CORONA Main Coronavirus thread

[Heliobas Disciple]

fauci to step down in december

with this many rats jumping, questions as to the seaworthiness of the ship must be asked

boriquagato.substack.com

(fair use applies)


fauci to step down in december
with this many rats jumping, questions as to the seaworthiness of the ship must be asked
el gato malo
16 hr ago

collins (who ran NIH) got out of dodge last year.

the heads of FDA vaccine division quit in quite vocal disgust and had a lot to say after they did.

birx got tossed for failure to follow her own recommendations. (and has gained no sense of irony since)
redfield ran like hell and handed the dumpster fire of the CDC to walensky who is now looking to “re-org” the agency because its manifold failures have become so public that even the NYT is dunking on them.



and now we get the confirmation of fauci flight.

Insider Paper @TheInsiderPaper
BREAKING Fauci to step down as White House chief medical advisor and director of NIAID in Dec
August 22nd 2022
221 Retweets672 Likes

truly the rats are leaving these ships in droves.

when an entire public health edifice suddenly wants to retire (possibly to spend more time exploring non-extradition countries) it certainly raises some questions.

seeing the chefs who cooked it all flee the restaurant before the meal they made finishes arriving at the table should make patrons VERY nervous about what they have been served.

this kind of turnover is really exceptional. i have nasty feeling it’s being driven by knowledge of what’s coming in terms of long term and side/adverse events effects from their policies and prescriptions.

they ran amok with a whole country based on superstition, politics, and the “ready, fire, aim” of slipshod triumphalist “warp speed.”

and no one wants to be around for what’s coming.

and now we’re going to face a choice:

• we can buy into this “changing of the guard” as new blood to revamp agencies to better serve the public health
• or we can admit that serving public health was never the inclination or the competence of these agencies and seek to remove them.

and i think you know where i’m going to come down on that one.

the NIH is a corrupt conflagration of grant grubbing and gold giving that has not only funded incredibly unaccountable and dangerous science but that has twisted whole fields of medical endeavor from alzheimer’s to depression to HIV and prevented work in who knows how many more.

the CDC gets EVERYTHING wrong from zika to dengue to ebola to monkeypox. they are a winless team.

and it won’t change. it’s not going to get better. they will always waffle and make self-serving claims rooted in anything but data and then make up excuses for why they have been on seven sides of every issue.

you cannot scrape the rust off this hull. it’s been a generation since there was any boat underneath. maybe there never was.

and these people are not institutionally capable of credentialing and policing themselves.
that never works.

we just never went mad enough to give them sufficient power to really prove it before.

and enabling a justification cycle for this will not end well for us.

we live in the information age.

the cloistered guild systems of public health woo-woo have no place here.

perpetuating and further elevating them is like trying to employ donkey carts and stone tablets to run an amazon distribution center and then trying to figure out some way to give the burros rabies.

these systems are non-functional, misaligned with public interest, and evolve away from efficacy instead of towards it. there is no metric save “wow, you sure wrecked the world this time” by which to even measure them.

they are relics of the past and should be relegated to it.

they cannot be the way forward.

the commanding heights of the information age lie in control of information.

demand open and auditable public health systems. let’s get the information into real, open source, public records that are not run by agencies but exist outside them: controlled by no one and available to all.

let’s compete to see what data means.

let’s have markets, not monopolies.

you just saw 3 years of “amateurs” kicking the flabby rumps of “experts” from pole to post despite being censored, suppressed, and locked out of data at every turn.

Charles Rixey, MA MBA (c) @CharlesRixey
This isn't all of my friends who've been silenced - this isn't even all of them from the last 2 months. The world needs to understand that they've not been culled from Twitter because they were wrong. They've been silenced because we're right. @AlexBerenson #drastic @profnfenton

August 22nd 2022
849 Retweets1,630 Likes


now imagine a world where they could engage with all the information on a fair and level playing field, a world where grant money and the academic status and tenure that comes with it did not all flow from political appointees.

imagine a world where we get the government out of science and the regulators out of data and decision.

and then decide in which future you want to reside.

choose well.

the society you save may be your own.
.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Paxlovid works, the vaccines don't

Heads Pfizer shareholders win, tails you lose

alexberenson.substack.com

(fair use applies)


Paxlovid works, the vaccines don't
Heads Pfizer shareholders win, tails you lose
Alex Berenson
16 hr ago

If you have the choice of taking an mRNA jab or the anti-viral medicine Paxlovid, take Paxlovid every time, a new study suggests.

The paper, from researchers at Harvard, offers more evidence that the sharp fall in Covid deaths this year has little to do with the mRNA vaccines - despite what vaccine advocates constantly insist.

Along with the fact Omicron is less dangerous than earlier coronavirus variants, much of the 2022 decline in deaths may come from use of Pfizer’s antiviral medicine Paxlovid, which sharply lowers mortality, the study suggests.

In two equally sized and carefully matched groups of vaccinated people with Omicron at high risk for Covid complications, none of those who received Paxlovid died over the next 30 days - compared to 10 people who did not get the medicine. The people who received Paxlovid also had about a 45 percent lower chance of visiting a hospital emergency room.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that death and hospitalization rates were strikingly high among the vaccinated people who did NOT receive Paxlovid, even though they were relatively young. The researchers tracked 1,130 people in each group, so 10 deaths is a mortality rate of almost 1 percent in the group that didn’t receive Paxlovid.

(Ten dead is more than zero dead: )


SOURCE

Again, these patients had Omicron, not Delta or another variant. Their average age was only 57. They received advanced medical care. They were not healthy but by the standards of American middle age not particularly unhealthy either. Only about 20 percent were obese, and a similar number diabetic.

The researchers did not include a unvaccinated group in the study, so even a theoretical comparison of jabbed to unjabbed people is impossible. But a 1 percent death rate in this group of people is hardly impressive evidence that the vaccines work to prevent severe disease and death.

The study was a review of medical records and not a randomly controlled clinical trial, so it does not prove that Paxlovid caused the reductions. The patients who received Paxlovid might have been subtly different than those who did not.
But the study supports the findings of Pfizer’s clinical trial of Paxlovid, which showed a similarly sized benefit last year. But Pfizer ran that trial only in unvaccinated people, leading some researchers to question whether the medicine would work as well in the vaccinated. This paper suggests it does.

With Covid death rates plunging in 2022, vaccine advocates have tried to give the mRNA jabs the credit, claiming endlessly that the shots reduce deaths and severe outcomes even after they stop working against disease.
But considerable circumstantial evidence - both epidemiologic and cellular - suggests otherwise. Among the most important points:

Deaths have fallen even faster in countries that did NOT use the mRNA jabs;

In most mRNA countries, deaths are now overwhelmingly in the vaccinated;

Highly mRNA vaccinated countries that did not have earlier Covid waves, such as Australia and New Zealand, have had some of the highest death rates this year, suggesting that immunity from earlier infections rather than the shots is crucial to reducing deaths;

Studies of cellular-level immunity suggest that the mRNA shots do not build T-cell immunity against Omicron - which is the major theoretical reason they might reduce deaths even after they fail against infections.

Now this paper builds on the evidence that Paxlovid - which has been given to millions of Covid patients around the world - is playing an important role in the drop in deaths this year.

And who makes and sells Paxlovid? Pfizer, of course!

Yes, the same company that has sold tens of billions of dollars in mRNA vaccines that do little against Omicron and may actually increase the risk of infection with new variants over time. Now it’s now selling tens of billions of dollars in an anti-viral pill that - for now - does seem to work against every variant. Further, Paxlovid is likely to add to Pfizer’s profits for years, even as demand for the vaccines collapses.

Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive, may no longer be the world’s favorite veterinarian - as the hammering he took last week after announcing on Twitter he had Covid suggested.

But Paxlovid’s success suggests that he remains a very, very lucky man.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Fauci's out and Public Health Officials are Turning on Themselves

That was long past overdue, and Purity tests are never a good idea

rwmalonemd.substack.com

(fair use applies)

GO TO LINK FOR HOTLINKS, it was too hard to format leaving them in


Fauci's out and Public Health Officials are Turning on Themselves
That was long past overdue, and Purity tests are never a good idea
Robert W Malone MD, MS
16 hr ago

Happy Monday! This weekend, I was on on stage at a private event with Robert Kennedy Jr. Jill and I met with our good friend Bobby, met some grand people at the tabletop discussion and are now home. I am working on the book this week, but the tyranny of the urgent keeps getting in the way.

Today, I am sharing some of the news stories and essays that have had me thinking hard this past week.

The big news - just out!

Well that is… FAUCI IS OUT - come December! (Merry Christmas?). One year after my infamous prediction on the Laura Ingram show regarding Omicron. Which, given Fauci’s likely accrued vaca time - probably means he is all but out the door now.

Why the sudden rush?

Statement by Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.

I am announcing today that I will be stepping down from the positions of Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, as well as the position of Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden. I will be leaving these positions in December of this year to pursue the next chapter of my career.​

​

~~~~~~~~~​

The Washington Examiner published this op-ed this morning. The gist of the story is along the lines of what I was writing last week:

The CDC needs new leadership, not reorganization (by the editorial board)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky admitted this week that her agency made “some pretty dramatic public mistakes” handling the coronavirus, promising to “pivot” the organization so that it can better provide information to ordinary people.​

​

But communication was never the CDC’s real problem. That was its arrogant and politicized leadership, which was unable to tell the truth. That is why no one trusts the CDC anymore or cares much for its guidance, whatever it happens to be. The cure begins with Walensky’s resignation.​

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the more interesting bits of news over the last week is that Public Health leadership and associated community are turning on one of their own leaders. Dr. Leana Wen (CNN health policy analyst) actually has the nerve to suggest that COVID-19 is here to stay. That it is time to open up schools, end mask and vaccine mandates. For those that don’t know, Dr. Wen is also the former public health commissioner of Baltimore and past president of Planned Parenthood.

For the sin of recognizing reality and advocating a return to normalcy, there is an online petition to have Dr. Wen taken off the speaker list at this year's American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting.

The petition link is here. This is the beginning of the petition

We are demanding our colleagues and fellow leaders in public health to reconsider and replace Dr. Wen with someone whose work is consistent with anti-racist, anti-eugenicist public health practices and community health​

​

Through her platform on news outlets and social media, Dr. Wen has promoted unscientific, unsafe, ableist, fatphobic, and unethical practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, in a recent article, Dr. Wen suggested that infection should be accepted as a “new normal.” In another article, she writes about how learning loss is a threat to children from parents who want to keep their kids safe; despite the fact that as of 8/6/2022, 1,376 children have died from COVID-19 infection. In yet another article, she advocated for “hot vax spring,” suggesting - while still in an omicron surge - that municipalities lift all protections except vaccination. Her recommendations also included the unscientific and nonsensical suggestion of designating a section of planes to wearing masks in response to an airborne pathogen.​

Whoa! Stop and think about this. A liberal public health spokesperson, known for her pragmatic style but who had previously advocated for rather extreme lockdown/vaccination measures and policies, is being outed as “unscientific, nonsensical, unsafe, ableist, fatphobic, and unethical” - and they basically also call her “racist” - holding “eugenicist public health” practice beliefs!

Oh, just so we are clear, the petition also implies that the Supreme Court Roe V. Wade is also her fault. The petitions goes on to state that many employees under her at planned parenthood were unhappy with her management style and didn’t like that she wouldn’t politicize abortion. You can’t make this stuff up.

Yep- I had to read that portion of the petition again. The petitioners blame Dr. Wen for the Supreme Court ruling on abortion. Reading from the petition:

During her tenure as President of PPFA, Dr. Wen was directly responsible for creating and enabling abusive conditions under which staffers left in mass exodus. As we sit at a moment where abortion access is under direct threat, with multiple states banning abortion with limited exception, it is important to point out that Dr. Wen’s leadership failure and unwillingness to address abortion’s political nature empowered attacks on abortion to escalate to the point we see today.​

Is all this anger in the petition because Dr. Wen is now advocating for a fairly moderate points of view on how to handle public health and policy for COVID-19 going forward?

Or is this really about finding a scapegoat for the Roe V. Wade decision? Did these petitioners actually call Dr. Wen the nonsensical one? Pot calling kettle black!

There are currently 620 signatories. Many are from prominent positions in academia and government. The names are all listed at the end of the petition. Personally, I had an interesting time reading the names and job titles. I suggest y’ll taking a look and see who might be in your region - these are our public health officials folks. Making decisions on how to handle COVID-19, Monkeypox and the next new pandemic.

Of course, this all fits into Mass Formation model of crowd formation -where eventually the puritans turn on each other. As no one can be “pure enough” to meet the standards imposed by the group.

~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of Mass Formation - I was searching on the term yesterday to write the above and discovered that Google has played with the algorithms for the term again. Most of the articles identified by a Google search were written during January, 2022 , and have been placed above any real analysis of Dr. Desmet’s work or research/news articles written after that time (when the corporate press were reacting to my Joe Rogan interview). Articles defending the term and body of academic work are not listed. The Epoch Times has written many articles on Mass Formation and those also do not pull up in a generic google search on “mass formation”. In fact, Dr. Desmet’s new academic book on the subject isn’t even in the search results. Just articles defaming me and delegitimizing the 100s of legitimate news articles and research tomes on the subject

Of course, there are also the over 100 million views of the Joe Rogan interview. But this episode also does not come up in any search for “mass formation.”

One might say: censorship at its finest.

The thing is, Google always has the last laugh because they can skew the results over time - and there isn’t a darn thing you and I can do about it! They re-write history in real time by controlling what information you are allowed to read.

~~~~~~

Of note - when I spoke in Long Island yesterday, it appeared to me that the audience accurately reflected the demographics of the town of Huntington - which is a liberal, wealthy burb of Long Island. But this was also a group open to listening to Robert Kennedy and I. Many had vaccine injured children, or had been vaccine injured themselves. So, in the midst of the discussion with Robert Kennedy, I asked the group this question:

“Who has heard of the Trusted News Initiative, otherwise known as TNI?

