts to answer common questions from parents about what they can do to help their children if they cannot find pediatric formulations such as liquid acetaminophen and ibuprofen while there’s a shortage.
As of last week, nearly all 50 states were seeing a high or very high level of respiratory illness, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that rates will likely continue to increase. U.S. officials estimate that so far this season, there have been 13 million cases, 120,000 hospitalizations and 7,300 deaths, including 21 children.
Doctors say the chaos has resulted in frazzled parents begging for antibiotics (even when they are told it won’t help their children recover from viruses), shortages of basic essential medications such as fever reducers and albuterol to open airways, and a barrage of questions about the interaction of different viruses in our bodies.
How many bouts of illness in a short period is “normal?” Is there is something about having covid-19 that hampers people’s ability to resist other viruses? Or, is it normal for things to be so abnormal given our unusual situation, as we head into another covid winter?
“When you take a pandemic and then add co-circulation of other viruses in the mix, you might expect to see some weird things,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona.
Misunderstandings about immunity
The first thing doctors stress when it comes to viruses is there’s a wide range of normal for how often an individual can get colds and other ailments, and still be considered healthy. On average, adults get two or three a year, according to the CDC, and children, even more. The very youngest of our species, those germ monsters who are babies, toddlers and preschoolers, can have as many as 12 colds a year.
Given the post-pandemic soup of viruses circulating today, those numbers might climb higher without any need for panic. Weill Cornell Medicine professor and immunologist John P. Moore said the health-care system may feel overloaded because “three years’ worth” of very young children are now being exposed to some viruses for the first time.
As we get deeper into a winter when so many seem suddenly sick at once, there’s also been a lot of talk on social media about a concept called “immunity debt.”
There’s no universal agreement about what it actually means.
Some scientists use the phrase to refer to the “immunity gap” that was created when susceptible people — especially young children — never developed immunity to certain common viral illnesses that largely disappeared during the pandemic, partly as a result of many families’ isolation and measures such as masking. As CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and other health officials have stressed, masking not only helps prevent infection with the coronavirus but also RSV, the flu and other airborne pathogens.
And now that those people are being infected, they are spreading viruses to others, who in turn infect even more people.
But the idea promoted on social media that the immune system can be seen as a muscle, and that masking and social distancing resulted in it being out of practice and as a result, weaker, has been criticized by numerous researchers as misguided and dangerous. It was seized on by anti-mask proponents following a May 2021, paper by French scientists, who worried about an infection rebound among children who did not get the full complement of childhood vaccines during the pandemic and were susceptible to common pathogens.
Immunity debt, they argue, implies that people should purposefully expose themselves to pathogens to get stronger. But science tells us that while young children may benefit from playing in the mud, for instance, the opposite is true of exposing them to lethal pathogens and other biohazards. If you get covid-19 or other viruses, you are at a higher risk of complications such as heart disease or liver failure, not to mention post-viral syndromes like Epstein-Barr or ME-CFS.
“Idiocy,” tweeted one epidemiologist, while an immunologist wrote that “This is not a thing.”
Viral interference
While scientists have learned a great deal about covid-19 in nearly three years of the pandemic, their knowledge is still limited about what happens when different viruses collide with each other: Might they amplify each other’s effects, or perhaps, tone them down?
There is a fair amount of research about a concept called viral interference, how one respiratory infection tends to give short-term protection against another as the body’s immune system rallies to fend off the first invader. The work is mostly in animal models and cell cultures but suggests that innate immunity — or the defense system people are born with — is activated by the first virus, often muting the effects of the second.
But this mechanism is not strong, Moore said, and does not always work. In fact, he explained, “if you are unlucky to be exposed to three different viruses simultaneously, there’s no law that says you can’t get all three.”
Some people may be more susceptible to severe disease than others due to genetics or a history of previous exposure to viruses, and certain combinations or sequences of viral infection may be better at producing more potent symptoms.
Co-infection with common winter viruses is generally believed to be uncommon. There’s no clear data about whether that’s changed, at least temporarily post-pandemic, but the disruption caused by the unusual confluence of waves of the flu, RSV and covid-19 — and anecdotal reports of patients suffering from multiple infections — have doctors worried. Being infected with more than one virus makes it trickier to diagnose and treat, and ultimately lead to greater disease severity and complications.
When the pandemic began, for example, some doctors believed it would be extremely rare for people to be infected with the flu and covid-19 at the same time. But then patients started showing up in emergency rooms with both, and, later, studies showed their outcomes were measurably worse than for patients with just covid-19. In a paper in the Lancet medical journal, researchers found that co-infection with the flu increased the odds of being put on a ventilator and death.
Some research suggests that the sequence of exposure may make a difference: A study published in the Journal of Virology in July suggests influenza infections may make it easier for someone to fend off the effects of covid-19 — but, for reasons no one has yet been able to explain, having covid does not appear to boost one’s resistance to the flu.
So how does covid-19 fit in to what we’re experiencing, especially since most Americans have been infected in the latest omicron waves?
Bhattacharya, the immunologist at the University of Arizona, said there have been questions about whether a bout with covid might impair one’s ability to fight other pathogens after small studies showed changes in immune cells. However, he said, “only a few studies found very, very few changes that last, and others have found nothing at all.”
Moore said it’s important to distinguish between individuals who are suffering from long covid who have all kinds of perturbations in their bodies, not just their immune systems, and long-term changes in population immunity. He called the idea of covid-induced immune deficiency, that covid-19 can act like HIV or measles, which are notoriously immunosuppressive, “fringe.”
“I’m not buying that idea,” Moore said. “It’s not supported by solid data.”
The families rotating in and out of Lane’s pediatric office in New Albany are a window into the viral purgatory facing so many families.
Shortly after dawn on a recent weekday morning, Lane scanned lab reports that had come in overnight: One child with RSV and adenovirus. Another with influenza A, rhinovirus and strep. Even after a few months of seeing kids like this, it still surprised her to see the mix of viruses circulating in her patients.
Since the chaos began in late summer, several dozen children — including her own son — have been so sick they had to be hospitalized. “They start with some typical flu-like symptoms and 24 hours later, they may be in full-on respiratory distress,” she said.
Lane has been in her office late many nights treating patients, and once, she had to plunge an epi-pen into one child to get them breathing before calling 911. “These are healthy kids, but by the time we get them, they are so tight they can’t breathe. I’ve never seen so many like this,” she said.
About two weeks ago, the child in crisis was her own son, Ethan, 17. When he arrived at the local emergency department, it was so full that they wheeled him into a corner in an annex area. By the time doctors got to him, she said, his breathing was so horrible he had to be put in pediatric intensive care. Doctors pumped oxygen and steroids into him for a few days, and now he’s recovering at home.
Ethan’s case was one of her worst, but there have been plenty of other families who have struggled for many weeks, or even months, she said.
Lane has been doing her best to protect her patients, and recently pleaded in a letter to the families in her practice: “If you have a new or young infant, be wise and try to cocoon them the best you can right now. Your entire church group, friend group, neighbors and their snotty kids do not need to see or hold your baby. That’s what FB or instagram are for.”
“Hospitals are incredibly full and ER wait times are atrocious,” she continued. “What could be a sniffle for them could end up putting your baby in the hospital.”
It’s like “a big bomb of viruses went off,” said Lane about the hundreds of sick kids she’s treated with various ailments in recent months. (Luke Sharrett for The Washington Post)
She’s also been urging patients and their families to stay up to date on flu and covid shots and consider masking.
Allison Edelen’s son, Crosby, 5, another of Lane’s patients, started coughing the day before Halloween. “It was not his normal coughing,” she recalled, and a few days later, he was coughing to the point of throwing up. Whatever it was — doctors suspect RSV but did not test — jumped next to Penny, 2, and to Parks, their youngest at 5 months old.
“I was terrified,” she said. During one particularly brutal stretch of two weeks, Edelen was staying up all night giving breathing treatments to the kids every two hours. Two ear infections, one round of steroids and a pneumonia scare later, her husband caught the bug, too. But for him, it felt mostly like a mild cold. The week after he got better, he was slammed with the flu.
Most bafflingly, Edelen, 32, never got sick. “I was sanitizing our house like a crazy person,” she said.
Her family has finally been illness-free for about a week for the first time this season and decided to stick to pandemic-era protocols for at least the rest of the year in self-protection. “We go to church, but we are at the point where we are not doing anything else we don’t necessarily have to do,” she said.
As for the Huber family, Michelle was hoping that things were returning to normal this week as 5-year-old Vance transformed back to his old self: playing soccer, chasing after their dog and making other mischief on their farm. But then one night, she noticed he had a slightly runny nose. Within a couple days, that turned into a fever of 101.4 — round four of respiratory viruses in three months for the little guy.
“I’m one of those people who is a planner,” she said. “It’s very frustrating to take it day by day, but at least we’re not alone … Otherwise I would be hard-pressed to think this is real.”
-
Melatonin Affects Thrombosis, Sepsis, and COVID Mortality Rate
Melatonin can reduce the rate of severe COVID outcomes, help regulate sleep, promote genomic stability, and protect against neurodegeneration
HEALTH
Joseph Mercola
Joseph Mercola
Dec 5 2021
biggersmaller
Melatonin’s multiple
actions as an antiinflammatory,
antioxidant, and antiviral
(against other viruses)
make it a reasonable
choice for use. (AlessandraRC/Shutterstock)
Melatonin’s multiple actions as an antiinflammatory, antioxidant, and antiviral (against other viruses) make it a reasonable choice for use. (AlessandraRC/Shutterstock)
Two key studies have identified the role that melatonin plays in reducing the risk of a positive test for COVID-19 and lowering the incidence of severe symptoms.
That new finding adds to a list of benefits linked to melatonin since it was first discovered in 1958 by Dr. Aaron Lerner, a dermatologist who was able to isolate it from the pineal gland in a cow.
Scientists began studying melatonin in the 1980s, and by the 1990s, it received more attention. Research data showed that melatonin influences a number of bodily processes, including calcium-dependent metabolism, immune modulation, and tumor growth—which it can restrain.
Although melatonin is produced in a variety of tissues, the major source is the pineal gland, a tiny endocrine gland found in the center of the brain. One of melatonin’s initial functions is likely as a free radical scavenger. Interestingly, melatonin also functions in plants to reduce oxidative stress and promote seed germination and growth. The necessary precursor in plants and animals is tryptophan.
Your body controls the release of melatonin through a master circadian clock, located in an area of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nuclei.
This area synchronizes the secretion of melatonin through a complex pathway in the nervous system affected by the light input through the eyes. Since melatonin helps control the sleep-wake cycles, it became popular to use it to help control jet lag or support sleep.
Now data demonstrates that melatonin may be beneficial in preventing complications in people with COVID-19.
Lower Incidence of Severe COVID-19
A study published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases in October was initiated to look at the effect melatonin may have on adult patients with severe COVID-19 infection. They engaged 158 patients with severe disease in a single center, prospective, randomized clinical trial conducted in Mosul, Iraq, from Dec. 1, 2020, to June 1, 2021.
The patients were split into two groups. In the control group, there were 76 who were given standard therapeutic care only. There were 82 in the intervention group who received standard therapeutic care plus 10 milligrams (mg) of melatonin per day. Physicians then evaluated the incidence of sepsis, thrombosis, and mortality in patients on days 5, 11, and 17.
When the researchers compared the data in the control group to the intervention group, they found there was a significant reduction during the second week in thrombosis and sepsis in those that took melatonin. They also found that mortality was significantly higher in those that didn’t take melatonin.
Men made up 72.2 percent of the patients and the mean age was 56.3 years with a range of 32 to 78 years. Researchers split the intervention and control group with no significant difference in relationship to comorbidities that increase the risk of COVID-19, such as high blood pressure, asthma, diabetes, and heart disease.
When measuring the individual endpoints, the researchers found that there was a significantly greater number of patients with thrombosis in the control group on day 17 than there were in the group taking melatonin. No patient developed sepsis in the first five days in either group. However, by day 11, two patients in the group taking melatonin developed sepsis and eight patients in the control group developed sepsis.
At the end of the study, the researchers found there was a significantly higher mortality rate in the control group of 17.1 percent than in the melatonin group of 1.2 percent. Melatonin was administered orally.
The researchers declared that the results of their study signal a need to look closer.
“Improved thrombosis, sepsis, and mortality rates support the adjuvant melatonin’s efficacy in mitigating this infectious disease,” they wrote.
“Given melatonin’s superior performance as a cheap, highly safe, and readily available medication, it is strongly recommended to be addressed in future studies.”
Melatonin Found to Reduce Risk of Positive Test
Those new findings support earlier research published in late 2020 that showed using melatonin was associated with a 28 percent reduction in the likelihood of a positive COVID-19 test. The researchers began the study to identify potential treatment modalities using network medicine methodology alongside clinical observations.
Network medicine evaluates cellular networks and the implications those have on disease and treatment. Network medicine seeks out potential drug treatments by looking at how diseases are linked at the molecular level. The researchers used artificial intelligence to compare genes and proteins of SARS-CoV-2 alongside 64 other diseases.
From this data, they identified conditions that were similar and that had approved drugs for treatment. Using this information, the researchers identified 34 FDA-approved drugs used to treat similar conditions that may be considered for repurposing in the treatment of COVID-19.
The list of health conditions included autoimmune diseases, pulmonary conditions, specific antibodies and cardiovascular conditions. From these conditions the researchers identified medications, including melatonin, from a list of categories that included antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, hormones, beta-blockers, and B2-agonists.
After identifying these drugs, the researchers used the information alongside data from nearly 27,000 inpatients at Cleveland Clinic. They adjusted for confounding factors such as age, smoking history, race, and a variety of disease comorbidities when they found melatonin use reduced the likelihood of a positive COVID-19 test by 28 percent.
Interestingly, when these same adjustments were made to a population of black Americans in the registry, the reduction rose to 52 percent. The study’s lead scientist, Feixiong Cheng, talked about the results in a statement from Cleveland Clinic:
“It’s important to note that this doesn’t mean people should start taking melatonin without first consulting with their health care provider. We’re excited about these results and to study that connection more, but large-scale observational studies and randomized controlled trials are essential to confirm what we’ve found here.”
Melatonin Is Integral Part of Front Line Protocol
Early in 2020, the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) developed preventive, outpatient treatment and inpatient protocols based on the insights of the founding critical care doctors. Dr. Paul Marik, critical care doctor at Eastern Virginia Medical School, also known for his work for improving the outcome of patients with sepsis, is one of those doctors.
Marik also used melatonin in the treatment of sepsis. He published a paper in the Journal of Thoracic Disease in February 2020 giving the scientific rationale for using melatonin to help regulate the oxidative imbalance and mitochondrial dysfunction that are commonly found in sepsis.
This was followed by a paper published in the Frontiers in Medicine in May 2020, in which he and a team of scientists published a therapeutic algorithm they used for melatonin in the treatment of COVID-19. They wrote, “Melatonin’s multiple actions as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antiviral (against other viruses) make it a reasonable choice for use.”
In June 2020, the FLCCC published a statement on the MATH+ protocol, stating it is “showing profound impacts on survival of COVID-19 patients.” An integral part of the MATH+ hospital treatment protocol is the administration of 6 to 12 milligrams (mg) of melatonin at night.
The group also developed an iMASK protocol for early outpatient treatment, which includes 10 mg of melatonin at night, listed under the category of anticoagulants and immune fortifying drugs. In a review of the evidence demonstrating the efficacy of ivermectin, the scientists wrote:
“Although the adoption of MATH+ has been considerable, it largely occurred only after the treatment efficacy of the majority of the protocol components (corticosteroids, ascorbic acid, heparin, statins, Vitamin D, melatonin) were either validated in subsequent randomized controlled trials or more strongly supported with large observational data sets in COVID-19.”
“Despite the plethora of supportive evidence, the MATH+ protocol for hospitalized patients has not yet become widespread.”
When the review was subsequently published, the mention of melatonin and this quote was removed. Another challenge for patients with COVID-19 is the development of long-haul symptoms, which one study from UC Davis showed affects at least 25 percent of individuals.
Long haul symptoms can include body aches, muscle pain, brain fog, abdominal issues and loss of smell and taste. The FLCCC group also developed a management protocol for long-haul COVID-19 syndrome called I-RECOVER.
The team developed an algorithm to help physicians identify the type of treatment based on the patient’s symptoms. However, all patients are advised to use vitamin C, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D3, and melatonin.
More Health Benefits of Melatonin
Your body uses melatonin to help protect your overall health in several ways. Melatonin is best known for the relationship it has with your circadian clock. Although scientists are still discovering some of the benefits of sleep, it’s known that melatonin is an underlying regulating molecule for sleep.
There have been positive studies demonstrating the effect that melatonin has on disorders associated with dysfunctional melatonin rhythms, such as jet lag and shift work. Additionally, there is evidence of diminished production of melatonin in those with Alzheimer’s disease in the early stages. Poor sleep quality increases the buildup of beta-amyloid plaques that are integral to the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
The discovery of the relationship between neurodegeneration and sleep offers a potential for using melatonin to promote healthy mental aging and in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease in the early stages. Melatonin also helps regulate inflammation in the body, which has a significant impact on pain associated with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.
One paper published in 2015 investigated the relationship between melatonin and multiple sclerosis relapses and found it meliorates periods of relapse. They discovered melatonin affects “T cell differentiation and ha implications for autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis.”
Melatonin helps to promote genomic stability, which may help explain why disruption of melatonin signaling has been found to promote the growth and metabolism of human breast cancer. The antioxidative and anti-inflammatory functions of melatonin have also demonstrated an ability to protect liver function and has an impact on fatty liver disease.
The range of effects that melatonin has on the human body is significant. A published research study in the Journal of Perinatology demonstrated that early administration of melatonin alongside hypothermia (whole body cooling) in infants who suffered asphyxiation during birth had a neuroprotective effect and ameliorated brain injury in the infants who received hypothermia and five daily enteral doses of melatonin.
While there are likely benefits to supplementing with oral melatonin, it also helps to optimize your body’s own production. It’s relatively simple and inexpensive, and at the same time, you will help to optimize your vitamin D levels. Optimizing melatonin production begins with getting enough bright sunlight during the day, since this helps to set your circadian clock.
As the evening approaches and the sun sets, you’ll want to avoid artificial lighting. Blue light from electronic screens and LED lights is particularly problematic and inhibits the production of melatonin. If you do need lighting, use incandescent light bulbs, candles, or salt lamps. The blue light from electronic screens can be counteracted by using blue-blocking software or wearing blue-blocking glasses.
My decision to personally use melatonin supplementation makes even more sense now that we understand that melatonin is not only produced in the pineal gland (which would benefit from circadian optimization), but also in our mitochondria. So, it appears that additional melatonin could serve as a useful adjunct in modulating your immune response.
-
second
COVID-19 May Have Been Connected to China’s Bioweapons Program: GOP Report
By Samantha Flom December 15, 2022 Updated: December 15, 2022biggersmaller Print
A new unclassified report (pdf) released by Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee alleges that COVID-19 “may have been tied” to China’s biological weapons research program.
Released on Dec. 14 by Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and other Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), the minority report states that “there are indications that SARS-CoV-2 may have been tied to China’s biological weapons research program and spilled over to the human population during a lab-related incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).”
“The Committee has not seen any indications that the Chinese military intentionally released SARS-CoV-2,” the report reads.
At a press conference on Dec. 15, Wenstrup discussed the report’s findings, noting that many questions remain unanswered.
“This is about just trying to find truth and get to the facts,” he said. “And, you know, we’re not putting blame game out there. There may come a point where we have to, but right now, we don’t have evidence in that direction. But we have a lot of evidence that raises eyebrows and encourages us to drive on further.”
In October 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released an update to its declassified assessment (pdf) of the origins of COVID-19, which asserted that SARS-CoV-2 was “probably not a biological weapon.”
“We remain skeptical of allegations that SARS-CoV-2 was a biological weapon because they are supported by scientifically invalid claims, their proponents do not have direct access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), or their proponents are suspected of spreading disinformation,” the assessment states.
However, the Dec. 14 report characterizes that assessment as “misleading,” stating that the declassified assessment withheld important information from the public that was available in the classified version—a move that Republicans on the HPSCI believe “likely skewed the public’s understanding of key issues.”
“The declassified report claimed the IC [intelligence community] was able to reach ‘broad agreement’ that the virus was not developed as a biological weapon,” the report reads. “Despite the fact the IC relayed its confidence levels for nearly every other assessment in the declassified report—low confidence, moderate confidence, etc.—the IC failed to disclose to the public its confidence level regarding this bioweapons assessment.”