To my shock, maybe 2% of the audience raised their hands…

Folks - it may seem like we are winning, but we have a long way to go yet in reaching the “persuadable middle.”

~~~~~

[...] GO TO LINK FOR REST OF ARTICLE ( not covid related )

 

[Zoner]

Fauci, face of U.S. COVID response, to step down from government posts

(Reuters) -Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease official who became the face of America's COVID-19 pandemic response under Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, announced on Monday he is stepping down in December after 54 years of public service. Fauci, whose efforts to fight the...

news.yahoo.com

(fair use applies)


Fauci, face of U.S. COVID response, to step down from government posts
Julie Steenhuysen
Mon, August 22, 2022, 11:13 AM

(Reuters) -Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease official who became the face of America's COVID-19 pandemic response under Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, announced on Monday he is stepping down in December after 54 years of public service.

Fauci, whose efforts to fight the pandemic were applauded by many public health experts even as he was vilified by Trump and many Republicans, will leave his posts Statement by Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. as chief medical adviser to Biden and director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Fauci, 81, has headed NIAID since 1984.

The veteran immunologist has served as an adviser to seven U.S. presidents beginning with Republican Ronald Reagan, focusing on newly emerging and re-emerging infectious disease dangers including HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Zika, monkeypox and COVID-19.

Fauci endured criticism from Trump and various conservatives and even death threats against him and his family from people who objected to safeguards such as vaccination, social distancing and masking that he advocated to try to limit the lethality of the COVID-19 pandemic. After defeating Trump in the 2020 election, Biden made Fauci his chief medical adviser.

"I definitely feel it was worth staying as long as I have. It is unfortunate, but it is a fact of life that we are living in a very, very divisive society right now," Fauci told Reuters on Monday.

Fauci said he never considered resigning due to the threats against him.

"I don't like the idea that I have to have armed federal agents with me. That's not a happy feeling. It's reality. And you've got to deal with reality," Fauci said.

Republican lawmakers including fierce critic Rand Paul, with whom Fauci tangled during Senate hearings, vowed on Monday to investigate him if they gain control of either the House of Representatives or Senate in November's congressional elections.

"As he leaves his position in the U.S. Government, I know the American people and the entire world will continue to benefit from Dr. Fauci's expertise in whatever he does next," Biden said in a statement. "The United States of America is stronger, more resilient and healthier because of him."

Fauci signaled his impending departure last month, telling Reuters he would retire by the end of Biden's first term, which runs to January 2025, and possibly earlier.

The United States leads the world in recorded COVID-19 deaths with more than one million COVID Data Tracker. In the first months of the pandemic in 2020, Fauci helped lead scientific efforts to develop and test COVID-19 vaccines in record time and took part in regular televised White House briefings alongside Trump.

Fauci became a popular and trusted figure among many Americans as the United States faced lockdowns and rising numbers of COVID-19 deaths, even inspiring the sale of cookies and bobblehead dolls featuring his likeness.

However, Fauci drew the ire of Trump and many Republicans for cautioning against reopening the U.S. economy too quickly and risking increased infections and for opposing the use of unproven treatments such as the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.

'A DISASTER'

Democrats accused Trump of presiding over a disjointed response to the pandemic and of disregarding advice from public health experts including Fauci. Trump in October 2020, weeks before his re-election loss, called Fauci "a disaster" and complained that Americans were tired of hearing about the pandemic. Trump even made fun of Fauci's off-target ceremonial first pitch at a Washington Nationals baseball game.

Fauci sometimes publicly contradicted Trump's statements about the pandemic. Fauci said on Monday that while he respects the office of the presidency, he felt he had to speak out "when things were said that were outright untrue and quite misleading."

"I didn't take any great pleasure in that," Fauci said.

Paul frequently attacked Fauci during Senate hearings on the pandemic.

Fauci has accused Paul of spreading misinformation. Paul on his website has accused Fauci of "lying about everything from masks to the contagiousness of the virus." Fauci during one hearing noted that Paul placed fundraising appeals on his website next to a call to have him fired.

Fauci said staying on until December allows for a search for a new director of NIAID, an institute with an annual budget exceeding $6 billion, and the appointment of an acting chief. Fauci also said he wanted to remain to help address an expected autumn upswing in COVID-19 infections.

Fauci made clear that while he will be leaving government service, he will not be retiring. He said in the future he hopes to use his expertise to help inspire a new generation of doctors to pursue careers in public health, medicine and science.

He is going to get what he deserves one way or another.

 

[Zoner]

More on BA.2.75

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1560591988122320896

View: https://twitter.com/Mike_Honey_/status/1560591988122320896?s=20&t=MXghRYczBH6KYt7yEfG-vA

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

School year begins with relaxed COVID measures

"Keeping students in school has really helped with mental health and emotional well-being."

news.yahoo.com

(fair use applies)


School year begins with relaxed COVID measures
Carter Evans - CBS News
Tue, August 23, 2022, 7:13 PM

Azusa, California — As the new school year kicks off in Azusa, California, there's a new COVID-19 reality and fresh hope.

Diane and Raul Ramirez say there's no substitute for their kids being back in the classroom full-time after two years of uncertainty.

"It's exciting to be able to try and finally get back to normal," Diane Ramirez said. "I feel like we need to start getting back into the routine again."

This year, school districts nationwide have dropped testing requirements and nearly 96% no longer require masks, according to Burbio's school tracker data.

The lesson now is safety, says Azusa Unified School District nurse Melissa Lofton.

There are numerous sanitizing stations throughout the school buildings and the district used federal funds to improve ventilation in every classroom. If a student tests positive, Lofton said they won't send the class home, but will notify families.

"Living with COVID now, I think, is doable," Lofton said. "Keeping students in school has really helped with mental health and emotional well-being."

That's echoed by parents like Reenia Covington, who said she's "happy the kids are back with their friends at school, with teachers."

"This is where they need to be," Covington said.

Lofton says parents should stay vigilant — good hygiene like hand washing is key, and at the very first sign of illness, keep kids home and test frequently.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Can we eradicate COVID? That’s a hard no, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president and longtime NIH director, talks COVID-19 and monkeypox.

news.yahoo.com

(fair use applies)


Can we eradicate COVID? That’s a hard no, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci
Becky Kellogg, USA TODAY
Tue, August 23, 2022, 4:05 PM

While Dr. Anthony Fauci, who became both a reassuring and politically polarizing voice during the pandemic, is retiring from public service in December, he’s still got a lot to share.

In a wide-ranging interview with USA TODAY, President Joe Biden's chief medical advisor and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease says the world might be opening up again, but that doesn’t mean the pandemic is behind us.

“I think that when you talk about new normal, you have to focus predominantly on COVID,” said Dr. Fauci. “We have the emergence of infectious diseases more often than people realize. Many of them are relatively insignificant at a global level.”

Fauci pointed to the Ebola outbreaks in West Central Africa and the Zika outbreak in Brazil, which spread to other areas on a much smaller scale than COVID-19.

“You've got to put it into the context that we are still in a pandemic now that it is in its third year. When we get to January of 2023, that will be the third year anniversary of a historic pandemic in which we've had surprisingly, but unfortunately, tragically multiple variants in surges,” said Fauci. “That really is historic.”

Fauci has spent his career studying emerging viruses and guiding America’s response to health crises like the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and West Nile Virus.

“Could we actually eradicate SARS COV-2, the cause of COVID? I can tell you categorically, the answer to that is going to be no. Because we've only eradicated from the face of the earth one significant pathogen and that's smallpox,” says Fauci. “We did that because smallpox, when you get infected or vaccinated with it, you get immunity that lasts at least decades, and maybe lifelong, and smallpox doesn't vary very much. “

Fauci says America’s best protection against COVID-19 is mass vaccination.

“For reasons we still don't fully appreciate, the immunity that you get from prior infection, as well as from vaccination lasts literally for months to a year and not lifetime, like we see with smallpox. So we are going to have to get this virus to a low enough level that it doesn't disrupt the social order right now. We're not there yet.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. is still seeing an average more than 88,000 cases per day and just under 400 deaths per day.

“Now, that is what the new normal is going to be. It's not going be an absence of COVID, it's going to be a living with it at a low enough level that it doesn't disrupt us," Fauci says.

While Fauci doesn’t think masks in outdoor settings are necessary, he says it’s prudent to wear a mask indoors if the community has a high number of COVID-19 cases. He says more vaccinations and booster shots are the best defense against the virus.

“We are doing very poorly as a nation in getting people vaccinated and boosted for a wealthy country like the United States that has all of the resources necessary to get everybody vaccinated and boosted up to date. We rank relatively low in the world.”

As of August 2022, 67% of the American population has been fully vaccinated, according to Fauci.

He added the country is doing "very poorly” when it comes to the percentage of younger children who are vaccinated.

Only 37% of American children aged 5-11 have received at least one dose, according to the CDC. The number is much lower for those ages 6 months to 4years, at just 6%.

Fauci said a universal coronavirus vaccine – one that combats all variants -- was the highest priority in the scientific community.

He also clarified details about the emergence of monkeypox, which the Biden administration declared a public health emergency this summer.

“Monkeypox is very closely related to smallpox,” explained Dr. Fauci. “Decades ago when the entire world, including myself, were vaccinated against smallpox, when smallpox was a global threat, there was no monkey pox in humans.”

Fauci said monkeypox likely existed in some animal species at that time, but it was not prevalent in people.

“Because people were protected against smallpox, because of the smallpox vaccination, that was universal. We just didn't see human monkeypox. However, because we eradicated smallpox and the vaccinations globally stopped somewhere in the end of the '70s, then anybody born after that time is not protected against smallpox. And, as a matter of fact, by definition, is not protected against monkeypox.”

Fauci said there is no way to predict whether pandemics caused by emerging viruses could be something we see more regularly.

“It is noteworthy that about 75% of all the new emerging infections are what we call zoonotic. They emerge from an animal reservoir. Flu does that. HIV does that. Ebola does that. COVID does that. And when that happens, sometimes it's a curiosity and it doesn't spread widely, but every once in a while, it's a pandemic and that's when you get global spread. And that's what we're seeing now with COVID."

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

COVID has evolved to make you sicker quicker, new study finds

It’s good news for those who’d like to hurry up and get their next bout with COVID over with—and for those still isolating after exposure.

news.yahoo.com

(fair use applies)


COVID has evolved to make you sicker quicker, new study finds
Erin Prater
Tue, August 23, 2022, 5:00 AM

If you'd like to hurry up and get your next COVID illness over with, there's good news for you.

As the novel virus has evolved to become more transmissible and virulent, it's also shortened its incubation period, according to a study out of two Beijing universities published Monday by the Journal of the American Medical Association. That means those who have been infected will experience symptoms more quickly (if they're going to experience symptoms at all).

The initial "wild type" strain of COVID detected in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 had an incubation period of around 5.2 days. COVID's Alpha variant—which burst onto the scene in the U.K. in December 2020—took about five days for symptoms to develop after exposure, according to the study.

By the time the Beta variant was discovered a short time later, the incubation period had shortened to 4.5 days. The Delta variant saw an incubation period of 4.41 days, and Omicron's incubation period is currently 3.42 days.

Among all versions of COVID, the mean incubation period is 6.57 days, the authors found—longer than that of other coronaviruses that cause the common cold (3.2 days); common respiratory illness parainfluenza (2.6 days); the most common type of flu, influenza A (about 1.5 days); and rhinovirus, another common source of colds (1.4 days). The mean incubation period was longer for individuals ages 60 and older and 18 and younger, and for those whose illness was mild, the authors found.

Studies have shown that shorter incubation periods "are associated with more serious disease," as was the case with fellow coronaviruses SARS and MERS, according to the study’s authors. But they did not draw any further conclusions about differences in incubation time in relation to the severity of COVID variants in comparison to each other.

On the bright side, an overall decrease in incubation period means less time for infected individuals to unknowingly transmit the virus.

Until earlier this month, when the CDC dropped much of its precautionary COVID guidance, the federal health agency recommended that those exposed to COVID quarantine for at least five days, and the World Health Organization still recommends quarantining for 14 days.

The study’s authors pointed to their own research as a reason that different countries may want to rethink their isolation time recommendations.

“Some countries around the world require close contacts to be isolated for 14 days,” they wrote. “However, with the shortening of the incubation period of new variants, the isolation period can be adjusted appropriately to reduce the pressure on the health system.”

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Pfizer COVID shots appear 73% effective in children under 5

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine was 73% effective in protecting children younger than 5 as omicron spread in the spring, the company announced Tuesday. Only about 6% of youngsters ages 6 months through 4 years had gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by mid-August, according to the American...

news.yahoo.com

(fair use applies)


Pfizer COVID shots appear 73% effective in children under 5
Tue, August 23, 2022, 1:08 PM

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine was 73% effective in protecting children younger than 5 as omicron spread in the spring, the company announced Tuesday.

Vaccinations for babies, toddlers and preschoolers opened in the U.S. in June after months of delay. Only about 6% of youngsters ages 6 months through 4 years had gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by mid-August, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Health authorities authorized tot-sized vaccine doses made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech based on a study showing they were safe and produced high levels of virus-fighting antibodies. But there was only preliminary data on how that translated into effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19.

The new update analyzed COVID-19 diagnoses between March and June in Pfizer's ongoing study of the three-dose vaccine. There were 21 COVID-19 cases among the 351 tots who got dummy shots -- compared to just 13 among the 794 youngsters given three vaccine doses.

The child cases primarily were caused by the BA.2 omicron version that was circulating at the time. Today, another omicron relative, BA.5, is causing most COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and much of the world.

In older children and adults, the COVID-19 vaccines have been used long enough to prove that they remain strongly protective against severe disease and death even as the coronavirus mutates -- while early protection against infection wanes. Still, scientists track that initial effectiveness rate as extra evidence of vaccine performance -- and to look for signs of how they initially hold up against new mutants.

Pfizer this week asked U.S. regulators to authorize modified vaccine doses that better match the newest omicron variants for people 12 and older as boosters this fall. The company said it also is developing updated shots for kids under 12.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

UPDATE 3-Pfizer seeks U.S. authorization for vaccine booster retooled for Omicron

Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech said on Monday they had sought U.S. authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine booster retooled to target the Omicron variant, and would have doses available to ship immediately after regulatory clearance. The request to the Food and Drug Administration was for...

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UPDATE 3-Pfizer seeks U.S. authorization for vaccine booster retooled for Omicron
by Manas Mishra and Leroy Leo
Mon, August 22, 2022, 10:43 AM

Aug 22 (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech said on Monday they had sought U.S. authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine booster retooled to target the Omicron variant, and would have doses available to ship immediately after regulatory clearance.

The request to the Food and Drug Administration was for a so-called bivalent vaccine containing the dominant BA.4/BA.5 variants of the virus along with the original coronavirus strain. It is intended for ages 12 and above.

Pfizer said it was ready to deliver doses for September under a $3.2 billion deal in place with the U.S. government for 105 million doses, including the Omicron-tailored shots.

"Having rapidly scaled up production, we are positioned to immediately begin distribution of the bivalent Omicron BA.4/BA.5 boosters, if authorized," Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said in a statement.

Countries including the UK, the United States and EU members have been preparing for vaccination campaigns in the fall to protect against future surges. Britain became the first country to clear a bivalent vaccine, made by Moderna, last week.

Pfizer also plans to complete its submission to the European Medicines Agency in the coming days, Bourla said on Twitter.

The FDA in June asked COVID-19 vaccine makers to tailor shots to target the two subvariants, and said it would not require new studies testing the shots in humans for authorization, similar to how annual changes to flu vaccines are handled.

A mid-to-late-stage study of Pfizer's older BA.1-tailored vaccine has shown that the new shot generated a superior immune response against the subvariant compared with the original one.

A study of the BA.4/BA.5 vaccine in people aged 12 years and older is expected to start this month.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Moderna asks FDA to authorize its updated Covid booster shot

Moderna asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize its bivalent omicron Covid booster.

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Moderna asks FDA to authorize its updated Covid booster shot
Berkeley Lovelace Jr.
Tue, August 23, 2022, 4:13 PM

Moderna said Tuesday it had asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize an updated version of its Covid booster shot that targets the highly contagious BA.5 omicron subvariant.

The drugmaker’s application to the FDA, which covers adults ages 18 and older, follows a similar request from Pfizer-BioNTech on Monday. Pfizer is seeking authorization for everyone 12 and older.

Like Pfizer’s updated booster, Moderna’s so-called bivalent vaccine is specifically designed to target omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, as well as the original coronavirus strain in a single shot. The move follows a recommendation from the FDA in June to modify the vaccines to target the two subvariants.

BA.5, in particular, is responsible for nearly 90% of all new Covid cases in the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Biden administration is planning to distribute the modified shots in September as part of its fall booster campaign.

Moderna’s FDA application included data on another version of its vaccine that was designed to target both the original omicron variant, called BA.1, and the original coronavirus strain.

The company announced in late June that that new booster triggered an increase in antibodies against BA.4 and BA.5 in previously vaccinated and infected individuals, though the immune response was not as strong as the one generated against BA.1.

Moderna’s application also includes data on how well the BA.4/BA.5 booster shot performed in animal studies, as studies in humans have yet to be completed.

The decision to move forward without complete data from human trials is considered controversial by some scientists, who say it remains unclear whether the new Covid shots will perform any better than the existing vaccines.

"I think there is a serious risk now that the public could believe that the omicron-including boosters are going to be some kind of magic bullet," said John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Still, the process, permitted under FDA guidance, is similar to how scientists select and test what strain or strains should be included in the flu shots each year.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Moderna to supply 12 million doses of Omicron-targeted COVID shot to Canada

The Canadian government had entered into a supply deal with the company last year for supply of its COVID vaccine for 2022 and 2023, with the contract allowing access to new vaccine adaptations. Moderna and the Canada have agreed to convert six million doses of the company's COVID-19 vaccine...

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Moderna to supply 12 million doses of Omicron-targeted COVID shot to Canada
Children under five receive COVID-19 vaccines in Schwenksville
by Mrinalika Roy
Mon, August 22, 2022, 7:32 AM

(Reuters) - Moderna Inc will supply 12 million doses of its COVID-19 shot adapted to target the Omicron variant of the coronavirus to Canada, the company said on Monday.

The Canadian government had entered into a supply deal with the company last year for supply of its COVID vaccine for 2022 and 2023, with the contract allowing access to new vaccine adaptations.

Moderna and the Canada have agreed to convert six million doses of the company's COVID-19 vaccine, which targets the original virus, to an Omicron-containing bivalent vaccine.

Canada will also purchase an additional 4.5 million doses of the Omicron-containing candidate, and is moving forward the scheduled delivery of 1.5 million doses of the bivalent vaccine candidate from 2023 to 2022.

While existing COVID-19 vaccines continue to provide protection against hospitalisation and death, vaccine effectiveness has taken a hit as the virus has evolved.

Moderna in June said trial data showed that when given as a fourth dose, the variant-adapted shot raised virus-neutralizing antibodies by eight-fold against Omicron.

 

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Exclusive: AstraZeneca may not stay in vaccines, but CEO has no COVID regrets

AstraZeneca may not stay in the vaccine business in the long run, its CEO told Reuters on Tuesday, showing how quickly fortunes have changed for the drugmaker that produced one of the first COVID-19 shots but has since lost out to rivals. Production delays, probes by regulators following rare...

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Exclusive: AstraZeneca may not stay in vaccines, but CEO has no COVID regrets
Aimee Donnellan and Natalie Grover
Tue, August 23, 2022, 9:21 AM

LONDON (Reuters) - AstraZeneca may not stay in the vaccine business in the long run, its CEO told Reuters on Tuesday, showing how quickly fortunes have changed for the drugmaker that produced one of the first COVID-19 shots but has since lost out to rivals. Production delays, probes by regulators following rare cases of severe side effects, and concerns about its relatively short shelf life compared with other shots have stymied adoption of the company's COVID-19 vaccine.

Now, in the third year of the pandemic amid a global vaccine supply glut, its use has diminished in much of the developed world as countries have inoculated large numbers of people and prefer Pfizer and Moderna's mRNA vaccines as boosters.

AstraZeneca's COVID vaccine has still not won U.S. approval.

The London-listed company is building on its portfolio of antibody therapies, including for COVID-19, the respiratory virus RSV and other viruses, Soriot said in a Reuters Newsmaker interview on Tuesday.

But on the future of its COVID vaccines business, he said: "I can't be sure we will be there or not."

He also said he wasn't sure if AstraZeneca would broaden its roster of vaccines for other infections either, adding that the company was looking into it.

Investors have speculated about the future of the vaccine business given slowing sales of the COVID shot as initial sales contracts have been fulfilled, stiff competition from mRNA vaccines and its relatively little expertise in the field.

The company created a separate division for vaccines and antibody therapies late last year.

Still, Soriot said he did not regret the company's work with Oxford University to develop a COVID vaccine, given they had delivered billions of doses and saved an estimated 6 million lives across the globe.

The inoculation was AstraZeneca's second best-selling product in 2021 with sales of $3.9 billion.

AstraZeneca is also looking for bolt-on acquisitions, including small and mid-sized companies specialising in oncology and cardiovascular treatments, Soriot added.

"We always look for external opportunities," he said.

KEEP ON DOING THIS JOB

The CEO has presided over a quadrupling of AstraZeneca's share price in his decade at the helm.

"I can keep doing this job for many years," he said.

The 63-year old was once seen as a natural successor to outgoing Chairman Leif Johansson.

But in July, Soriot quashed speculation he was planning to retire any time soon, saying he expected to work with the company's newly announced chairman-designate Michel Demare for many years to come.

Soriot was tasked with turning around a troubled AstraZeneca - hit by a string of key patent losses and a spate of clinical trial failures - in October 2012, following a stint at pharma peer Roche.

With the Frenchman at the helm, the fortunes of the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker changed dramatically.

He sharpened focus on speciality medicines and the lucrative field of oncology, made acquisitions to refill the company's medicine cabinet, fended off a hostile takeover from U.S. pharma giant Pfizer, and invested heavily in R&D to improve the company's lacklustre drug development success rate.

However, he warned on Tuesday that fewer new medicines would be developed going forward due to U.S. drug price laws passed last week.

Asked about inflationary pressures, Soriot said: "We are going to have to become more innovative and productive. We can't expect our selling prices to go up."

Sales in China, which account for close to a fifth of the company's total annual revenue, have dipped in recent quarters due to lower drug prices and as COVID lockdown measures kept some patients from being diagnosed and seeking cancer care.

On Tuesday, Soriot said sales were picking up in the third quarter in the world's second-largest market for pharmaceuticals - and he expected the country to play a more significant role in the global market over the next decade.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Scientists are racing to develop home tests that measure protection against Covid-19

Scientists are trying to develop tests that are just as convenient as antigen tests, but can tell people whether they currently have neutralizing antibodies that protect against SARS-CoV-2.

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Scientists are racing to develop home tests that measure protection against Covid-19
By Edward Chen
Aug. 23, 2022

As the world continues to learn how to live with Covid-19 in the long run, scientists are testing ways to quickly tell people how well-protected they are against the virus, and whether they need another booster.

A new study, published Monday in Cell Reports Methods, presents a simple test to detect neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, using little more than a finger prick and a testing cartridge. The approach, if it bears out in large-scale testing and receives the blessing of regulatory agencies, could one day offer a cheap, easy option to measure protection against the virus.

“People want to know, ‘Am I protected today?’ And there isn’t a tool on the market that can facilitate that answer,” said Charles Mace, a chemist at Tufts University who was not involved in the new study. “This has that potential.”

Antibodies float around in the bloodstream, waiting for a foreign invader to make it in. When a virus does, some antibodies that are specific for parts of the virus — neutralizing antibodies — recognize and bind to it, which marks the virus for destruction and prevents it from infecting any cells. The body can naturally develop neutralizing antibodies through exposure to the virus after vaccination or an infection.

When scientists want to determine whether those neutralizing antibodies are present in a person, they take blood samples, separate out the serum, and mix it with live SARS-CoV-2 virus. They then incubate that mixture with a human cell line and see how many of those cells die off. Scientists can also use other viruses that have been engineered to make the spike protein and a fluorescent molecule. But both of those methods require live virus, which means training and a biosafety lab, and take about 2 days to run.

Researchers have been developing other, faster methods. But by and large, they either require laboratory equipment or are more complicated to manufacture because they use antibodies.

The project started when Hojun Li, a hematologist and investigator at the Koch Institute, saw a bone marrow transplant patient at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute right around the time that the pandemic hit the U.S. hard. But before the operation, they presented with symptoms for Covid-19. At the time, the only option available for doctors to rule out a Covid-19 infection was to do a blood test and examine the antibody levels. It took a week for the results to come back negative and Li to be able to proceed with the bone marrow transplant. “These are usually very urgent, urgent things to do,” Li said. “The longer you wait, the more likely whatever underlying diseases that come back cannot be cured by the bone marrow transplant.”

Li and his colleague at the time, Guinevere Connelly, started talking about how they could close that knowledge gap with Covid. Connelly, a co-first author of the study and now a Ph.D. student at Duke University, said they quickly realized “that what would be really helpful would be a neutralizing antibody test where you could see what level of protection you may have against infection from Covid or from SARS-CoV-2.”

With collaborators, they learned new techniques to make every component of a test, from producing viral proteins at a larger-scale to cycling through a hundred different buffer formulas. It took them a year to collect enough test samples — repeat blood draws from two people before and after vaccination, and single donations from 93 other individuals — to design and validate the test.

The result of their work is a device that looks and works like existing rapid antigen tests, which detect protein from the virus when someone is actively infected.

The new test uses a small amount of blood, obtained via a finger prick, that gets mixed with a buffer that contains the portion of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that binds to the ACE2 receptor on human cells. Where a typical antigen test has two binding sites — a control line that shows the test is working properly and a test line that lights up when a person is positive for the coronavirus — the new one has three: a control line, a line turns an intense red when a person does not have neutralizing antibodies, and a line that appears when they do.

“We also like people to think about positive signals as opposed to reduction of signals because there’s just a general feeling that that’s more reliable,” said Angela Koehler, a bioengineer at MIT who worked on the new test. Indicating both the presence and absence of neutralizing antibodies, the researchers said, allows everyday consumers to snap a picture with their mobile app to know their quantitative antibody titer.

“If you have an actual number that you can measure — and neutralizing antibody concentration would be a number that you can actually measure — then you can tell what degree of protection they have and whether or not they might need a subsequent [dose] or a booster sooner rather than later,” said Li. That kind of information could be of interest to a wide range of people, but would be particularly helpful for those who have weaker immune responses, like those Li sees in the clinic. “The vast, vast majority of patients I see get bone marrow transplants,” he added. “Their immune system is just really wiped out.”

Basing booster decisions on antibody levels is not too far-fetched an idea. In Australia, for example, antibody testing is used to determine if someone needs a 4th dose of the hepatitis B vaccine.

But Julio Delgado, the clinical pathology chief at the University of Utah School of Medicine, is more skeptical that the new test will find use among the broader population. “Even if I get vaccinated, I’m still going to get infected at some point. That happened to me,” said Delgado, who has developed laboratory-based clinical tests that measure levels of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. “So the understanding about neutralizing antibodies has really become more of a scientific interest, not necessarily a clinical utility.”

Some experts said that any use case was overly optimistic because we don’t yet know what antibody levels translate to optimal protection. This is complicated by the fact that different assays calculate titer levels differently. “There is not an understanding about thresholds above or below which people are going to be prone to getting infected, or prone to develop progressive disease, or prone to die,” said Delgado. “Yes, you get a number, but what does that mean?”

In part because the new test can be manufactured for less than a dollar a kit, its developers said that is exactly one of the questions their new product can answer. “It’s really the first one that I’ve seen that can answer that question,” said Hadley Sikes, a chemical engineer at MIT who was a senior author of the research. “If there was a study design where you use this tool — you recruit a cohort, say, 5,000 or 10,000 people, you get these neutralizing antibody tests in their homes, and you follow who gets infected and doesn’t get infected — it’s an answer to a question that a lot of people, a lot of doctors, a lot of articles in the press have been raising.”

The team behind the test said they are interested in pursuing an emergency use authorization down the road and would want to work with an industry partner or foundation that has experience with regulatory applications.

But Li acknowledged that the Food and Drug Administration “has a little bit of hesitancy about anything antibody-related,” but attributed this to tests that measured all antibodies, rather than only SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies. “A lot of those tests flooded the market and a lot of them, frankly, were very, very poorly managed,” he said. Because antibody levels decline gradually, testing once a month would likely be enough. On the flip side, though, such infrequent testing needs might make it less appealing for commercial players to invest in the studies that would be needed to move the tests from a proof-of-concept to an authorized product.

A different approach on the horizon uses a costlier machine called a spectrometer to detect the Covid-fighting antibodies. Cheng-Hao Ko, an engineer at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, said this would be “300 to 400 times more accurate” than the rapid test approach. Ko is collaborating with a group at Temple University to seek emergency use authorization from the FDA for that device.

That level of accuracy likely wouldn’t be necessary for the general public. “If you have a good indication of low, mid-range, and high level of antibodies, that’s probably good enough for the purpose,” said Jean-François Masson, a biochemist at the Université de Montréal in Canada.

Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said there’s also a potential to use this type of test as a tool to understand immunity at the population level and help guide public health decisions, for example by routinely testing samples from blood donors. “Surveillance is going to become more important, I hope, in the next year,” he said, “because it gives you an idea of what is the vulnerability.”

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Fauci: Possible Congressional Investigations Did Not Affect Decision to Step Down

The vows to investigate Dr. Anthony Fauci and other U.S. officials did not affect Fauci's decision to step ...

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Fauci: Possible Congressional Investigations Did Not Affect Decision to Step Down
By Zachary Stieber
August 23, 2022

The vows to investigate Dr. Anthony Fauci and other U.S. officials did not affect Fauci’s decision to step down, the doctor said on Aug. 23.

“Really, none at all. Not even a slight amount. I have nothing to hide. And I can defend everything I’ve done. So that doesn’t phase me or bother me. My decisions of stepping down go back well over a year,” Fauci said on CNN’s “New Day.”

Fauci announced on Monday that he will leave his three government positions in December.

Fauci directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, and has been the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden since the president took office.

Fauci, 81, has been employed by the government since 1984.

Republicans have vowed to investigate U.S. funding for the top-level laboratory in Wuhan, China, and other aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic if they flip the House of Representatives, the Senate, or both, in the upcoming midterm elections.

Fauci’s agency funded the lab through a subaward. The lab is located in the same city where the first COVID-19 cases appeared. Fauci has claimed the lab did not perform gain-of-function experiments or research aimed at increasing the transmissibility and/or pathogenicity of a pathogen or virus, but such experiments were performed there, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has confirmed. Fauci’s agency is an office inside the NIH.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), in line to become chair of the House Oversight Committee, said on Fox News after the resignation announcement that Fauci “has done everything he can to obstruct any type of investigation” into the origins of COVID-19.

Comer said he believes Fauci is stepping down because the evidence indicates COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan lab.

Fauci said Tuesday that he decided to leave the government some time ago, but chose to stay on because Biden asked him to be his chief medical adviser. On MSNBC after his announcement, he also said that “you have to leave sometime” and that he wants to “pursue another chapter in my career.”

The doctor, who has answered questions before congressional committees, said he will consider testifying to lawmakers in the future.

“Sure, I certainly would consider that. But you got to remember, I believe oversight is a very important part of government structure. And I welcome it and can be productive. But what has happened up until now is more of a character assassination than it is oversight,” he said on CNN. “So, sure, I would be happy to cooperate, so long as we make it something that says dignified oversight, which it should be. And not just bringing up ridiculous things and attacking my character. That’s not oversight.”

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

China Uses Pandemic Propaganda to Spread Totalitarian Ideologies: HK Columnist

The Chinese regime leveraged its propaganda in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic to spread its totalitarian ideologies to ...

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Threat from Communist China
China Uses Pandemic Propaganda to Spread Totalitarian Ideologies: HK Columnist
By Hannah Ng and Jan Jekielek
August 23, 2022

The Chinese regime leveraged its propaganda in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic to spread its totalitarian ideologies to the West, according to former Hong Kong Apple Daily columnist Simon Lee.

“When COVID started, China [was] concerned only on one thing—how can they capitalize on this crisis to show the world that China’s system is superior to the rest of the world,” Lee recently told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