The report also states that, in its classified assessment, the IC claimed to lack key information regarding whether SARS-CoV-2 may have been linked to China’s bioweapons program. However, according to the Republican HPSCI report, that same information was found in other intelligence reporting.
“Given what was found in other intelligence reporting, the Committee pressed the IC to clarify the discrepancy in the Updated Assessment – i.e., why did you claim you did not know the answer to this key issue when there is evidence to the contrary? – the IC failed to respond,” the report reads.
The committee further stated in its report that it has “reason to believe that the IC downplayed the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was connected to China’s bioweapons program based in part on input from outside experts.”
The report also notes that the intelligence committee has “failed to comply” with numerous requests for information—including bipartisan committee questions about the experts relied upon for its assessment.
Touching on that noncompliance, on Dec. 15, Wenstrup said, “We should know who is making these decisions and how are they coming to their conclusions. I think that’s our responsibility as oversight, and to date, we have not received that information.”
While acknowledging that certain information should be kept classified in the interest of national security, the congressman said: “We’re a select committee for a reason. There’s nothing they should be keeping from us.”
The committee, Wenstrup noted, will seek to declassify its full investigative report.
Bipartisan Concerns
A separate majority report (pdf) released on Dec. 14 by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee expressed additional concerns regarding the intelligence community.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the committee, noted in the report that a 2020 review of the IC’s pandemic preparedness found that “the intelligence community was not well positioned or prepared to provide early warning and unique insights on the pandemic.”
While the Democrats’ report also places the blame for the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the feet of former President Donald Trump, it also holds that the intelligence community failed to properly address the level of threat to national security that the pandemic posed.
“Already, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has made several important changes advocated by the Committee, including prioritization of global health security threats,” Schiff said. “Additionally, the IC has made numerous correlating organizational changes, but much more is necessary. It is my hope the IC will commit to making the other recommended changes and to working with Congress on those that require legislative action.”
A spokesperson for the ODNI declined to comment on either report.
Samantha Flom
Samantha Flom
Followin
-
Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine Linked to Blood Clotting: FDA
COVID NEWS
Zachary Stieber
Dec 17 2022
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine has been linked to blood clotting in older individuals, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
FDA researchers, crunching data from a database of elderly persons in the United States, found that pulmonary embolism—blood clotting in the lungs—met the initial threshold for a statistical signal and continued meeting the criteria after a more in-depth evaluation.
Three other outcomes of interest—a lack of oxygen to the heart, a blood platelet disorder called immune thrombocytopenia, and another type of clotting called intravascular coagulation—initially raised red flags, researchers said. More in-depth evaluations, such as comparisons with populations who received influenza vaccines, showed those three as no longer meeting the statistical threshold for a signal.
Researchers looked at data covering 17.4 million elderly Americans who received a total of 34.6 million vaccine doses between Dec. 10, 2020, and Jan. 16, 2022.
The study was published by the journal Vaccine on Dec. 1.
The FDA said it was not taking any action on the results because they do not prove the vaccines cause any of the four outcomes, and because the findings “are still under investigation and require more robust study.”
Dr. Peter McCullough, chief medical adviser for the Truth for Health Foundation, told The Epoch Times via email that the new paper “corroborates the concerns of doctors that the large uptick in blood clots, progression of atherosclerotic heart disease, and blood disorders is independently associated with COVID-19 vaccination.”
Pfizer did not respond to a request for comment.
-
https://dailycaller.com/2022/12/19/gain-function-research-coronavirus-lab-leak/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking&pnespid=qKN.GCVfJboDh.nM.DC.DYOXvEv3V5x4NfmzwbJvpwNm78q6cwJkMgn3NYohhQ7P6h4Eir3E
-
yes
let's go out and bring unknown animal insect and every virus we can dig up back to the lab and experiment with it. AND ON TOP OF IT MAKE IT MORE VIRULENT1
what could go wrong?
FAUCI belongs behind bars .....
and yes academics (including medicine) his its shysters too:
" “As far as I know, they are all theoretical and no beneficial examples in the real world exist,” said Dr. Hideki Kakeya, an engineering professor at Japan’s University of Tsukuba. “There is a slim chance of GoF contributing to therapeutics in the real world. It’s often the case that scientists lie to get huge grants.”
“I am not aware of any specific benefits for the general public that have come from gain-of-function research on dangerous pathogens,” German physicist Roland Wiesendanger, who specializes in nanoscience, told the Daily Caller. “There are only benefits for the scientists performing such risky research because they get a lot of taxpayers’ money for that.”
-
https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2022/12/20/dr-leana-wen-drops-a-bombshell-about-natural-immunity-vs-the-covid-vaccine/?bcid=ed8ce24540e2a6eab20f810eceb96df780d7f81b5498da2ea67392b28fbf1b00&utm_campaign=nl&utm_medium=email&utm_source=twtydaily
Dr. Leana Wen drops a bombshell about natural immunity vs. the COVID vaccine
Posted at 12:53 pm on December 20, 2022 by Sarah D
A few months ago, former Planned Parenthood CEO Dr. Leana Wen wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post about her major change of heart with regard to masking her young kids at school.
She’s apparently spent the time since then evolving on other COVID-related issues, because she recently wrote another opinion piece for WaPo, this time concerning the COVID vaccine mandate for the U.S. military:
Notably, Wen also discusses the effectiveness of natural immunity vs. vaccination, and you’ll be shocked to learn that there might actually be something to that whole natural immunity thing after all:
It’s crucial to discuss immunity from infection, because abundant research shows natural immunity conveys excellent protection against covid. One Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that vaccinated people who never had covid were at least three times as likely to be infected as unvaccinated people with prior infection. And a Lancet study found that those who were vaccinated but never had covid were four times as likely to have severe illness resulting in hospitalization or death compared to the unvaccinated who recovered from it.
Protection from natural immunity also wanes at a slower rate than from vaccination. A recent large Israeli study published in the New England Journal of Medicine compared two groups of people: one that had been vaccinated and never had covid before, and another that never received vaccines but had recently recovered from covid. The results are striking: Two months after their shots, members of the first group had twice the number of infections as the second. And after six months, the first group’s infection rate was nearly three times higher than the second’s.
An updated booster dose could temporarily increase effectiveness, but the Pentagon doesn’t require it. The existing mandate is for the first two doses, which most service members probably received a year and a half ago. If that’s all those individuals received, they are almost certainly less protected from covid than people who have had the virus.
Isn’t that interesting? Why didn’t anyone think of it sooner?
We’re being facetious, of course. We laypeople were out here suggesting that dismissing natural immunity was maybe a mistake, and the so-called “experts” were out there telling us that that’s not how The Science™ works.
Gee.
Heh. Don’t hold your breath. Admitting that Rand Paul was right would no doubt be a bridge too far.
Learning from past mistakes? Where’s the fun in that?
We won’t forget. No matter how badly the Democrats and experts want us to.
***
-
https://nationalfile.com/new-scientific-study-shows-moderna-twice-as-likely-to-cause-heart-inflammation-as-pfizer-vaccine/
-
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3790837-nearly-half-of-passengers-from-china-to-milan-have-covid-italian-officials/
-
"Nearly half of passengers from China to Milan have COVID: Italian officials"
but if one states the obvious
that none of this would not have occurred had humans been going out and finding viruses to play around with in the lab
one is conspiracy theorist
recently spoke to liberal I know
who admitted the reason she refuses to admit this is because it is a Republican thing.
:x
we are doomed with die hard democrats like this
the stupidity .....
-
!! "none of this would not have occurred had humans been going out and finding viruses to play around with in the lab" !!
Uggh! They were playing around. We were paying for it. Everyone denies it. The motives were malicious. You can't say any of it aloud in a free speech country. No one investigates. No one ever will. The evidence is destroyed. The first whistle blowers disappeared. More than three year goes by and what? Everything's wrong. Nothing has changed. Nothing improved. No lessons learned. Want some kind of action? Not going to happen. We've got the most stupid and corrupt leader ever. And his corruption is tied to theirs.
Things can only get worse.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/pfizers-shots-arent-safe-and-were-never-shown-to-be_4947190.html?utm_source=share-btn-copylink
-
I read this morning that four out of five black women are considered obese and there is the well kept secret that covid has worse outcomes for the obese. So I searched for the covid outcomes of black women:
Harvard study, 2021:
"Black women died at more than three times the rates of white men and Asian men."
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/sex-disparities-covid-black-women/
(Even though overall, covid kills more men than women.)
Welfare programs also correlate with black women. Obesity correlates with welfare participation and with COVID deaths. What a tangled web we weave.
Yet the same groups cling to the party that overly indulges in welfare programs and coddles communist China, the State source of the virus.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/health/boosted-worse-off-than-vaccinated-in-many-states-data-show_4920614.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-12-31&src_cmp=mb-2022-12-31&utm_medium=email&est=vxMb7eMJv7gTfgRlEzelK8L%2Bu4kme8fmL%2FiPOwS5gHUqD%2FJudW3pS9tqsWIdoc7Fjwar
-
Something wicked this way comes (and by something, I mean mRNA immune system dysregulation)
Why the paper reporting an explosion in IgG4 antibodies after the mRNA boosters is so unsettling - in a hopefully easy to understand Q+A
ALEX BERENSON
JAN 2
Time for a story in Q+A format. Why?
By now, you have probably heard about the Science Immunology paper showing that people who have received mRNA Covid vaccines produce more of an unusual antibody called IgG4 over time. A number of mRNA skeptics, including me, wrote about it last week.
But the reasons why the paper is so troubling may still not be clear. So here’s a (with luck) digestible explanation, starting with what is probably the most important question: what’s the worst-case scenario?
1: What’s the worst-case scenario?
Glad you asked.
The worst-case scenario: the mRNA shots lead to a doom loop, robbing vaccinated people of a crucial immune system tool against the coronavirus in a way that worsens with each new infection.
Thus, over time, the average severity of Covid infections will increase. People will take longer to get better once they’re infected. Hospitalizations and deaths will rise. The health-care system will come under worsening strain.
Oh, and some people may suffer nasty autoimmune side effects too, including pancreatitis, kidney disease, and even aneurysms.
===========================
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.ade2798?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBJ9eY7SliM
-
The Wall Street Journal:
Public-health experts are sounding the alarm about a new Omicron variant dubbed XBB that is rapidly spreading across the Northeast U.S. Some studies suggest it is as different from the original Covid strain from Wuhan as the 2003 SARS virus. Should Americans be worried?
It isn’t clear that XBB is any more lethal than other variants, but its mutations enable it to evade antibodies from prior infection and vaccines as well as existing monoclonal antibody treatments. Growing evidence also suggests that repeated vaccinations may make people more susceptible to XBB and could be fueling the virus’s rapid evolution.
Prior to Omicron’s emergence in November 2021, there were only four variants of concern: Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma. Only Alpha and Delta caused surges of infections globally. But Omicron has begotten numerous descendents, many of which have popped up in different regions of the world curiously bearing some of the same mutations.
“Such rapid and simultaneous emergence of multiple variants with enormous growth advantages is unprecedented,” a Dec. 19 study in the journal Nature notes. Under selective evolutionary pressures, the virus appears to have developed mutations that enable it to transmit more easily and escape antibodies elicited by vaccines and prior infection.
The same study posits that immune imprinting may be contributing to the viral evolution. Vaccines do a good job of training the immune system to remember and knock out the original Wuhan variant. But when new and markedly different strains come along, the immune system responds less effectively. (Source: wsj.com)
-
COVID Jabs Have Erased 25 Years of Health Gains
HEALTH VIEWPOINTS
Joseph Mercola
Jan 3 2023
Forget COVID, excess deaths have now taken off to a far greater degree than at the height of the pandemic – especially for this age group, where deaths soared by 40% in the third quarter of 2021.
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Americans had lost nearly three years of life expectancy during 2020 and 2021. In 2019, the average life span of Americans of all ethnicities was 78.8 years. By the end of 2020, it had dropped to 77.0 years and by the end of 2021 it was 76.4
From 2020 to 2021, death rates increased for each age group 1 year and over. The age groups with the highest increases include working age adults, 25 to 54, and children under 4
The leading causes of death in 2021 were heart disease, cancer and COVID-19, all three of which were higher in 2021 than 2020. Unintentional injury and stroke also significantly increased in 2021
Heart disease, stroke and cancer are all now-known side effects of the COVID jabs. Unintentional injuries may also be due to the shots, as you may easily be injured if you pass out or suffer a heart attack or stroke while doing just about anything
If the COVID jabs worked, you’d expect excess mortality to drop, yet that’s not what we’re seeing. We’re also not seeing mass death from COVID. The only clear factor that might account for these discrepancies is mass injection with an experimental gene transfer technology
In August 2022, provisional life expectancy estimates1,2 for 2021 were released, showing Americans had lost nearly three years of life expectancy during 2020 and 2021. In December 2022, the finalized mortality report3 confirmed these shocking data.
Shocking Decline in US Life Expectancy
In 2019, the average life span of Americans of all ethnicities was 78.8 years.4 By the end of 2020, it had dropped to 77.0 years5 and by the end of 2021, it was 76.4.6 As detailed in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s finalized mortality report for 2021:7
“In 2021, life expectancy at birth was 76.4 years for the total U.S. population — a decrease of 0.6 year from 77.0 years in 2020 … For males, life expectancy decreased 0.7 year from 74.2 in 2020 to 73.5 in 2021. For females, life expectancy decreased 0.6 year from 79.9 in 2020 to 79.3 in 2021 … From 2020 to 2021, death rates increased for each age group 1 year and over …”
As Virginia Commonwealth University professor of population health Dr. Steven Woolf told USA Today,8 “That means all the medical advances over the past quarter century have been erased.”
Life Expectancy Has Dropped Across All Age Groups
Age-specific rates of death increased across all age groups as follows:9
Epoch Times Photo
As you can see, something very strange is going on here. While life expectancy dropped across all age groups, the age groups with the highest increases in mortality were working age adults, 25 through 54, followed by children between the ages of 1 and 4.
What’s Killing Younger Americans?
The leading causes of death in 2021 were heart disease, cancer and COVID-19, all three of which were higher in 2021 than 2020.10 Unintentional injury and stroke also significantly increased in 2021.
Heart disease, stroke and cancer are all now-known side effects of the COVID jabs. Unintentional injuries may also be due to the shots, as you may easily be injured if you pass out or suffer a heart attack or stroke while doing just about anything.
Woolf, however, believes low COVID-19 jab rates and general poor health of Americans are to blame for the increased mortality. In addition to disregarding the fact that the primary causes of death are side effects of the COVID shots, working age adults and children are also, comparatively speaking, the healthiest groups in general and ought to have a lower risk of death from any cause, but especially heart disease and cancer.
And, since they have a far lower risk of dying from COVID in the first place (compared to the elderly), a slightly lower COVID jab rate in this age group is unlikely to have made such a huge difference.
According to CDC data,11 84% of 25- to 49-year-olds got at least one dose and 71% is considered “fully ‘vaccinated.'” In the 50 to 64 year category, it’s 95% and 83% respectively. In the 65 and over category, 95% got at least one dose and 93% are “fully ‘vaccinated,'” so it’s not like there’s a major difference in jab rates.
‘Sudden Death Syndrome’ May Be Driving Down Life Expectancy
COVID-19 is an unlikely cause for the rapid decline in life expectancy for the simple fact that it’s not a major contributor to rising excess mortality. Excess mortality is a statistic that is related to but separate from life expectancy.
It refers to the difference between the observed numbers of deaths (from all causes) during a given time, compared to the expected number of deaths based on historical norms, such as the previous five-year average. (Formula: reported deaths minus expected deaths equals excess deaths.)
Across the world, excess mortality has dramatically risen since the start of the pandemic, and barely a day now goes by without a healthy adult suddenly dropping dead with no apparent cause. People have died during live broadcasts, in the middle of speeches and during dinner.
Clearly, they were feeling well enough to go to work, to an event or a restaurant, and something caused them to instantaneously die without warning. These are the people making up these excess death statistics. They shouldn’t be dead, yet something took them out.
Excess Deaths Took Off After the COVID Jab Rollout
While COVID-positive deaths were part of the equation in 2020, excess deaths really took off after the rollout of the COVID jabs, not during the height of the pandemic as one would expect if COVID-19 was the real killer.12 Besides, we already know that “COVID-19 death” simply means that the person tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 at the time of death or just prior to it.
If the COVID jabs worked, you’d expect excess mortality to drop, yet that’s not what we’re seeing. We’re also not seeing mass death from COVID. The only clear factor that might account for these discrepancies is mass injection with an experimental gene transfer technology.
For the U.S., there were 3,440,546 deaths of all ages for the year 2020.13 The expected numbers were 3,028,959, so that was an excess of 13.6% (411,587 above expected). In 2021, there were 3,459,496 deaths of all ages, which was 16.4% above expectations. As of mid-April 2022, the excess death rate was already at 14.1%, with 1,041,538 reported deaths of all ages.
If the COVID jabs worked, you’d expect excess mortality to drop, yet that’s not what we’re seeing. We’re also not seeing mass death from COVID. The only clear factor that might account for these discrepancies is mass injection with an experimental gene transfer technology.
More Working Age Adults Were Coerced Into Taking the Jab
Life insurance data confirm that it’s working age adults who are dying in record numbers, which is what’s really driving down life expectancy. In the third quarter of 2021, the death rate of working-age Americans (18 to 64) was 40% higher than prepandemic levels, and these deaths were, again, not attributed to COVID.
As noted by Dr. Robert Malone in a January 2022 Substack article,14 workers were forced to accept the toxic COVID jabs at a higher frequency relative to the general population. This, I believe, is the real answer to why they’re dying at a disproportionate rate.
As for children under 4, well, toxins tend to be more dangerous to younger children, so it’s no great shock that the death rate for children has risen more than the rate of older people. After all, we’re now giving these toxic COVID jabs to babies as young as 6 months old.
Data Manipulation Hides Real Cause of Death
As mentioned, the leading causes of death in 2021 were heart disease, cancer and COVID-19. Data analysis by The Ethical Skeptic15 — self-described as a former intelligence officer and strategist — shows cancer deaths are now being mislabeled as COVID deaths. The suspicion is that this is an effort to hide the fact that the COVID shots have resulted in soaring cancer rates.
Seven of the 11 International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes tracked by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics — including cancer — saw sharp upticks starting in the first week of April 2021, which is when large swaths of the American population were getting their first COVID jabs.
According to The Ethical Skeptic’s analysis of U.S. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) data, the CDC has been filtering and redesignating cancer deaths as COVID deaths since Week 14 of 2021 to eliminate the cancer signal.16
The following two charts illustrate how cancer mortality is being artificially suppressed. As explained by The Ethical Skeptic:17,18
“The set dynamics are complex, but the principle is straightforward. When a death cert lists Cancer as the UCoD [underlying cause of death] and COVID as MCoD [main cause of death] — the UCoD & MCoD are being swapped, and COVID is being listed as the UCoD 100% (425/wk).
artificially suppressing cancer mortality in covid tail
“This results in 20% of all COVID deaths each week, also happening to be persons dying of Cancer — which is egregiously higher than it should be. This is clear over-attribution = equates to exactly the difference between the Cancer and All Other ICD-10 code lag curves.”
The problem facing the CDC, is … What does one do when COVID Mortality is no longer substantial enough to conceal the excess Cancer Mortality?”
lag deviation versus normalized trend
So, to rephrase, what The Ethical Skeptic is saying is that 20% of the weekly so-called COVID deaths are cancer deaths, which is rather astounding. Swapping the underlying and main causes of death, listing COVID as the main cause, hides (to some degree) the fact that cancer deaths are going through the roof.
According to his analysis, the COVID shot is killing 7,300 Americans per week. COVID, meanwhile, is killing 1,740 people.19 What will the CDC blame when COVID disappears, and they can no longer swap the underlying and main cause of death designations? Time will tell.
In the meantime, cancer is already one of the leading causes that is prematurely killing Americans, and uncontrollable turbo-charged cancers only started to occur after the rollout of the COVID jabs.20
Former NIH Director Blames Christian Misinformation
Former National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins recently suggested misinformation spread by White Evangelical Christians are driving vaccine hesitancy, and that it’s this religious “culture war” that is killing Americans.
Collins either has an agenda or is seriously confused, as statistics show whites in general had the highest COVID jab uptake rates when the jabs came out, and people who took it were far more likely to promote the jab than discourage it. As reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation:21
“… federal data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that 78% of the total population in the United States have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine …
Over the course of the vaccination rollout, Black and Hispanic people have been less likely than their White counterparts to receive a vaccine, but these disparities have narrowed over time and reversed for Hispanic people.”
Christians in general also haven’t been particularly “hesitant” about getting the jab. An investigation by the Public Religion Research Institute found22 56% of white evangelical protestants got jabbed, as did 74% of White mainline protestants and 79% of white Catholics. For some reason, the jab rates among Black religious affiliations were not assessed, so we have no idea whether religion has influenced Blacks to reject the shot.
Bear in mind, the COVID jab rate for the U.S. as a whole (one dose or more) is 79%,23 so Christians in general are about as average as you can get. Granted, evangelical protestants have a significantly lower rate, but is Collins suggesting white evangelicals are causing Blacks to reject the jab — because Blacks had, and still have, the lowest jab rates.24
The Use of Scapegoats Is a Classic Prejudice Builder
As detailed in “Vaccines Are the New ‘Purity Test,'” the Nazis used a four-step process for dehumanizing Jews,25 — prejudice, scapegoating, discrimination and persecution. By scapegoating Jews as dirty and diseased, the German public was indoctrinated into agreeing with, or at least going along with, the Nazis’ genocidal plan.
Over the past three years, we’ve seen how government officials have repeatedly tried to pin blame for the spread of COVID on one specific group or another. Fortunately, these narratives didn’t stick in the long term, but they did do significant harm for a time.
Collins’ attack on evangelical Christians is just the latest example of how they try to maintain control by seeding division among races, religious and political groups. The more we distrust and fear each other, the less we pay attention to the real criminals.
But, in order for this the division attempt to work, there must be a target, a scapegoat, toward which people can direct their frustration. COVID-19 is now endemic and a rare threat to anyone. COVID narratives are simply being recycled to keep the fear of illness and distrust among people going.
It’s important to realize, though, that fear is the No. 1 destroyer of freedom. The greater your fear, the more you’ll obey, and the more you obey, the more freedom you must give up. And freedoms relinquished are never voluntarily given back by those in power. People throughout the ages have always had to fight to regain freedoms lost.
Originally published January 03, 2023 on Mercola.com
Sources and References
1, 6 CDC Provisional Life Expectancy Estimates for 2021, August 2022
2 New York Times August 31, 2022 (Archived)
3, 5, 7, 9 CDC NCHS Data Brief December 2022
4 CDC Press release July 21, 2021
8, 10 USA Today December 22, 2022
11, 23, 24 USA Facts COVID Vaccine Tracker
12 Our World in Data Excess Mortality During COVID Pandemic
13 US Mortality
14 Robert Malone Substack January 2, 2022
15 The Ethical Skeptic August 20, 2022, Part 1
16 Gettr The Ethical Skeptic July 16, 2022
17 Twitter The Ethical Skeptic October 2, 2022, Corrected chart
18 Twitter The Ethical Skeptic October 1, 2022
19 Twitter The Ethical Skeptic September 29, 2022
20 Steve Kirsch Substack February 5, 2022
21 KFF July 14, 2022
22 PRRI September 22, 2021
25 BahaiTeachings Hitler’s Four-Step Process for Dehumanizing the Jews
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
-
That's not failure if what they really want is shorter human lifespans. (
-
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/moderna/reactogenicity.html
-
Sudden Death: The No. 1 Cause of Death for Under 65s in 2021
HEALTH VIEWPOINTS
Joseph Mercola
Jan 6 2023
Believe it or not, it’s now the No. 1 cause of death for this age group. Is there a silent epidemic that’s impairing and destroying your immune system (and literally obliterating 90% of your DNA repair mechanism)? And, what extreme remedies can reverse the attack?
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Mounting evidence shows the COVID shots are destroying people’s immune systems and are triggering turbo-charged cancers
A survey by Steve Kirsch found sudden death is the No. 1 cause of death among those under the age of 65 who got the COVID jab
Myocarditis as a cause of death is now registering across all age ranges but only for the vaccinated. Cardiac-related deaths are also significantly elevated among younger people (under 65) who got the jab compared to their unjabbed peers
Recent research shows repeated jabs trigger a switch in the types of antibodies your body produces and lower your ability to clear viruses. By switching from spike-specific neutralizing IgG antibodies to IgG4 antibodies, your body switches from tumor suppression mode into tumor progression mode
In addition to the potential for cancer cells to run amok, IgG4 dominance may also have severe autoimmune implications, as the COVID jab spike protein share similarities with human proteins
Evidence showing the COVID shots are a public health disaster keeps mounting. In late December 2022, Steve Kirsch1 and Jessica Rose,2 Ph.D., both published Substack articles detailing some of the latest evidence showing the shots are destroying people’s immune systems and have triggered an avalanche of turbo-charged cancers.
Kirsch’s article3 features results from a recent survey he conducted. It included four questions: age, whether the deceased was jabbed or not, year of death and cause of death. While the number of responses is low, major insights can still be gleaned by looking at the trends.
First, we have the baseline data from 2020, which show cancer was the No. 1 killer of Americans younger than 65, followed by hospital treatment for COVID. Turbo-charged cancers accounted for one-ninth of the cancer reports, and there were no reports of death from myocarditis.
Among seniors over the age of 65, preexisting conditions were the top cause of death in 2020. Cancer was second, COVID infection third and cardiac events fourth. There were no turbo-charged cancer deaths, nor any myocarditis deaths. Kirsch then gets into the differences between the vaxxed and the unvaxxed in 2021 and 2022.
What the Unvaxxed Died of in 2021 and 2022
In 2021 and 2022, the primary cause of death for people 65 and younger was hospital treatment for COVID. Incidences of sudden death, pulmonary embolism and turbo-charged cancers were all low, and there were no unknown causes of death, nor any myocarditis deaths.
record graph 1
The same went for people older than 65. Hospital treatment for COVID was the No. 1 killer. Heart attacks, turbo-charged cancer and sudden death were all low, and there were no deaths from myocarditis.
record graph 2
What the COVID-Jabbed Died of in 2021 and 2022
Among the COVID-jabbed aged 65 and younger, sudden death was the No. 1 cause of death in 2021 and 2022. The second was cardiac-related death and cancer was third. Importantly, the incidence of turbo-charged cancer among the jabbed was significant in this group, and myocarditis killed more than COVID-19.
record graph 3
Among those older than 65, cancer was the No. 1 cause of death, and the turbo-charged cancer rate is “huge compared to those without the vaccine.” Sudden death was also significantly elevated.
record graph 4
Stark Difference in Cancer Deaths Between Jabbed and Unjabbed
Kirsch summarizes the three most stunning differences between the jabbed and unjabbed:4
1.“Sudden death rates are off the charts for the vaccinated cf. unvaccinated for those <65 … It’s the #1 cause of death for this age group …
2.Myocarditis as a cause of death is registering now for both age ranges but only for the vaccinated …
3.Cardiac issues as a cause of death in vaccinated young people (<65) are significantly elevated vs. their unvaxxed peers.”
How COVID Jabs Raise Risk of Infections and Cancer
Exploding cancer rates is precisely what you would expect from a drug that impairs and destroys your immune system, which is what the COVID jabs do. The scientific paper “Innate Immune Suppression by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccinations”5 describes how the COVID shots suppress your innate immune system by inhibiting the type-1 interferon pathway, which is the first-stage response to all viral infections.
The reason type-1 interferon is suppressed is because it responds to viral RNA, and there’s no viral RNA in the COVID shot. The RNA is modified to look like human RNA, so the interferon pathway doesn’t get triggered. As a result, the COVID jab makes you more susceptible to infections.
One mechanism by which the jab causes cancer has to do with the fact that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein obliterates 90% of the DNA repair mechanism in lymphocytes,6 a type of white blood cell that helps your body fight infections and chronic diseases such as cancer. That’s bad enough, yet that’s just one mechanism of many.
How the Jab Lowers Your Viral Clearance Capacity
Recent research7,8 also shows that repeated jabs trigger a switch in the types of antibodies your body produces and lower your ability to clear viruses. Jessica Rose reviews these findings in her Substack article:9
“A paper was published in Science Immunology on December 22, 2022 entitled: ‘Class switch towards non-inflammatory, spike-specific IgG4 antibodies after repeated SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination’10 …
[It] explains in wonderful detail how a class of antibody that commands a non-inflammatory response (more like tolerizing) is prominent in people who have been repeatedly injected with the modified mRNA COVID-19 injectable products.
Translation: Instead of the intended pool of spike-specific neutralizing IgG antibodies being dominant in multiply-injected people, a pool of antibodies associated with spike-specific tolerance are dominant in multiply-injected people.
Besides the tolerizing capacity, they also showed that the phagocytic enabling capacities were much reduced overall. These activities lead to clearance of viral pathogens. Reduce them → reduction in viral clearance capacity …
To be clear, this wasn’t a ‘maybe the antibody profile was a little different’ … This was a ‘whoa there’s a 48,075% increase in spike-specific antibodies between the 2nd and 3rd injections …
IgG4 antibodies among all spike-specific IgG antibodies rose on average from 0.04% shortly after the second vaccination to 19.27% after the third … mportantly, that is not a typical consequence of repeat antigen exposure from either natural infections and vaccination.”
Spike Overexposure Also Opens the Door for Cancer
As noted by Substack author Brian Mowrey:11
“This is a totally bonkers thing for an anti-spike-protein B cell to decide to do, and reflects B cell over-exposure to spike, which reflects super-excess production of spike by the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA code …
It is not normal to make IgG4 when repeat encounter with a virus is spaced out over a lifetime, but injection-prompted antigen exposure promotes this response, and mRNA vaccines accelerate this effect …
There is no reason to predict that this would be ‘good’ in an antiviral response … ‘Wearing out’ the immune response in this way is believed to contribute to the development of tolerance against tumors.”
So, to summarize the effects in layman’s terms, the switch from spike-specific neutralizing IgG antibodies to IgG4 antibodies switches your body from tumor suppression mode into tumor progression mode, as cancerous cells now can evade your immune system. You become “tumor tolerant” as your immune system is no longer scavenging for and eliminating cancer cells. Mowrey also points out that:12
“Once a B cell has switched to IgG4, it cannot switch to any other IgG subclass, as the genes for all those other base designs have been discarded. All future clones of this B cell will code for IgG4 receptor/antibody for the antigen in question.”
What Other Health Effects May Result?
For clarification, IgG4 is a subclass of the immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody type that responds to repeated and/or long-term exposure to an antigen. The mRNA shot evaluated here was that of Pfizer, and it was compared against Janssen’s viral vector-based shot. Moderna’s shot was not included. Notably, these results were not found among people who got Janssen’s shot, only Pfizer’s Comirnaty jab.
Comirnaty … induces a shift away from a viral clearing to a tolerance-inducing antibody class, and this is not the status quo for traditional vaccines or natural infections. The main problem here is … we have no idea of the effects of this ‘effect.’ ~ Jessica Rose, Ph.D.
As noted by Rose:13
“… the bottom line here is that the Comirnaty product … induces a shift away from a viral clearing to a tolerance-inducing antibody class, and this is not the status quo for traditional vaccines or natural infections. The main problem here is … we have no idea of the effects of this ‘effect.'”
That said, we can look at what happens in people with IgG4-related disease, and start formulating hypotheses from there. As explained by Rose, a hallmark of IgG4-related disease is fibrosis, i.e., tissue scarring, which can lead to organ dysfunction, organ failure and even death if left untreated.
Rose is now researching the possible links between this antibody switching and the stringy white deposits found in COVID-jabbed people who died. Might it be a new form of connective tissue disease?
In addition to the potential for cancer cells to run amok (as discussed in the section above), IgG4 dominance may also have severe autoimmune implications seeing how the COVID jab spike protein share similarities with human proteins.
“Molecular mimicry has been shown14 in multiple publications to be a potential problem with regard to the spike protein whereby it has been shown to share motifs with human proteins,” Rose writes.15 “What this means is that autoimmunity potential against these human proteins is clear and present.
In the context of this recent publication showing a dominant IgG4 pool, I have to wonder what the implications of this dominant pool are for molecular mimicry. Are these IgG4 antibodies capable of tolerizing in the context of our own protein?”
Resources for Those Injured by the COVID Jab
If you got one or more jabs and suffered an injury, first and foremost, never ever take another COVID booster, another mRNA gene therapy shot or regular vaccine. You need to end the assault on your system.
The same goes for anyone who has taken one or more COVID jabs and had the good fortune of not experiencing debilitating side effects. Your health may still be impacted long-term, so don’t take any more shots.
When it comes to treatment, there are still more questions than answers, and most doctors are clueless about what to do — in part because they never bothered to give early treatment for COVID and therefore don’t understand how different medicines and supplements impact the spike protein.
So far, it seems like many of the treatments that worked against severe COVID-19 infection also help ameliorate adverse effects from the jab. This makes sense, as the toxic, most damaging part of the virus is the spike protein, and that’s what your whole body is producing if you got the jab.
Two doctors who have started tackling the treatment of COVID jab injuries in earnest include Dr. Michelle Perro (DrMichellePerro.com), whom I’ve interviewed on this topic, and Dr. Pierre Kory (DrPierreKory.com).
Both agree that eliminating the spike protein your body is now continuously producing is a primary task. Perro’s preferred remedy for this is hydroxychloroquine, while Kory’s is ivermectin. Both of these drugs bind and thereby facilitate the removal of spike protein.
As a member of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), Kory helped develop the FLCCC’s post-vaccine treatment protocol called I-RECOVER. Since the protocol is continuously updated as more data become available, your best bet is to download the latest version straight from the FLCCC website at covid19criticalcare.com16 (hyperlink to the correct page provided above).
The World Health Council has also published lists of remedies that can help inhibit, neutralize and eliminate spike protein. Inhibitors that prevent spike protein from binding to your cells include Prunella vulgaris, pine needle tea, emodin, neem, dandelion extract and the drug ivermectin.
Spike protein neutralizers, which prevent the spike from damaging cells, include N-acetylcysteine (NAC), glutathione, fennel tea, star anise tea, pine needle tea, St. John’s wort, comfrey tea and vitamin C. A March 2022 review paper17 suggests combating the neurotoxic effects of the spike protein using the flavonoids luteolin and quercetin.
Time-restricted eating (TRE) and/or sauna therapy can also help eliminate toxic proteins by stimulating autophagy. Several additional detox remedies can be found in “World Council for Health Reveals Spike Protein Detox.”
Other Helpful Treatments and Remedies
Other treatments and remedies that may be helpful for COVID jab injuries include:
•Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, especially in cases involving stroke, heart attack, autoimmune diseases and/or neurodegenerative disorders. To learn more, see “Hyperbaric Therapy — A Vastly Underused Treatment Modality.”
•Lower your Omega-6 intake. Linoleic acid is consumed in amounts ten times of ideal in well over 95% of the population and contributes to massive oxidative stress that impairs your immune response. Seed oils and processed foods need to be diligently avoided. You can review my previous post for more information.
•Pharmaceutical grade methylene blue, which improves mitochondrial respiration and aid in mitochondrial repair. It’s actually the parent molecule for hydroxychloroquine. A dose of 15 to 80 milligrams a day could go a long way toward resolving some of the fatigue many suffer post-jab.
It may also be helpful in acute strokes. The primary contraindication is if you have a G6PD deficiency (a hereditary genetic condition), in which case you should not use methylene blue at all. To learn more, see “The Surprising Health Benefits of Methylene Blue.”
•Near-infrared light, as it triggers production of melatonin in your mitochondria18 where you need it most. By mopping up reactive oxygen species, it too helps improve mitochondrial function and repair. Natural sunlight is 54.3% infrared radiation,19 so this treatment is available for free. For more information, see “What You Need to Know About Melatonin.”
•Lumbrokinase and serrapeptidase are both fibrinolytic enzymes taken on an empty stomach one hour before or two hours after to help reduce the risk of blood clots.
Originally published January 06, 2023 on Mercola.com
Sources and References
1, 3, 4 Steve Kirsch Substack December 27, 2022
2, 9, 13 Jessica Rose Substack December 27, 2022
5 Food Chem Toxicol June 2022; 164: 113008
6 The Expose August 2, 2022
7, 10 Science Immunology December 22, 2022
8, 11, 12 Brian Mowrey Substack July 22, 2022
14, 15 Jessica Rose Substack July 4, 2022
16 Covid19criticalcare.com
17 Molecular Neurobiology March 2022; 59(3): 1850-1861
18 Physiology February 5, 2020 DOI: 10.1152/physiol.00034.2019
19 Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology February 2016; 155: 78-85
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here
-
Katelyn Jetelina from Your Local Epidemiologist <yourlocalepidemiologist@substack.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 10, 2023 at 6:59 AM
Subject: COVID-19 Research Round-up
Open in app or online
Si quiere leer la versión en español, pulse aquí.
COVID-19 Research Round-up
KATELYN JETELINA
JAN 10
SAVE
▷ LISTEN
There are several new scientific developments regarding COVID-19 that might be useful to you for navigating the pandemic. All stem from different COVID-19 “story threads” that I’ve written before. So, here is a quick round-up.
Moderna is doing better
What we know: Even though Moderna and Pfizer are both mRNA vaccines, they have distinct micro-differences. The impact of those differences on immune defenses has been up for debate.
New info: Another study confirmed that Moderna induced a better first defense (protection against infection). In addition (and for the first time) we see that it also generated a larger T-cell response (i.e. secondary defense) than Pfizer. This likely impacts downstream outcomes, like duration and strength of protection against severe disease.
Why does this matter? Given this study and previous ones, there should be a preferential recommendation for those over age 50 to get Moderna over Pfizer. This is particularly important for older adults, as they have weaker immune systems.
Reinfections and implications for COVID-19 future
What we know: We have 30+ studies showing that hybrid immunity (vaccination + infection) is strong. However, we don’t know how durable the protection is as Omicron continues to mutate.
New info: A Lancet study assessed the probability of a BA.5 infection (U.S. “summer wave”) after a BA.1 infection (last U.S. “winter” wave). Hybrid immunity was stable up to 35 weeks (8 months). This doesn’t mean reinfections sooner aren’t possible. But, on average, there is a significant pattern.
Why does this matter? The “time” populations are susceptible to COVID-19 will determine the frequency and height of future waves in our “new normal.” This gives hope we’ll eventually see seasonal COVID-19 patterns, like we see with other coronaviruses. This may take a decade, but reprieve is eventually coming.
(Bloom Lab)
Vaccines and infections (still) reduce transmission
What we know: Before Omicron we knew that vaccines reduced transmission. Mis/dis-information has sown doubts.
New info: A new study from Nature examined prison systems to assess transmission networks. A COVID-19 vaccine reduced infectiousness by 22% and prior infection reduced infectiousness by 23%. Hybrid immunity reduced infectiousness by 40%. The least infectious cases were those who had been recently vaccinated.
Image
Why does this matter? On an individual level, vaccines still help in ways other than preventing severe disease. On a policy level, timed vaccination campaigns for a variant of concern may make sense until seasonal patterns arise.
There’s a lot of airplanes with COVID-19
What we know: Many studies show the possibility of COVID-19 transmission on planes. However, we don’t know how often COVID-19, on average, is present on planes.
New info: A recent analysis found that among wastewater samples taken from 29 flights from June to Deccember 2022, 28 of the planes had COVID-19 samples. Keep in mind this is not necessarily contagious people, but this is still a lot.
Why does it matter? Keep wearing a mask while traveling if you don’t want to get sick. Especially during surges.
Mask mandates in schools work
What we know: Masks work on an individual level, but the effectiveness of population-level mandates is less understood.
New info: A study from the New England Journal of Medicine compared schools in Massachusetts that kept the mask mandate to schools that removed the mask mandate after the statewide policy was rescinded. Schools that lifted masking had an additional 44.9 COVID-19 cases per 1000 students and staff.
Why does this matter? Mask mandates in large settings, like schools, work. This is important to know now or in future pandemics to keep kids in school.
Novavax
What we know: Novavax looked good in clinical trials, but we haven’t had great evidence on how well it works against Omicron subvariants and in the “real world”.
New info: The first real-world effectiveness data of Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine was released in a preprint. It doesn’t look great. Those with a Novavax primary series and/or booster were more likely to get an infection than those with an mRNA vaccine.