Lee singled out how the regime highlighted its capability to build a quarantine hospital in a week, “then they propagandized the achievement as ‘this is the Chinese efficiency.’”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took it a step further by spreading the rhetoric: “We China control the disease from spreading. Your countries, the Western world, should learn from us on how to manage this virus,” according to Lee.

Whenever other countries failed with their lockdown policies, China said, “Look, this is the failure, the weakness of the Western democratic institutions, because you cannot get things done.”

Exporting Totalitarianism

The West had bought the regime’s rhetoric and applied its totalitarian ideologies, Lee opined.

He further pointed to Dr. Anthony Fauci advocating for strict COVID-19 control, saying: “He thought he was defending against the virus, but he is introducing an ideological virus of totalitarianism to his nation.”

“Whether people can develop immunity, whether your health care system can cope with the disease, that is a very objective, scientific issue,” Lee said.

In Lee’s opinion, the CCP is still insisting on a zero-COVID policy because “they want to tell the world that if you have people dying from the disease, it was because your government is incompetent.”

“The world is not only immune to COVID, the world is actually more immune to the crazy idea that you need a strong government to keep people healthy,” he said.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Fauci for comments.

The Threat of Freedom

The regime sees freedom as a threat that needs to be subjected to elimination, according to Lee.

“It is in their nature to destroy everything that represents freedom. They wanted to destroy freedom of their own people and of the people of other nations, consciously [and] intentionally,” Lee said.

Lee further explained why the regime treats both Hong Kong and Taiwan as a threat to its existence.

“Firstly, Hong Kong provided an alternative for Chinese people. Hong Kong shows that Chinese can live in a free society and prosper,” Lee said.

“When Chinese in an authoritarian regime can not prosper, then everyone will ask the question, ‘Why can’t we be more like Hong Kong?’ he added.

According to Lee, the same logic is applied in relation to Taiwan.

In Lee’s opinion, Taiwan shows that Chinese people can have an open, functioning, democratic society and have a civil society that advocates for the people.

“When things are not going right in China, like now with the implosion of the economic real estate bubble … people will ask, ‘Why can’t we be more like Taiwanese, having this certain, humble, but free life?’” Lee said.

China “has to eliminate Hong Kong and Taiwan, so that at least they can tell the world that there is only one possibility for Chinese society,” he added.

One Country, Two Systems Firewall

Lee pointed to the constitutional principle of “One country, two system” describing the governance of Hong Kong after the territory was returned to China. It was formulated in the early 1980s during negotiations over Hong Kong between China and the United Kingdom.

The columnist called the principle as “a firewall protecting the one country and the one system that they have.”

“It is a firewall that protects China from changing itself, because most of the time, if you need access to the international financial market, you have to change your rules,” he said.

“China successfully transformed its state-owned sector [and] modernized it without changing the totalitarian culture of the nation. Actually, it becomes even more totalitarian than before,” Lee added.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

New York Removes COVID-19 Restrictions in Schools

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has announced the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions for schools. “The days of sending ...

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New York Removes COVID-19 Restrictions in Schools
By Hannah Ng
August 23, 2022

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has announced the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions for schools.

“The days of sending an entire classroom because one person was symptomatic or tests positive, those days are over,” said Hochul at a press conference on Aug. 22.

The updated guidelines come several weeks after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) adjusted its COVID-19 rules, dropping quarantine and social distancing recommendations for those who come in close contact with a COVID-19-positive person.

Hochul referred to the CDC’s updates, noting that the state’s revised rules are in line with the health body.

“What that means is if a classmate tests positive for COVID and your child doesn’t have symptoms, your child can stay in school as long as they wear a mask under those circumstances. That’s what we’re recommending,” Hochul added.

Students with symptoms are still recommended to stay at home for about five days and wear masks until they test negative.

“No longer are we going to be sending kids home, keeping them away from that essential experience of being together in the classroom because we are now still dealing with the fallout of those decisions made when we had less information,” Hochul said.

Importance of In-Person Learning

Schools will also cancel random testing of asymptomatic students, teachers, and staff, according to the governor.

However, random testing might still be conducted in so-called high risk activities, such as singing and sports, but it is up to schools to make the decision, Hochul noted.

The governor stressed the importance of the in-person learning experience, making a note of “suicide rates, depression, real mental health issues that were not there before for many of these children.” She described the situation as deeply troubling.

Hochul believes after two years of experience with COVID-19, children will be safe in the classroom.

Just last week, New York City unveiled new school COVID-19 regulations, which include removing the demand for parents to complete daily health checks while maintaining some vaccination requirements.

The state announced dropping its statewide school mask mandate in February.

Each student of the state will still be provided one COVID-19 test kit for the 2022–2023 school year, which is set to begin on Sept. 8.

Responses

New York Mayor Eric Adams said that he respected the decision of the governor, following her announcement, according to the New York Post.

Meanwhile, Will Barclay, leader of the New York State Assembly Republican Conference applauded the updated approach.

“With a plan to follow common-sense and science New York is finally taking a step to put children first,” Barclay said on Twitter.

“Students deserve every opportunity to succeed in their education and that begins inside the classroom,” he added.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Drastic Increase in Non-Infectious Diseases in Military Explained as Data Glitch: Whistleblower

A medical Army officer who discovered a sudden increase in disease coinciding with reports of side effects alongside ...

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Drastic Increase in Non-Infectious Diseases in Military Explained as Data Glitch: Whistleblower
Whistleblower faces involuntary separation from Army
By Ella Kietlinska and Joshua Philipp
August 23, 2022

A medical Army officer who discovered a sudden increase in disease coinciding with reports of side effects alongside COVID-19 vaccines—which the Army has dismissed as a data glitch—said he faces involuntary separation after being convicted but not punished for disobeying COVID-19 protocol.

In January 2022, First Lt. Mark Bashaw, a preventive medicine officer at the Army, started noticing some “alarming signals” within the defense epidemiological database.

The Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED), which tracks disease and injuries of 1.3 million active component service members, showed during the pandemic a significant increase in reports of cancers, myocarditis, and pericarditis; as well as some other diseases like male infertility, tumors, a lung disease caused by blood clots, and HIV, Bashaw said.

All these illnesses are listed in FDA documentation as potential adverse reactions associated with COVID-19 vaccines, Bashaw told EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program in an interview on Aug. 1.

Seeing increases in cases of these illnesses as high as 50 percent or 100 percent in some situations, Bashaw stepped forward as a whistleblower to raise concerns about his findings.

Bashaw’s whistleblower declaration, submitted to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) who is facilitating the sharing of information from early investigations of COVID-19 products with Congress, said he saw the increasing incidence of these disorders observed in DMED as “very troubling.”

Specifically, the number of cancer cases among active service members in 2021 nearly tripled in comparison with the average number of cancer instances per year from 2016 to 2020, Bashaw said in his declaration.

Bashaw’s responsibilities as a preventive medicine officer, with a specialty in entomology, include “participating in fact-finding inquiries and investigations to determine potential public health risk to DoD [Department of Defense] personnel from diseases caused by insects and other non-battle related injuries.”

Glitch in DMED

A week after this information was brought out in January in a “COVID-19: Second Opinion” roundtable organized by Johnson, the data in DMED changed, Bashaw said, and all of these troubling spikes in diseases and injuries “seemed to have disappeared and been realigned with previous years.”

Curiously, the glitch didn’t affect the data from 2021, which remained the same. Instead, the corrected data saw the data for prior years increased, which made the 2021 data look normal and in line with the running average, Bashaw explained.

In response to the whistleblower claims, spokesperson for the health agency of the Department of Defense Peter Graves told PolitiFact that the data in DMED “was incorrect for the years 2016-2020,” so the system was taken offline to correct the root cause of the data corruption, which didn’t impact data from 2021.

After the roundtable, Johnson sent three letters to the Department of Defense (DoD) requesting an explanation of the sudden increase in medical diagnosis and the changes in the DMED data.

“The concern is that these increases may be related to the COVID-19 vaccines that our servicemen and women have been mandated to take,” Johnson said in one of his letters.

The senator also sent a letter to the technology company that manages DMED asking for clarification of all data integrity issues uncovered in the database.

Although Johnson received some responses from the tech company, there has not been still a “solid, rational explanation” as to why a glitch occurred in the database and what it was, Bashaw said.

After the glitch, Bashaw pulled out data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) for injuries related to viral vaccines to compare to his findings on DMED. He compared the average of the last 24 years to data for 2021 and found an eleven-fold increase in the number of suspected adverse incidents reported in 2021.

“I compared it to the average of the last 24 years, it’s a 1,100 percent increase in 2021. And the only difference we had in 2021 was the rollout of these experimental emergency use authorized COVID-19 vaccines,” Bashaw said.

VAERS is managed by agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and serves as “a national early warning system to detect possible safety problems in U.S.-licensed vaccines,” according to HHS’s website.

Though reporting to VAERS is voluntary for individuals, “healthcare professionals are required to report certain adverse events, and vaccine manufacturers are required to report all adverse events that come to their attention,” the website says. However, non-professionals are also able to make entries.

Emergency Use Authorized Products

Bashaw tried to raise his concerns regarding COVID-19 vaccines to his leadership at the army through the proper channels, recommending that it change its risk communication strategy for the vaccine from ”safe and effective “ to “there might be some problems.”

However, his concerns were not addressed, Bashaw said. “And then, later, I was targeted due to my own [COVID-19] vaccination status.”

Bashaw said he was “forced into an experimental emergency use authorized testing protocol, which was only for the unvaccinated.”

He questioned the policy, saying that forcing unvaccinated individuals into such a testing regimen seems “coercive” and “kind of punitive.”

Bashaw invoked the provisions of the United States Code, which gives liability protection for epidemic products authorized for emergency use to manufacturers and distributors of the product, the government, and medical personnel who administer the product.

However, the perspective of the individual who chooses to use these products or to whom the product is administered is not considered by this law despite their taking on all the burden of risk. “For this reason, [they should have] the ability to accept or refuse these products,” Bashaw said.

“It’s my job as a medical officer in general, to warn individuals, or at least try to communicate [to them] what they might be getting themselves into with these products.”

Bashaw pointed out that the individual’s right to accept or refuse administration of these products and to informed consent has also been written down in the United States Code, specifically 21 U.S. Code § 360bbb–3.

Individuals to whom the product is authorized for emergency use should be informed “of the significant known and potential benefits and risks of such use, and of the extent to which such benefits and risks are unknown,” the said law stipulates.

This applies not only to the experimental vaccines but also to COVID-19 testing procedures and the wearing of masks, Bashaw said.

Targeted for Disobeying COVID-19 Rules

Bashaw has been court-martialed for disobeying the mandated COVID-19 protocol. He challenged the accusation saying that the order to follow the protocol disregarded the individual’s right to informed consent guaranteed by U.S. law.

The court convicted Bashaw, but the judge did not hand down any punishment and recommended to the commanding general to drop the conviction, Bashaw said, but the general upheld the conviction.

After the conviction, the Army initiated Bashaw’s involuntary separation from service after 17 years of honorable service. His expected promotion to captain was also withheld, the officer said.

The justification for his discharge was that the army lost trust in his “capabilities as an officer over the past seven months,” Bashaw explained.

Bashaw filed a rebuttal, hoping to reverse its course.

In addition, Bashaw filed a whistleblower complaint at DoD, but the decision was made that there was no retaliation against him, and the case was closed out. He said that he then filed another complaint which exercises his right guaranteed by the code of military justice to challenge such decisions.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Army Public Health Center and the Department of Defense for comment.

Recently, Bashaw has petitioned the Judge Advocate General of the Army, asking the general to review what he has brought forth in official documentation.

This is concrete evidence, and it is well founded on the law to protect service members and individuals in general, Bashaw said. “I wouldn’t be risking 17 years of my service [and] the health and welfare of my family on some flimsy argument.”

Bashaw said that he is concerned with the integrity of the data that the leadership is basing their strategic decisions upon. If data is being manipulated in some way, or if there is a data glitch, then these senior-level leaders make decisions “based on something that might not be the case,” he explained. It is especially “a serious sign of concern” if a private contractor manages the medical information of service members and has glitches with it.

“And so it’s super important to have solid data and trustworthy sources.”

Bashaw said he decided to bring his concerns to his leaders’ awareness to honor the oath he took to uphold the Constitution of the United States and to glorify God.

“I will absolutely do everything in my power to warn my brothers and sisters in uniform. And that’s my job as a medical officer, to communicate risks and potential harms,” Bashaw said. “That’s my duty.”

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

26 states reporting BA.2.75 cases

An omicron subvariant that's only accounted for a sprinkle of COVID-19 infections has been detected in 26 states and Washington, D.C., according to tracking estimates.

www.beckershospitalreview.com

(fair use applies)


26 states reporting BA.2.75 cases
Paige Twenter
14 hours ago

An omicron subvariant that's only accounted for a sprinkle of COVID-19 infections has been detected in 26 states and Washington, D.C., according to tracking estimates.

BA.2.75 accounted for 84 national COVID-19 across 20 states as of Aug. 8, but that number has creeped up to 189 as of Aug. 22. The estimates come from a dashboard run by Raj Rajnarayanan, PhD, the assistant dean of research and an associate professor at Arkansas State University. The dashboard uses GISAID, a global data platform that follows viruses.

The number of BA.2.75 cases are too few to be published by the CDC as BA.5 makes up nearly 9 in every 10 national cases. Two other omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.4.6, together account for about 1 in every 10.

Health experts have said BA.2.75 is a "scariant" and the WHO has not deemed it a variant of concern. Helix, a lab that helps the CDC track variants, recently said BA.2.75 infections were "sporadic."

Here are the most recent estimates on BA.2.75 infections by state and Washington, D.C.:

California — 34

New Jersey — 26

New York — 19

Washington — 17

Texas — 13

Illinois — 11

Arizona — 8

Ohio — 7

North Carolina — 7

Georgia — 7

Wisconsin — 5

Virginia — 5

Pennsylvania — 4

Nebraska — 3

Massachusetts — 3

Maryland — 3

Indiana — 3

Minnesota — 2

Michigan — 2

Kansas — 2

Iowa — 2

Missouri — 1

Hawaii — 1

District of Columbia — 1

Delaware — 1

Connecticut — 1

Colorado — 1

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Omicron subvariants BA.4.6 and BA.2.75 are here. How concerned should U.S. be?

As the latest coronavirus wave fueled by the omicron subvariant BA.5 continues to recede, health officials are turning a wary eye to what might come next.

www.seattletimes.com

(fair use applies)


Omicron subvariants BA.4.6 and BA.2.75 are here. How concerned should U.S. be?
By Rong-Gong Lin II and Luke Money Los Angeles Times
Aug. 23, 2022 at 12:13 pm

LOS ANGELES — As the latest coronavirus wave fueled by the super-infectious omicron subvariant BA.5 continues to recede, health officials are turning a wary eye to what might come next.

Experts in the federal government and in California are closely tracking two newer subvariants, BA.4.6 and BA.2.75 — themselves members of the omicron family. It isn’t clear whether they will eventually spread to worrisome extents in the state, but there’s reason to pay attention as they’ve caused concern elsewhere in the world.

The most pressing question is whether either can outcompete BA.5, which essentially elbowed out all other coronavirus strains during its stunning rise to dominance this summer. If they can, that could potentially point to another spin in an all-too-familiar cycle, where the emergence of an even-more-infectious strain threatens to trigger a fresh rise in cases.

“The evolutionary pressure on the virus is to find a way around the immunity wall that we have built up,” Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said this week in a forum with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

At this point, BA.5 is far and away the most common version of the coronavirus circulating in California and nationwide. It was estimated to constitute 88% of coronavirus cases nationwide for the week that ended Aug. 13, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, the national proportion of infections attributed to BA.4.6 has inched upward. That subvariant was estimated to constitute 5.6% of cases over the week ending Aug. 13, up from 5% the week before. More recent figures peg those subvariants’ estimated respective shares of cases at 89% and 6.3%, CDC data show.

BA.4.6 isn’t a major player in the federally defined region that includes California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and territories in the Pacific Ocean. In that region, BA.4.6 made up an estimated 2.2% of cases over the week ending Aug. 13. However, it constituted an estimated 14.2% of weekly cases in a central region of the country that includes Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.

Meanwhile, the BA.2.75 subvariant has attracted attention for becoming dominant in India and outcompeting BA.5 there, according to a tweet from Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla.

“We’re now seeing signs it can also compete with BA.4.6 in Australia,” Topol wrote. “Just the fact that variants can outcompete BA.5 is of concern.”

And a preprint study from scientists in China suggested that BA.2.75 “may prevail” following the current BA.5 wave.

What this means for the U.S. is not clear.