Why does this matter? As I’ve written before, Novavax is a great option against severe disease if someone doesn’t have the vaccine. But it’s not the silver bullet we are looking for.
Long COVID-19 plateauing after 3 shots?
What we know: Vaccines reduce the odds of long COVID, but we don’t know if the risk continues to decline after each shot.
New info: A JAMA study found that the risk of long COVID decreased with vaccination. But after the third shot, protection against long COVID-19 plateaued. More research is needed, as this is surprising.
Why does this matter? Don’t rely solely on vaccines to reduce your changes of long COVID. It helps, but after a while, not by much.
Bottom line
We are still learning how to live with COVID-19 every day. Yes, science can still help us make better and informed decisions.
You’re now caught up.
Love, YLE
-
https://www.contagionlive.com/view/hong-kong-confirms-human-case-of-avian-flu
-
https://www.revolver.news/2023/01/project-veritas-strikes-again-pfizer-scientist-admits-the-unthinkable-on-hidden-camera-they-all-knew/
-
More evidence that American data may badly overstate the protection mRNA shots offer against hospitalization from Covid
An internal database from two suburban Chicago hospitals reveals the bias; for health authorities, this skew is a feature, not a bug.
ALEX BERENSON
JAN 13
An internal database from a Chicago-area medical system offers new evidence hospitals are inflating how many unvaccinated people are hospitalized for Covid.
Many patients listed as having “unknown” Covid vaccination status and grouped with the unvaccinated are actually Covid-jabbed, the database suggests.
The system, which includes two medium-sized suburban hospitals west of Chicago, itself acknowledges in the database that it overestimates the number of unvaccinated patients - though it does not know by how much.
This error may sound minor and technical. In fact, it is crucial.
Knowing how many patients are vaccinated and how many are not is the first step in figuring out if mRNA shots reduce hospitalizations from Covid.
If hospitals are systematically misclassifying vaccinated patients as unjabbed, the endlessly repeated claim that unvaccinated people are at much higher risk of being hospitalized from Covid becomes impossible to trust, much less verify.
-
https://unherd.com/thepost/the-scientific-case-against-facemasks/
-
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/01/16/wut-new-covid-variant-may-target-the-vaccinated-n1662206
-
".The downside of all this is that it appears we are having no effect whatsoever on the Gates’ use of fake or bad numbers and thus on the highest profile analysis of malaria in the world."
I am hating all these "datas"
they cause more problems then they solve
lead to more unanswered questions then they answer
whole new careers based on collecting data 90% of which is bullshit
everything we do from # of times we burp cough sniffles etc is measured
no end to it
all different sorts of data results
all used for different agendas , resume packing , wall streeters, politicians , lawyers and doctors and on and on
now studies to measure rare outcomes so rare it is all BS most of the time
WATCH the data hogs - they know less then they think they do and try to con us with.
drives me nuts
epidemiologist do not answer questions - only raise them .
:roll:
-
Are Athletes Dropping Dead From the COVID Jab?
Joseph Mercola
Jan 17 2023
Despite ‘fact’ checkers’ best efforts to dismiss it as normal, the number of people in this group who died suddenly between January and April 2022 was 1,696% above the historical monthly norm. Is this the deadly combo that’s causing it?
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Over the past two years (2021 and 2022), more than 1,650 professional and amateur athletes have collapsed due to cardiac events and 1,148 of them proved fatal
Damar Hamlin, a 24-year-old Buffalo Bills football player went into cardiac arrest on live television after making a tackle during a January 2, 2023, game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Team trainers and emergency medical staff performed CPR for more than nine minutes, which saved his life
Whether the COVID jab played a role in what happened to Hamlin is impossible to know for sure, but Dr. Peter McCullough suspects it may have played a role — provided he actually got the shot
A condition called commotio cordis is known to occur in baseball when a player is hit hard on the breastbone, thereby causing cardiac arrest. There are approximately 20 to 30 such cases each year, but never in pro football. In McCullough’s view, commotio cordis can likely be ruled out. The more likely cause for Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, he believes, is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), or abnormal thickening of the heart muscle, which is the primary cause for athletes suffering cardiac arrest
During exercise, adrenaline is pumping, and when the heart is damaged this adrenaline rush is what triggers the cardiac arrest. This helps explain not only the death of athletes on the field, or people dying while jogging, but also why so many are dying in their sleep, because adrenaline is released between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m., as your body readies to wake up
With every passing day, the list of people suffering tragic consequences from the COVID mRNA shots grows longer. As of December 23, 2022, the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) had received 33,334 reports of post-jab deaths, 26,045 cases of myocarditis and 15,970 heart attacks.1
Many of these people and their stories have remained hidden from public view as social media have universally censored these stories. As a result, people who only read mainstream media are largely unaware of the damage being done. However, there is a population of people whose injuries and deaths have been far more public.
Over the past two years (2021 through 2022), more than 1,6502,3,4,5,6,7 professional and amateur athletes have collapsed due to cardiac events and 1,1488 of them proved fatal. In his book “Cause Unknown: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022,”9 Edward Dowd writes extensively about the anomalous number of deaths now occurring among athletes, which, despite “fact checkers” best efforts to dismiss it as “normal,”10,11 is anything but.
What Happened to Damar Hamlin?
More than likely, you’ve heard that Damar Hamlin, a 24-year-old Buffalo Bills football player went into cardiac arrest on live television after making a tackle during a January 2, 2023, game against the Cincinnati Bengals.12,13 Team trainers and emergency medical staff performed CPR for more than nine minutes, which saved his life. After initially being placed in a medically-induced coma, Hamlin was reportedly on the mend within a week.1
Whether the COVID jab played a role in what happened to Hamlin is impossible to know for sure. Looking at the replays, it’s clear he took a very severe hit right to the chest right before his collapse, and this certainly could have caused the heart attack. At bare minimum, it’s not unheard of. Former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker had a similar incident in 2017, as did hockey legend Chris Pronger in 1998.15
On the other hand, it’s also not inconceivable that the COVID jab — if Hamlin was in fact “vaxxed” — could have affected his heart, thereby playing a contributing role. We now know the COVID shot is associated with a significantly elevated risk of myocarditis, which in turn raises the risk of sudden cardiac death in contact sports.16
While the NFL enforced strict COVID jab rules for employees who have contact with players, the players and coaches were not subject to mandates.17,18 That said, 95% of players did get the shot, according to the NFL league.19
Cardiologist Offers His View
In a January 4, 2023, Children’s Health Defense interview, Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist and internist, reviewed what could have happened in Hamlin’s case. As noted by McCullough, a condition called commotio cordis (Latin for “agitation of the heart”) is known to occur in baseball when a player is hit hard on the breastbone, thereby causing cardiac arrest. There are approximately 20 to 30 such cases each year.
However, no such case has ever occurred in 100 years of pro football. Football players have padding that protects the breastbone, so in McCullough’s view, commotio cordis can likely be ruled out. The more likely cause for Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, he believes, is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), or abnormal thickening of the heart muscle, which is the primary cause for athletes suffering cardiac arrest.
The reason why HCM is the No. 1 cause of cardiac arrest in professional athletes is because it causes few if any symptoms and often goes undiagnosed. Professional athletes undergo extensive medical evaluation and cardiovascular screening20 before being given the green-light to play, and they also constitute the healthiest segment of society in general,21 so most heart problems are ruled out before they ever enter the field.
“The elephant in the room,” however, according to McCullough, is the COVID jab. Before these shots were rolled out, the average number of cardiac arrests in all European soccer and football leagues combined was 29 per year. Since the advent of the COVID shots, 1,598 European pro athletes have suffered cardiac arrest, giving us a comparative annual tally of nearly 800. Of those 1,598 cardiac arrests, 1,101 were fatal.
McCullough detailed these and other stats in a December 17, 2022, letter to the editor of the Journal of Scandinavian Immunology. The paper was co-authored by Panagis Polykretis, Ph.D., a researcher at the Institute of Applied Physics, which is part of the Italian National Research Council.22 McCullough and Polykretis have been, and still are, calling for a proper investigation of these deaths.
McCullough Suspects COVID Jab-Induced Myocarditis
McCullough and Polykretis suspect COVID jab-induced myocarditis is the explanation for this otherwise inconceivable increase in cardiac arrests among athletes, and McCullough believes it also tops the list of potential reasons for Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, considering 95% of NFL players had received the jab as of March 2022.23
McCullough cites research showing about 2.5% of COVID jab recipients sustain heart damage, 90% of them being men. And, in about half of all jab-related myocarditis cases, there are no symptoms to alert you there might be a problem. As explained by McCullough, myocarditis causes scarring on the heart, and it is this scarring that causes an abnormal electrical rhythm (ventricular tachycardia) and sudden adult death syndrome.
There are now more than 200 scientific papers on jab-related myocarditis. A January 2023 study24 in the European Journal of Pediatrics found high levels of circulating spike protein in 16 male high school students hospitalized with myocarditis induced by the shots, which again suggests the spike protein your body produces is a key pathogenic factor.
McCullough explains in greater detail how the shot may have triggered Hamlin’s cardiac arrest: During play, adrenaline is pumping, and when the heart is damaged this adrenaline rush is what triggers the cardiac arrest.
This helps explain not only the death of athletes on the field, or people dying while jogging, but also why so many are dying in their sleep, because adrenaline is released between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m., as your body readies to wake up.
1,696% Increase in Sudden Death Among Athletes
Whatever caused Hamlin’s cardiac arrest — and hopefully a careful medical investigation after his recovery will clarify what happened — there’s no doubt that athletes in general are dying in far greater numbers now than ever before.
The number of athletes who ‘died suddenly’ between January 2021 and April 2022 was 1,696% above the historical monthly norm between 1966 and 2004 — 42 per month compared to just 2.35 per month.
In related news, a November 2022 report25 by The Exposé showed the number of athletes who “died suddenly” between January 2021 and April 2022 was 1,696% above the historical monthly norm26 between 1966 and 2004 — 42 per month compared to just 2.35 per month.
athlete deaths monthly average
The following graph illustrates the rise in recorded athlete collapses and deaths between January 2021, the month the COVID shots started to roll out, and April 2022.
athlete collapses and deaths
As noted by The Exposé:27
“In all between Jan 21 and April 22, a total number of 673 athletes were known to have died. This number could, however, be much higher. So that’s 428 less than the number to have died between 1966 and 2004. The difference here though is that the 1,101 deaths occurred over 39 years, whereas 673 recent deaths occurred over 16 months …
athlete deaths
The yearly average number of deaths between 1966 and 2004 equates to 28. January 2022 saw three times as many athlete deaths than this previous annual average, as did March 2022. So this is obviously highly indicative of a problem.
The 2021 total equates to 394 deaths, 14x higher than the 1966 to 2004 annual average. The Jan to April 2022 total, a period of 4 months, equates to 279 deaths, 9.96x higher than the annual average between 1966 and 2004.
However, if we divide the 66 to 04 annual average by 3 to make it equivalent to the first four months’ worth of deaths in 2022, we get 9.3 deaths. So in effect, by April 2022, deaths among athletes were 10x higher than the expected rate …
etween 1966 and 2004. the monthly average number of deaths equates to 2.35. But between January 2021 and April 2022, the monthly average equates to 42. This is an increase of 1,696%.”
Risk of Cardiovascular Damage Soars After Second Shot
A nearly 1,700% increase in sudden cardiac-related death among athletes is inexplicable unless you take the experimental COVID jabs into account. Research28 published in November 2021 found inflammatory markers — signs of cardiovascular damage — rose dramatically after the second COVID shot, and the risk of heart attacks and other heart-related problems more than doubled in the months following these injections.
Pre-jab, patients had an 11% five-year risk of heart attack. Post-jab, that risk rose to 25%, a 227% increase in risk. As reported by The Exposé, other statistics also reveal heart damage has become ubiquitous among those who got one or more mRNA jabs:29
“Acute cardiac failure rates are now 475 times the normal baseline rate in VAERS. Tachycardia rates are 7,973 times the baseline rate. Acute myocardial infarction is 412 times the baseline rate.
The rates of internal hemorrhage, peripheral artery thrombosis, and coronary artery occlusion are all over 300 times the baseline rate … It doesn’t take a genius to work out that COVID-19 vaccination is the reason the monthly average number of athlete deaths was 1,700% higher than the expected rate by April 2022.”
Sudden Death: The No. 1 Cause of Death for Under 65s in 2021
In late December 2022, Steve Kirsch also published data showing the shots are a public health disaster.30 According to the results of a survey Kirsch conducted, “sudden death” was the No. 1 cause of death in 2021 and 2022 among Americans under 65 who had received the COVID shot.
The second and third causes of death in this group were cardiac-related death and cancer respectively. Importantly, the incidence of turbo-charged cancer among the jabbed was also significant, and myocarditis killed more than COVID-19.
Among the unjabbed, the primary cause of death for people 65 and younger in 2021 and 2022 was hospital treatment for COVID. Incidences of sudden death, pulmonary embolism and turbo-charged cancers were all low, and there were no unknown causes of death, nor any myocarditis deaths. Kirsch summarized the three most stunning differences between the jabbed and unjabbed as follows:31
“Sudden death rates are off the charts for the vaccinated cf. unvaccinated for those <65 … It’s the #1 cause of death for this age group …
Myocarditis as a cause of death is registering now for both age ranges but only for the vaccinated …
Cardiac issues as a cause of death in vaccinated young people (<65) are significantly elevated vs. their unvaxxed peers.”
Learn CPR, It Saves Lives
While we cannot make any definitive statements about what caused Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, one thing that is not in doubt is that immediate and ongoing CPR is what saved his life. Nine minutes is a long time to give CPR, and most people will simply give up after two or three minutes. Hamlin’s case is proof positive that sometimes you need to give CPR for an extended period of time.
As many who got the experimental COVID shots will have some level of heart damage that raises their risk of cardiac arrest and sudden death, the need for CPR know-how is only going to grow. So, please, learn CPR. It could be the difference between life and death of someone you love. Also, consider investing in an automated external defibrillator (AED) for your home and/or office.
These machines are lightweight and battery operated. Sticky pads with sensors are attached to the chest and those electrodes send information to the computer inside the machine.
The AED computer will analyze the heart rhythm to determine if electric shock is needed. If required, the machine uses voice prompts to tell you what to do and when to do it. AED machines are safe to use and there are no reports of them harming bystanders or users or, of delivering inappropriate shocks.32
When an individual suffers a cardiac arrest, the heart immediately stops beating. This means there is no blood being pumped to the body or brain. At this time it is critical for bystanders to:
Call emergency services (dial 911 in the U.S.)
Begin CPR
Apply the nearest automated external defibrillator (AED)
If you don’t have formal training, 911 dispatchers can give you specific instructions on using an AED and performing CPR until paramedics arrive. While you may hesitate, being afraid you could hurt the victim, at this time the person is clinically dead and can’t get any worse. Bystander CPR and AED can only help.
For cardiac arrest, CPR and treatment with an AED as needed (while awaiting emergency services) significantly increase the potential for survival and, importantly, lower the risk of permanent disability. It is now believed Hamlin has a good chance of neurological recovery, which would not have been possible had it not been for the fact that he received CPR for more than nine minutes.
Originally published January 16, 2023 on Mercola.com
Sources and References
1 OpenVAERS as of December 23, 2022
2, 22 Journal of Scandinavian Immunology Letter to the Editor December 17, 2022
3 Twitter Liz Wheeler January 3, 2023
4 Twitter Liz Wheeler January 3, 2023, Archived
5 The Expose List of Athlete Deaths, April 2022
6 Epoch Times January 4, 2023 (Archived)
7, 8 Good Sciencing Athlete Deaths List
9 Amazon.com Cause Unknown by Ed Dowd
10 Poynter January 9, 2023
11 Washington Post January 3, 2023
12 CNN January 3, 2023
13 Fox News January 3, 2023
14 Yahoo! Sports Hamlin Updates
15 Clutchpoints January 3, 2023
16 European Heart Journal Case Reports March 2021; 5(3): ytab054
17 USA Today November 4, 2021
18 NBC Sports August 3, 2022
19, 23 AP March 3, 2022
20 Heart July 2007; 93(7): 875-879
21 Circulation August 15, 1996; 94: 850-856
24 European Journal of Pediatrics January 5, 2023
25, 27, 29 The Expose November 23, 2022
26 Eur J Cardiovasc Prev Rehabil December 2006; 13(6): 859-875
28 Circulation November 8, 2021; 144: A10712
30, 31 Steve Kirsch Substack December 27, 2022
32 National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, Automated External Defibrillator
-
Vaccine Immunologists Starting to Resemble the Academy of Projectors in Gulliver’s Travels
Recent paper on "unexpected rise" of lgG4 antibodies is further evidence the COVID-19 mRNA shots are a crude experiment on all of humanity.
Jan 23 2023
On a recent morning news show in Palm Beach, I was asked about a paper by Pascal Irrgang et al. titled Class switch towards non-inflammatory, spike-specific IgG4 antibodies after repeated SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination. At the time I’d only read the abstract and was reluctant to comment on it, apart from saying it’s yet another document that calls into question the efficacy of the COVID-19 mRNA gene transfer shots.
To be sure, it’s already as plain as day that these product do NOT prevent infection and transmission of the virus. Deborah Birx and Rochelle Walensky have expressly stated this on national television.
To me, the most notable sentence in Irrgang’s abstract is the following:
Here, we report that several months after the second vaccination, SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies were increasingly composed of non-inflammatory IgG4, which were further boosted by a third mRNA vaccination and/or SARS-CoV-2 variant breakthrough infections. IgG4 antibodies among all spike-specific IgG antibodies rose on average from 0.04% shortly after the second vaccination to 19.27% late after the third vaccination.
The rise of IgG4 antibodies “to 19.27% late after the third vaccination” was completely unexpected, and, as the authors note later in the study:
The IgG4 subclass does not prevail after repeated vaccination with tetanus toxoid or respiratory syncytial virus infection.
I’ll let the immunologists debate about the significance of this finding and limit my commentary to a few basic observations.
1). The paper is further evidence that the developers of the COVID-19 mRNA shots did NOT understand precisely how they would affect the human immune response.
2). The developers of these products had NO IDEA how they would affect the immune response after three shots.
3). The developers of these products cannot know what will happen in the event of lgG4 antibody prevalence because they have never observed it before.
Though the authors do not explicitly state it, the careful reader logically deduces that the dramatic rise of lgG4 antibodies relative to other spike-specific lgG antibodies may impair the immune response to SARS-CoV-2. To be sure, the authors try to downplay this concern—probably because they know the danger of challenging COVID-19 Vaccine Orthodoxy—but their findings are nevertheless inherently a matter of concern.
The Irrgang paper reminded me of the Academy of Projectors on the Island of Legado in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travelers, who perform pointless experiments that benefit no one.
The COVID-19 mRNA gene transfer program is an example of scientists grossly and arrogantly overestimating their understanding of nature. Now we see immunologists stating, in effect:“Gee whiz, we didn’t expect that outcome after receiving three shots of a vaccine that doesn’t prevent infection and transmission.”
This is the equivalent of an automobile brake manufacturer saying, “Gee whiz, we didn’t expect our brakes to fade at that temperature, though we are still confident our brakes are a great product.”
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
John Leake
John Leake studied history and philosophy with Roger Scruton at Boston University. He then went to Vienna, Austria on a graduate school scholarship and ended up living in the city for over a decade, working as a freelance writer and translator. He is a true crime writer with a lifelong interest in medical history and forensic medicine.
Dr. Peter A. McCullough
MD
Dr. McCullough is a practicing internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist managing the cardiovascular complications of both the viral infection and the injuries developing after the COVID-19 vaccine in Dallas TX, USA. He has dozens of peer-reviewed publications on the infection, multiple US and State Senate testimonies, and has commented extensively on the medical response to the COVID-19 crisis in TheHill, America Out Loud, NewsMax, and on FOX NEWS Channel.
-
https://poestories.com/read/masque
The Masque of the Red Death
by Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1850)
THE "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal -- the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death."
It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.
It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven -- an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke's love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue -- and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange -- the fifth with white -- the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet -- a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.
It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.
But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.
He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fête; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm -- much of what has been since seen in "Hernani." There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these -- the dreams -- writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away -- they have endured but an instant -- and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.
But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise -- then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.
In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood -- and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.
When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.
"Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him -- "who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him -- that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!"
It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly -- for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.
It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who, at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince's person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple -- through the purple to the green -- through the green to the orange -- through this again to the white -- and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry -- and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.