There have been plenty of variants that have eventually fizzled out. And, as Topol wrote, the trajectory of a variant like BA.2.75 “may vary considerably between countries.”

In Los Angeles County, there is little information to suggest either of these variants is growing dramatically. According to the most recent data, BA.4.6 constitutes just 1.5% of cases in L.A. County, a rate that remains relatively the same compared to the prior week.

There have been only three specimens of BA.2.75 identified cumulatively over a six-week period, “indicating no increased circulation of this sublineage in L.A. County,” said Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.

But the reports from elsewhere regarding subvariants outcompeting BA.5 is worrisome, Ferrer said.

For now, though, L.A. County and California as a whole are continuing to experience a pandemic reprieve — with sustained declines both in newly reported infections and the numbers of hospitalized coronavirus-positive patients.

“Given the significant decline in cases these past two weeks, and the absence of increased circulation of a new strain of the virus, we are optimistic that hospitalizations will continue to decline as well in L.A. County over the next two to three weeks,” Ferrer said.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Omicron-specific Covid booster shots are just weeks away. Here's who will—and won't—be eligible

Updated Covid booster shots designed to target omicron's BA.5 subvariant will be available in the next three weeks or so. Here's who's going to be eligible.

www.cnbc.com

(fair use applies)


Omicron-specific Covid booster shots are just weeks away. Here's who will—and won't—be eligible
Annika Kim Constantino
Published Sat, Aug 20 2022 9:30 AM EDT Updated Tue, Aug 23 2022 7:16 AM EDT

Newly updated Covid booster shots designed to target omicron's BA.5 subvariant should be available within in the next three weeks. That begs an important question: Who's going to be eligible to get them?

The short answer: anyone ages 12 and up who has completed a primary vaccination series, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson tells CNBC Make It. It's unlikely to matter whether you've received any other booster doses or not before, the spokesperson says — but if you're unvaccinated, you won't be eligible for the updated formula until you complete a primary series with the existing Covid vaccines.

The longer answer is somewhat more complex, because it depends on which booster shots get approved and when.

Pfizer's "bivalent" shot, which targets both the original Covid strain and omicron's BA.5 subvariant, is expected to be authorized first. The CDC says it'll likely come with a wide eligibility swath: the full group of vaccinated Americans ages 12 and up.

Moderna's bivalent shot is expected to follow suit later, most likely in October. It'll come with a somewhat narrower range of eligibility, at least at first: vaccinated people ages 18 and older. For both shots, younger pediatric age groups could become eligible later, the CDC says.

Those projections are tentative, at least for now. A person familiar with the matter told NBC News on Wednesday that it'll hinge on how much supply Pfizer and Moderna are able to manufacture and roll out by next month. If that supply is limited, the shots could first be available to those most at risk, such as the elderly and immunocompromised.

Federal health officials believe the shots will provide the best level of protection against the highly transmissible BA.5 subvariant to date, especially in the fall and winter when a large wave of Covid infections is projected to hit the U.S.

"It's going to be really important that people this fall and winter get the new shot. It's designed for the virus that's out there," Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House's Covid response coordinator, said at a virtual event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation on Tuesday.

Should I get a second booster dose now, or wait for the omicron-specific shots?

If you're eligible for a second booster dose but haven't received it yet, Jha's advice is to get it now rather than holding off in anticipation of the updated boosters. That advice could apply to a lot of people: Among adults 50 and over who are eligible for a second booster shot, only 33.2% have gotten it, according to the latest CDC data.

"My general feeling is, no reason to wait, go get it, even if we're only a few weeks away," Jha said at the Chamber event. He added that people who get boosted now will still be able to get the BA.5 shot in a few months, when their immunity from the booster wanes.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden's chief medical advisor, has also emphasized that all Americans should get vaccinated and boosted now if they aren't up to date, noting that the country's approved vaccines still work exceptionally well at preventing severe illness, hospitalization and death.

"If [people] don't get vaccinated or they don't get boosted, they're going to get into trouble," Fauci told Los Angeles radio station KNX News 97.1's "KNX In Depth" earlier this month.

As for the BA.5 shot, experts are split over whether you should get it as soon as you're eligible or wait to get it until cases rise in the fall or winter, in an attempt to maximize your immunity boost over those crucial months.

Andy Slavitt, a former senior advisor on Biden's Covid response team, wrote in Twitter thread on Friday that some experts — including Fauci and Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco — support the former approach.

"The other view is one no one wants to be on record for," Slavitt wrote. "It's that since we don't know the duration of the boost, why not wait until October?"

"For lower risk people who want to have 4 months of coverage (a reasonable minimal expectation), some may choose to wait," Slavitt added.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJCqpFzvGCA
Qatari Study - BA.1 vs. BA.2 COVID Severity Comparison
30 min 14 sec
Streamed live 6 hours ago
Drbeen Medical Lectures

This is an interesting study that shows the COVID severity between the two variants is similar. Let's review.

URL list from Tuesday, Aug. 23 2022

DrBeen: Medical Education Online

DrBeen: Online Personalized Medical Education - DrBeen

DrBeen.com is a medical education website offering comprehensive video lectures and courses designed for medical students, healthcare professionals, and those interested in learning about various medical subjects, created by Dr. Mobeen Syed, a renowned physician and educator. Now also powered by AI.

www.drbeen.com

COVID-19 Disease Severity in Persons Infected With Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 Sublineages and Association With Vaccination Status | Infectious Diseases | JAMA Internal Medicine | JAMA Network

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama...

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Research finds blood-clotting imbalance persists in long COVID

New research from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences has provided greater insight into the causes of long COVID syndrome. The findings, which further investigate the link between long COVID and blood clotting, have been published in the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

medicalxpress.com

(fair use applies)


Research finds blood-clotting imbalance persists in long COVID
by RCSI
August 23, 2022

New research from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences has provided greater insight into the causes of long COVID syndrome. The findings, which further investigate the link between long COVID and blood clotting, have been published in the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

Long COVID syndrome is a broad collection of symptoms including shortness of breath, fatigue and reduced physical fitness that can continue for many months after initial infection with COVID-19. Understanding is limited about why these symptoms persist in some patients but not others, and the novel syndrome remains a considerable clinical challenge for both doctors and patients alike.

To gain a new understanding of what causes long COVID, researchers at RCSI studied patients in Ireland with symptoms of long COVID, and saw that the body's blood-clotting and immune systems can remain tipped out of balance long after the initial infection.

The team of researchers, led by Professor James O'Donnell at the RCSI School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences with Dr. Helen Fogarty as Clinical Fellow, analyzed blood from 50 patients with long COVID syndrome up to 12 weeks post infection with the COVID-19 virus. They compared the samples to "controls," blood from healthy people who did not have long COVID syndrome.

The study found that the blood of patients with long COVID syndrome had higher levels of a blood-clotting booster called von Willebrand Factor (VWF), and lower levels of a protein that normally breaks down VWF, called ADAMTS13. Their analysis also suggests that blood vessels were still being damaged long after the initial infection, and that specific cells of the immune system were at abnormal levels in patients with long COVID.

"In this study, we examined 50 patients with symptoms of long COVID syndrome. We saw that, in patients with long COVID, the normally finely tuned balance of pro- and anti-clotting mechanisms were tipped in favor of blood clotting," said Dr. Helen Fogarty, Health Research Board Irish Clinical Academic Training (ICAT) Program Fellow and lead author on the paper. "Our analysis also suggests that abnormal clotting and disturbed immunity go hand in hand in long COVID. Together, these findings may help explain some of the symptoms of long COVID syndrome."

Commenting on the study, Professor James O'Donnell says that "extensive research has been carried on the dangerous clotting observed in patients with acute severe COVID-19 infection, and we now understand a lot more about how and why these deadly clots occur. In this study, we put the focus on long COVID syndrome, as so much less is known about this persistent illness which is affecting millions of people worldwide."

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Preventing pressure injuries among ICU patients with COVID-19 requires extra vigilance

Patients critically ill with COVID-19 are at exceptionally high risk for developing healthcare-associated pressure injuries (HAPrIs), and nurses and other clinicians should be extra vigilant with assessments and protective interventions, according to a study published in AACN Advanced Critical Care.

medicalxpress.com

(fair use applies)


Preventing pressure injuries among ICU patients with COVID-19 requires extra vigilance
by American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN)
August 23, 2022

Patients critically ill with COVID-19 are at exceptionally high risk for developing healthcare-associated pressure injuries (HAPrIs), and nurses and other clinicians should be extra vigilant with assessments and protective interventions, according to a study published in AACN Advanced Critical Care.

"Pressure Injury Risk Assessment and Prevention in Patients With COVID-19 in the Intensive Care Unit" retrospectively examined pressure injury risk in a sample of 1,920 adult patients admitted to one of two intensive care units (ICUs) at a Utah teaching hospital between April 2020 and April 2021.

The study is part of the research team's ongoing work to develop ways to more accurately determine pressure injury risk among ICU patients. The researchers compared the predictive validity of the Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Sore Risk for patients with COVID-19 with patients who were negative for the disease and were able to identify additional risk factors for device-related HAPrIs in critically ill patients with COVID-19.

Co-author Jenny Alderden, Ph.D., APRN, CCRN, CCNS, is an associate professor, Boise State University School of Nursing, Boise, Idaho.

"This study and others provide further evidence that patients with severe COVID-19 are at even greater risk for pressure injuries than the general ICU patient population," she said. "Prevention begins with accurately determining risk, and clinicians must consider additional factors beyond those assessed with common classification tools."

Since its development in 1987, the Braden Scale has become the most widely used tool in the United States to determine pressure injury risk across all care settings, but a growing body of literature shows that it lacks predictive validity in the ICU population, finding that nearly all ICU patients are at high risk.

A total of 1,920 patients were included in the study sample, including 407 diagnosed with COVID-19. In the entire sample, at least one HAPrI developed in 354 patients (18%), with a third of those considered device-related. Among the 407 patients with COVID-19, at least one HAPrI developed in each of 120 patients (29%), with nearly half (46%) considered device-related.

The research team looked at data related to demographics, diagnoses, comorbidities, hospital length of stay, treatment interventions, laboratory tests, nutrition and the results of skin assessments conducted by nurses.

Statistical analysis revealed two variables as potential risk factors for device-related HAPrIs: fragile skin and prone positioning during mechanical ventilation.

The researchers also point to the potential for machine learning methods and explainable artificial intelligence to improve the accuracy of HAPrI risk assessments, as a way to provide additional information for clinicians to incorporate into their patient care decisions.

The article is one of several published in the journal's summer 2022 issue about threats to skin integrity in critically ill patients. Other articles in the symposia focus on:

• Cutaneous anomalies in ICU patients
• Cutaneous manifestations of COVID-19 in critical care
• Differences of lower extremity skin changes in the ICU setting.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Chronic COVID infections source of variants of concern, study shows

The coronavirus variants of concern are emerging from chronic, long-term COVID infections in people who may be immune comprised and unable to clear the virus, a new study strongly suggests. Frontiers in Virology published the findings by scientists at Emory University and the University of Oxford.

medicalxpress.com

(fair use applies)


Chronic COVID infections source of variants of concern, study shows
by Carol Clark, Emory University
August 23, 2022

The coronavirus variants of concern are emerging from chronic, long-term COVID infections in people who may be immune comprised and unable to clear the virus, a new study strongly suggests. Frontiers in Virology published the findings by scientists at Emory University and the University of Oxford.

"Rather than evolving from transmission chains of acute COVID infections in hundreds of millions of people, our results show that the variants of concern come from rare cases when someone may have an active infection for months," says Daniel Weissman, a corresponding author and Emory professor of biology and physics focused on quantitative evolutionary theory.

"A key take-home message is that it is important to find these individuals who are chronically infected and provide support for them to recover," adds Mahan Ghafari, first author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. "In many cases they may be asymptomatic and not even realize that they are infected with COVID although they are actively shedding the virus."

Ghafari graduated from Emory in 2018 with a masters in physics.

Additional authors of the paper include Aris Katzourakis, a professor of evolution and genomics at the University of Oxford; Qihan Liu, an Emory graduate student in physics; and Emory undergraduate Arushi Dhillon.

Random mutations

Viruses like SARS-CoV-2 continuously evolve due to occasional mutations in the genetic code that may occur when they replicate. "When a virus copies itself, it doesn't always make perfect copies," Weissman explains.

Usually, such random mutations do not benefit the virus or raise the concerns of scientists monitoring these changes. Occasionally, however, the mutations result in a variant of the virus that may make it more transmissible, more difficult to detect and treat, and even more lethal.

The World Health Organization defines a SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern as one that is more likely to cause infections even in those who are vaccinated or in those who were previously infected.

"During the first few months of the pandemic, it didn't look like the coronavirus was going to adapt into a variant of concern," Weissman says. "But then, boom, boom, boom! Not only did the coronavirus evolve into VOCs, it did it three times in quick succession in late 2020."

The World Health Organization dubbed these first three variants of concern alpha, beta and gamma.

Questions surrounding VOCs

Why had all three of these VOCs emerged at roughly the same time and apparently in three far-flung areas of the world?

Another mystery was why large clusters of mutations occurred in the VOCs. "A key element that distinguished these VOCs from other lineages of virus that were circulating is that each of them has a vastly elevated number of mutations," Ghafari notes. "That's a major distinction point in evolutionary terms."

At least some of the mutations from the VOC had been detected in chronic cases of COVID, leading to the hypothesis that these long-term cases may be the source of the VOCs. The other main theory was that VOCs were emerging from sustained transmission of acute infections in areas of the world with poor genomic surveillance of the virus.

Ghafari, Weissman and their collaborators were among the first teams to methodically test these theories surrounding the emergence of the alpha, beta and gamma VOCs.

The researchers built a mechanistic, theoretical model to study the problem, using existing data and software they developed. The resulting model rules out the theory that the VOCs emerged from sustained transmission of acute infections and fully supports the theory that each variant evolved within a single individual with a chronic infection.

The model shows how multiple mutations were needed, each of which may have been either neutral or slightly advantageous to viral fitness. In this way, a variant eventually acquires a constellation of mutations that allow it to become more transmissible.

Model explains delta and omicron emergence

Although the current paper drew from data for the alpha, beta and gamma variants, the resulting theoretical model also explains the later independent emergence of the delta and omicron VOCs. Delta emerged in India in late 2020, rapidly sweeping through that country and spreading around the world. Delta subsided after omicron, which is not a descendent of the delta variant, emerged in South Africa in late 2021. Omicron quickly became the dominant global VOC.

The researchers have made their model and software publicly available for others to study the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants.

"Ideally, we'd like to eventually be able to quantify the timing at which new variants might emerge in the future," Weissman says. "That has huge implications from a public health perspective."

Studies have shown that some immune-compromised people, such as those taking medication for other chronic disorders, have carried active COVID infections for a year or even longer. It's critical to identify these people, the researchers stress, not only to help them get treated for COVID, but also to conduct genomic surveillance of the SARS-CoV-2 viruses that they carry.

"Who knows what variant could be boiling up next from a chronically infected individual?" Ghafari says. "Our study shows that from an evolutionary point of view, we can expect something completely different from the previous VOCs. If we want to stay a step ahead of this virus, we need to be more actively identifying and surveilling people with chronic infections."

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

No gene juice for you: CDC says unvaxxed won’t be eligible for Omicron boosters

Non mRNA compliant Americans must take the expired primary series first to become eligible.

dossier.substack.com

(fair use applies)


No gene juice for you: CDC says unvaxxed won’t be eligible for updated Omicron boosters
"if you’re unvaccinated, you won’t be eligible for the updated formula until you complete a primary series with the existing Covid vaccines.”
Jordan Schachtel
11 hr ago

Not that any mRNA holdouts are thinking about getting the shots at this point in the pandemic game, but it’s fascinating to observe the CDC’s half-baked attempt to deploy expired shots into the arms of the general public, acting as the de facto public marketing arm for a Big Pharma mRNA liquidation sales drive.

According to the CDC, only those who have previously taken COVID shots are going to be eligible for the upcoming highly touted Omicron mRNA booster, which is being rolled out by both Pfizer and Moderna.

CNBC reports:

“Newly updated Covid booster shots designed to target omicron’s BA.5 subvariant should be available within the next three weeks. That begs an important question: Who’s going to be eligible to get them?”

Marvin Pork @DogM0mma
"but if you’re unvaccinated, you won’t eligible for the updated formula until you complete a primary series with the existing Covid vaccines." Lol
August 22nd 2022
2 Likes
The report continues:

“The short answer: anyone ages 12 and up who has completed a primary vaccination series, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson tells CNBC Make It. It’s unlikely to matter whether you’ve received any other booster doses or not before, the spokesperson says — but if you’re unvaccinated, you won’t be eligible for the updated formula until you complete a primary series with the existing Covid vaccines.”

So basically, if you are the one person in the world who isn’t mRNA compliant, but has decided, after two years, to get the mRNA Omicron shot, you’re not eligible to do so. If you want the latest “protection” from COVID-19, you need to take the shots designed for the Wuhan strain, which hasn’t existed in multiple years.

For the mRNA true believers, the Omicron shot marks either shot 4 or 5 on their perpetual injection schedule. Yes, the loyalty card meme is becoming a reality.



The news comes on the heels of the CEO of Moderna claiming that he is “in the process of throwing 30 million dollars into the garbage because nobody wants them.”

“We have a big demand problem,” Stephane Bancel, the multi billionaire cartel boss at Moderna, ranted.

Carolina_Bonita @carolina_bonita
So #Moderna’s CEO says they are throwing away 30 million c19 shots because no one anywhere in the world will take them. This is great news. If this doesn’t send a mass message to them, don’t know what will. We don’t want your poison!
August 15th 2022
49 Retweets188 Likes

Moderna and Pfizer designed these Omicron boosters for variants that no longer exist. They have since claimed to update the boosters for the current dominant strain. Of course, that strain will likely expire within a few months as well.

The Dossier
Already Expired: Moderna’s upcoming Omicron shot is formulated for a variant that no longer exists
Moderna’s reformulated mRNA COVID injection, the highly touted — and continuously delayed — “Omicron vaccine,” was tailored to an Omicron subvariant that no longer exists. The pharmaceutical company’s Omicron-specific shot was formulated for the BA.1 subvariant of Omicron, which hasn’t been identified in genomic surveillance for several months…
Read more
2 months ago · 128 likes · 37 comments · Jordan Schachtel

According to the White House, the newest boosters will become available in mid September. For those who decided to partake in the continuing population-wide mRNA experiment, may the odds be ever in your favor.
.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

My Op-Ed In The Washington Times On D.C's Latest Insane Public Health Policy Decision

The District of Columbia just mandated highly toxic and increasingly lethal COVID-19 "vaccines" for all students over the age of 12 to attend public school. We are living inside of a horror movie.

pierrekory.substack.com

(fair use applies)


My Op-Ed In The Washington Times On D.C's Latest Insane Public Health Policy Decision
The District of Columbia just mandated highly toxic and increasingly lethal COVID-19 "vaccines" for all students over the age of 12 to attend public school. We are living inside of a horror movie.
Pierre Kory, MD, MPA
9 hr ago

We in the FLCCC are on a roll lately with publishing Op-Ed’s in major newspapers. I have to admit that I get expert help with these Op-Ed’s because, if you read my “Medical Musings” Substack, you know that my writing tone/style just doesn’t cut it for most major media. But when I/we get fired up about the latest absurdity in Public Health Policy (piled atop what is now a Mount Everest of policy absurdities), the team gets together and we try to call it out. We do this to help a public that has been consistently victimized by endless false propaganda and destructive censorship of valuable information around COVID vaccines and treatments. It should go without saying that the information control is wielded by Big Pharma via the captured Federal Health Agencies and the sponsoring of all corporate media and high-impact medical journals.

Weaponizing the agencies, journals, and major media to serve Big Pharma’s interests has killed hundreds of thousands in this country alone, either by depriving access to effective, repurposed drugs or by forcing people to take lethal mRNA “vaccines.” Many more will be killed if we don’t put a stop to this and make some headway against this continued onslaught of toxic information. Information that school districts, Universities, and many corporations act on by instituting mandates that force many U.S citizens to accept a novel, toxic medical intervention in order to maintain their income or education. These mandates continue despite the now well-publicized and CDC admitted fact that the “vaccines” do not prevent transmission. Worse, the latest data actually shows that the vaccinated are 5x more likely to transmit disease. Yet they are widely mandated. Like I said, an absurdity atop absurdities.

My Op-Ed was written in response to the recent decision by the District of Columbia to mandate COVID vaccination for all children above the age of 12 in order to attend public school. I almost cannot sleep at what is about to happen to all those poor, defenseless children, given that the majority of them are likely parented by someone who has been pumped full of false, pro-vaccine beliefs. See below, published today in the Washington Times.



DC’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate will hurt those its meant to protect
It would bar nearly two-thirds of Black adolescents from attending school
By Pierre Kory - - Tuesday, August 23, 2022

OPINION:

While the attention was focused on Mar-a-Lago, Denmark made major news by banning the COVID-19 vaccine for children under age 18. You read that correctly: The Scandinavian nation, often heralded by pro-vaccine liberal politicians as a health model for the United States, issued a policy declaring it “no longer be possible” for young people to get vaccinated, citing the low risk posed by the virus.

Meanwhile, back home, the Biden administration, whose inner circle includes secret consultants for Pfizer, is for the most part letting states move forward with a similar laissez-faire attitude toward vaccination requirements with one notable exception: Washington, D.C., which is requiring all students over the age of 12 receive a vaccine.

The discrepancy between the treatment of children in our nation’s capital and the rest of the country reflects a deeper disconnect ripping our nation apart. It also undermines President Biden’s commitment to racial equity. On the campaign trail, Mr. Biden, who owes his 2020 victory to Black voters in South Carolina, turned heads by declaring, “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump then you ain’t Black.” On Inauguration Day, he signed an executive order outlining his “comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all.”

Yet when Team Biden moved back to Washington, they found a region moving away from its “Chocolate City” roots. In 1977 when Mr. Biden was a first-term senator, D.C. was 77% Black. Today, that number has been cut nearly in half to just 41%.

The city’s gentrification has deepened inequality. Every latte shop or yoga studio in the Navy Yard or Logan Circle pushes lower-income Washingtonians east of the Anacostia River, where Wards 7 and 8 remain nearly 80% Black and with average income less than half its counterparts across the river.

If enforced, Washington’s vaccine mandate would bar nearly two-thirds of Black adolescents from attending school, creating another obstacle for a population government should be empowering. The elite ruling class is happy to plaster “Black Lives Matters” stickers on their Teslas while supporting policies that hold back the next generation mere miles away.

Over socially distanced glasses of chardonnay, well-to-do Beltway residents cling to their COVID-19 narrative where vaccines funded by the big pharmaceutical companies offer the only hope. In their world, no one — not even children — is safe without a vaccine. Anyone who dares deviate from the company line is dismissed as a backwater Trump-supporting conspiracist, even lifelong Democrats like me.

They ignore data that challenges their point of view, including data finding 70% of U.S. public schools reported an increase in students seeking mental health services since the start of the pandemic, or a Harvard University study showing “remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps.”

These districts are not in places where parents can earn their six-figure salaries from Zoom, ordering Uber Eats and enjoying a steady diet of Netflix.

As a medical doctor who has helped more than 700 patients recover from COVID-19 and its complications, I have treated numerous adults and children injured by the vaccine and can assure you that there is a significant cause for concern. I’ve outlined the large and growing body of data on the injury risks of COVID-19 vaccinations — particularly among healthy children — which you can read in a vaccine exemption letter that I provided to concerned parents who wanted to send their children to summer camp without exposing them to these risks.

The true scope of harm is difficult to grasp because our public health agencies refuse to engage in the debate for fear of undermining their preferred narrative. But there are plenty of signals. Consider the large, unexplained rise in U.S. life insurance claims among working Americans of ages 18-64 beginning in early to mid-2021, when the vaccination campaign began. A similar trend is evident in German health insurance claims data — and the CEO of one of the country’s largest health insurance companies was fired for releasing data suggesting the government was concealing the extent of vaccine injuries.

Two years ago, candidate Joe Biden pledged to “shut down the virus.” Now, with more deaths on his watch than his predecessor’s, he and his allies still refuse to change course. Instead, they are clinging to a failed political agenda, sacrificing the next generation at its altar. Washington’s vaccine mandates will hurt Black children the most, undermining Mr. Biden’s equity agenda. In November, let’s hope a reckoning is brewing for those who have suffered the most from a failed public health response. Our children, especially the most underserved, depend on it.

• Dr. Pierre Kory is president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Disappearing YouTube Misinformation Prevention Policies on Masks and Social Distancing

Earlier in the year YouTube’s COIVD-19 medical misinformation policy wouldn’t allow you to post content which contradicted the WHO’s or local he…

nakedemperor.substack.com

(fair use applies)


Disappearing YouTube Misinformation Prevention Policies on Masks and Social Distancing
NE - nakedemperor.substack.com
9 hr ago

Earlier in the year YouTube’s COIVD-19 medical misinformation policy wouldn’t allow you to post content which contradicted the WHO’s or local health authorities’ guidance on various issues including:

• Social distancing;
• Claims that wearing a mask is dangerous or causes negative physical health effects;
• Claims that masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19

Now, it’s perfectly fine, signalling that those claims are no longer misinformation. Too bad if you previously had your account cancelled for questioning those policies. You should know by now when it is ok to question The Science™ and when it is verboten. Do keep up.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

New JAMA Pediatrics Study: Myocarditis is MORE Common than Mental Health Problems and Obesity in Kids Who Had a Positive Covid Test

And you thought that the pandemics of mental health and obesity in children were a problem.....

ashmedai.substack.com

(fair use applies)


New JAMA Pediatrics Study: Myocarditis is MORE Common than Mental Health Problems and Obesity in Kids Who Had a Positive Covid Test
And you thought that the pandemics of mental health and obesity in children were a problem.....
Ashmedai
6 hr ago

JAMA Pediatrics just published the latest installment in the train of pandemic molestations of science that is by now long and thick enough to wrap around Pluto like a rubber band and slingshot it into the sun. Heaven knows, the crescendoing propaganda endeavoring to panic parents into vaccinating their kiddies does not seem to be working, so the powers that be seem to be working overtime to churn out new intellectual debauchments faster than Fauci SCIENCE evolutions.

Alex Berenson @AlexBerenson
New @CDCgov data on mRNA vaccines for kids. What’s astonishing isn’t just that 95% of kids under 5 haven’t received any shots, but that 99% haven’t gotten two. The gap suggests even the tiny hard core of parents who started the process now know they’ve been conned…

August 19th 2022
1,633 Retweets5,620 Likes
So here we are with a new doozy of a study allegedly alleging that - to quote the MedPage headline - ‘Myocarditis a Common Long COVID Condition in Kids’:


As the title of the study suggests, the objective of the study is to portray long covid (PASC) as an extremely common and significant risk to kids (even though as we shall see they admit that “PASC in children appears to be uncommon”).

This study is so scientifically inept and wretched that it doesn’t even rise to the standard of junk science, rather it is plain junk.

Myocarditis is MORE Common than Mental Health Problems in Pediatrics (!?!?!)​

​

The most absurd claim of the study - and what is further distorted by the MedPage headline - is the following claim:


Language these days can be so confusing and intimidating, so here are the dictionary definitions of ‘most1’ and ‘common’:



So, most + common = the one with the greatest number or highest frequency of occurrence (ie, cases).

Ergo, what the authors are saying is that myocarditis occurred more than every other systemic condition they included in their analysis (the full screenshot containing the data is presented a bit further in):


Yup, myocarditis is apparently more ‘common’ than:

• ARDS - which is a bit funny because covid is primarily a respiratory disease, so you’d think that respiratory distress would be more common in covid survivors than myocarditis.
• Mental Health Issues that required treatment - if this is true, than holy cow, we know that there is a pandemic of pediatric mental health problems that is in unprecedented duress, but hey, who knew, myocarditis is gonna kill them all first!!
• Obesity - This might be an even bigger stunner. Put it this way: A full 5% of kids are obese per this study’s definition of obesity as “body mass index z score in the 95th percentile or higher any time before cohort entrance”, yet myocarditis is even more common?!?

Are you really gonna believe your lyin’ eyes, or will you trust The SCIENCE??

I can already hear some people saying “They used imprecise language, that’s not what they meant or intended to say, you’re being overly nitpicky and making a big deal out of nothing.”

Besides for the incredibly sloppy and callous linguistic imprecision that should horrify any scientist this argument would implicitly admit to, I daresay that it’s wrong, and that the choice of language here was deliberate.

This is their introduction to the study before the abstract, where they summarize the basic points:


Notice the different language: “with the strongest associations” with infection, not “most common” or “most commonly diagnosed”.

In other words (pun intended), they managed to accurately communicate the content and meaning of their data in their introduction to the study. It was only once they got to the formal part of the study text inside the Abstract section that they switched from the accurate language of “strongest association” to the grossly deceptive and blatantly false language of “most common” PASC condition.

The fact that they switched the language for the rest of the study suggests that this was not merely a clumsy choice of words - they already had the right language.

So what gives?

I suspect that the ‘most common’ language was used in order to provide media with a juicy soundbite that could be used to manipulate the results of the study to claim that children are at precipitous risk of developing myocarditis if they had covid, even if the covid itself was mild or asymptomatic.

Without this language, to quote the authors (blue box in above screenshot), “PASC in children appears to be uncommon”. Not exactly the type of discovery that will freak parents out and send them scurrying to subject their children to the benevolent prick of Pfizer’s needles.

“Myocarditis is the most common systemic feature" of long covid on the other hand, well that not only in a picture-perfect Orwellian application inverts the study’s central finding, but also allows for the media to bastardize this ‘finding’ even further, which leads to a headline like… “Myocarditis a Common Long COVID Condition in Kids” - something even the study itself didn’t claim outright.

Ultimately, when you look at the actual data they present, it is patently obvious that ‘most common systemic condition of PASC’ is an explicit lie:



According to the ‘most common’ language, myocarditis would be almost 2x as prevalent as mental health issues, and almost 3x as prevalent as obesity (defined as >95th percentile of BMI, not the sort of ‘excessively rotund’ proportions that most of us associate with clinical obesity).

Myocarditis would also edge out ARDS - barely - and the CI for ARDS actually goes higher than for myocarditis. This would be surprising, as you would expect respiratory problems to be more prominent than cardiac damage following a respiratory disease that attacks the lungs directly and often leaves scarred lung tissue in its wake, especially in people with a more severe clinical course of disease - something that this study found correlated to increased PASC conditions/symptoms.

The truth is that anyone remotely familiar with scientific graphs and charts will recognize immediately that this forest plot is depicting the relative increased odds in the incidence of these conditions, not the quantity of how many cases of each occurred.

In fact, I looked through the entire study and its supplementary materials, and could not find anywhere the raw numbers of how many cases of myocarditis or any other condition they found in their dataset.

(I actually suspect something else is the cause for the vanishingly few cases of myocarditis from 2020 that the scientific establishment is trying to pin on covid/long covid, which will be the topic of a forthcoming article.)

Corrupt government or establishment scientists have long since figured out how to play this game with the media where they publish a study or model and include a tidbit that is far more extreme than anything in the actual study, such as oblique language hinting at the possibility of some terrible calamity, or has an apocalyptic “worst case scenario”, knowing that the media will focus on the sensational bit that is a .00001 probability or is a hyper-sensationalized conjecture without any actual evidence backing it up, and frame the entire study or model around the “we’re all gonna die!!!!!” piece to the exclusion of the actual findings of the study. When someone complains to the scientists that their study did not in fact show what the media portrays it as showing, the scientists demur “well it’s not our fault that they ran with the most extreme and unlikely scenario in our model”. (This is the story of practically every single climate study, the media runs with the worst case apocalyptic scenario that is roughly about 0.0000000000000001% probability of happening, whereas the studies are forecasting that the highly probable scenarios are far more mild and less threatening than the prognosticated planetary destruction.

Same idea here, this language is a little tidbit that misrepresents the study egregiously, and as we can see from the MedPage headline, it worked as expected to manipulate the media (who are willing and eager accomplices).

There’s much more to say on this study, but that will wait for a separate article as this one is long enough as it is.

The state of institutional ‘science’ is sorry indeed.

“They looked from science to propaganda, and from propaganda to science, and from science to propaganda again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

Resisting the Intellectual Illiteratti is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.



1 Perhaps the authors intended ‘most’ as a pronoun (see screenshot), in the sense of subjectively determined identification, and assumed a personal identity of myocarditis being the most common systemic diagnosis. You never know these days.

 

[Zoner]

Mass Medical Bankruptcy & Collapse Coming – Dr. Elizabeth Eads | Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

In May, Dr. Elizabeth Eads revealed the CV19 vax was causing extreme disease. Few doctors were sounding the alarm on the death and carnage from the bioweapon injections, and it’s going to get much worse before it’s over.

Dr. Eads says, “Worldwide there are 10,000 deaths from these Covid vaccines daily. That’s a culmination of data . . . collected from Israel, UK, Canada, the U.S. and Brazil. So,10,000 a day and they are estimating we are already up to 12 million deaths worldwide.”

Dr. Eads thinks the death and injuries from the CV19 bioweapon will be orders of magnitude higher in the next five years.

Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, the FDA and CDC see what is coming. According to Dr. Eads, “They know this. They planned for it. They knew the consequences. They manipulated the vaccines as they went along and what was going into the vaccines . . . to make the booster shots more lethal. . . . Your immune system is absolutely destroyed with these shots.