And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
-
https://twitter.com/Project_Veritas/status/1618405890612420609
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/117/762/222/original/5e6d6bcc91880945.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/117/762/222/original/5e6d6bcc91880945.jpg)
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/125/968/578/playable/e844cd3a4db18dd5.mp4
-
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2023/01/29/pfizers-response-to-project-veritas-left-much-to-be-desired-n527164
-
https://www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2023/02/1-21.jpg
-
https://amgreatness.com/2023/02/03/project-veritas-pfizer-director-acknowledges-internal-concerns-about-post-injection-menstrual-irregularities/
-
Immune Exhaustion Emerges After 3rd Vaccine Dose: Current Findings
Finding suggests how little we know about the immune system
Vaccines have been upheld as the best strategy for dealing with infectious diseases, but that’s largely because of a limited understanding of the immune system and how to best complement and support its function. Our bodies are normally able to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to invading pathogens or when a vaccine stimulates an immune reaction, but there are factors that can compromise that.
A study published in Science Immunology in January 2023 (but first submitted in August 2022) shows that incremental doses of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine boosters may be one such factor, based on how they train our immune systems. In this case, the immune system seemed to gain a false sense of security from dealing with the booster version of the vaccine, which is supposed to teach the immune system how to deal with the virus. Unfortunately, in this case, it seemed that the immune system has learned that it doesn’t need to mount a strong counterattack. Worse, the vaccine boosters might not even induce any effect in people at high risk of severe infection.
IgG Subtype Composition Changed After Vaccination
According to the study, the third dose of the mRNA vaccines seems to be linked with a class switch in subtypes of immunoglobulin G (IgG), the dominating serum antibody in our immune system, which raises the question of immune exhaustion. Class switching is when B cells redirect their efforts toward producing IgG. To start, they produce generic immunoglobulin cells such as IgM. But once they find that the invading pathogen is tougher than they thought, they switch to producing the more effective IgG to ward off the infection.
IgG is an important serum antibody that makes up roughly 80 percent of all antibodies in our immune system. After class switching occurs, B cells release different types of IgG instead of other less-effective immunoglobulin cells. Depending on the severity of the infection, the ratio of IgG may also vary.
IgG is the more effective fighter in our immune system, as it has the ability to opsonize and fixate complements, meaning that it attaches to infected cells or pathogens and instructs killer cells to swallow intruders up through phagocytosis. It’s also the only antibody that crosses into the placenta, playing a critical role in protecting the unborn fetus.
However, IgG is split up into four major subtypes—denoted IgG1 through IgG4—and each has its own strengths and limitations.
Out of all four, IgG1 makes up most of serum IgG, as it has the best immune properties. Along with IgG3, these two are the most potent members of the IgG family.
IgG4 is considered one of the weakest types, as it doesn’t do as well in attracting immune cells responsible for eliminating invaders.
Research shows that IgG4 composition usually hovers at about 4 percent, a number matched by the aforementioned study for patients after five months of receiving the second dose of vaccine.
Right after the second dose, IgG4 levels were at 0.04 percent while IgG1 and IgG3—the most potent members in the IgG family—made up 96.55 percent of all IgG, according to the aforementioned Science Immunology paper.
This change in IgG levels indicates that the body interprets the second dose as a serious infection and produces the more effective IgG to tackle the simulated infection. However, things look a little different after the vaccine booster shot.
In the study, the percentage of IgG4 in the blood serum rose to unexpectedly high levels after the third dose. Ten days after the third vaccination, IgG4 levels rose to 13.91 percent and jumped to 19.27 percent five months after. At the same time, IgG1 and IgG3 levels both dropped, showing a significant change in blood serum antibody composition.
Epoch Times Photo
Data shows that the composition of IgG subtypes changes drastically after the third dose of an mRNA vaccine. (The Epoch Times)
This isn’t good, as higher levels of IgG4, without the ability to stimulate immune cells, could indicate immune exhaustion. It’s also an indication that the immune system intentionally dampened the response starting with the third dose of the vaccination.
On the other hand, although IgG3 and IgG1 contribute the most to immune mechanisms, the downside is that they’re costly to produce and can quickly wear out the body. In contrast, IgG4 isn’t as effective but it’s more economical to produce.
The immune system will always place warding off outside intruders at the top of its to-do list while keeping efficiency in mind. This is why the amount of each IgG subtype produced varies with each infection.
In the Science Immunology study, high IgG4 levels after the third dose, even a long time after it, indicate that the immune system is being worn out through the repeated vaccination course. The body treats the third dose with more indifference and deploys the less effective IgG4 in response.
This development of more IgG4 than usual is unhealthy and riskier for people if they encounter the real virus later, as COVID-19 can develop into a rather severe disease, especially for people with chronic conditions. If the body begins to treat the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine like a boy crying wolf, then what if the real virus comes knocking at the door?
The vaccine is meant to train the immune system’s memory cells so that the next time something similar comes along, they know how to quickly defend the immune system. This process is also called antibody acquisition. The aforementioned study demonstrates that the body stops regarding COVID-19 as a serious viral infection after the vaccine booster shot. However, in some people, the boosters actually have no effect at all.
Antibody Acquisition Rates ‘Extremely Low’ for Organ Transplant Recipients, Studies Show
One group of people who might gain the least from vaccination seems to include those who are immunocompromised, such as organ transplant recipients—people who regularly take immunosuppressants as a part of post-operational procedures.
A study published in Nature shows that antibody acquisition rates against COVID-19 were “extremely low” in kidney transplant patients. This finding contradicts the purpose of the vaccine, as it’s meant to induce antibody acquisition.
Epoch Times Photo
Organ transplant patients struggle to neutralize antibodies from the third dose of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. (The Epoch Times)
Similar reports have also surfaced elsewhere, especially in regard to newer variants of COVID-19. An observational study claiming to be the largest when analyzing four-dose vaccinated organ transplant recipients shows that the mRNA vaccine booster demonstrates a “lack of formal neutralization” against “variants of concern including Omicron.”
Data published by Elsevier also shows that antibody neutralization against the Omicron coronavirus variant has seen a 15- to 20-fold reduction when compared with the wild-type virus in transplant recipients. These findings are of grave concern.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends that immunocompromised people receive a COVID-19 vaccine, as well as get their vaccine boosters.
According to data published in the medical journal Transplantation, during the recent Omicron wave, although COVID-19 cases have increased for organ transplant recipients, the death rate of this population has dropped fivefold.
Epoch Times Photo
Organ transplant recipients see an uptick in cases yet a lowered mortality rate during the Omicron surge. (The Epoch Times)
However, is this reduction due to repeated vaccination or to the reduced pathogenicity of Omicron variants? Is it really effective to drive vaccination campaigns for the immunocompromised, based on the trifling level of antibody acquisition? Can the benefits of repetitive boosting outweigh the increased risk of side effects?
It’s really time to reconsider what place the COVID-19 vaccines should take. Are we underestimating the wisdom of our immune system? This stance is similar to that taken in a previous article that mentions how “negative efficacy” should have stopped vaccine recommendations in their tracks.
Now, researchers are saying that vaccines, especially boosters, fail to have a significant effect on the immunocompromised—the very group of people especially susceptible to severe disease and death. We need to stop placing the mRNA shots on a pedestal and consider all options in response to SARS-CoV-2, such as focusing on bolstering our natural immune system and holistic well-being.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/bivalent-covid-vaccines-perform-worse-against-variant-now-dominant-in-united-states-studies_5040659.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2023-02-08&src_cmp=mb-2023-02-08&utm_medium=email&est=khoAfJqMt68vE0FNmDZtrrRku8QZZ5LmdsunpVN%2BhQeBw73FJayTmobpgmlJ%2BUTCxGfe
-
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/wrongly-censored-scientist-presses-covid-19-truth-commission-expose
-
https://nypost.com/2023/02/26/covid-lab-leak-is-a-scandal-of-media-and-government-censorship/
-
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-silicon-valley-lost-chips-race?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=fatoday&utm_campaign=Innovation%20Power&utm_content=20230301&utm_term=FA%20Today%20-%20112017
-
can't read
need to sign in
-
Dammit- I've used up my one-free-article-per month.
Wrong thread anyway!
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/natural-immunity-is-as-protective-as-covid-jab_5108821.html?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2023-03-13&src_cmp=health-2023-03-13&utm_medium=email&est=KzRugWLtXqTmxTnrD2n1HE6vO2QiCoDp2Tn3%2BV1eYy%2FdWE3RW%2FXUFiNAVd%2BL90AXhrjd
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/natural-immunity-is-as-protective-as-covid-jab_5108821.html?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2023-03-13&src_cmp=health-2023-03-13&utm_medium=email&est=KzRugWLtXqTmxTnrD2n1HE6vO2QiCoDp2Tn3%2BV1eYy%2FdWE3RW%2FXUFiNAVd%2BL90AXhrjd
How are you going to wipe out western populations if you don't give them heart inflammation, cancer and infertility?
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/natural-immunity-is-as-protective-as-covid-jab_5108821.html?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2023-03-13&src_cmp=health-2023-03-13&utm_medium=email&est=KzRugWLtXqTmxTnrD2n1HE6vO2QiCoDp2Tn3%2BV1eYy%2FdWE3RW%2FXUFiNAVd%2BL90AXhrjd
How are you going to wipe out western populations if you don't give them heart inflammation, cancer and infertility?
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/turbo-cancer-comes-for-the-vaccinated
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoxaparin_sodium
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoxaparin_sodium
A large number of young people probably need it now for some mysterious reason.
-
which is also a risk factor for clots
just keeping our minds open. :wink:
-
CCP:
Please flesh that out.
-
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dvt/infographic-risk.html
I am not saying there is no risk for the vaccine
just adding this into the mix
-
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dvt/infographic-risk.html
I am not saying there is no risk for the vaccine
just adding this into the mix
Did we get 20% fatter in the last few years? That seems impossible.
-
yes I agree
that that would not likely explain increase in clots the past 2 yrs
but worth noting and getting your attention!
:-D
-
At a wet market in Wuhan, within walking distance of a PLA bioweapons lab…
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/03/covid-origins-research-raccoon-dogs-wuhan-market-lab-leak/673390/
Uke sailboat underwater demolition team level plausible!
-
"at a wet market in Wuhan, within walking distance of a PLA bioweapons lab"
and I would add a massive CCP cover up ......
Fauci is probably already going on MSM to promote this
:roll:
-
"So, a Raccoon Dog and a HIV + Pangolin were sharing a bowl of bat soup…"
:-D
-
Tony :
" Now, an international team of virologists, genomicists, and evolutionary biologists may have finally found crucial data to help fill that knowledge gap. A new analysis of genetic sequences collected from the market shows that raccoon dogs being illegally sold at the venue could have been carrying and possibly shedding the virus at the end of 2019. It’s some of the strongest support yet, experts told me, that the pandemic began when SARS-CoV-2 hopped from animals into humans, rather than in an accident among scientists experimenting with viruses."
:roll: :wink: :roll: :wink: :roll: :wink:
-
PS not also published in the Atlantic
the same partisan rag that had this on it's cover 4/16 :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic
The "Distinct Obama foreign policy" ( :roll: :wink:)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_Doctrine#:~:text=Some%20trace%20the%20origin%20of,mobilize%20partners%20to%20take%20collective
what a lousy hand job ....... this BS is.
Obama the foreign policy great
he got Osama otherwise I cannot think of anything but failures in his foreign policy
ISIS - the nothing to worry about JV team (only a basketball wanna be would label them that)
Russia takes Crimea
China rising while he slept
ridiculous Iran deal with cash while they continued the nuc program
-
https://twitter.com/MaryMargOlohan/status/1637831102109810693?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1637840752972640258%7Ctwgr%5E47c3387c7622e0d8ec31421b19ef9315d8742564%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fentertainment%2F2023%2F03%2F21%2Fpbs-fauci-documentary-shows-washington-man-rejecting-covid-vaccine-its-about-inciting-fear-in-people%2F
I agree the vaccine is more dangerous (though rare) to children then the virus itself
also it is not from what I can tell preventing spread
though it does reduce severe infection which is really only a concern for those at higher risk.
Tony is clearly a lying self pandering liar.
-
Yup.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/autopsy-studies-of-covid-19-illness-rule-out-extensive-myocarditis_5160022.html?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2023-03-30&src_cmp=gv-2023-03-30&utm_medium=email&est=juxxsPinPEllTdh8z9TrwM9o7SpUvHo12SulSzyE%2FKydf8xtfhhXkMlp%2B481aWTuq%2BIQ
-
second
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/3756896/cooties-kill
-
Virus Hits 7:1 Vaxxed Over Unvaxxed
Data analyst Ethical Skeptic concludes from CDC, Worldometers, Walgreens data: “A 7:1 appetite in the virus for the recently vaccinated”
We have seen repeat bouts of COVID among such vaccine promoters as the Bidens, Fauci, Walensky, et al.
Could this abysmal negative efficacy of the COVID vaccines have something to do with the immune impairment that some of us were warning about since way back BEFORE most people had taken the COVID shots? I was removed from Twitter permanently the same day, 2/19/21, that I promised a Twitter follower that the above article would be coming out shortly. How high would COVID vaccine uptake have been if critics like me had not been removed from Twitter and suppressed on Facebook?
Here is what the public was not allowed to see, in the heyday of vaccine mania, just a year and a half ago:
A vaccine that makes you more likely to catch the disease it’s named for is not such an appealing proposition, and is not worth taking.
And this is aside from the vast deaths and injuries that have followed those highly toxic vaccines in all age groups.
Now data analyst “Ethical Skeptic” has compiled updates of some of the databases (Walgreens, Worldometers, CDC) that I examined in my book Neither Safe Nor Effective, and sees from the most recent data that COVID vaccinated people are seven times as likely to test positive for COVID as the unvaccinated, after adjusting for proportion of the population in each category and testing penetration in each group. Yes, it is possible that the unvaccinated may feel less interested in COVID testing, but have been more bullied into testing by employers and others (Graph 4).
Accounting for such influences, here is Ethical Skeptic’s breakdown, with gradual zoom-ins to that tweet:
Epoch Times Photo
twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/1587125529689444353
Epoch Times Photo
This was Ethical Skeptic’s earlier conclusions of the data as of October 18, 2022, in which a 4:1 preference for the vaxxed over unvaxxed by the virus had become apparent.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
-
second
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11915563/World-Health-Organization-says-healthy-kids-teens-dont-need-Covid-vaccinations.html
-
https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/17/roger-marshall-senate-help-committee-report-lab-leak-wuhan-institute-virology/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rundown&pnespid=urk4WHlEbqBFw.bQ.W2oTJKTvxKuRsV3LuGwmeZo9QRmYZeNcwe_37BnhIDO2A3FUOM4.UFQ
-
https://www.oann.com/newsroom/fda-withdraws-authorization-for-original-covid-19-vaccines/
-
https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-surgeon-general-altered-key-175951425.html
I have no idea one way or the other
just posting
I am just sick of the back and forth with the God darn data wars
is all I know
and do not know who to believe or what data to pay any credence to
just sickening all the way around.
disgusted in jersey ....
-
"all I know and do not know who to believe or what data to pay any credence to just sickening all the way around."
Yup.
-
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/nyc-covid-survey/2023/05/05/id/1118780/
covid deaths by state
NY = 77,000 (includes the whole state )
8 + million in NYC
yet 1 in 4 claim they lost at least one person to corona (could be someone they knew
at work or friend of a friend I presume)
one in 10 lost 3 - that would be 800,000
these numbers are absurd
then of course the claim mostly "people of color"
again "data analysis" made in way to support a story line...........
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/3961627/incoming-disease-serious-diseases
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/the-spike-proteins-assault-on-our-spleen_5214402.html?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2023-05-11&src_cmp=health-2023-05-11&utm_medium=email&est=BimleWJRL43Iu3XVI7r3bL5B44nU0JaMzCiHQWLsRzpIqoSiZDP%2B3AFabQs6mc0gQW6R
-
Messenger RNA COVID-19 Vaccines Had No Effect on Overall Mortality: Trial Data Reanalysis
VACCINES & SAFETY
Zachary Stieber
Zachary Stieber, Reporter
May 13 2023
RNA COVID-19 Vaccines Had No Effect on Overall Mortality: Trial Data Reanalysis
The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines did not impact overall mortality, a reanalysis of clinical trial data found.
The two vaccines, both based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, protected against deaths from COVID-19 but that effect was offset by vaccinated trial participants being more likely to die from cardiovascular problems, Christine Stabell Benn, a health professor at the University of Southern Denmark, and other researchers reported in April in the Cell journal.
On the other hand, vaccines that utilized adenoviruses, such as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, had a favorable impact on both COVID-19 mortality and overall mortality, according to the reanalysis.
The research analyzed data from randomized clinical trials (RCTs) reported by the companies that manufacture the vaccines.
“In the RCTs with the longest possible blinded follow-up, mRNA vaccines had no effect on overall mortality despite protecting against some COVID-19 deaths. On the other hand, the adenovirus-vector vaccines were associated with lower overall mortality,” researchers said.
“The differences in the effects of adenovirus-vector and mRNA vaccines on overall mortality, if true, would have a major impact on global health,” they added later.
Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca did not respond to requests for comment.
Study
Benn and colleagues took data from three RCTs for the mRNA vaccines and six RCTs for the adenovirus-vector vaccines that had mortality data available. They compared the overall deaths in the vaccinated arms with the placebo arms. They also broke deaths down into different categories: attributed to COVID-19, cardiovascular problems, other non-COVID-19 causes, accidents, and non-accident, non-COVID-19 causes.
“We extracted the number of deaths from the studies that led to approval of the new mRNA and adenovirus-vector COVID-19 vaccines. We calculated the relative risk of dying, overall, and for various causes of death, for each vaccine type,” Benn told The Epoch Times in an email.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the researchers found, were associated with lower COVID-19 mortality but higher cardiovascular and non-accident, non-COVID-19 mortality. There was no difference in overall mortality between the vaccinated arms and the placebo groups.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was associated with lower overall mortality and with lower non-COVID-19 mortality, with no effect on COVID-19 mortality. AstraZeneca’s shot, never authorized in the United States but cleared in some other countries, performed well against overall mortality and other categories across several trials, except for one trial where slightly more vaccinated people died from non-COVID causes or non-accident, non-COVID-19 causes.
“The results suggest that adenovirus-vector vaccines compared with placebo have beneficial non-specific effects, reducing the risk of non-COVID-19 diseases. The most important cause of non-COVID-19 death was cardiovascular disease, against which the data for the current RCTs suggest that the adenovirus-vector vaccines provide at least some protection,” researchers said.
They noted that trial populations were largely healthy adults and that in the real world, even mRNA vaccines were expected to reduce overall mortality. But “the intriguing differences in the effects on non-accident, non-COVID-19 mortality are likely to persist and should be investigated in future studies,” they added.
Overall mortality spiked in a number of highly vaccinated countries after the vaccines were rolled out, including the United States. Researchers are divided as to the causes, with some arguing the vaccines primarily drove the increases and others blaming COVID-19 and other factors.
The study was published ahead of peer review in 2022, but the authors struggled to find a journal that would accept the paper, Benn said. Several journals rejected it without explaining why, causing a delay in publication.
Immune System Impact
Several experts complimented the paper.
“This is a good article that raises food for thought,” Dr. Peter Gotzsche, professor emeritus and director of the Institute for Scientific Freedom in Denmark, told The Epoch Times via email.
Gotzsche wrote about research conducted by Peter Aaby, one of Benn’s co-authors, in his book “Vaccines: Truth, Lies, and Controversy.” Some of Aaby’s other papers have supported the hypothesis that live attenuated vaccines like adenovirus vectors help decrease overall mortality while vaccines that contain the killed version of a germ that causes a disease increase total mortality.
Such “unexpected results” can complicate public health messaging, Gotzsche wrote.
Previous research, including a 2013 paper from Benn and Aaby, has suggested that some vaccines provide non-specific effects, or increased protection against unrelated pathogens. They posited that the adenovirus-vector COVID-19 vaccines might “prime the immune system in a way similar to a ‘live’ vaccine,” while noting that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines increase inflammation, which could lower the immune system’s protection against other illnesses.
Benn, Aaby, and other experts said in a separate paper in April that the current framework for testing and regulating vaccines needs to be updated because of how vaccines may impact the risk of contracting unrelated diseases.
Criticism
Dr. David Boulware, a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota’s Medical School, was among the critics of the new study. He told The Epoch Times in an email that it was poorly designed because of differences in where the trials were conducted. That’s because some countries, such as the United States, have better health care, he said.
The researchers acknowledged that might be true in the limitations section, writing that “differences between the study populations in the RCTs of the two vaccine types could have biased the comparison as different disease patterns and level of care could have influenced the measured effect of the vaccines on overall mortality.”
The researchers added: “More individuals were infected with COVID-19 in the mRNA RCTs than in the adenovirus-vector vaccine RCTs, but there were more COVID-19 deaths in the adenovirus-vector RCTs. This suggests that participants in the mRNA RCTs may have had access to better health care during COVID-19 infection, and this may have reduced the impact of mRNA vaccination on overall mortality.”
Boulware also said that real-world data “does not support the conclusions of the paper,” pointing to observational data from Israel and Minnesota. “Clearly the mRNA vaccines protect better against COVID than adenovirus vector vaccines,” he said.
Benn said the study was “built on a meta-analysis of placebo-controlled RCTs—the highest degree of evidence in the evidence pyramid.” and that the key point of focus was overall mortality.
“He is discussing COVID-19—we are studying all-cause mortality,” Benn said. “It is irrelevant if a vaccine protects better against COVID-19 than another vaccine, if it reduces overall mortality to a lesser degree—unless you think that COVID is worse than death.”
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/all-vaccines-perform-worse-than-natural-immunity-against-covid-systematic-review-and-meta-analysis_5116769.html?ea_src=ai_recommender&ea_med=a_bot_2_ads
All Vaccines Perform Worse Than Natural Immunity Against COVID: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
HEALTH NEWS
Dr. Sean Lin
Jacky Guan
Mar 16 2023
All Vaccines Perform Worse Than Natural Immunity Against COVID: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
While it has become a fact that vaccines have performed drastically worse during the Omicron era, a recent meta-analysis accounting for dozens of studies reveals that natural immunity offers better protection against reinfection, symptomatic infections, and severe disease from all COVID-19 variants than all the COVID vaccines. In addition, natural immunity offered the advantage of reducing viral rebound compared with full vaccination.
Natural Immunity Performs Better Against All Variants
Vaccines belong to a group of drugs called prophylactics, meaning that they are meant to prevent disease. However, that classification is not limited to vaccines but also refers to medication, regular health screenings, and when it comes to reinfection, a previous infection.
For a virus like SARS‑CoV‑2 that would inevitably become endemic or as seasonal as the flu, a vaccine with a specific immunogen as a core component could never provide long-term protection, given that the virus is very likely to mutate.
As the jabs are not effective at preventing infection, the promotional narrative has shifted toward marketing a vaccine that can prevent severe disease. We all saw the 95 percent efficacy billboards and the promotion posters urging citizens to get fully vaccinated. For many, getting vaccinated was not a matter of choice, as the alternative would otherwise impede work, school, and even going to the movies or out for dinner.
However, these mandates often overlooked the effectiveness of preventing reinfection and disease progression via a prior infection. A recent large-scale meta-analysis (pdf) shows that a previous infection was quite effective against reinfection, as well as symptomatic or severe disease, using data collected from 56 studies from over 19 countries.
Epoch Times Photo
Figure 1. A compilation of over 50 studies shows how effective a previous infection is against COVID. (The Epoch Times)
The data in the above figure indicate that prior infection of COVID offers significantly high levels of protection against reinfection (over 80 percent), symptomatic infection (over 82 percent), and severe disease (over 78 percent) for the original strain and the Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants. The protection effectiveness dropped for Omicron variants, down to 44 percent and 45 percent for reinfection and symptomatic infection. But the effectiveness against severe diseases was still above 80 percent for Omicron.
The data above are just the average protection efficacies calculated from different studies. The significance of the protection effectiveness manifested even more strongly in terms of the slower waning of protection when compared to the protection offered by the various vaccines.
The data above also only describe the average protection efficacy provided by a previous infection. What is more significant is that the protection offered by a previous infection lasts much longer than that of a vaccine. The data in Figures 2–4 below show the comparison of vaccine effectiveness up to 40 weeks following inoculation versus the effectiveness of prior infection up to 80 weeks upon the last infection.
Epoch Times Photo
Figure 2. Comparing the efficacy of a previous infection with vaccinations and boosters against reinfection. (The Epoch Times)
The data in Figure 2 compare protection offered by a prior infection with that offered by multiple major vaccines on the market: Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and the mRNA vaccine boosters.
The result shows that the protection offered by a previous infection against reinfection lasts significantly longer at a higher rate compared to many other vaccines as well as their boosters. Even though the Omicron variant is a game changer for the efficacy of both vaccines and natural immunity, the protection offered by a prior infection still stays above 25 percent 80 weeks after infection while, for example, the efficacy of the Moderna vaccine drops to single digits 40 days after vaccination.
Similar observations are illustrated in the two figures below in terms of protection against symptomatic infection (Figure 3) and severe disease (Figure 4). What this tells us remains unchanged: Natural immunity offers significantly more and longer-lasting protection than any other vaccine or vaccine-booster combination on the market today, for all SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Epoch Times Photo
Figure 3. Comparing the efficacy of a previous infection with vaccinations and boosters against symptomatic infection. (The Epoch Times)
Epoch Times Photo
Figure 4. Comparing the efficacy of a previous infection with vaccinations and boosters against severe disease. (The Epoch Times)
There are some limitations in this meta-data analysis. For example, the study did not specify which viral variant infected the patients who were included in the previously infected group. Another issue with the data is that it does not include enough information on some vaccines like Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca. However, the data clearly state that a prior COVID infection is much more effective at preventing reinfection and severe disease than the vaccines are.
The data collected in this meta-data study came from different studies in many countries and were published throughout the past few years. This means at least a few scientists were well aware of how potent natural immunity was, especially after the emergence of Omicron. This meta-analysis simply made the point very clear.
However, the public has observed that pandemic-related public health policies neglected these observations and strongly favored vaccination campaigns, with vaccination mandates for even those protected by natural immunity. For many government health agencies, vaccination appears to be the only source of immunity or protection against COVID considered valid.
In reality, government health agencies have become the strongest marketing and sales agents for Big Pharma’s vaccine manufacturers. Is this in alignment with evidence-based medicine and public health? Or might it be driven by commercial interests and an industrial complex?
What the data also show is that Omicron changed the landscape of the pandemic. The efficacy for all vaccines and even prior infection dropped drastically, yet these variants do not really cause severe disease, which is perhaps the silver lining. Until today, we have no idea why waves come and go or how to predict the next variant. The scientific world’s understanding of the virus is still rather limited as it is unable to answer crucial questions.
The Virus Rebounds Among the Fully Vaccinated
Vaccines have become an increasingly popular answer to the diseases we face today. However, our understanding of vaccines is rather limited in scope. One example of this is how vaccination is associated with undesired consequences such as adverse events, side effects, negative efficacy, immune exhaustion, etc.
Coming as a bit of a surprise, the latest findings of a Hong Kong study (pdf) show that viral rebound has become another subject of concern among vaccinated who are treated with antivirals.
Viruses are generally considered nonliving entities that rely on the host to replicate. The quantity of virus that is present in the bloodstream, or the viral load, indicates to what degree the virus has infected the host and is usually a sign of how the body is doing against the infection.
Viral loads are measured by cycle threshold, or CT value, which is how many times a machine needs to perform polymerase chain reactions (PCR) on the patient sample such that the virus reaches a certain concentration. In general, a lower CT value indicates a higher viral load in that specimen, and a higher CT value indicates a lower viral load.
Antivirals commonly used to treat COVID, such as Paxlovid developed by Pfizer or molnupiravir, inhibit the virus in one way or another to help our own immune systems ward off infection. However, the Hong Kong study published in The Lancet shows that there has been a significant viral rebound after antiviral treatment was administered among the fully vaccinated.
Epoch Times Photo
Figure 5. An extreme viral rebound is observed within the fully vaccinated 10 days after antiviral treatment. (The Epoch Times)
On one hand, Paxlovid is a rather successful drug in terms of its ability to help against COVID-19 in patients who are not fully vaccinated. However, its effect against the disease seems to be drastically impaired in individuals who are fully vaccinated. The virus effectively rebounds after about 10 days post-treatment, meaning that the virus makes a comeback five days after the treatment series has ended.
Treatment with molnupiravir did not show a similar viral rebound problem, which is probably due to the differing mechanisms molnupiravir uses to inhibit viruses. While Paxlovid targets the viral protease, it is not as effective as molnupiravir in inhibiting viral replication. In this study, the full vaccination standard was achieved by administering either two doses of mRNA vaccines or three doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccines. But how does vaccination affect the viral rebound after antiviral treatment?
Full vaccination seems to exhaust the immune system, making viral clearance not as effective as needed. Therefore, in the study, when the antiviral treatment ended and the viral load rebounded, it could be an indication that those individuals did not manage the virus as effectively as possible.
What is the message that nature is trying to tell us with this pandemic? COVID-19 has disrupted the world for the past few years and a tremendous number of people have been severely affected by it. However, these methods of intervention that agencies have employed seem to have rather limited effects.
As the pandemic winds down, it is time to look back on what has motivated these prevention measures and analyze whether they were really executed in our best interest. Are our manmade methods really a force that can match those of Mother Nature?
One clear picture here is that we humans need to stay humble and accept the limitations of our knowledge. We can never develop egotism like the Chinese Communist Party that boasted its victory against the virus via implementing extreme zero-COVID policies.
We did not defeat the pandemic, nor did we defeat the virus. We are under God’s mercy to survive the pandemic.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
-
https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/biological-warfare-waged-on-america?isFreemail=false&fbclid=IwAR0QPkLX9FyCVdJg32j77-KqDvo8L0-atLb3TF1E2aS_mVSMdIYKb7j5cQU
-
"Joe Biden and his mandarins remain obsessed with COVID-19. They continue to talk in terms of possible future lockdowns. They remain fixated on the development of vaccines and forcing Americans to take them.
Meanwhile, Biden and his minions work overtime to flood the nation with illegal immigrants from all over the planet who come here unvaccinated and without any meaningful medical screening. Every disease on the planet now has visa-free entrance to your country."
And what really pisses me of even more is the TOTAL silence from "mainstream " medical community
If they do bring it up it is only in terms
such
as
"48 man who was recently in Ecuador "
or "recent traveler"
NEVER "ILLEGAL ALIEN"
NEVER "ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT"
NEVER MENTION OF ALLOWING MIGRANTS PASS THROUGH TOTALLY OPEN BORDERS WITH NO HEALTH SCREENING
AND BY GOLLY, NEVER MENTION "BIDEN"
YET ENDLESS ARTICLES ABOUT RACIAL DISPARITIES IN HOUSING WITH 7 ARTICLES ON THIS STUFF IN THIS RECENT JAMA ISSUE
WITH EVEN ONE POINTING OUT THAT IN LOW MIDDLE CLASS OR LOW INCOME COUNTRIES ASTHMA TREATMENT OUTCOMES ARE NOT SO GOOD
who could have guessed ?
-
I am told this author is a BFD:
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-brain-and-long-covid
-
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/11/5/991
-
https://archive.is/2023.06.10-172049/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/inside-wuhan-lab-covid-pandemic-china-america-qhjwwwvm0
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/green-monkey-dna-found-in-covid-19-shots_5317587.html?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2023-06-20&src_cmp=health-2023-06-20&utm_medium=email
-
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2788346
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/4204792/migration-has-consequences
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/4204792/migration-has-consequences
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/fentanyl-seizures-border-continue-spike-making-san-diego-national-epicenter-fentanyl
Also the meth and fentenyl epicenter of the world. Statistics only show what is captured by Border Patrol, not the actual trade, or deaths worse than covid.
If you didn't care about illegal immigration, there is still plenty of compelling reasons to secure the border.
I might add, a 60-40 issue or better, if pressed.
-
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2023/07/05/cdc-altered-death-certificates-to-remove-covid-vaccine-as-cause-n1708305
Why would a disease (and vaccine) regulatory agency not want us to know real cause of deaths?
-
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/07/15/gop-rep-mccormick-weve-found-email-showing-fauci-knew-covid-looked-unnatural-knew-of-gain-of-function/
Is there enough here to go after him legally if Repubs take control
he should not get away with this......
-
Less than a 50% chance of that I would say , , ,
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/mrna-covid-vaccines-may-be-triggering-aggressive-turbo-cancers-in-young-people-experts-5375766?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2023-07-29&src_cmp=health-2023-07-29&utm_medium=email&est=%2FSlO75K649WzZMnUk8mVhl54i6npHJp%2Bh6pOTclHIPX5ErG3ONiQfUxwq6P2eX3f5QZv
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/reanalysis-of-highly-influential-mask-study-shows-universal-school-masking-did-not-lead-to-fewer-covid-19-cases-5428435?utm_source=Bright&src_src=Bright&utm_campaign=bright-2023-07-31&src_cmp=bright-2023-07-31&utm_medium=email&est=kGfkcGVhjPI9RW7JR9TTVwyKa3lhZP0TPN6%2FeCjRSCVQMnCXWrKlmpeA2R16PXib8iXx
-
https://www.oann.com/newsroom/cdc-discovers-covid-19-among-other-diseases-in-illegal-medical-lab/
-
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19858/prestige-biotech-china
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/health/majority-of-covid-hospital-deaths-were-due-to-untreated-bacterial-pneumonia-5294482?utm_source=Bright&src_src=Bright&utm_campaign=bright-2023-08-05&src_cmp=bright-2023-08-05&utm_medium=email&est=JFWK4w17gezbcxhq%2F6FJ3RNekZ4uBgCCswEXFrzCCsUAhP9tBrKKgzkv9hDbxF%2B0boUt
-
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/health/leprosy-report-mexico/?utm_source=jeeng&utm_medium=email&trigger=click
-
leprosy is not transmitted from person to person
what is not said are how many of these cases are from recent immigrants
if not politically correct or not within DNC guidance, the medical community remains silent
hypocritical how the med "community" or whatever the leadership wants to call itself
is never mention pro life
never mention illegals bringing diseases with them
reluctance to mention gays spreading at higher rates STDs
such as syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV
always mention pro abortion
always mention diversity and race
mention as much as possible climate change
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/mrna-covid-vaccines-may-be-triggering-aggressive-turbo-cancers-in-young-people-experts-5375766?utm_source=Bright&src_src=Bright&utm_campaign=bright-2023-08-28&src_cmp=bright-2023-08-28&utm_medium=email&est=wYX%2BXxepaLmUczEwaktR2fo%2BdE%2BBA9xwRC%2BGVLZ9wtsPJQDhEi1CbwVdG2alAwQUGu%2FI
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/boosted-people-more-likely-than-unvaccinated-to-be-infected-study-5487833?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2023-09-09&src_cmp=gv-2023-09-09&utm_medium=email&est=7u8eu5ZeUlHFk1%2FKof02gRQnCLfq5nTIhhwRxiZgehQQhxVtYR9z4DKA6FhvLhJBrwL%2F
-
https://twitchy.com/aaronwalker/2023/09/25/mayo-clinic-hydroxychloroquine-actually-works-on-covid-n2387688
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/covid-vaccines-causally-linked-to-increased-mortality-resulting-in-17-million-deaths-scientific-report-5499001?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2023-09-29&src_cmp=health-2023-09-29&utm_medium=email&est=L5mRN%2FBM4xPPS4lH69b52%2Bw%2By%2BsaYUnSr5lH9ZwEwcOPcDUjcDHReUbplOye4TQ07cSP
-
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/pfizer-hid-data-covid-vaccine-trial-deaths/
I forget, what is our thread for corrupt government in bed with the private profit sector?
How Pfizer Hid Nearly 80% of COVID Vaccine Trial Deaths From Regulators
According to an analysis, published this month in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research, of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial data, the vaccine makers hid fatality data from regulators in order to qualify for Emergency Use Authorization.
-
Both here and the Medical Fascism thread. Posting in both increases chance of future searches finding it.
-
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/06/health/cdc-wastewater-surveillance-major-us-airports/index.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab&fbclid=IwAR3EGImVCp6HwPDgTfGzm-f2iugkMmMftXQjcL2z12dQRYI6rVmo7E4p5n0
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12721561/Senators-probe-Fauci-run-virus-lab-Montana-Lawmakers-demand-answers-Daily-Mail-revealed-scientists-tinkering-Covid-like-viruses-years-pandemic.html
-
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/another-major-study-shows-the-mrnas?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=363080&post_id=138806596&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=z2120&utm_medium=email
-
https://scitechdaily.com/how-lockdowns-shaped-the-virus-ai-uncovers-covid-19s-evolutionary-secrets/
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12205705/Chinese-military-expert-filed-patent-Covid-vaccine-died-mysterious-circumstances.html
-
dverse Events From COVID Vaccination More Likely With Prior COVID Infection | The Epoch Times
Adverse Events From COVID Vaccination More Likely With Prior COVID Infection
People who have moderate to severe COVID-19 prior to vaccination may have increased reactogenicity to COVID-19 vaccines, according to a Canadian study.
Adverse Events From COVID Vaccination More Likely With Prior COVID Infection (REC Stock Footage/Shutterstock)
Megan Redshaw
By Megan Redshaw
11/28/2023
Individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 develop immunity and may be more likely to experience adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination compared to those with no history of infection, according to a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Canadian researchers conducted a large, prospective observational study to assess the short-term safety of COVID-19 vaccines in adults with a previous history of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Study participants were sent an electronic questionnaire seven days after receiving their first, second, and third vaccine doses to assess whether adverse events experienced after vaccination prevented daily activities, attendance at work or school, or required medical care, including hospitalization.
Among 684,998 vaccinated participants included in the analysis, 369,406 received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, 201,314 received Moderna, and 113,127 received AstraZeneca's viral vector vaccine.
There were 18,127 individuals (2.6 percent) who reported previous laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection two to six months before receiving their first vaccine dose.
According to the study, individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 were more likely to experience an adverse event the week following vaccination—regardless of the vaccine type—that interfered with daily activities, school, and work or required emergency department visits or hospitalization.
RELATED STORIES
New FOIA Document Reveals CDC Did Not Have Data Prior to Vaccine Recommendation for the Naturally Immune | Truth Over News
11/15/2023
New FOIA Document Reveals CDC Did Not Have Data Prior to Vaccine Recommendation for the Naturally Immune | Truth Over News
CDC Claims on Vaccination and Natural Immunity Made Without Seeing Underlying Data: FOIA Document
11/14/2023
CDC Claims on Vaccination and Natural Immunity Made Without Seeing Underlying Data: FOIA Document
After the second and third vaccine doses, the greater risk associated with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection was also present but was weakened compared with the first dose.
The association was lower or absent for all doses after mild or asymptomatic infection. In other words, the risk was most significant among those who experienced moderate to severe COVID-19 prior to vaccination.
In addition, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines continued to produce increased immune reactions in previously infected individuals, whereas AstraZeneca's viral vector vaccine did not. Following Pfizer or Moderna's booster—or third vaccine dose—researchers found that a higher proportion of previously infected participants reported adverse events that interfered with daily activities, school, or work—or that required medical intervention.
"The association is stronger after the first dose than after the second and third doses,” the authors wrote. “Providers should consider additional vaccine counseling on expected adverse effects for individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 prior to vaccination," they concluded.
“These findings are not surprising, nor should any immunologist be surprised,” public health advocate and immunologist Dr. Hooman Noorchashm told The Epoch Times. “If you vaccinate people who’ve experienced natural infection, especially recently, you’re potentially opening the door to medical complications.”
Dr. Noochashm recounted the case of a young orthopedic surgeon, J. Barton Williams, who died on Feb. 8, 2021, from multi-system inflammatory syndrome (MIS) after receiving his second dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine. MIS is a rare and severe immune reaction that can occur in those who had SARS-CoV-2 infection weeks or months before receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and may lead to significant organ damage.
"There were several high profile deaths, like Williams' with previous COVID-19, who then received one or two vaccine doses, experienced a hyperimmune response, and died," Dr. Noorchashm said.
Dr. Noorchashm attempted to bring this issue to the attention of vaccine manufacturers and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when COVID-19 vaccines were first authorized. He was concerned those with prior infection required to get vaccinated under vaccine mandates could be at an increased risk of experiencing an adverse event and called for screening antibody levels before vaccinating.
“In general, a standard of care is to screen before you vaccinate to assess whether one has immunity,” Dr. Noorchashm said. “Because COVID-19 vaccines have a side-effect profile that includes myocarditis and blood clots, even if infrequent, when you’re talking about vaccinating millions of people within a short span of time with an experimental vaccine, you have to be circumspect about that. At the very least, we need to have technology available to those who want to know whether they really need the vaccine.”
Despite these concerns, the FDA issued guidance in May 2021 “reminding the public and health care providers that results from currently authorized SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests should not be used to evaluate a person’s level of immunity or protection from COVID-19 at any time, and especially after the person received a COVID-19 vaccination.”
Dr. Noorchashm found the FDA’s guidance concerning because allowing physicians to assess antibody levels before vaccination can prevent potentially severe adverse effects and ensures only those who need a vaccine are vaccinated.
“A standard of care is to assess immunity by screening, so why not make that available to citizens? Why was there such a resistance to that?” Noorchashm asked. “The FDA provided no basis for its guidance recommending against screening for antibodies—which is indicative of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. If the purpose is to make sure everyone is immune, that’s very different from making sure everyone gets vaccinated.”
According to the study in Clinical Infectious Diseases, vaccine manufacturers did not systematically assess individuals with a previous history of SARS-CoV-2 infection in pre-licensure trials of COVID-19 vaccines. Still, Dr. Noorchashm, who doesn’t dispute the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, said it would have been simple to do so.
He also noted what the study didn’t capture—those individuals who had already acquired natural immunity through previous infection but died as a result of vaccination and weren’t able to answer a questionnaire.
“I’m glad more research is being done on this, but it could have easily been done years ago during the pandemic,” Dr. Noorchashm said.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/some-covid-vaccines-produce-unintended-immune-response-in-recipients-study-5543951?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2023-12-09&src_cmp=gv-2023-12-09&utm_medium=email&est=odUgcK07nirSRmmt1rHCauOzxXq5cyzmA%2BUo8m8GKpamqqwPb5WYfSN2SW9IwZiDDn%2BI
-
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4354004-this-is-bigger-than-covid-why-are-so-many-americans-dying-early/
For people 65 and over, deaths in the second quarter of 2023 were 6 percent below the pre-pandemic norm, according to a new report from the Society of Actuaries. Mortality was 26 percent higher among insured 35-to-44-year-olds, and 19 percent higher for 25-to-34-year-olds, continuing a death spike that peaked in the third quarter of 2021 at a staggering 101 percent and 79 percent above normal, respectively.
----------------------
I was in for some heart tests recently. They asked me if I feel safe at home. They didn't ask which vaccine I had, how many times, how recently?
---------------
Herr Zeller:
*I've not asked you where you and your family are going. Nor have you asked me why I am here."
Captain von Trapp:
"Well, apparently, we're both suffering from a deplorable lack of curiosity."
-
" They asked me if I feel safe at home."
we are required to take courses on elder abuse or domestic violence and that question would be a result of that .
They want to be sure you are not getting your ass beaten at home by abusive spouse or child or care taker etc.
me:
:roll:
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/1-in-10-chance-pfizer-mrna-vaccine-makes-aberrant-proteins-experts-concerned-about-autoimmunity-events-5545692?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2023-12-14&src_cmp=health-2023-12-14&utm_medium=email&est=y3rGfxZOaQjdGD81XwCfgOJAw8YDQW9m63axvw8QlEu6PnfHDcVhoXkKp2g3ZuO05ICW
-
https://revolver.news/2023/12/american-life-expectancy-plunges-in-wake-of-covid-vaccine/
-
https://revolver.news/2023/12/american-life-expectancy-plunges-in-wake-of-covid-vaccine/
-
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-life-expectancy-in-the-us-is-falling-202210202835
caveat emptor : this is written by poison Ivy Harvard editor.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/the-new-jn-1-has-more-tricks-than-previous-variants-5547160?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2023-12-20&src_cmp=health-2023-12-20&utm_medium=email&est=Ey7MFhW%2BVUVCNa2Icb8o5u3RX3AX0s3JjNPK2T8k7fm6FjII1rfHwGajwH1Ik7ZVqoeU
-
I don’t know what to make of this. The epidemiological side of the house well demonstrated the truth is not something they are capable of offering or operating within, and clearly someone from that side of the house is whispering in select ears, who knows to what end.
Do the spooks have some virus that turns what looks like the impending collapse of Ukraine’s military into something less unpleasant come the next presidential election? Wouldn’t put it past ‘em, but this certainly is deniable at this stage and kinda begs the question: if this is a biologic solution to a military problem what keeps it contained, contained among the Rooskies, contained where a response is concerned if the Rooskies believe it was an attack, contained when whatever wildcard some fool failed to account for rears its head.
Bottom line, with the MSM and the current administration having chucked anything resembling integrity, let alone the ability or desire to traffic in truth, I gotta suspect there’s more here than meets the eye:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/12/21/mouse-fever-what-to-know-about-the-virus-mowing-down-putins-soldiers-fighting-in-ukraine/?sh=7e5a7bd03e5d
-
https://firehydrantoffreedom.com/index.php?topic=1202.msg9863#msg9863
-
Covid is (not) over, did we learn anything?
I never liked Aaron Rodgers (or Novak Djokovic) until they stood up to the forced vaccinations.
Only once I showed my Walmart vaccination 1 'papers' or be refused entry to the Minnesota Orchestra as they started up. I assume it was vaccination and mask. If either worked, why would you need both, but that argument is so old now.
But Rodgers makes a point, hundreds of thousands of businesses closed and never reopened. The wealth gap widened as the higher paid workers had an easier time working remotely. We forced people inside when what they needed was sunshine and vitamin D. Taking Vit C, D and Zinc IS an immunization program, especially after we find out vaccines don't prevent covid and by some measures don't even help prevent covid. Maybe helps with severity and survivability. (My daughter and I are having differences on this; I would still like to know the most up to date, comprehensive and accurate data available on vaccines as version 8.0 gets pushed.)
Rodgers even refers to the opposition voices by name that were often posted here. Very bold for a public figure to do that. I don't know if his football career is over or if he will win more Super Bowls and Super Bowl MVP awards, but he doesn't seem to care what his critics think at this point.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/01/09/aaron_rodgers_people_ask_me_why_dont_i_move_on_from_covid_they_lied_to_us_over_and_over.html
-
Vaccines Could Impact Mortality and Risks of Other Diseases: Study
A recent review found non-live vaccines tend to increase a person’s risks of all-cause mortality, as well.
Vaccines Could Impact Mortality and Risks of Other Diseases: Study
(OSORIOartist/Shutterstock)
Marina Zhang
By Marina Zhang
1/8/2024
Updated:
1/10/2024
Apart from potentially preventing a particular disease, vaccines may cause persistent nonspecific effects that can affect a person’s lifetime survival.
In a review published on Dec. 26 in Vaccine, researchers found that non-live vaccines like influenza, COVID-19, hepatitis B, and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP) tend to cause adverse nonspecific effects (NSE), increasing a person’s risks of all-cause mortality and the potential risk of infections from diseases they are meant to protect against.
A live vaccine contains a weakened form of the pathogen, which is less virulent but capable of replicating in the body, thus mimicking the actual disease progression. Non-live vaccines use inactivated viruses, fragments, or genes of the pathogen to trigger an immune response without pathogen replication.
Live vaccines elicit a much stronger immune defense, typically requiring only one shot, while non-live vaccines result in a weaker response, often necessitating multiple shots.
So far, research has identified several non-live vaccines that cause adverse nonspecific effects, namely DTaP and Tdap, influenza H1N1, malaria, hepatitis B, inactivated polio, and COVID mRNA vaccines.
The Vaccine study singled out DTaP, influenza, malaria, hepatitis B, and COVID mRNA vaccines.
RELATED STORIES
Did the Vaccine Eradicate Smallpox?
1/5/2024
Did the Vaccine Eradicate Smallpox?
‘It’s One of the Great Mysteries,’ Why COVID Spares Children
1/3/2024
‘It’s One of the Great Mysteries,’ Why COVID Spares Children
On the other hand, live vaccines such as the oral live polio vaccine (OPV), the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine for tuberculosis, and the smallpox vaccines all have beneficial nonspecific effects, according to the study.
“Live vaccines ... elicit epigenetic alterations that train the innate immune system and increase immunity to unrelated infections. In opposition, non‐live vaccines may promote ‘tolerance’ that increases susceptibility to unrelated illnesses,” the authors suggested.
The study was primarily based on decades of work from Danish researchers Dr. Christine Stabell Benn and professor Peter Aaby.
“Our work is a tribute to their great scientific work that has not been recognized,” biologist Alberto Rubio-Casillas, one of the study’s authors, told The Epoch Times.
Non-Live Vaccines Are Like an ‘Ill-Prepared’ Army
“Historically, we’ve thought about the innate immune system as the first line of defense,” Dr. Benn told The Epoch Times.
It was thought that innate immunity could not store memory. To use war as an analogy, the immune system’s “army” could not learn from previous battles with pathogens. Adaptive immunity, on the other hand, could learn and be trained, forming antibodies to fight against the infection.
Therefore, for a long time, vaccines were evaluated based on their effects on the adaptive immune system, and antibodies were measured following vaccination.
But researchers in the Netherlands have since shown that the innate immune system can be trained. After vaccinating people with the BCG vaccines and harvesting some of the patients’ innate immune cells, researchers found that after vaccination, the innate cells exhibited a more robust immune response and demonstrated improved clearance of tuberculosis, as well as other bacteria and fungi when compared to patients’ prevaccination status.
However, the opposite was shown for non-live vaccines.
Thus, the innate immune system actually does learn something from its previous battles. This is called trained innate immunity.
Live vaccines, which mimic an actual disease, enhance the effectiveness of the innate immune system in defending against infections. Non-live vaccines, on the other hand, weaken the immune system’s ability to fend off infections.
In a TED talk, Dr. Benn compared infections to a competitive tennis match and live vaccines to a tennis coach. The tennis coach may change tactics and strategies, training the body to have “a wide variety of tricks” against the pathogen. Non-live vaccines, however, are like tennis ball machines that shoot out balls at a specific speed and spot. If a person only trains with a tennis ball machine, he or she will be less prepared for an actual match.
“So you may be ill-prepared and even worse off when a real opponent enters the court, and the balls start coming and hitting elsewhere than what you trained for,” Dr. Benn said.
Nonspecific Effects
Some vaccines result in positive nonspecific effects, but others may result in overall adverse nonspecific effects. The order in which vaccines are administered also factors in.
While non-live vaccines cause negative NSEs, administering a live vaccine after a non-live one neutralizes negative NSEs, Dr. Benn said.
This has been shown in studies evaluating the safety of measles vaccines, which are often given around the same time as DTP, a non-live vaccine. Studies have found that if the measles vaccine are given after the DTP vaccine, there is an overall positive effect, whereas if this order is reversed, then there is a negative effect.
“It seems that effects are strongest as long as the vaccine is the most recent vaccine,” said Dr. Benn.
Dr. Benn added that the BCG vaccine has long-term beneficial nonspecific effects “in spite of other vaccines being given afterwards.”
The DTaP vaccine has arguably the most evidence of adverse nonspecific effects. Girls who took the DTaP vaccine had a 50 percent higher risk of dying than boys who got it. Compared to girls who were DTaP-unvaccinated, vaccinated girls’ risk of dying was over 2.5 times higher.
Dr. Benn’s studies have generally shown that girls are at a greater risk of developing adverse nonspecific effects after being administered non-live vaccines.
Live Vaccines Replaced With Non-Live Vaccines
Non-live vaccines are increasingly replacing live vaccines. For example, live oral polio vaccines are no longer available on the U.S. market, and a non-live version is administered instead.
This substitution of live vaccines with non-live can pose potential health risks to the general immunity of the population, as the immune systems become less trained and potentially “lazy,” said Dr. Benn.
However, the main reason non-live vaccines are preferred over live vaccines is that they are believed to be safer for people with depleted immune systems.
Since a live vaccine causes mild disease in the body, people with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome can develop a disease from the injection and may die since their bodies are unable to clear infections. Conversely, non-live vaccines comprise only disease components, so they cannot induce disease.
In this aspect, Dr. Benn said that the “risk of getting the real disease with the live vaccines has been seen as a bigger threat than I think it deserves.”
Research suggests that people with weaker immune constitutions due to age or chronic disease may sometimes benefit from having their immune systems trained using live vaccines.
In one study involving hospitalized older patients randomized to get the BCG vaccine or a placebo, the incidence of disease among those who took the BCG vaccine was about half the incidence of disease in the placebo group.
Health Authorities Still Skeptical
Despite the evidence suggesting the potential superiority of live vaccines, Dr. Benn’s research has been largely unacknowledged by the mainstays of academia.
“In my interpretation, whereas most researchers now acknowledge nonspecific effects, the major health organizations are reluctant to accept our findings because [the findings] imply the possibility that some vaccines may sometimes be harmful. So it is easier just to dismiss the whole thing,” she said.
“The vaccine skeptics, on the other side, may find that our observations on non-live vaccines confirm their worst fears—vaccines can be harmful—but they may be more reluctant to accept the beneficial effects. And their focus on the negative effects may make the vaccine supporters take an even more rigid stance.”
Immunologists now largely agree that some vaccines cause nonspecific effects, but how these effects should be quantified remains controversial.
This is because the nonspecific effects of vaccines are dependent on context, whereas a vaccine’s specific effects are generally considered context-independent. For example, females may make more antibodies than males and younger people more than older, but most people still get some form of immunity.
“In contrast, because the nonspecific effects act on the broader innate and general immune system, they are dependent on other factors going on in the immune system ... like other health interventions that can alter and modify the nonspecific effects,” Dr. Benn explained. Not everybody will have the same benefit, she added.
Additionally, pharmaceutical companies may be more reluctant to produce live vaccines because they are harder to culture and manufacture.
“If you have ever tried to bake with sourdough, it’s a little bit like live vaccines; they are very dependent on the temperature of the room, the water used to culture it, and so on,” said Dr. Benn.
“But basically, all the live vaccines I’m talking about—they have no patents anymore, they’re super cheap to produce, and it’s some of the cheapest vaccines we have to make.”
Vaccine Safety: NSEs Versus Adverse Events
Though live vaccines tend to cause positive NSEs, that is not to say they cannot potentially cause adverse events. NSEs are considered a separate entity from adverse events, Dr. Benn explained. According to her, in rare cases, live vaccines may induce the actual disease in some recipients, such as people born with gross defects in their immune systems or who have severe immunodeficiencies, like fulminant AIDS.
In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, live vaccines were likely not considered due to concerns about the formation of recombinant viruses when a vaccinated person comes into contact with the circulating viral strain.
However, despite their potential beneficial NSEs, the COVID vaccines may still be associated with adverse events due to the presence of highly toxic spike proteins, which studies now link to long COVID and vaccine injuries.
In the medical textbook “The Immune Response,” the authors wrote that, in isolated cases, live viral strains administered to individuals can regain virulence, causing disease in recipients. Additionally, there is a risk of contamination with other viral strains during manufacturing.
1980
GiftFriends Read Free
Copy
X
Facebook
Linkedin
Truth Social
telegram
COMMENTS
Write a comment...
Top Two Comments:
preciouspearl1023.0713
2024-01-08
Why are we still having people get vaccines??? They are shedding the virus to all of us who made the healthy choice not to be vaccinated!!!! So sick of the nonsense and stupidity!!!
Reply
Share
22
2024-01-10
ALL kid and adult – vaccines, shots, and covid jabs since 2020 forward must not be taken. Can not use any products from vaccinated blood – transfusions, organs’, sperm, and nothing that had any contact with vaccinated blood. No sexual activity with the vaccinated. Do not marry and/or have children with the vaccinated. Moving forward – no vaccinations/jabs/shots until further notice. These are DNA editing devices that never leave the body once an injection has taken place. At this point in time – you must assume any/all vaccines, jabs and shots are all compromised with the same technology. Infact, the new flu jab is that new technology. The fight is far from over!
Folks, most of the republicans and democrats are on the same team as our government has been compromised for many years Most of these so-called elected officials have been – bribed with money and power, have been compromised, or are true believers of the puppet masters. This façade started 80 or so years ago. So, if you are counting on republicans to save us it will not happen, as there are only a few true believers of the true meaning of our constitution, which is not enough. Wake up, put your game face on, and unite to take your country back. Watching TV, complaining on online platforms, and unfortunately- waiting on voting cycles will not fix our great problem. OUR Constitution tells us what to do to fix this problem.
No forgiveness and no quarter!
Marina Zhang
Author
Marina Zhang is a health writer for The Epoch Times, based in New York. She mainly covers stories on COVID-19 and the healthcare system and has a bachelors in biomedicine from The University of Melbourne. Contact her at marina.zhang@epochtimes.com.
-
Wonder if all the Covid vaccine hype and failure to deliver claimed results have lead folks to eschew other vaccines:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/01/24/what-you-need-to-know-about-measles-after-who-sounds-alarm-over-killer-virus-in-europe/?sh=10415e2a784c
I’ll note when I was a kid we’d be sent over to the homes of other kids with measles or chicken pox to “get it out of the way.” You’d probably be arrested for child abuse were that to occur today.
-
I know it has given me pause , , , My faith in our medical civil service has been badly rattled.
Shingles vaccine?
Dementia vaccine?
Then I read something like this:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/vaccines-can-impact-long-term-survival-from-other-diseases-study-5559895?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2024-01-10&src_cmp=health-2024-01-10&utm_medium=email&est=xoZCb4F%2FZVaSJvUiOHniyrAZYF8TwGEwfwfmfClMH%2Fk5LzOz5aciUfS0%2FI%2FnurmB8COh
-
I know it has given me pause , , , My faith in our medical civil service has been badly rattled.
Shingles vaccine?
Dementia vaccine?
As geezerdom looms I've done shingles (as shingles symptoms sound like torture to me) and pneumonia vaccines, albeit with less faith in their efficacy than I used to have.
Way back in the day when we'd be sent over to a classmate's house to contract Chicken Pox to "get it out of the way," my mom would take an old sock, pour a half cup or so of cornstarch in, put a rubber band around the open end, and then tell us to pat our itchy Pox spots with the results. Doing so would make a little cloud of starch, and leave you feeling like you'd done something to battle the itch, but was in fact a con on my mom's part meant to keep us from picking at all the itchy spots.
Which is my long-winded way of saying I wonder if a lot of this vaccine stuff (no control group test for any flu shot ever, for instance) is a way to make us feel like we are doing something with perhaps little real impact.
-
A worthy theme, but this thread is for things medical.
Lets use the Political Economics thread for this.
-
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/21/arctic-zombie-viruses-in-siberia-could-spark-terrifying-new-pandemic-scientists-warn
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/more-covid-19-vaccinations-linked-to-higher-infection-risk-study-5580208?utm_source=Health&src_src=Health&utm_campaign=health-2024-02-12&src_cmp=health-2024-02-12&utm_medium=email&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYvAqcwcVzc7PzLYPrHFRB710wA0AIj31kx5JTWZu9FddhEg4S8RP
-
Jeepers, think these lessons could have applied to Covid?
https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2024/02/29/gay-men-Mpox-outbreak/6281709238735/
-
Now you can do the same for Covid. Guess they now gotta find something else to panic the unwashed masses over:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/03/cdc-says-you-can-treat-covid-like-any-other-respiratory-virus-ends-five-day-isolation-suggestion/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cdc-says-you-can-treat-covid-like-any-other-respiratory-virus-ends-five-day-isolation-suggestion
-
Remember when the MSM had hissy fits over Sweden’s (and FL, and SD, and others) Covid tact it took? Well it turns out Sweden was correct:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/02/29/how-sweden-proved-the-world-wrong-about-lockdown/
-
More thoughts in retrospect on the Covid epidemic and response:
https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2024/03/02/four-years-late-cdc-admits-covid-is-basically-like-flu-n4926946
" The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just quietly updated its Covid-19 guidance to tell Americans essentially to act as if the virus were the common flu. All of us “conspiracy theorists” who said the same thing back in February 2020 would like an apology."
This is not true . The virus back in 2020 was much more deadly then now.
Vaccines did reduce deaths though not spread. I don't agree they caused more deaths then not but I admit I am not sure about this.
Now we have two treatments for the virus. The virus, as had been predicted, mutated to less virulent forms and natural immunity now makes it far less dangerous (at least to those at high risk - it was never dangerous to the young and health).
So now it is not much more than a cold a few very unhealth people or very old are still at risk - just the same as the common flu.
OTOH I do agree the response was worse then the virus itself on our country.
Did the shutdown wreck the economy - yes.
Was it all worth it - in retrospect no.
Yet we did have hospital overrun and seniors dying at rather high rates.
We know more about viruses now.
But our debt is up what , at least 6 trillion more then before ?
I would agree the fix for covid was more harmful overall then the virus it self.
The medical establishment looked only on statistics based on deaths not anything else.
All this devastation from a virus that should never have been leaked from a Wuhan lab.
What is next on devastating the world?
More viruses, diseases, cyber attacks , AI, EMPS nucs, eventual economic collapse, off the top of my head
I was never so pessimistic in my whole life.
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/american-red-cross-faces-scrutiny-as-it-requires/?fbclid=IwAR00VeqgF1VVPIi5cXjtH8ycgqe5qaAi8atjXB9Xa4py10NQ5XGLvkYXIZc
-
New tool states 70% chance of lab origin for Covid:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13198689/covid-19-originated-lab-new-study.html
-
(2) TEXAS REPORTS FIRST BIRD FLU JUMP FROM CATTLE TO HUMAN: The Texas Department of State Health Services reported the first human infection of avian influenza (H5N1), which authorities believe was transmitted from cattle infected with H5N1.
“Every single time is a little bit of Russian roulette,” and eventually H5N1 will adapt to spread among humans, former Biden official Ashish Jha said.
Brown University Pandemic Center director Jennifer Nuzzo said authorities have been concerned about H5N1 for more than twenty years, and it is “remarkable” how far across the globe H5N1 has spread over the last year.
Why It Matters: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say the human infection risk is still low, but their assessment could change if more cases of cattle-to-human transmission are discovered. If H5N1 does mutate to allow cattle-to-human and human-to-human transmission, the case fatality rate is the most significant concern. The World Health Organization is tracking global H5N1 human infections, and they say the case fatality rate is above 50%. The situation is still developing but could become a food security threat due to the vulnerability of U.S. food supply chains to biosecurity threats. – R.C.
-
Per the piece, the entire complexion of the US Covid response was based on one behind the scenes appointee that, having worked on the HIV response in Africa overlayed that resulting model atop the American response to Covid:
Coordinating Chaos
Rob Montz joins John Tierney to discuss his documentary It Wasn’t Fauci: How the Deep State Really Played Trump.
Audio Transcript
John Tierney: Welcome back to the 10 Blocks podcast. This is John Tierney, a contributing editor to City Journal. Joining me on the show today is Rob Montz, who has just released an important and riveting documentary on YouTube. It’s about the Covid fiasco and is titled, “It Wasn’t Fauci: How the Deep State Really Played Trump.” Now, Rob was a journalist, and he’s the CEO and co-founder of Good Kid Productions. Two years ago, before the rest of the country discovered that deficiencies of Harvard president Claudine Gay, Rob wrote about it in Quillette and also released a documentary exposing how she and other Harvard officials unfairly punished and suspended Roland Fryer, a brilliant economist at Harvard, whose research on policing and schooling contradicted progressive dogma on racism. Now, Rob has taken on a much bigger scandal: the useless and devastatingly harmful Covid lockdown, school closures, and other mandates that were imposed on America and copied in the rest of the world.
I’ve written a lot about these issues at City Journal, how these terrible measures were imposed against the longstanding advice of the best experts on dealing with pandemics and against the best scientific evidence about these measures. Now, this was, I think, the costliest and worst mistake ever made in the history of public health. Probably the worst public policy blunder ever made during peacetime in America. And like a lot of people, I’ve wondered, how could we be so stupid? Well, Rob answers that question in his new documentary, and the answer will be news to the many people who put all the blame on Anthony Fauci.
Now, there’s no question that Fauci bears a lot of responsibility. He was the public face of Covid. He was the darling of the gullible reporters in the mainstream media who bought his version of “the science.” And because his agency controlled so much of the research funding into infectious diseases, scientists depended on that funding, were afraid to contradict them, and therefore there was a silence from people who knew better. But as Rob shows in his documentary, it was another veteran federal bureaucrat who actually orchestrated these terrible measures and conned Donald Trump and the White House into going along with it. Her name is Deborah Birx. Could you tell us about her, Rob?
Rob Montz: Yeah, and for most people at best, they have a vague recollection of that name because Fauci was held up as the great counterbalance to Trumpism. He’s the guy who gets all the glowing New Yorker profiles. He’s the dude who gets the Time 100 nominations. And Birx was there, and people maybe vaguely remember her scarves, and maybe they remember that she was on the receiving end of that hyper viral Trump news conference in the early stages of the pandemic in which he suggested using ultraviolet light and bleach to fight Covid. Other than that, she’s basically been lost to history, which is just so funny about the nature narrative making in politics. You really get to see how warped and artificial historical storytelling is once you actually dig into the power of things. Yeah, you’re right. I get the sense that a lot of Americans want to move on. In part they really, really, really don’t want to hear the answer to was all that sacrifice of the lockdowns worth it?
They don’t really want to be told that it actually wasn’t worth it at all. There was no nobility to it. The cousin of yours that died of a drug overdose didn’t die for a good reason. The fact that your nine-year-old still can’t read. It’s not for any particularly good reason. The fact that you had to shutter your family business, there was no good reason. So people just want to move on, even though, as I’m sure your audience knows, there’s been a lot of pretty rigorous investigations into the efficacy of the lockdowns, and they’ve essentially proven that they had no impact whatsoever on cases or death rates.
John Tierney: Just tell us a little bit about Birx’s background and what led her to adopt these policies against the advice of the best epidemiologist in the world before this. It was against the plan of the CDC and other national health agencies before the pandemic. She did all this, despite all this. So tell us a little bit about her background.
Rob Montz: And it’s so funny because the ways that lockdowns became the default policy prescription in America, it’s so pedestrian. It’s like Alex Jones-style conspiracy theorizing has all these grand forces and complicated machinery and all these complex variables, but then you dig into how Birx got power and it’s the most mundane thing imaginable, and the mistakes she made is the most mundane thing in imaginable, and that became the default policy prescription for nearly 400 million Americans. So she immediately, in the wake of Covid hitting American shores in 2019, early 2020, the White House forms a special Covid task force. Importantly, Trump gives Pence complete control of the task force. He essentially outsources the whole Covid task force portfolio to Pence. And as they’re assembling this group, they’re frantically looking around for a public health expert that can bring some level of scientific rigor to their policy prescriptions for the rest of the country. And through a complicated set of connections, someone within the Trump administration recommends Deborah Birx. Her background importantly is in fighting AIDS in Africa.
John Tierney: She was also an old crony. I mean, she’d worked very closely with Fauci and with Robert Redfield, right?
Rob Montz: Oh, yeah. They all know each other. They’ve been working together for decades. They’re all part of the same swamp stew. So her background is in HIV-AIDS. And again, the important things are, there actually was an internal inspector’s general report that came out about her management style of PEPFAR, like literally just a matter of weeks.
John Tierney: And PEPFAR was this international AIDS program to combat AIDS.
Rob Montz: And it comes out, and this thing, which is mostly based upon surveys with municipal and public health officials in African countries that have been working with Deborah Birx, is a barnburner of an indictment on her management and leadership. It’s insane. I mean, anybody can read it. It’s not difficult to find. It’s just nobody did read it because nobody’s curious about it.
John Tierney: Right. This is the first I’ve seen of it, and it really is a barn burner showing what a horrible administrator she was.
Rob Montz: Everyone’s like she’s a dictator. She doesn’t listen to feedback. She very quickly becomes myopically committed to a particular paradigm and doesn’t change it based upon the facts on the ground. She’s dictatorial.
John Tierney: Draws the wrong conclusions, you say?
Rob Montz: Yeah. She draws conclusions that lead down the wrong path. And this is the person who then gets brought up to be part of this elite group of, it’s only like 10 people that are principals on the Covid task force, and she’s the chief scientist on the task force. That’s the woman. Somehow the mechanics of history are such that she’s the person that gets to write the guidelines. And what she does, and again, I don’t want to give away everything in the documentary, I want people to have a reason to go watch it, is she essentially makes this 75 IQ instinctual parallel between Covid and AIDS. She makes a certain set of assumptions that the Covid virus and HIV/AIDS virus are the same. And from those parallel assumptions come a certain set of policy prescriptions, including getting to zero cases at any cost, treating Covid as an equal opportunity killer, focusing on children and shutting down schools. This is all based on an HIV/AIDS paradigm.
John Tierney: Right, where every case is potentially fatal.
Rob Montz: Exactly. I don’t know. This is not a hot contrarian take to be like, “Yo Covid’s not like HIV/AIDS.” Not at all. It’s extremely different. They’re radically different diseases. We get into a bunch of the particulars, not least of which, and again, it’s still shocking how few Americans seem to appreciate this. It’s mostly because of the thematic misinformation fed to them by the corporate establishment media, that there’s this really, really sharp age gradient for Covid death where it’s a serious disease if you’re 74, and it’s not a serious disease at all if you’re 20. And that reality needs to be reflected in your policy interventions. And it wasn’t. Then the central mystery also that we try to solve, Trump initially had okayed the lockdown and very famously cut off air transportation from China. He greenlit a couple weeks to slow the spread, and then a couple more weeks.
And then he pretty famously turns against lockdowns right around like June or July of 2020 and starts criticizing them. He very famously gets Covid and then afterwards tells the American public not to be afraid, doesn’t wear a mask. He berates governors for excessively, overly aggressively closing down schools. But even after the president himself turns against lockdowns, the official policy prescription from his White House all the way through the election is still pro-lockdown. And you’re like, that’s interesting. How did that happen? I don’t think the schoolhouse rock conception of American government is an efficient explanation for how it is that a president could be saying one thing and the actual policy coming from his White House could be the exact opposite. There must be some complexity or nuances here that I didn’t learn in my ninth grade U.S. government class. Deborah Birx is the linchpin for how it is that that dissidence could have occurred.
John Tierney: Right. Scott Atlas, who’s featured in your documentary, who was one of the early heroes of the pandemic speaking out, and he was invited finally, someone in the White House, Scott, he was appearing on television and saying the lockdowns are going to kill more people than the virus. The school closures are devastating. And so he got in there and he tried to do something on the task force, but he was completely stymied by Birx and Robert Redfield, head of the CDC, and Fauci on the task force were these veteran bureaucrats who’d all worked together. Fauci had worked on the failed attempt to do an AIDS vaccine, but they made a secret pact because the New York Times later revealed that if any one of them was fired, they’d all quit. So they basically knew how to play the bureaucratic game. And there was also, you point out in the documentary that Jared Kushner, he was terrified of the political implications of standing up to Fauci.
Rob Montz: But my reporting mostly indicates that she was able, Birx in particular, was able to systematically stymie and marginalized Atlas, not because of her close alliance with Fauci and Redfield, but because of her close alliance with Mike Pence. Remarkable, right?
John Tierney: And he really emerges as another villain. He was supposedly in charge of the task force, but he just bowed to her at every turn. He was afraid to stand up to her. Right?
Rob Montz: Well, it’s not exactly, I don’t really know his motivations. From a distance, before I’d gotten into this, he’d always struck me as the paradigmatic hollow man elected politician. He just seems like he was grown in a lab and is a soulless political automaton, and he just regurgitates on command GOP Christianist talking points. Are you even a person? Do you have a subjective experience of reality, or are you just a non-player character? So I don’t really know what his motivations were. I don’t really know.
John Tierney: I think Scott Atlas said that Pence just deferred to her and everything, and she basically ran the—I mean, he was the head of it, but she really, I think, set the agenda. And then, as you say in the documentary, she’s the one who was writing all the official White House guidance.
Rob Montz: Right. She was writing it almost alone. This is again, something that I think the broader American public needs to appreciate that it was a single woman with a couple of junior staffers that was writing. Again, they were recommendations, so they weren’t mandates, so governors didn’t have to follow them. But certainly in the early stages of the pandemic, governors that defied federal guidelines were risking insane legal liability, and it was just her, it was not a group project at all. And so Scott Atlas is brought in right around the time that Trump changes his mind. It turns out he was right about everything. Really everything about just the complete, the catastrophic human consequences of lockdowns and other parts of life. There’s this age gradient that needs to be taken into consideration, how shutting down schools who basically everybody now agrees it was a catastrophic event.
John Tierney: Everybody knew that early on too. I mean, it was very clear early on.
Rob Montz: He’s right about everything. But what’s funny, and this, I don’t want to give it away too much though. It’s also funny to see that Birx again is able to enact, in part enabled by Trump’s epic executive incompetence. And again, he doesn’t get off lightly in this at all. She’s able to enact this kind of casual coup of him, and it didn’t require a shot fired, and it was mostly done with an email inbox and an edit function. It’s the most pedestrian office space tactics imaginable. And it ends up having these unbelievably catastrophic consequences for hundreds of millions of people. And it’s the most casual, bland office drone stuff you can imagine in terms of what she actually has to do to circumvent a president. And again, I do want to emphasize this is a deeply anti-Trump piece as well, because stuff happened on his watch because of his incompetence and chaos. For large portions of his presidency, even before Covid, he was acting like somebody else’s president, and he was just the guy that tweeted things out.
John Tierney: Right. Scott Atlas tried, and I want to talk about what he tried to do with bringing another scientist, but a really striking story in Scott Atlas’s book about this, A Plague Upon Our House, is when he first meets Deborah Birx, he goes in and she’s pushing the mask mandate, of course. And they were even pushing the absurdity of masks outside even, and they kept that forever. But he says that he asked her, “Where do you think the evidence is for a mask mandate? Because the best remote, randomized controlled trials before it, people said, don’t have mass mandates. There’s no evidence that they work.” And she says, well, and she cites this what she called a study in one hair salon in Mississippi that was a joke. And then he realizes that she just has no conception of the science and no interest in it. He used to bring in all the studies to the meeting.
She and Fauci never looked at it, never discussed it, refused to do it. And then you show the documentary how Atlas finally tries to go around her and brings in some real scientists who actually know how to deal with pandemics. Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford, Martin Kulldorff from Harvard, and Joe Ladapo, who was at UCLA. He brings them, he arranges a White House meeting for these scientists who’d done the great Barrington Declaration saying we should protect older people, we should not be locking down, we should not be closing schools. We should focus protection. So he brings them in for a meeting, and he invites Birx with Trump, invites her there. So what happens then?
Rob Montz: Yeah, so he brings in people. This is like pre-Great Barrington Declaration, but again, a group of genuine, highly credentialed, mostly Ivy League professors of epidemiology. Again, Deborah Birx is not a researcher. She’s not even an epidemiologist. She’s a bureaucrat. She was overseeing the dispersal of AIDS medicine. She wasn’t doing foundational research into the nature of the HIV/AIDS virus or whatever. So again, real hardcore Harvard, Stanford gold-plated credentials people that are basically trying to come in to provide an intellectual architecture for Trump’s guerrilla instincts that the lockdowns are bad and are counterproductive and come with a huge human toll. Atlas puts together this meeting in the White House. It’s him and a couple of these other heavy hitters. And it’s specifically scheduled so that Deborah Birx can attend. They make a point to schedule it so that she can be there and she can make her case in front of the president. And she at the last minute says, “I’m not going to be there because it would look bad for me.” She refuses to deign to give them her attention or her time, which is the most horribly unscientific way—
John Tierney: And also because she can’t possibly argue with them because they know so much more than she does.
Rob Montz: But it’s amazing that she has since publicly admitted she doesn’t even pretend to engage with the substance of their critiques. I know this from having suffered from my sins and watched everything that she’s ever said about the time in the White House.
John Tierney: My condolences.
Rob Montz: She doesn’t even attempt to engage with it analytically. She just calls it a heresy, and then openly admits to using her bureaucratic intrigue powers to censor and silence her critics. We talk about it in the doc that she, shortly after that meeting with the president, between the president and these professors, goes to the media team at the White House and tells them, “You can’t put Scott Atlas on national news anymore.” And they say, “Yeah.” The most grotesque censorship imaginable. And she’s openly admitting to it because she isn’t thinking anything’s wrong with it.
John Tierney: She’s proud of it. One of my favorite lines, and you got some great sound clips from her talking, I think at the Aspen Institute maybe, of talks where she was speaking to a friendly audience and really opened up and admitted what happened. And one of her things, and she talked about that meeting and said, “Now you’re sort of outgunned,” she says, “if you’re against these professors from Harvard and Stanford.” But she says, “Now, but I’m not outvoiced. You just don’t allow yourself to be outvoiced.” It’s a real high point in the documentary, and that’s a bureaucrat. They may be right on the science, but I’m going to outvoice them. I’m going to do the bureaucratic channels to manipulate things.
Rob Montz: And again, Deborah Birx has been raised and thrived in and mastered like the dark arts of federal administration. I mean, she’s been doing it for decades upon decades. Her expertise is not in epidemiology or any hard scientific fields. Her expertise is in navigating bureaucracy and in kind of petty power politics in federal government. So when she’s losing clearly the scientific debate, she resorts to the tactics and the tools that she knows, which is the back end, dark arts, bureaucratic power. So she knows which levers to press and who to go to and how to talk to them to silence her critics. And that’s exactly what she does. And what that does is it enables her to continue to impose her completely garbage, broken, unscientific lockdown policies on the country well through the end of 2020 in open defiance of President Trump.
John Tierney: Exactly.
Rob Montz: But again, this is very instructive about him in that he gets labeled as a fascist. And again, I’m not going to defend Trump, but it is interesting that when he actually had power, he so willingly gave it away, and it was so easy to snatch it from him. It’s like, this is not some Mussolini dude. It’s like, you got to be kidding me. It was so goddamn easy to steal enormous amounts of power from him. And that’s not a fascist. Again, that tends to substantiate the story of Trump as more of a theater experience like a clown, like someone who can pretend to be the alpha man of action.
John Tierney: And there’s another really nice moment in the documentary where Pence is talking. You show Pence saying, “We drain the swamp, we’re going to do it.” And then you show right before that, you show how Birx, after the White House has said, “Our official policy is we’re against lockdowns,” she, the veteran bureaucrat, discovers that they don’t really read what she writes. As long as she doesn’t put it at the beginning, they just skim it. And so she basically just keeps saying, “Close bars, outdoor masks, close schools, close churches.” She just keeps putting that out as a guidance. She travels the country telling governors to do this, and nobody at the White House is stopping her. And she even goes to Pence and says, and I think you say that. She says to Pence, “You know that I’m doing exactly the opposite of what the president is saying?” And Pence just says to her, “Do what you need to do.”
Rob Montz: Ice cold, man. Ice cold, I know bro. And it’s so simple. And it’s not without a shot fired, not really some sophisticated game. If this was an episode of Game of Thrones, it wouldn’t even fill an episode, like a single episode, because there’s so few narrative storytelling points in it. It didn’t take much at all to topple a president. It was remarkably simple. And so the reason we did the documentary, and again, this is kind of the reason that our whole company exists, is to tell these stories that just get missed by corporate cathedral media. It’s remarkable that this was the biggest story in the last 50 years in America. And this one particular story about how it is that we got this particular policy response, it’s just never been told.
John Tierney: Well, it was good for you doing. I mean, it really is so telling, and it needs to be told, because the big fear, of course, is that nobody wants to admit how wrong they were. So the next time a virus comes along, it’ll be, whoa, that’s our policy. We work. And there’ll be another Deborah Birx in there who knows how to manipulate the system. So I hope the documentary gets a lot of views, that people really find out about what Birx did and how disastrous this all was. And I hope that our listeners will check this out. Again, the documentary, It Wasn’t Fauci: How The Deep State Really Played Trump. It’s available on YouTube. You can also check out my articles about Scott Atlas and about other issues that Rob covers in the documentary. You can find us at city-journal.org, also on X @CityJournal, and on Instagram @CityJournal_MI. And as always, if you like what you’ve heard on the podcast, give us five-star rating on iTunes. Thanks again, Rob, for joining us and for producing a great documentary.
Rob Montz: John, thanks so much for having me. And again, people can watch the documentary in full, at least for now, on our YouTube page at Good Kid Productions.
John Tierney: Excellent.
https://www.city-journal.org/multimedia/chaos-coordinators
-
This is a wee bit scary, kids, though anecdotal at the moment:
https://gearjunkie.com/outdoor/hunt-fish/study-suggests-hunter-deaths-cwd