Every time you get a shot, you lose more of your immune system. You lose 30% after the first shot, 60% to 70% after the second shot, 80% or more after the third shot, and you lose 100% of your immune system after the 4th shot. You also have the propensity to develop vaccine induced aids.”

You can also get heart disease, blood clots, strokes, brain disease, extreme shingles and develop fast spreading extreme cancers, just to name a few of the effects of the bioweapon so-called vaccines, according to Dr. Eads.

Dr. Eads goes on to say, “People are waking up and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, what did I do to my immune system,’ and this is irreversible. It’s irreversible because you cannot not turn off the intercellular mechanism. You cannot turn off the nano particle system that is making these long clot-like structures in veins and arteries. . .

There is no such thing as ‘Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. These are side effects of the vaccine. Nobody dies of ‘Sudden Death’ when they are otherwise healthy adults. There is no such thing. . . .

Here are the numbers I pulled off Attorney Todd Callender’s site. (He’s suing the U.S. military over the CV19 vax.) The all-cause mortality rate in the military is up 1,100%. . . .

The top five life insurance companies are banding together and are going to file a class-action lawsuit against Big Pharma.”

That’s not all, according to Dr. Eads, as she sees not only Big Pharma liable for damages but hospitals, doctors, nurses, drug store chains and all sorts of people who helped make this bioweapon genocide possible.

Dr. Eads says, “You are talking about billions of dollars, and they are not going to be able to afford to pay out all these claims. . . .It’s going to bankrupt Big Pharma, and Big Pharma will end up collapsing.

Hospitals will also end up collapsing because they were complicit in death by ventilators and remdesivir. Mass medical bankruptcies are coming 100%. This is going to be the collapse of the Rockefeller medical industry.”

Dr Eads says there are treatments that can help both the vaxed and unvaxed with removing harmful spike proteins. Two she named are Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Dr. Eads says there are some other helpful treatments and procedures as well.

There is much more cutting edge, frontline medical information in the nearly 1-hour and 19-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter as he talks to 25-year veteran Dr. Elizabeth Eads, DO, as she continues to highlight the worsening, and now obvious, effects of the CV19 bioweapon vax.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

N. Korea sees suspected COVID-19 cases after victory claim

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Thursday said it found four new fever cases in its border region with China that may have been caused by coronavirus infections, two weeks after leader Kim Jong Un declared a widely disputed victory over COVID-19.

apnews.com

(fair use applies)

N. Korea sees suspected COVID-19 cases after victory claim
By KIM TONG-HYUNG
an hour ago

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Thursday said it found four new fever cases in its border region with China that may have been caused by coronavirus infections, two weeks after leader Kim Jong Un declared a widely disputed victory over COVID-19.

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said health workers were conducting genetic tests on the samples taken from four people in Ryanggang province who exhibited fevers to confirm whether they were caused by the “malignant epidemic.” The North often uses that term, along with “malignant virus,” to describe COVID-19 and the coronavirus.

Authorities immediately locked down the areas where the fever cases emerged and plan to maintain tight restrictions and quarantines until health workers determine the cause of the illness.

KCNA said health authorities were giving extra attention to the cases because none of the four patients had a history of coronavirus infections.

The country’s emergency anti-virus headquarters dispatched “talented epidemiological, virology and test experts to the area” and is taking steps to “trace all persons ... connected with the suspect cases, and persons going to and from the relevant area and keep them under strict medical observation,” KCNA said.

North Korea said there have been no confirmed COVID-19 cases in any part of the country since Aug. 10 when Kim declared victory over the virus, just three months after the country acknowledged an outbreak.

Even as he ordered preventive measures eased, Kim called for vigilance and the maintaining of tight border controls to prevent the virus from reentering the country. Ryanggang province is one of the border areas where North Korean officials for years struggled to clamp down smuggling activities with China.

An official from South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said Seoul isn’t ruling out the possibility that the virus could reemerge in the North.

“North Korea may additionally report on the situation, including whether the fevers were confirmed as COVID-19, and we would need to wait for that before making judgements,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity during a background briefing.

While Kim claimed that the country’s success against the virus would be recognized as a global health miracle, experts believe the North has manipulated disclosures on its outbreak to help him maintain absolute control. The victory statement signals Kim’s aim to move to other priorities, including a possible nuclear test, experts say.

After admitting to an omicron outbreak of the virus in May, North Korea reported about 4.8 million “fever cases” across its mostly unvaccinated population of 26 million but only identified a fraction of them as COVID-19. It claimed just 74 people have died, which experts see as an abnormally small number considering the country’s lack of public health tools.

Kim’s declaration of victory over COVID-19 during a national meeting in Pyongyang was followed by a combative speech from his powerful sister, who said Kim had suffered a fever himself while steering the anti-virus campaign and laid dubious blame against South Korea while vowing deadly retaliation.

North Korea claims that its initial infections were caused by anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets and other items carried across the border by balloons launched by South Korean activists, a claim the South has described as “ridiculous” and unscientific.

Outside experts believe it’s more likely that the virus spread when the North briefly reopened its border with China to freight traffic in January and surged further following a military parade and other large-scale events in its capital, Pyongyang, in April.

There are concerns that the threats by Kim’s sister portend a provocation, possibly a nuclear or missile test or even border skirmishes.

Some experts say the North may try to stir up tensions as South Korea and the United States hold their biggest combined military training in years to counter the growing North Korean nuclear threat. The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, which involves aircraft, tanks and warships, continues in South Korea through Sept. 1.

Diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang to defuse the nuclear standoff has stalled since 2019 over disagreements in exchanging crippling U.S.-led sanctions against the North for the North’s denuclearization steps.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Study: Pfizer COVID pill showed no benefit in younger adults

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pfizer's COVID-19 pill appears to provide little or no benefit for younger adults, while still reducing the risk of hospitalization and death for high-risk seniors, according to a large study published Wednesday.

apnews.com

(fair use applies)


Study: Pfizer COVID pill showed no benefit in younger adults
By MATTHEW PERRONE
yesterday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill appears to provide little or no benefit for younger adults, while still reducing the risk of hospitalization and death for high-risk seniors, according to a large study published Wednesday.

The results from a 109,000-patient Israeli study are likely to renew questions about the U.S. government’s use of Paxlovid, which has become the go-to treatment for COVID-19 due to its at-home convenience. The Biden administration has spent more than $10 billion purchasing the drug and making it available at thousands of pharmacies through its test-and-treat initiative.

The researchers found that Paxlovid reduced hospitalizations among people 65 and older by roughly 75% when given shortly after infection. That’s consistent with earlier results used to authorize the drug in the U.S. and other nations.

But people between the ages of 40 and 65 saw no measurable benefit, according to the analysis of medical records.

The study has limitations due to its design, which compiled data from a large Israeli health system rather than enrolling patients in a randomized study with a control group — the gold-standard for medical research.

The findings reflect the changing nature of the pandemic, in which the vast majority of people already have some protection against the virus due to vaccination or prior infection. For younger adults, in particular, that greatly reduces their risks of severe COVID-19 complications. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently estimated that 95% of Americans 16 and older have acquired some level of immunity against the virus.

“Paxlovid will remain important for people at the highest risk of severe COVID-19, such as seniors and those with compromised immune systems,” said Dr. David Boulware, a University of Minnesota researcher and physician, who was not involved in the study. “But for the vast majority of Americans who are now eligible, this really doesn’t have a lot of benefit.”

A spokesman for Pfizer declined to comment on the results, which were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized Paxlovid late last year for adults and children 12 and older who are considered high risk due to conditions like obesity, diabetes and heart disease. More than 42% of U.S. adults are considered obese, representing 138 million Americans, according to the CDC.

At the time of the FDA decision there were no options for treating COVID-19 at home, and Paxlovid was considered critical to curbing hospitalizations and deaths during the pandemic’s second winter surge. The drug’s results were also far stronger than a competing pill from Merck.

The FDA made its decision based on a Pfizer study in high-risk patients who hadn’t been vaccinated or treated for prior COVID-19 infection.

“Those people do exist but they’re relatively rare because most people now have either gotten vaccinated or they’ve gotten infected,” Boulware said.

Pfizer reported earlier this summer that a separate study of Paxlovid in healthy adults — vaccinated and unvaccinated — failed to show a significant benefit. Those results have not yet been published in a medical journal.

More than 3.9 million prescriptions for Paxlovid have been filled since the drug was authorized, according to federal records. A treatment course is three pills twice a day for five days.

A White House spokesman on Wednesday pointed to several recent papers suggesting Paxlovid helps reduce hospitalizations among people 50 and older. The studies have not been published in peer-reviewed journals.

“Risk for severe outcomes from COVID is along a gradient, and the growing body of evidence is showing that individuals between the ages of 50 and 64 can also benefit from Paxlovid,” Kevin Munoz said in an emailed statement.

Administration officials have been working for months to increase use of Paxlovid, opening thousands of sites where patients who test positive can fill a prescription. Last month, U.S. officials further expanded access by allowing pharmacists to prescribe the drug.

The White House recently signaled that it may soon stop purchasing COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and tests, shifting responsibility to the private insurance market. Under that scenario, insurers could set new criteria for when they would pay for patients to receive Paxlovid.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

First lady Jill Biden tests positive again with "rebound" case of COVID-19

First lady tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday with an apparent "rebound" infection and will return to isolation, her office said in a statement.

news.yahoo.com

(fair use applies)


First lady Jill Biden tests positive again with "rebound" case of COVID-19
Stefan Becket - CBS News
Wed, August 24, 2022, 2:32 PM

Washington — First lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday with an apparent "rebound" infection and will return to isolation, her office said in a statement.

"The First Lady has experienced no reemergence of symptoms, and will remain in Delaware where she has reinitiated isolation procedures," communications director Kelsey Donohue said in a statement. "The White House Medical Unit has conducted contact tracing and close contacts have been notified."

The first lady first tested positive last week and was in isolation in South Carolina for five days. She experienced mild, cold-like symptoms and was treated with the antiviral drug Paxlovid, which has been linked to rebound infections. She joined President Biden in Delaware on Sunday following two negative tests.

The president also experienced a rebound case last month, when he tested positive again several days after leaving isolation. The president returned on Wednesday to the White House, where he is set to announce his plan to cancel up to $20,000 in debt for millions of Americans with federal student loans.

Mr. Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Wednesday morning, a White House official said.

"Consistent with CDC guidance because he is a close contact of the First Lady, he will mask for 10 days when indoors and in close proximity to others," the official said. "We will also keep the President's testing cadence increased and continue to report those results."

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Trump White House exerted pressure on FDA for Covid-19 emergency use authorizations, House report finds

The report by House Democrats examining the pandemic says Trump officials sought vaccine approvals to sway voters before the 2020 election.

www.politico.com

(fair use applies)


Trump White House exerted pressure on FDA for Covid-19 emergency use authorizations, House report finds
The report by House Democrats examining the pandemic says Trump officials sought vaccine approvals to sway voters before the 2020 election.
By Katherine Ellen Foley
08/24/2022 11:10 AM EDT | Updated: 08/24/2022 12:01 PM EDT

The Trump administration pressured the Food and Drug Administration, including former FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, to authorize unproven treatments for Covid-19 and the first Covid-19 vaccines on an accelerated timeline, according to a report released Wednesday by Democrats on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.

Senior Trump administration officials fought for the reauthorization of hydroxychloroquine, a drug normally used to treat malaria and lupus, after the FDA revoked its emergency clearance of the drug because data showed it was ineffective against Covid-19 and could lead to potentially dangerous side effects, the report found. The Democrats’ investigation also documents potential influence from former White House officials regarding the FDA’s decision to authorize convalescent plasma, and White House attempts to block the FDA from collecting additional safety data on Covid-19 vaccines in order to get them to the public before the 2020 presidential election.

“The Select Subcommittee’s findings that Trump White House officials deliberately and repeatedly sought to bend FDA’s scientific work on coronavirus treatments and vaccines to the White House’s political will are yet another example of how the prior Administration prioritized politics over public health,” House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), who also chairs the subcommittee, said in a statement.

“These assaults on our nation’s public health institutions undermined the nation’s coronavirus response,” he added.

Much of these pressure campaigns were reported in early 2020 by POLITICO and other outlets and President Donald Trump publicly called out the FDA and its commissioner on multiple occasions. But the committee report offers new color, through emails, texts and official testimony from Hahn about just how persistent some of these efforts inside the White House were throughout the summer and fall of 2020.

A substantial portion of the report focuses on Peter Navarro, a former trade adviser under Trump, who worked on the administration’s coronavirus response. Navarro collaborated frequently with Steven Hatfill, an adjunct virology professor at George Washington University, who was one of Navarro’s advisers and worked on the federal coronavirus response.

Pushing for hydroxychloroquine: According to emails collected over the course of the subcommittee’s investigation, Navarro and Hatfill rallied other White House officials to pressure Hahn to reinstate the emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine after the agency revoked it in June 2020. At one point, Hatfill characterized the disagreement between White House officials and the FDA as a forthcoming “knife fight” to an unnamed, outside ally over email.

The report also found that Navarro tasked Hatfill with coming up with a presentation to get the FDA to reauthorize the drug. At one point, Hatfill wrote to William O’Neill, a cardiologist at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, and suggested conducting a prophylactic study of the medication in a correctional facility experiencing a coronavirus outbreak. O’Neill dismissed the suggestion, saying: “There are all sort of regulations about enrolling prisoners in randomized trials. Most IRBs [institutional review boards] would never approve. I am not licensed in Indiana.”

Hatfill and Navarro sought to discredit other prominent health officials who spoke out against the use of hydroxychloroquine, including Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The two discussed plans to get the Department of Justice and the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general to conduct an investigation into Fauci and his email use. Hatfill, according to the report, pushed for Fauci’s removal throughout the fall, telling Navarro in September, “You really need to consider what is likely to happen over the next 2 months if this little idiot and his Covid treatment panel is not fired.” Two weeks later, Hatfill wrote that “[t]here will be a house cleaning after elections. [A] really good cleaning.”

In a statement to POLITICO, Navarro maintained that he believed hydroxychloroquine was a valuable treatment for Covid-19, and that he was justified in carrying out Trump’s orders to apply pressure to the FDA to make sure the drug was widely accessible. “The partisan House Select Subcommittee report ‘wrongly’ perpetuates one of the most deadly lies of the pandemic, namely that the safe and powerful therapeutic to treat COVID, hydroxychloroquine, was somehow dangerous,” he said. “I would lose that battle with the FDA and hundreds of thousands of Americans would needlessly die because of Stephen Hahn, Janet Woodcock, Rick Bright, Tony Fauci and the broader FDA bureaucracy. The result will forever be a stain on the FDA and shame on the House Subcommittee for perpetuating the lie.”

Hatfill also refutes the allegations in the report: “The committee has squandered the taxpayer dollars in a failed attempt to discredit President Trump, Dr. Peter Navarro and our collective efforts to identify, produce and distribute an efficacious outpatient treatment for Covid-19.”

Political pressure: In multiple instances, the subcommittee said it found evidence of senior Trump officials planning to take actions that could benefit the administration politically.

Officials tried to pressure the FDA into authorizing convalescent plasma around the time of the Republican National Convention, emails reveal. The proposed investigation into Fauci would take place around the time of the 2020 presidential election in an attempt to sway voters in favor of Trump, the report says.

The Trump administration also tried to pressure the FDA to authorize the first Covid-19 vaccines ahead of the presidential election. When Hahn testified to the subcommittee in January 2022, he said that White House officials said they would not sign off on emergency use authorization language that required a 60-day safety follow up for late-stage clinical trials. Ultimately, the FDA went ahead with the 60-day follow-up plan without an explicit blessing from the White House, though the White House later cleared it.

Hatfill rejects the notion that his conduct was politically motivated. “I am a doctor and was called to serve my country in that capacity. Politics had nothing to do with our work to save lives during Covid-19,” he said.

And their emails: The report also found evidence that Navarro and Hatfill had used a private email server for federal communications. The Department of Justice has sued Navarro get him to turn over other emails sent from his personal email account related to presidential matters, first revealed by a separate report from the the subcommittee.

“All my White House records are digitally preserved pending the resolution of a civil suit filed by the National Archives, which increasingly appears to have been unlawfully weaponized by the Department of Justice against both me and President Trump,” Navarro said.

This is the second report in a series of investigations into the way Trump administration officials managed the coronavirus. The first found that the administration leaned heavily on the herd immunity theory around the virus’ spread to delay federal action. The committee is still investigating other aspects of the federal response to the pandemic.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Traditional Chinese Medicine a New Way to Treat 'Long COVID': Japanese Physicians

Although it has been almost two years since COVID-19 first broke out, many still struggle with post-COVID conditions, ...

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Traditional Chinese Medicine a New Way to Treat ‘Long COVID’: Japanese Physicians
By Ellen Wan and Weber Lee
August 24, 2022

Although it has been almost two years since COVID-19 first broke out, many still struggle with post-COVID conditions, also known as “long COVID.” Recently, Japanese doctors have shown that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) can be used to treat both COVID-19 and long COVID.

Ken Ritsugaku is a TCM physician, a member of the Japan Society for Oriental Medicine, and Director of Japanese and Chinese Medicine at Kurashiki Heisei Hospital. He told The Epoch Times that long COVID symptoms include fatigue, cough, shortness of breath, sleep problems, difficulty thinking or concentrating, and depression or anxiety, which interfere with patients’ daily lives.

Ritsugaku offers a new perspective on treating long COVID: traditional Chinese medicine. The strategy is proving to be effective.

He cited an elderly patient with long COVID. She suffered from symptoms such as constant coughing and feeling dizzy, but her health improved considerably after TCM treatments. Since her last appointment, not long ago, she has fully recovered.

Another patient is a young man in his twenties who suffered from fatigue, but after being prescribed the right medicine—tailored to his conditions and lifestyle—he has almost fully recovered.

Traditional Chinese medicine examines the entire body. It treats diseases by adjusting the body’s balance. Therefore, it is important not only to diagnose the symptoms of the disease, but also to prescribe the right medicine according to each individual.

Unlike Western medicine, which looks for causes in organs and tissues, TCM examines the patient’s health and lifestyle, rather than simply focusing on the medicine itself.

Ritsugaku advised that for elderly patients, ingredients such as Bupleurum scorzonerifolium, Pinellia ternata, Magnolia officinalis, Ziziphus jujuba, and Glycyrrhiza uralensis are particularly helpful in treating long COVID.

Regarding TCM’s approach to treating long COVID, Ritsugaku explained that its aim is not just to resolve the illness but to eliminate the causes of the illness itself and strengthen the immune system.

Chinese physician He Xiaoxian, who is currently based in Japan, told The Epoch Times that from a TCM perspective, activities such as meditation, stretching, yoga, qigong, and speed walking are all recommended. These exercises can make one more fit and healthy, as well as help with emotional stress.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

CDC Recommends Use of Novavax's COVID-19 Shot for Adolescents

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday signed off on the use of Novavax Inc.'s ...

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CDC Recommends Use of Novavax’s COVID-19 Shot for Adolescents
By Reuters
August 24, 2022

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday signed off on the use of Novavax Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents aged 12 through 17.

The recommendation follows the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authorization for the vaccine for the age group last week.

The protein-based vaccine received emergency use authorization in July for use among adults in the United States, with health officials hoping it would drive uptake among those skeptical of messenger RNA shots from Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc..

However, Novavax earlier this month halved its full-year revenue forecast, saying it does not expect further sales of its COVID-19 shot in the United States this year.

The company said it was late to the U.S. market and also pointed to softer demand in the face of a global vaccine supply glut.

So far 11,990 Novavax vaccine doses have been administered in the United States, according to latest government data.

The vaccine, which has already been cleared in countries such as Japan and Australia for use among adolescents, has also been plagued by manufacturing snags, regulatory delays, and sluggish uptake in key markets such as Europe.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Trump White House Pressured FDA to Reauthorize Hydroxychloroquine: Congressional Report

White House officials during the Trump administration pressured U.S. regulators to reauthorize a COVID-19 treatment and not impose ...

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Trump White House Pressured FDA to Reauthorize Hydroxychloroquine: Congressional Report
By Zachary Stieber
August 24, 2022

White House officials during the Trump administration pressured U.S. regulators to reauthorize a COVID-19 treatment and not impose certain guidance regarding emergency authorization requirements for COVID-19 vaccines, according to emails published by a House of Representatives panel on Aug. 24.

Officials sent a blitz of messages in 2020 to Dr. Stephen Hahn, the director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at the time, regarding hydroxychloroquine, including requests to reimplement emergency use authorization for the drug.

Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial, has shown some efficacy as a COVID-19 prophylactic and treatment, but other studies have found it has little or no effect.

Former President Donald Trump promoted the drug, citing a French study that found it was efficacious, and Dr. Deborah Birx, a top White House COVID-19 official, sent messages regarding the study to Hahn, the new report (pdf), from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, shows.

The same day Birx sent one of the emails—March 28, 2020—and told Hahn, “We should talk,” the FDA granted emergency authorization for hydroxychloroquine and a related drug, chloroquine, for treating COVID-19.

The FDA on April 24, 2020, warned about using the drugs outside of hospitals and clinical trials and about two months later, revoked the authorization after several studies indicated the drug did not work against COVID-19.

After the decision, Peter Navarro, a White House trade and manufacturing official, and Dr. Steven Hatfill, a virologist who was helping the White House respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, launched an effort for hydroxychloroquine reauthorization that included drafting a public petition calling on the FDA to reauthorize it.

Navarro asked Hatfill to prepare an EUA request to the FDA, and Hatfill sent a draft of the request to Navarro on June 30, 2020, according to the select committee. Hatfill asked the Henry Ford Health System to submit the request, but to not mention the White House involvement. On July 1, 2020, the health system released a study that showed hydroxychloroquine worked against COVID-19. The system soon asked the FDA to reauthorize the drug for COVID-19 treatment.

The FDA denied the request in August 2020.

“As soon as we are able to thoroughly review this report, we will launch an investigation,” a spokesperson for Henry Ford Health told The Epoch Times in an email. “As part of our investigation, we will review allegations made about individual physicians named in the report and will take appropriate action. As always, the safety of our patients is our top priority.”

The system said its studies ultimately determined hydroxychloroquine was not an effective treatment for COVID-19.

Asked during a transcribed interview with the House COVID-19 panel whether pressure was ever applied inappropriately, Hahn said yes.

“There were discussions that I had with Mr. Navarro that I would say probably rose to the level of what you just asked me with respect to pressure,” he said, according to a partial transcript the committee released.

Navarro told The Epoch Times in an email that the FDA’s revocation of the emergency authorization and its refusal to reinstate it was not supported by scientific evidence.

“As shown by the use of hydroxychloroquine in other countries, this early use outpatient treatment offered an important key to interrupting the exponential spread of the virus and minimizing deaths in the United States,” he said.

After the FDA didn’t reauthorize hydroxychloroquine, Hatfill wrote to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows asking for Hahn and Dr. Anthony Fauci, another government official who opposed the drug, to be fired, according to an email included in the new report.

Hatfill declined to comment.

Drugs cleared for use in the United States can be used for different purposes, which is known as “off-label.” Hydroxychloroquine has been used throughout the pandemic by some U.S. doctors, but obtaining it became more difficult after the FDA warned about it and then revoked the authorization expressly for COVID-19.

The FDA, meanwhile, has been pressured by the Biden White House on other COVID-19 matters, including COVID-19 vaccine boosters.

An FDA spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that the agency’s actions have not been influenced by the White House.

“Throughout the pandemic, the FDA career staff has worked around-the-clock to make the best, science-based decisions on behalf of the American people in a rapidly evolving and unprecedented public health emergency,” the spokesperson said.

Vaccine Guidance

The panel also found that the Trump administration held up proposed FDA guidance to vaccine makers on emergency authorization.

The FDA in the summer of 2020 wanted to tell the manufacturers to submit data from phase three clinical studies that included a median follow-up of patients of at least two months duration after the completion of a primary vaccination series, a time period selected based on a review of “the literature and our own experience with when toxicities would manifest themselves,” according to Hahn.

But White House officials told the FDA not to issue the guidance, the report said, while Trump questioned it in public.

The FDA ultimately released the guidance, prompting Trump to accuse the FDA of “another political hit job” that would “make it more difficult for them to speed up vaccines for approval before Election Day.”

“The Select Subcommittee’s findings that Trump White House officials deliberately and repeatedly sought to bend FDA’s scientific work on coronavirus treatments and vaccines to the White House’s political will are yet another example of how the prior Administration prioritized politics over public health,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), chairman of the House panel, said in a statement.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

UK Government Urged to Investigate Non-COVID-19 Excess Deaths

The UK government is facing renewed calls for an investigation as the number of non-COVID-19-related deaths in England ...

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UK Government Urged to Investigate Non-COVID-19 Excess Deaths
By Lily Zhou
August 24, 2022

The UK government is facing renewed calls for an investigation as the number of non-COVID-19-related deaths in England and Wales remains higher than usual over the past three months, particularly in younger age groups.

According to the latest data published on Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there have been 950 excess deaths in England and Wales in the week ending Aug. 12, while 592 of them had COVID-19 mentioned on their deaths certificate.

The previous week saw 1,350 excess deaths, with 723 deaths involving COVID-19. The trend has persisted in most weeks since May.

According to official figures, there have been more excess deaths occurring in private homes, and some of the excess deaths were linked to diabetes and circulatory diseases such as heart attacks.

The ONS calculates excess deaths by comparing the number of deaths in a particular week with the average number of deaths in the same week in the previous five years. But this year’s number was compared to the five-year average of 2016 to 2019 and 2021, due to the high number of COVID-19-related deaths in 2020.

Data in the first 11 weeks of this year show below-average deaths, which was expected because people may have died earlier than expected due to the pandemic, but the first eight weeks’ data were still skewed due to a high number of COVID-19-related deaths in those weeks in 2021.

The Epoch Times spoke to statistician Jamie Jenkins and diagnostic pathologist Clare Craig, both calling for an investigation into the trend.

Jenkins, former head of health analysis and labour market analysis at the ONS, said the excess deaths may be occurring due to “a number of different factors” such as overstretched health and care resources, increased diabetes during the pandemic, or delayed diagnoses due to the pandemic.

Speaking of “record attendances” at the Accident & Emergency Department (A&E) as people struggle to get GP appointments, Jenkins said: “We’ve got about 13,000 patients in England hospitals who are ready and fit to be discharged but we don’t have the carer in the community to look after them. And the government sacked a lot of care workers last year because they chose not to have the COVID vaccine.

“Because the patients can’t get into A&E, you’ve got ambulances waiting outside and … they’re not available to go and pick up new patients who might be dying for an emergency.”

Jenkins also said the aging population may explain around a quarter of the excess deaths, but he believes the larger-than-expected excess deaths, especially in some of the younger age groups, “does warrant a bit of a further look in terms of what’s happening.”

Comparing the first 31 weeks in 2022 with the pre-pandemic five-year average, there have been about 12 percent more death among 10-to 14-year olds, 11 percent more death among 30-to 44-year olds, and 12 percent more death among 35-to 39-year olds, Jenkins said.

Jenkins said in a blog that the reason for the elevated death number among 10-to 14-year-olds could simply come down to a growth in the size of the cohort, although this hypothesis can not be confirmed unless the new population estimates become available.

While plenty of focus was on the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths throughout the pandemic, there had been”very little mention of these excess deaths,” Jenkins told The Epoch Times, arguing it’s important to understand “all these deaths” because “you need to let learn the lessons of what’s gone on in the past to ensure that we don’t make any mistakes in the future.”

Asked what information an investigation should look at, Jenkins said it would be helpful to take a closer look at the death certificates, which will be “very useful to understand what’s going on, in particular, across these younger age groups.”

The Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART), a group of experts who are skeptical about the policy and guidance relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been calling for an investigation into the excess death in the younger age groups for more than a year.

“We know from Autumn 2020 that there were excess deaths in the young then, which were in excess of any COVID deaths and didn’t have a cause,” Craig, a HART spokesperson, told The Epoch Times.

The diagnostic pathologist said the lockdowns, job insecurity, and the sense of uncertainty would have caused “high levels of psychological stress” and in turn may have caused excess deaths in autumn 2020 and beyond because “people under psychological stress have a higher risk of heart disease.” She also said people not going to doctors during the pandemic may also be a contributing factor.

“But what we’ve seen lately is rocketing in the numbers,” she said, adding that people would “expect there to be a temporal relationship to the cause and the effect,” but the current trend appears to be “disproportionate compared to anything we saw earlier.”

During the last two years, the COVID-19-related and non-COVID-19-related excess deaths have largely correlated with each other, but the number of non-COVID-19-related excess deaths has been consistently higher in the last three months.

Speaking of what may have caused the spike, Graig said it’s “a bit tricky because you never know how many deaths to expect, and especially not after a period of very high mortality.”

Part of it may be a delay in statistics, and there may be others who “were dying when they shouldn’t have been” and be dismissed “because it’s below the waterline,” Graig said.

She added that there are “obviously concerns” that some deaths might be related to COVID-19 vaccines, which are known to be linked to adverse effects including myocarditis and pericarditis.

“I think there’s a lot of reasons to want to investigate that. There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that points to that, and so it should be investigated thoroughly,” Graig said.

She also said there is a possibility that COVID-19 is currently being under-diagnosed following mass vaccination, meaning COVID-19 may have triggered someone’s death, but the disease was not mentioned on the death certificate because the individual had not been tested.

Graig also stressed that it’s important to look at the data by age because the problems have been seen “in middle-aged people.”

When HART first called for an investigation, it was “specifically of males aged 15 to 19,” Craig said, adding that the causes of deaths, which eventually became available, “was helpful,” but the key is to know what proportion were vaccinated and when they had their vaccine.

“What you’d want to look for is if there is a relationship between the timing of the vaccine and the death. Because if deaths are random, then there’ll be a small fraction that is coincidentally close to the vaccine; but if [the] deaths are related to the vaccine, there’ll be a disproportionate number just after. So you can easily get that from the data, but that data’s never been shared.”

In an email to The Epoch Times, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Analysis is ongoing, however, early investigation suggests circulatory diseases and diabetes may be partly responsible for the majority of excess deaths.

“The latest data highlights the importance of actively managing risks around heart issues as there is good evidence many of these deaths are potentially preventable.

“These statistics form part of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’ routine surveillance activities and are regularly discussed within the Department of Health and Social Care and amongst senior NHS leaders.”

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrE9wkql6mk
Hospitals to stop testing for asymptomatic admissions
17 min 24 sec
Aug 24, 2022
Dr. John Campbell

UK Zoe data ZOE Health Study New symptomatic cases per day, 108,841 Current symptomatic prevalence, 1,659,056 UK, ONS latest, 24th August https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati... UK viral positive prevalence 2.63% in England (1 in 40 people) 2.39% in Wales (1 in 40 people) 2.00% in Northern Ireland (1 in 50 people) 3.12% in Scotland (1 in 30 people) Risk of reinfection Five times higher in the period when the Omicron variants common (20 December 2021 and onwards), compared with the period when the Delta variant common (17 May to 19 December 2021) Risk of reinfection in earlier Omicron period, (March 2022) people were 10 times more likely to be reinfected Overall UK hospital admissions with covid Percentage of patients in acute hospitals with confirmed COVID-19 who are being treated primarily for COVID-19 UK official data England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK US variants nowcast https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-trac... BA.5 88.9% BA.4.6 6.3% BA.4 4.3% BA.2 0% BA.1s 0% Delta 0% US data, over past two weeks https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2... Cases, down 16% (almost all states) Test positivity, at 15% down slightly Hospitalizations, down 8% (down in about half of the states) Deaths, down 5% (below 500 per day) Dr. Anthony Fauci (81) https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fauc... Stepping down in December Director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), (since 1984) part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IumK8vXH25M
Can COVID vaccines increase sperm count??? The new Viagra???
10 min 58 sec
August 24, 2022
Vejon Health


Do COVID-19 vaccines have an impact on sperm counts? Yes. Is that a good thing? Time will tell, however, this is my explanation from an autoimmune perspective.

Gat, Itai, et al. "Covid-19 vaccination BNT162b2 temporarily impairs semen concentration and total motile count among semen donors." Andrology 10.6 (2022): 1016-1022.?

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/f...

Gonzalez, Daniel C., et al. "Sperm parameters before and after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination." JAMA 326.3 (2021): 273-274.?

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama...