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‘Stunning’: The Real Reason Health Officials Won’t Let Independent Scientists Examine mRNA Vaccine Vials

A data leak suggests the real reason health officials don’t want individual vaccine vials examined by independent scientists is that the vials are all different — and the mRNA in the shots is not intact.

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‘Stunning’: The Real Reason Health Officials Won’t Let Independent Scientists Examine mRNA Vaccine Vials
A data leak suggests the real reason health officials don’t want individual vaccine vials examined by independent scientists is that the vials are all different — and the mRNA in the shots is not intact.
By Dr. Joseph Mercola
09/13/22

Story at a glance:

• The reason health officials don’t want individual vaccine vials examined by independent scientists is that the vials are all different — and the mRNA in the shots is not intact.
• For an effective mRNA product, the mRNA integrity needs to be 100%, meaning all the RNA must be intact. Considering how ineffective the jabs are, it seems fair to question whether lack of mRNA integrity might be to blame.
• Fragmented RNA could potentially also be hazardous to health by generating incomplete spike proteins. While we do not know if incomplete spike proteins are dangerous, it’s possible they might contribute to cellular stress.
• The “bad batch” phenomenon may also be indicative of quality problems. Independent investigations have revealed that some lots of the shots are associated with very severe side effects and death, whereas other lots have very few or no adverse events associated with their use.
• However, the fact that “hot” lots are being released in a coordinated fashion suggests vaccine makers may in fact be doing intentional lethal-dose testing on the public, and that these “bad batches” are not merely the result of intermittently poor manufacturing.

A 14-minute video (below) that has been overlooked for nearly two years has now resurfaced, exposing stunning information about the COVID-19 jabs and why health officials don’t want individual vaccine vials examined by independent scientists.

What does the EMA leak show?

This video, and it's contents, are published on the grounds of public interest and public safety. The contents disclosed were the minimum necessary to back-up my claims. As neither Pfizer nor the European Medicines Agency will confirm the leaked information, their veracity is unknown, however...

www.brighteon.com

13 min 55 sec

The reason, it turns out, is because the vials are all different — and the mRNA in the shots “is not intact.” Both of these pose potentially serious problems.

In an Aug. 31 Substack article, Steve Kirsch explains:

“Even if you are getting 100% intact mRNA which would be really rare, you’re still not getting anything that resembles the virus. So the efficacy as far as PROTECTING you will be next to nothing.

“However, what it will do very effectively, if you got reasonably intact mRNA, is to cause you significant harm. You are playing a game of chance with your immune system and what is in the bottle.”

The video notes that members of the European Parliament were only allowed to read the contracts with the drug makers after they’d been heavily redacted. Why the heavy-handed secrecy, even toward legislators?

Leaked documents reveal serious quality issues

The finding that the mRNA in the shots was of questionable quality was revealed in a British Medical Journal feature investigation article published in March 2021.

As explained by the author, journalist Serena Tinari, cyber attackers retrieved more than 40 megabytes of Pfizer COVID-19 jab data from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in December 2020.

The hacked data was subsequently sent to journalists and academics worldwide. It was also published on the dark web. Some of the documents show European regulators had significant concerns over the lack of intact mRNA in the commercial batches sampled.

Compared to the clinical batches, i.e., the shots used in the clinical trial, 55% to 78% of the commercial shots had “a significant difference in % RNA integrity/truncated species.”

In one email, dated Nov. 23, 2020, a high-ranking EMA official noted that the commercial batches failed to meet expected specifications, and that the implications of this RNA integrity loss were unclear. In response to the findings, the EMA sent a list of questions and concerns to Pfizer.

While we do not know if and how the EMA’s concerns were actually addressed and corrected, the EMA authorized Pfizer’s COVID-19 jab Dec. 21, 2020.

According to its public assessment report, “the quality of this medicinal product, submitted in the emergency context of the current (COVID-19) pandemic, is considered to be sufficiently consistent and acceptable.”

Similarly, Health Canada told the Britsh Medical Journal that “changes were made in their processes to ensure that the integrity was improved and brought in line with what was seen for clinical trial batches.” The EMA further tried to deflect concern by claiming some of the leaked documents had been doctored.

As reported by the British Medical Journal:

“EMA says the leaked information was partially doctored, explaining in a statement that ‘whilst individual emails are authentic, data from different users were selected and aggregated, screenshots from multiple folders and mailboxes have been created, and additional titles were added by the perpetrators.’”

Intact mRNA is essential to its effectiveness

Curiously, when the Britsh Medical Journal asked Pfizer, Moderna, CureVac and several regulators to specify the percentage of mRNA integrity considered acceptable, none replied with specifics.

According to the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the FDA and Health Canada, the specification limit on RNA integrity is “commercially confidential.” What we do know — and the EMA has acknowledged — is that intact mRNA is essential for efficacy.

As noted by the Britsh Medical Journal:

“The documents offer the broader medical community a chance to reflect on the complexities of quality assurance for novel mRNA vaccines, which include everything from the quantification and integrity of mRNA and carrier lipids to measuring the distribution of particle sizes and encapsulation efficiency.

“Of particular concern is RNA instability, one of the most important variables relevant to all mRNA vaccines that has thus far received scant attention in the clinical community. …

“RNA instability is one of the biggest hurdles for researchers developing nucleic acid based vaccines. It is the primary reason for the technology’s stringent cold chain requirements and has been addressed by encapsulating the mRNA in lipid nanoparticles.

“‘The complete, intact mRNA molecule is essential to its potency as a vaccine,’ professor of biopharmaceutics Daan J.A. Crommelin and colleagues wrote in a review article in The Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences late last year.

“‘Even a minor degradation reaction, anywhere along a mRNA strand, can severely slow or stop proper translation performance of that strand and thus result in the incomplete expression of the target antigen.’”

For an effective product, mRNA integrity needs to be 100%. Considering how ineffective the jabs are, it seems fair to question whether lack of mRNA integrity might be to blame. We also do not know whether nonintact mRNA might be harmful.

As noted by Kirsch, “Unstable mRNA means the spike protein … could collapse, making the whole process useless to support immunity, but still dangerous in terms of damage to cells. So, you get all the risk and no benefit.”

While our public health agencies claim fragmented RNA poses no health risk, just how do they know that? The leaked documents revealed they specifically did not have an answer to that question, and no research into the matter has been published, that I’m aware of.

Fragmented RNA may produce incomplete spike proteins

In May 2021, Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., a senior research scientist at MIT for over five decades, published an excellent paper in which she highlighted several potential dangers of the COVID-19 jabs, including the unknown hazard of injecting fragmented RNA.

That same month, I interviewed her about her concerns. You can find that interview in “COVID Vaccines May Bring Avalanche of Neurological Disease.”

In her paper, Seneff noted:

“The EMA Public Assessment Report … describes in detail a review of the [Pfizer] manufacturing process … One concerning revelation is the presence of ‘fragmented species’ of RNA in the injection solution.

“These are RNA fragments resulting from early termination of the process of transcription from the DNA template.

“These fragments, if translated by the cell following injection, would generate incomplete spike proteins, again resulting in altered and unpredictable three-dimensional structure and a physiological impact that is at best neutral and at worst detrimental to cellular functioning.

“There were considerably more of these fragmented forms of RNA found in the commercially manufactured products than in the products used in clinical trials. The latter were produced via a much more tightly controlled manufacturing process. …

“While we are not asserting that non-spike proteins generated from fragmented RNA would be misfolded or otherwise pathological, we believe they would at least contribute to the cellular stress that promotes prion-associated conformational changes in the spike protein that is present.”

Kirsch points out that the EMA also expressed concern over visible particles in the vials, which the Britsh Medical Journal did not follow up on. “Is it still a problem?” Kirsch asks. That’s a good question, and the answer is probably yes.

But even worse is that we have absolutely no idea what these incomplete spike proteins are doing, none, zero, nada. It has never been directly examined. For that matter efforts to evaluate, and complications of the jab, have been consciously suppressed as have following simple metrics such as increases in all-cause mortality.

Deaths dismissed and side effects misclassified

The leaked EMA documents also showed that Pfizer dismissed all deaths in its trial as “unrelated to the vaccine,” even though no proper investigation was ever conducted.

We now have additional evidence of this — just like the court-ordered FOIA documents showed what Pfizer did in their U.S. trials. At least they are consistent in implementing their fraud.

As reported by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) back in June, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents, released by court order, reveal Pfizer classified nearly all severe reactions in its trials as unrelated to the shot, even in cases where the health problems in question are extremely difficult to dismiss as anything other than a direct effect of the shot:

“The latest release by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine documents reveals numerous instances of participants who sustained severe adverse events during Phase 3 trials. Some of these participants withdrew from the trials, some were dropped and some died. …

“The CRFs [case report forms] included in this month’s documents contain often vague explanations of the specific symptoms experienced by the trial participants. They also reveal a trend of classifying almost all adverse events — and in particular severe adverse events (SAEs) — as being ‘not related’ to the vaccine. …

“The many serious adverse events — and several deaths — recorded during the Phase 3 trials are also apparent in a separate, massive document exceeding 2,500 pages, cataloging such adverse events.

“This document lists a wide range of adverse events suffered by trial participants classified as toxicity level 4 — the highest and most serious such level. However, not one of the level 4 (most severe) adverse events listed in this particular document is classified as being related to the vaccination.”

As just one example, a teenage girl got the shot Sept. 11, 2020, and in mid-November 2020 was diagnosed with right lower extremity deep vein thrombosis, which we now know is a potential side effect of the jab.

According to the CRF, her condition was due to a bone fracture that occurred before the date of her injection — a determination that seems questionable at best.

What’s the cause behind the ‘bad batch’ phenomenon?

The “bad batch” phenomenon may also be indicative of quality problems. Independent investigations have revealed that some lots of the shots are associated with very severe side effects and death, whereas other lots have very few or no adverse events associated with their use.

According to howbadismybatch.com, a site that matches up vaccine lot codes with reports in the VAERS system, approximately 5% of the lots are responsible for 90% of all adverse reactions. Some of these batches have 50 times the number of deaths and disabilities associated with them, compared to other lots.

Another website that basically does the same thing is WelcomeTheEagle’s VAERS Dashboard. A video explaining how to use the dashboard can be found on Bitchute.

However, an even deeper dive into this data suggests random quality issues are not the problem. In the video above, Reiner Fuellmich, cofounder of the German Corona Investigative Committee, and Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, a former member of the German parliament, discuss this “smoking gun” evidence.

According to Fuellmich and Wodarg, the lot-dependent data suggests vaccine makers may be conducting secret experiments within the larger public trial. In other words, they appear to be doing lethal-dose testing on the public.

The tipoff that these “hot” batches are not caused by intermittent poor manufacturing is the fact that they’re being released in a coordinated fashion.

Wodarg argues that the evidence for this is very clear from the data. Basically, the vaccine manufacturers are coordinating their lethal-dose experiments so that they’re not all releasing their most toxic lots at the same time, or in the same areas. This avoids detection through clustering.

New boosters will not undergo additional testing

Considering the multitude of open questions surrounding the safety of the original COVID-19 shots, the fact that new, reformulated boosters will not require any additional testing whatsoever is beyond disturbing.

In the “Friday Roundtable” video above, Dr. Meryl Nass, Toby Rogers, Ph.D., Aimee Villella McBride, Polly Tommey and Brian Hooker, Ph.D., discuss the FDA’s decision to allow vaccine makers to reformulate their COVID-19 shots without additional testing, in perpetuity.

As noted by Rogers, Pfizer’s bivalent booster against Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5 was tested on a total of eight mice, and only to check antibody levels. Moderna also used mice to ascertain antibody responses, but has not disclosed the number of mice used.

That’s the extent to which these shots were tested. The original COVID-19 jabs are the most dangerous drugs ever released to the public, and these newer boosters may turn out to be even worse.

As explained by Rogers, the shots “imprint” your immune system to respond only to the antigen in the shot, while simultaneously impairing your immune system so that it’s less capable of protecting you against other pathogens.

Another term for this process is “original antigenic sin.” It essentially explains why those who are jabbed are getting infected and sicker than those who avoided the jabs.

Rogers predicts we’ll be faced with a winter of severe illness and death among those who have gotten the jabs. All the rest of us can do is stand back, avoid the shots at all costs and “let the mainstream system self-destruct.” Hopefully, he’s correct in his other prediction, which is that the vast majority of Americans will reject these boosters.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szUC8GpGJ4A
44% of hospitalisations boosted
13 min 29 sec
Sep 13 2022
Dr. John Campbell

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/... Almost half the people who were hospitalized with COVID-19 last spring had been fully vaccinated and received a third dose or booster shot https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/w... Laboratory-Confirmed COVID-19–Associated Hospitalizations Among Adults During SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.2 Variant Predominance Data from the COVID-19–Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network March 20–May 31, 2022 Among hospitalized nonpregnant patients 39.1% had received a primary vaccination series and 1 booster (3 jabs) 5.0% had received a primary series and =2 boosters (4 jabs) 39.1 + 5 = 44.1% (Medscape is correct, well under by 0.1%) Therefore, CDC advises All adults should stay up to date† with COVID-19 vaccination, multiple nonpharmaceutical and medical prevention measures should be used to protect those at high risk for severe COVID-19 illness, irrespective of vaccination status Why? Unvaccinated adults were 3.4 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID than those who were vaccinated Also in this CDC report Hospitalization rates among adults aged =65 years, increased threefold Hospitalization rates in adults aged 18–49 and 50–64 years, both increased 1.7-fold during omicron surge YouTube Help... Vaccine safety: content alleging that vaccines cause chronic side effects, outside of rare side effects that are recognised by health authorities Efficacy of vaccines: content claiming that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of disease YouTube Help... Claims that there is a guaranteed prevention method for COVID-19 Claims that any medication or vaccination is a guaranteed prevention method for COVID-19 Claims about COVID-19 vaccinations that contradict expert consensus from local health authorities or the WHO Claims that an approved COVID-19 vaccine will cause death, infertility, miscarriage, autism or contraction of other infectious diseases Claims that COVID-19 vaccines do not reduce risk of serious illness or death New Zealand drops mask and vaccine mandates in sweeping Covid changes https://www.theguardian.com/world/202... Deaths, 1,950 (about 50 at the end of 2021) Hospitalisations, (NZ key metric) down sharply in recent weeks Jacinda Ardern Today marks a milestone in our response. Finally, rather than feeling that Covid dictates what happens to us, our lives, and our futures, we take back control Mask-wearing, only compulsory in healthcare settings (largely ignored anyway) End of vaccine mandates, for workers and inbound travellers Tests on arrival in NZ, encouraged Covid-positives, still required to isolate (no longer household contacts) This will be the first summer in three years where there won’t be the question of what we will and what won’t be cancelled because of Covid cases

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Research Shows All COVID-19 Infections Include a Wide Mix of SARS-CoV-2 Virus Variants

More detailed tracking of virus genetic variations can provide early warning to public health efforts. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) genetically sequenced the viral infections in 360 COVID patients. They found wide genetic variation in SARS-CoV-2 viruses, showing that all

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Research Shows All COVID-19 Infections Include a Wide Mix of SARS-CoV-2 Virus Variants
By Case Western Reserve University
September 13, 2022

More detailed tracking of virus genetic variations can provide early warning to public health efforts.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) genetically sequenced the viral infections in 360 COVID patients. They found wide genetic variation in SARS-CoV-2 viruses, showing that all individual infections include multiple variants of the virus.

Reporting about the virus usually highlights a single dominant strain, the researchers noted. This leads to under-reporting virus genetic variation and can have serious consequences in public health planning and response.

“Our work brings attention to the complexity of infectious diseases that is often over-simplified when considering only the most abundant virus in an infection, and we demonstrate the importance of examining the variations that are historically considered noise,” said Ernest (Ricky) Chan. He is the director of the bioinformatics core with the Cleveland Institute for Computational Biology at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. “We see that genetic variants observed in low frequency in SARS-CoV-2 infections can be early indicators of new strains responsible for later transmission surges.”

Whole Genome Sequencing of 140 COVID Samples

The paper, “COVID-19 Infection and Transmission Includes Complex Sequence Diversity,” was published on September 8, 2022, in the journal PLOS Genetics.

The CWRU research team performed full genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 viruses from 250 patients in Northeast Ohio. They also used similar data from another 110 patients with full genetic sequences of infecting viruses provided through international research collaborators.

These data were developed in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, at the time when the Alpha variant and then the Delta variant were of major concern. This work revealed that mutations found in Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 were already present as relatively minor variations at least a year before Omicron and its many iterations became “variants of concern.” A major COVID-19 resurgence last winter was mostly attributed to Omicron and its own variations.

“Concentration on a majority consensus of virus variants within the global research community diverts attention from genetic variation that may contribute significantly to the continuing evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Peter Zimmerman. He is a professor in the Department of Pathology at the School of Medicine. “Focus on majority variants is a critical first step in development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines, however, the research community needs to quantify and report out variation, so that the public health community and the general public are better prepared and nimble in response to the ever-evolving virus.”

Much effort continues to be made to define and track the emergence of virus lineages across the ongoing evolution of SARS-CoV-2 around the world. In the interest of time, global researchers have been depending on tracking and reporting on relatively dominant variations. However, given the multiple variations within single infections,the CWRU team noted that it is important to report a more complete representation of the viral genetic sequences to understand how these genetic changes can spread and potentially interact with different categories of patient conditions, including evasion from eradication efforts.

Reference, “COVID-19 Infection and Transmission Includes Complex Sequence Diversity” by Ernest R. Chan, Lucas D. Jones, Marlin Linger, Jeffrey D. Kovach, Maria M. Torres-Teran, Audric Wertz, Curtis J. Donskey and Peter A. Zimmerman, 8 September 2022, in PLOS Genetics.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010200

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

COVID was deadlier for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities

Authors of a new paper have discovered that COVID was the leading cause of death for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in 2020.

medicalxpress.com

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COVID was deadlier for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities
by Syracuse University
September 13, 2022

Authors of a new paper have discovered that COVID was the leading cause of death for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in 2020.

The study, "COVID-19 Mortality Burden and Comorbidity Patterns Among Decedents with and without Intellectual and Developmental Disability in the US," looked at 2020 death certificate data to examine death patterns for people with or without IDD. They found that those without an IDD, COVID was the third leading cause of death, following heart disease and cancer. But for those with IDD, COVID was the number one cause of death.

IDD are conditions characterized by life-long impairments in mobility, language, learning, self-care, and independent living. Examples include Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, and intellectual disabilities.

Syracuse University Associate Professor Scott Landes and lead author of the paper, published by the Disability and Health Journal, said that this study had confirmed earlier predictions that COVID-19 would be deadlier among people with IDD.

"Even when we adjusted for age, sex, and racial-ethnic minority status, we found that COVID-19 was far deadlier for those with IDD than those without," said Landes. "Furthermore, people with IDD were dying at much younger ages."

The research team for the study includes Landes, a faculty associate for the Aging Studies Institute at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs; Julia Finan, a graduate student in the sociology department at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University; and Dr. Margaret Turk, Distinguished Service Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, N.Y.

In understanding why the COVID-19 burden is greater for people with IDD, the researchers feel that more attention needs to be given to comorbidities as well as living arrangements.

"People with IDD are living in congregate settings at a higher percentage than those without an IDD," said Landes. "Group living situations, especially with close-contact personal care support, is associated with the spread of COVID-19. For the estimated 13 to 20 percent of adults with IDD living in these settings, the risk cannot be overstated."

"While it is important to attend to differences in comorbidity patterns, it is also necessary to realize that the increased COVID-19 burden among people with IDD may at least partly be due to social factors such as a higher proportion of this population living in group care settings, insufficient attention to care needs on a public and private level, and inequities in access to quality healthcare," said Landes.

Additionally, the researchers noted the higher occurrences of hypothyroidism and seizures among all IDD statuses, and obesity among decedents with intellectual disability and Down syndrome. "Out of an abundance of caution, medical providers should carefully monitor symptoms among COVID-19 patients with IDD diagnosed with hypothyroidism and/or seizures."

But the researchers say that more research is needed to explore these social factors in better understanding the COVID-19 death rates for people with IDD.

Furthermore, the authors note that the study is focused on the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. A current data inequity that permits IDD to be reported as the cause of death prevents understanding whether people with IDD continue to experience a disproportionate COVID-19 burden.

"This is preventing adequate surveillance of the health of this marginalized population during the ongoing pandemic. While changes are needed to the death certificate coding and revision process to address this data inequity in the long-term, in the immediate, the CDC will need to recognize this inequity and take necessary action to allow for analysis of current death certificate data at the decedent level for this population," said Landes.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Why focusing COVID vaccination efforts on least advantaged populations benefits everyone

When vaccine access is prioritized for the most disadvantaged communities, it improves both social utility and equity—even when such populations have strong vaccine hesitancy.

medicalxpress.com

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Why focusing COVID vaccination efforts on least advantaged populations benefits everyone
by Sarah Steimer, University of Chicago
September 13, 2022

The risk of getting COVID isn’t the same for everyone. In a new study, UChicago scientists used real-world data to build a better model to target the virus—one that accounts for demographic and mobility differences among communities. Credit: Shutterstock.com

When vaccine access is prioritized for the most disadvantaged communities, it improves both social utility and equity—even when such populations have strong vaccine hesitancy.

Researchers led by James Evans, the Max Palevsky Professor of Sociology and director of the Knowledge Lab, make the case for using behavioral data and demographics to more accurately predict the curve of COVID-19 cases in a metro area, and then to fund vaccination efforts at a much higher level for certain groups.

"The classic epidemiological model has a very strong assumption about homogeneous population mixing," said Fengli Xu, a postdoctoral scholar and first author of the study recently published in Nature Human Behaviour. "It assumes that every person in that city or in that area has an equal opportunity to meet each other and spread the virus. That's a strong assumption you make without the knowledge of more detailed social interaction."

The research team instead designed a model that explicitly accounts for both demographic and mobility differences among communities, along with their association with diverse COVID risks, which were then calibrated with large-scale data.

The introduction of real-world data of human mobility on a neighborhood level, along with the demographic structure of each neighborhood, allowed the team to better understand how different subpopulations mix. For example, it's crucial to understand that low-income families are worse off in this COVID scenario because they have to sustain their level of mobility to maintain their incomes, exposing them to more risk. And if they're more mobile, they're more likely to spread the virus as well—making them a key group to vaccinate (versus many white collar workers who stay home).

The study produced two key findings. First, it underscores the importance of using a smart model with even a small amount of human movement behavior, which dramatically improves the ability to target those disadvantaged persons for whom vaccination is the most beneficial for everybody. Right now, the CDC has a social vulnerability index that they use in some regions to prioritize vaccines, but it fails to capture behavioral data and differential likelihoods to spread and be exposed to COVID.

The researchers also note that their own smart model used coarse behavioral data—dispelling concerns that the government would need to use private movement information. "In this era of big data," Xu said, "there are many very good data sources that can be used without much concern of privacy or other issues to significantly improve social utility and equity."

The second major takeaway is that the authors argue for a large increase in spending on vaccine campaign spending for vulnerable populations. That includes both for outreach and for the risk that vaccinations could go to waste as the uptake may not be as swift among populations with greater vaccine-hesitancy, some with historical good reason.

But more funding among these populations—who move about and mix with others in the community—goes a very long way to keep everyone safe.

"It's better for everybody if [this population] is disproportionately vaccinated," Evans said. "The advantage is persistent even if the vaccine hesitancy of the most disadvantaged populations is five times that of the better off populations. This is far more than even the most progressive programs currently in place."

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Some forms of elder abuse worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, study finds

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, experts have raised the alarm about a heightened risk of elder abuse. Many older adults faced social isolation, experienced financial instability, or relied heavily on their caregivers—factors that have been linked to elder abuse in the past.

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Some forms of elder abuse worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, study finds
by Keck School of Medicine of USC
September 13, 2022

Frequency of abuse subtypes reported to the NCEA call center. Time 1 represents abuse calls (n?=?795) made between March 16, 2018 to March 15, 2019. Time 2 represents abuse calls (n?=?550) made between March 16, 2020, to March 15, 2021. Some calls reported more than one subtype of abuse, thus the percentages may exceed 100% for each time period. Credit: BMC Geriatrics (2022). DOI: 10.1186/s12877-022-03385-w

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, experts have raised the alarm about a heightened risk of elder abuse. Many older adults faced social isolation, experienced financial instability, or relied heavily on their caregivers—factors that have been linked to elder abuse in the past.

Despite the concern, data on the subject has been limited. Though some studies have compared reports of elder abuse before versus during the pandemic, they used data from two different sources, limiting researchers' ability to draw conclusions.

"A lot of people have been asking how elder abuse might be changing during the pandemic, but there wasn't objective data about those trends," said Duke Han, Ph.D., director of neuropsychology in the Department of Family Medicine and a professor of family medicine, neurology, psychology and gerontology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Han and his colleagues conducted the first study comparing elder abuse rates before and during the pandemic from a single data source, the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA). While they did not find a significant increase in overall reports of abuse, their findings do show cause for concern. Reports of physical and emotional abuse increased, as did reports of multiple abuses happening at the same time. The study was published in the journal BMC Geriatrics.

"Even though we didn't see a statistical increase in reports of abuse, our data points to the idea that the abuse happening during the pandemic was more severe," said Han, the study's senior author.

Shifting patterns of abuse

The researchers analyzed calls, emails and social media messages to the NCEA resource line, which provides information and assistance related to elder abuse. They studied two separate one-year periods: before the pandemic (March 16, 2018 to March 15, 2019) and during its peak (March 16, 2020 to March 15, 2021).

First, contacts were separated into those that alleged abuse versus those that did not (for example, callers seeking general information about NCEA resources). About half of the contacts included allegations of abuse, but the percentage of contacts reporting abuse did not differ significantly between the two time periods.

Next, the researchers looked more closely at the type of abuse alleged, categorizing each report as financial, physical, sexual or emotional abuse, or neglect. Across both time periods, financial abuse—which can involve a family member or caretaker misusing an older person's money or possessions—was most common. But during the pandemic, higher rates of emotional and physical abuse were reported. A higher percentage of contacts (27.1% during the pandemic versus 18.7% before) also reported more than one form of abuse happening at the same time.

The relationship between victims and alleged perpetrators was also studied, but researchers found no significant differences between the two time periods. Across the board, family members were the most common perpetrators.

While the study shows a shift in elder abuse patterns during the pandemic, it does not prove a causal link between the pandemic and the change in reports. The researchers also emphasize that NCEA's resource line is not a crisis or reporting line for elder abuse, which may limit the types of calls it receives.

Reaching out to stop abuse

In general, understanding how patterns of elder abuse change during a pandemic can help improve future prevention and outreach efforts, said Gali H. Weissberger, Ph.D., a senior lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Department of Social Sciences at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and first author of the study. For example, increased outreach may be needed during a pandemic to ensure abuse is reported and resources are available to those who need them.

"Although the ratio of abuse to non-abuse calls didn't differ between the two time periods, we did see a drop in total calls during the pandemic," Weissberger said. "That might suggest that during COVID, people just reached out less."

Through their collaboration with NCEA, the researchers are continuing to collect and categorize data from all calls and messages to the organization's resource line. They plan to analyze that data for additional insights about elder abuse trends over time.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Adults don't get better at recognizing masked faces as time goes on, new study finds

More than two years after the start of the pandemic, adults still have difficulty recognizing people when their face is obscured by a mask, found a new study out of York University.

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Adults don't get better at recognizing masked faces as time goes on, new study finds
by York University
September 13, 2022

More than two years after the start of the pandemic, adults still have difficulty recognizing people when their face is obscured by a mask, found a new study out of York University.

Many people might have assumed their ability to recognize people's faces despite their mask would improve over time, but not according to the latest research by scientists from York and Ben-Gurion University in Israel. The research was published in the journal Psychological Science.

Researchers found repeated exposure of masked faces throughout the pandemic has made zero difference in adults' ability to recognize these half-hidden faces.

"Neither time nor experience with masked faces changed or improved the face mask effect," says York University Assistant Professor Erez Freud of Faculty of Health, the study's senior author. "This tells us that the adult brain doesn't not seem to have the ability to change how it processes faces, even when presented with masked faces over an extended period of time."

The ongoing pandemic provided an unprecedented opportunity for the researchers to examine the plasticity of the mature face processing system.

The researchers repeatedly tested more than 2,000 adults by show them a series of faces, upright and inverted, with and without masks. Different groups of adults were tested at six different points in time during the pandemic. In addition, the researchers tested the same group near the start of the pandemic and 12-months later. In both the cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, adults showed absolutely no increase in their ability to recognize masked faces.

Previous research showed that adults' facial recognition abilities decreased by about 15 percent when the person wore a mask using the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT), which is considered as the standard to tap face recognition abilities. Face masks also interfere with how unmasked faces are processed—which is normally made in a holistic manner, rather than by the individual parts of the face. This new study not only used the CFMT, but also the Glasgow Face Match Test, an additional measure of face perception, to determine if anything changed since the last study.

"This shows that face processing in humans, at least in adults, is rigid even after prolonged real-life exposure to partially covered faces," says Freud.

Face sensitivity first shows up in newborns who exhibit a preference for faces or things that look similar to a face, and especially to familiar faces. In contrast to the mature face processing system, repeated exposure to faces as a child plays an important role in refining the face processing system, which continues to develop until the end of puberty.

Freud says it would be interesting to see if children's ability to recognize masked faces changes over time with exposure, and whether the pandemic has interfered with their normal ability to recognize faces.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Comparing life-threatening flu and COVID-19 illness in kids

Flu and COVID-19 symptoms can look similar in kids—both are known to cause fever, coughing and fatigue and prompt parents to keep children home from school.

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Comparing life-threatening flu and COVID-19 illness in kids
by Beata Mostafav, University of Michigan
September 13, 2022

Flu and COVID-19 symptoms can look similar in kids—both are known to cause fever, coughing and fatigue and prompt parents to keep children home from school.

And while rare, the chance of either virus leading to critical illness in children may also be similar, suggests research by a team of pediatric intensive care researchers.

One in three children in a multi-hospital cohort who was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit for either COVID-19 or influenza required mechanical ventilation, according to the study in Clinical Infectious Diseases conducted by the multi-hospital Pediatric Intensive Care Influenza (PICFLU) network's Overcoming COVID-19 Investigators team.

About 16% of flu patients and 9% of COVID patients also had a secondary bacterial infection.

"Critically ill children with either virus have comparable outcomes in terms of needing breathing support or blood pressure medicines to treat shock," said Heidi Flori, M.D., F.A.A.P., pediatric intensivist at University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and a member of PICFLU and Overcoming COVID-19 Investigators team.

Vaccines can protect children

Flori says the data reinforces the importance of taking steps to protect children from both infections through vaccines, especially as the new school season begins.

"Whether it's flu or COVID, there seems to be a general public perception that neither cause serious illness in kids," she said.

"But for those of us working in pediatric ICU care, we've seen infections lead to critical illness and sometimes death in young people. Vaccinations are the best tools we have."

Researchers compared 179 children with influenza infection to 381 with COVID-19 at 16 United States hospitals. Patients with critical COVID-19 stayed longer in the PICU than kids with critical influenza and mortality was low (2-3%) but similar in both groups.

The study—led by Natasha Halasa, M.D., pediatric infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center—also suggests slight differences in the viruses' impact on different age and demographic groups.

Children hospitalized with COVID-19 were generally older than those with influenza. Almost half of the children with flu were between eight months old to under age five while more than four fifths of those with COVID-19 were aged 5–17—of which more than half comprised the oldest age group, 13–17 years.

Two thirds of children in the study hospitalized with influenza or COVID-19 also had an underlying medical condition but a third were otherwise healthy. Respiratory conditions were the most common underlying condition in both groups.

Health disparities in both younger and older age groups

About half of the children with critical influenza and a fourth with COVID-19 were white. In comparison, about 40% of children with influenza and over two thirds of those with COVID-19 were Black or Hispanic.

"Our data suggests that the health disparities we saw in the older age groups with COVID may exist among younger patients as well," Flori said.

The study excluded 850 children who were diagnosed with a rare but serious COVID-linked condition called multi-system inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C.

MIS-C, which causes severe inflammation in vital organs and tissues, has been linked to more than 8,000 pediatric cases and 70 deaths across the country. Children with the condition were separated in this specific research because MIS-C is considered a post-acute infection, says Flori, who notes the network has focused other studies specifically on MIS-C.

While rare, even healthy kids can end up in the ICU from flu or COVID

Each year, millions of children get sick with seasonal flu. Annual flu-related hospitalizations among U.S. children younger than five have ranged from 7,000 to 26,000 between 2010 to 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While relatively rare, some children also die from flu each year—the CDC reports a range of 37 to 199 deaths during regular flu seasons between 2004 and 2020.

During the omicron dominant period of COVID-19 (December 2021–February 2022), COVID-19–associated hospitalization rates in children aged 5–11 years were also nearly twice as high among unvaccinated as among vaccinated children, according to the CDC.

Flori says because the longtime PICFLU network was already in place to pool data across peer hospitals to analyze critical illness in kids from flu, the group was well positioned to do the same work for COVID-19 when the pandemic hit.

"While there are relatively low numbers of severe illness and death in kids from both flu and COVID, it's not zero," she said. "Kids do get very sick and there are deaths every year from infections that cause hospitalizations and other long term health risks.

"Many of the children in our study cohort did have other underlying health issues, but a third of them were perfectly healthy and still ended up in the ICU," she added. "No one is 100% immune. This should give us all pause. Increasing COVID-19 and flu vaccination coverage among children can help us prevent hospitalization and severe outcomes."

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

COVID boosters well-tolerated during and after pregnancy

The COVID-19 booster shots are well tolerated by both pregnant and nursing women, a new study published Sept. 8 in JAMA Network Open concluded.

medicalxpress.com

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COVID boosters well-tolerated during and after pregnancy
by University of Washington School of Medicine
September 13, 2022

The COVID-19 booster shots are well tolerated by both pregnant and nursing women, a new study published Sept. 8 in JAMA Network Open concluded.

The UW Medicine-led study with over 17,000 participants showed that "there were very few obstetric concerns after patients received the boosters," noted lead author and UW Medicine OB-GYN Dr. Alisa Kachikis.

In addition, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynocologists issued a practice advisory today encouraging pregnant or lactating individuals to receive the latest COVID-19 booster, which has been modified to protect against the BA.4 and BA.5 variants. That booster became available last week.

"This shot is going to be recommended for all individuals who have two months since their last booster," said UW Medicine OB-GYN Dr. Linda Eckert, "And if you're pregnant, that includes you. If you're postpartum, that includes you."

Eckert said that this study backs up the importance of pregnant and lactating women getting their boosters. Eckert, who is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, was the senior author on the study.

"The majority of pregnant and lactating participants did really well with the COVID-19 booster. In fact, most participants reported that symptoms with the booster or 3rd dose were less severe than symptoms with their initial COVID-19 vaccine series," Kachikis added.

As such, it's important that primary-care providers continue to recommend both the initial vaccine series and the boosters to pregnant and lactating women, she said. Findings from this study are especially pertinent now with the new COVID-19 booster becoming more widely available this month, she added.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1KP1mWGiuw
Credit: University of Washington School of Medicine
1 min 41 sec

Kachikis and her team collected data from a follow up survey which was sent out to just over 17,500 participants last October. These participants were part of an ongoing cohort survey to monitor the reaction of pregnant and lactating individuals to both the initial vaccine, and to, in this study, the booster shots.

Just over 97% of the cohort completed the follow-up survey on boosters. In this cohort group, 11% were pregnant; 60% were lactating and 27% were neither pregnant or lactating at the time of the survey. Most (82%) reported soreness at the injection site; with 68% reporting another symptom such as fatigue or fever

Importantly, when it came to a COVID-19 booster or third dose, pregnant participants were significantly more likely to list their health-care professional as an important source for information and to have received a recommendation to receive the booster. This suggests that clinicians may play a significant role in vaccine acceptance and as a source for vaccine information.

The original study, launched in January 2021, was designed to monitor the reaction of pregnant and lactating individuals to the initial COVID-19 vaccinations. The mean age of the group was 33 years, with 92% of the group identifying as white and 99% identifying as female. When Kachikis designed this online cohort study of women, it included those who were pregnant or lactating and those who were neither pregnant nor lactating.

This follow up study of the online cohort, as they receive booster doses, continues to support the finding that pregnant and lactating individuals tolerate the COVID booster vaccines well, and that they should be included in clinical trials for other relevant vaccines, Eckert said.

Aside from the CDC vsafe registry, this is the largest U.S. study of this issue. Canada has created a registry based on Kachikis' model.

According to the CDC, 71.3% of pregnant women in the United States have received at least the primary COVID-19 vaccine series either before or during pregnancy. ACOG estimates 55% have received a booster. This study offers importance reassurance to pregnant and lactating individuals who are due for a booster dose. Kachikis hopes this study, as well as other reassuring studies, will encourage pregnant and lactating women to get boosted, and vaccinated, if they have not done so already.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Twice-daily nasal irrigation reduces COVID-related illness, death

Starting twice daily flushing of the mucus-lined nasal cavity with a mild saline solution soon after testing positive for COVID-19 can significantly reduce hospitalization and death, investigators report.

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Twice-daily nasal irrigation reduces COVID-related illness, death
by Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
September 13, 2022

Starting twice daily flushing of the mucus-lined nasal cavity with a mild saline solution soon after testing positive for COVID-19 can significantly reduce hospitalization and death, investigators report.

They say the technique that can be used at home by mixing a half teaspoon each of salt and baking soda in a cup of boiled or distilled water then putting it into a sinus rinse bottle is a safe, effective and inexpensive way to reduce the risk of severe illness and death from coronavirus infection that could have a vital public health impact.

"What we say in the emergency room and surgery is the solution to pollution is dilution," says Dr. Amy Baxter, emergency medicine physician at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University and corresponding author of the study in Ear, Nose & Throat Journal.

"By giving extra hydration to your sinuses, it makes them function better.

If you have a contaminant, the more you flush it out, the better you are able to get rid of dirt, viruses and anything else," says Baxter.

"We found an 8.5-fold reduction in hospitalizations and no fatalities compared to our controls," says senior author Dr. Richard Schwartz, chair of the MCG Department of Emergency Medicine. "Both of those are pretty significant endpoints."

The study appears to be the largest, prospective clinical trial of its kind and the older, high-risk population they studied—many of whom had preexisting conditions like obesity and hypertension—may benefit most from the easy, inexpensive practice, the investigators say.

They found that less than 1.3% of the 79 study subjects age 55 and older who enrolled within 24-hours of testing positive for COVID-19 between Sept. 24 and Dec. 21, 2020, experienced hospitalization. No one died.

Among the participants, who were treated at MCG and the AU Health System and followed for 28 days, one participant was admitted to the hospital and another went to the emergency room but was not admitted.

By comparison, 9.47% of patients were hospitalized and 1.5% died in a group with similar demographics reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the same timeframe, which began about nine months after SARS-CoV-2 first surfaced in the United States.

"The reduction from 11% to 1.3% as of November 2021 would have corresponded in absolute terms to over 1 million fewer older Americans requiring admission," they write. "If confirmed in other studies, the potential reduction in morbidity and mortality worldwide could be profound."

Schwartz says Baxter brought him the idea early in the pandemic and he liked that it was inexpensive, easy to use and could potentially impact millions at a time where, like other health care facilities, the Emergency Department of the AU Health System was starting to see a lot of SARS-CoV-2-positive patients.

"We were really looking at what options we had available for treatment," Schwartz says. The first COVID-19 vaccines were given in December 2020 and the first treatment, the antiviral remdesivir was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in October 2020.

They knew that the more virus that was present in your body, the worse the impact, Baxter says. "One of our thoughts was: If we can rinse out some of the virus within 24 hours of them testing positive, then maybe we can lower the severity of that whole trajectory," she says, including reducing the likelihood the virus could get into the lungs, where it was doing permanent, often lethal damage to many.

Additionally, the now-infamous spiky SARS-CoV-2 is known to attach to the ACE2 receptor, which is pervasive throughout the body and in abundance in locations like the nasal cavity, mouth and lungs. Drugs that interfere with the virus' ability to attach to ACE2 have been pursued, and Baxter says the nasal irrigation with saline helps decrease the usual robust attachment. Saline appears to inhibit the virus' ability to essentially make two cuts in itself, called furin cleavage, so it can better fit into an ACE2 receptor once it spots one.

Participants self-administered nasal irrigation using either povidone-iodine, that brown antiseptic that gets painted on your body before surgery, or sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, which is often used as a cleanser, mixed with water that had the same salt concentration normally found in the body.

While the investigators found the additives really added no value, previous research had indicated they might help, for example, make it more difficult for the virus to attach to the ACE2 receptor. But their experience indicates the saline solution alone sufficed. "It's really just the rinsing and the quantity that matter," Baxter says.

The investigators also wanted to know any impact on symptom severity, like chills and loss of taste and smell. Twenty-three of the 29 participants who consistently irrigated twice daily had zero or one symptom at the end of two weeks compared to 14 of the 33 who were less diligent.

Those who completed nasal irrigation twice daily reported quicker resolution of symptoms regardless of which of two common antiseptics they were adding to the saline water.

Sixty-two of the participants completed a daily survey, reporting 1.8 irrigations daily; 11 reported irrigation-related complaints and four discontinued use.

Study participants and those used as controls had similar ages and rates of common conditions including one or more preexisting health problems.

Older adults, those with obesity and excess weight, who are physically inactive and those with underlying medical conditions are considered most at risk for serious complications and hospitalization from COVID-19. A body mass index, or BMI, which measures weight in relation to height, between 18.5 and 24.9, is considered ideal, and study participants had a mean BMI of 30.3; over 30 indicates obesity.

Others have shown the nasal irrigation, also called lavage, can also be effective in reducing duration and severity of infection by a family of viruses that include the coronaviruses, which are also known to cause the common cold, as well as the influenza viruses, the investigators write. "SARS-CoV-2 infection was another perfect situation for it," Baxter says.

In fact, nasal irrigation is something that has been done for millennia in Southeast Asia, and Baxter had noted lower death rates from COVID-19 in countries like Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. "Those were places that I knew from having been there where they use nasal irrigation as a normal part of hygiene just like brushing their teeth," she says. A 2019 pre-COVID study provided evidence that regular nasal irrigation in Thailand can improve nasal congestion, decrease postnasal drip, improve sinus pain or headache, improve taste and smell and improve sleep quality.

Schwartz said the simplicity and safety of the treatment had him recommending nasal irrigation to positive patients early on and the published results make him even more confident in recommending nasal irrigation to essentially anyone who tests positive.

Baxter noted the skepticism of the medical community before the results could be peer reviewed and published and her frustration with this relatively simple approach not being used when so many were sick and dying.

"Many of the people who have been using this now for months have told me their seasonal allergies have gone away, that it really makes a huge difference in any of the things that go through the nose that are annoying."

A study released in September 2020 indicated that gargling with a saline-based solution can reduce viral load in COVID-19, and another released in 2021 suggested that saline works multiple ways to reduce cold symptoms related to infection with other coronaviruses and might work as well as a first-line intervention for COVID-19.

Despite the two nostrils, the nasal sinus is just one cavity, so the water is pushed into one side and comes out the other, Baxter notes.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

The best protection against COVID-19 could be a vaccine delivered through the nose, according to new paper

As public health experts cautiously anticipate how COVID-19 will play out this fall, a University at Buffalo scientist is reiterating that substantial immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus will only happen with a vaccine that can be delivered through the nose.

medicalxpress.com

(fair use applies)


The best protection against COVID-19 could be a vaccine delivered through the nose, according to new paper
by Ellen Goldbaum, University at Buffalo
September 13, 2022

The common mucosal immune system, illustrating the origin of antigen-stimulated, IgA-committed B cells and cognate T cells in inductive sites, mainly the organized mucosa-associated lymphoid tissues of the respiratory and intestinal tracts, i.e., the palatine, tubal, and lingual tonsils and adenoids, and the gut-associated lymphoid tissues (GALT) i.e., small intestinal Peyer’s patches and large intestinal follicles, respectively. Note that bronchus-associated lymphoid tissue (BALT) does not usually occur in healthy adults, but can be found in children, or be induced by infection. Antigen-stimulated B and T cells emigrate and traffic through mesenteric lymph nodes into the circulation, and ultimately home into the lamina propria of respiratory, intestinal, and genital tracts and stroma of salivary, lacrimal, and lactating mammary glands, etc. Homing of cells into mucosal effector sites is orchestrated by the expression of vascular endothelial addressins and production of chemokine ligands in mucosal effector sites, and corresponding integrins and chemokine receptors expressed on B and T cells induced in mucosal inductive sites. Terminal differentiation of B cells into pIgA-secreting plasma cells occurs in these effector sites with help from T cells and locally produced cytokines. SIgA is formed by the pIgR-mediated epithelial transport of this locally synthesized pIgA into the secretions, the extracellular part of pIgR becoming the secretory component of SIgA. Credit: Frontiers in Immunology (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.957107

As public health experts cautiously anticipate how COVID-19 will play out this fall, a University at Buffalo scientist is reiterating that substantial immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus will only happen with a vaccine that can be delivered through the nose.

"The best protection against initial infection with the coronavirus, as well as transmission of it, as opposed to the development of COVID-19 disease, will be most effectively achieved by intranasal vaccines," said Michael Russell, Ph.D., professor emeritus of microbiology and immunology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB and first author on a paper published last month in Frontiers in Immunology.

The reason, he said, is that the most robust immunity against COVID-19 comes about as a result of infection that takes place in the upper respiratory tract and the mouth, and gives rise to mucosal immunity through the secretion of Immunoglobulin A (IgA) antibodies.

"That kind of immunity is not induced to any great extent by the existing injectable vaccines," said Russell. But, he said mucosal immunity is exactly the kind of immunity that would protect against initial infection, instead of protecting against severe disease after infection, the goal of the current COVID-19 vaccines.

"It all results from a widespread lack of understanding of the operation of the mucosal immune system," said Russell, "despite the fact that this has been known about for at least 40 years, but is poorly covered in most medical curricula."

He said that evidence is accumulating that shows that mucosal IgA antibodies have a significant impact on acquisition of SARS-CoV-2, the subsequent course of disease, and further transmission of the virus.

Vaccines delivered through the nose would not only induce mucosal immunity and thus prevent individuals from becoming infected, but they could also suppress community spread, which results from the circulation of aerosol particles and droplets generated by these upper respiratory and oral secretions.

A better route to herd immunity

"Our main point, therefore, is that protection against initial infection (rather than protection against the development of COVID-19) and the onwards transmission of the virus will be more effectively achieved by intranasal vaccines," said Russell. "In other words, the much-discussed and elusive accomplishment of herd immunity, which is not effectively generated by the existing injected vaccines, will be more likely to be achieved with mucosal immunity induced by intranasal vaccines."

The paper also argues that despite the fact that antibody responses to COVID-19 have almost entirely focused on serum, it turns out the level of antibodies that are circulating in the blood doesn't reflect the antibody level in mucosal secretions. Meanwhile, mucosal IgA antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 antigens have been detected in the saliva, nasal fluids, tears, tracheo-bronchial secretions and even breast milk in infected individuals.

The authors conceded that while there have been numerous animal model trials launched to develop intranasal vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, many haven't continued past the preclinical stage. In part, they explained, this might be due to inadequate understanding of how the human and animal mucosal immune systems differ. "Mucosal IgA antibodies found in secretions are much more effective at viral neutralization than circulating IgG antibodies, which are found in serum," said Russell.

The authors noted that the success of the influenza vaccines delivered through the nose indicate that this is a feasible delivery method for a vaccine. A recent article in Nature reports that approximately 100 intranasal COVID-19 vaccines are in development worldwide, two of which were approved last week in China and India. However, details of the trials supporting these approvals have not yet been released.

Russell concluded that "if even a fraction of the time, effort and resources that were applied to the development of the first generation of COVID vaccines was applied to intranasal vaccines, the world might be benefiting from a widely available intranasal COVID-19 vaccine right now."

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

CDC's Own Study Reanalyzed: MIS-C is MORE Likely After Vaccination, not Less

Vaccination Increases MIS-C!

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CDC's Own Study Reanalyzed: MIS-C is MORE Likely After Vaccination, not Less
Vaccination Increases MIS-C!
Igor Chudov
16 hr ago

CDC published a study in Clinical Infectious Diseases on Aug 4, purporting to show that the Pfizer Covid vaccine reduces the chances of MIS-C (Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome) in children.



This substack post will show that the above study overstated the benefit of “Covid vaccines”, purposely undercounted Covid vaccinated children who had MIS-C, and used incorrect calculations to arrive at the purported benefit. When calculated properly, children who received Covid vaccines have a greater, not lower risk of MIS-C, compared to unvaccinated children.

Two extremely important warnings:

• This substack post is long and may be difficult to understand because it discusses a complicated article. Some sentences may seem heavy and redundant due to the need to be precise. I will do my best to make it understandable.
• I feel somewhat intimidated dissecting and showing the shortcomings of an article written by dozens of professionals working at the CDC. Therefore, I realize that some or all of my conclusions may be incorrect, despite my efforts to verify everything. If you feel that I am wrong, please post a top-level message in the comments section explaining what I got wrong.

What is MIS-C?​

Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome is defined by the CDC as:

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs. We do not yet know what causes MIS-C. However, we know that many children with MIS-C had the virus that causes COVID-19, or had been around someone with COVID-19. MIS-C can be serious, even deadly, but most children who were diagnosed with this condition have gotten better with medical care.​

​

MIS-C is a very severe illness with several organs of the affected child failing, with the kids needing hospitalization or even ICU care.

The above-mentioned CDC article only considered cases of MIS-C where a confirmed Covid infection was recorded. Therefore, this article would not consider cases of MIS-C caused by the vaccination alone, without a confirmed case of Covid. More on this later.

Let’s start with the easy, visual stuff.

MIS-C Most Frequent Shortly After Vaccination​

Take a look at Supplemental Figure 2 from the article. I annotated it. It shows cases of MIS-C, following a documented Covid infection, laid out in accordance with when they happened post-vaccination.




The above graph shows cases of MIS-C, happening at least 14 days after Covid vaccination, with a confirmed Covid infection. Also, note that the chart does not show (hides) any cases of MIS-C occurring within 14 days of the second dose.

Does anything look strange?

If you are like me, you would notice that cases of MIS-C are most frequent in the days 14-40 following the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine (a case every 2 days), then MIS-C becomes less frequent in days 40-120 after the second dose (a case every 7 days), and becomes infrequent in days 120-200 after the second dose (a case every 11 days).

We see that most cases of MIS-C happen shortly after vaccination (with the 14-day-post-dose-2 immediate period removed from our view by the CDC). How is that compatible with “vaccine protecting against MIS-C”?

It is simply not compatible with vaccines providing protection from MIS-C!

Let me draw how this graph would look if the vaccine provided protection, which would wane over time. Waning protection, over time, would result in an increased, not reduced, frequency of MIS-C. This is an imaginary illustration from me, not a CDC graph, showing the shape of waning protection:



The original CDC chart (the first chart) shows the opposite of “waning protection”: in actuality, the risk of MIS-C is highest soon after the vaccine, and cases of MIS-C become LESS frequent as time passes after vaccination.

MIS-C Case Counting​

There is something strange with the way the CDC counts the number of cases.



This looks great for the vaccine, right? CDC found 24 vaccinated cases of MIS-C and 280 unvaccinated cases. So, the vaccinated cases make up only 8% of the total!

However, the only reason why these numbers look so great, is that the CDC was extremely aggressive in EXCLUDING cases of MIS-C in vaccinated children. Let’s look.

First, the CDC eliminated 5 cases that we saw on the previous graph because they happened between 14 and 27 days after the second dose:



Then the CDC removed ALL cases in children who were vaccinated with Moderna or J&J vaccine or even mixed and matched doses:



Overall they excluded 210 children:





[continued next post]

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

[continued from above]


The only unvaccinated children who were excluded, are the 53 “age-ineligible children” who could not be vaccinated due to young age. These do not belong to the study’s age range.

The most questionable (but small) part of the exclusion is 12 vaccinated children, where the CDC did not believe the parents’ assurances that they were vaccinated, or “verification [of vaccine status - IC] not completed” by health care workers. I decided to count them as vaccinated. This small number of 12 does not change my conclusions very much.

These excluded cases received Covid vaccines but were removed from the CDC’s count of vaccinated children because of CDC’s arbitrary and aggressive elimination of vaccinated cases. Even children who received a booster dose were excluded!

Read this again: the CDC excluded children who received a Covid vaccine booster! Why? For only one obvious reason: to undercount the vaccinated. They thought we would not notice.

So, out of 210 excluded children, after subtracting the 53 age-ineligible children who do not belong, 210-53 = 157 excluded children were VACCINATED (partially vaccinated, vaccinated with Moderna of J&J, or fully vaccinated before 28 days past the second dose, or had a booster dose, etc).

No unvaccinated children of eligible ages were excluded.

So, we have, therefore:

• Unvaccinated children with MIS-C: the original 182 unvaxed kids
• Children who received vaccines, who had MIS-C: original 24 children, plus 157 excluded children who received vaccines. So, 24+157 = 181 children who received Covid vaccines were hospitalized with MIS-C.

Vaccines do not look so good anymore, right? 182 unvaccinated, and 181 vaccinated kids with MIS-C.

We went from “only 8% of children with MIS-C were vaccinated” to “50% of children with MIS-C received Covid vaccines”.

How bad is that? To properly compare apples to apples, we need to look at the percentage of “fully or partially vaccinated children” in the general population, compared to the percentage of “fully or partially vaccinated children” among those who were hospitalized with MIS-C (50%).

What is the percentage of “fully or partially vaccinated children” in the general population? We do not have the exact contemporary number of “fully or partially vaccinated children in the general population”, in the article, unfortunately. What the article does provide is the comparable (from the control group) number of fully vaccinated children (two doses plus 14 days), or 31%.



Let me make a guess: we need to add 10% to the percentage of fully vaccinated children (31%), to get the percentage of "fully or partially vaccinated children”.

Based on this general personal guess of mine, the percentage of fully or partially vaccinated children in the population was 41%, as of the time the cohorts were analyzed.

We have: 50% of children hospitalized with MIS-C and documented Covid, who were fully or partially vaccinated. During the same period, 41% of children in the general population were fully or partially vaccinated, and therefore 59% of children were unvaccinated.

Let’s calculate relative risk, comparing incidence with the size of the population:



Based on the numbers of cases (181 and 182) and percentages of the population (41% and 59%), we can calculate “incidence” (cases divided by respective fraction of population.) From the incidence numbers, we can calculate the relative risk, being 1.43. This means that vaccinated children have a 43% HIGHER risk of MIS-C, compared to unvaccinated.

So, full or partial vaccination INCREASES chances of MIS-C associated with a documented case of Covid, by 43%!

This is based strictly on the numbers provided by the CDC, with the exception of my guess on how to get “fully or partially vaccinated” (my guess is 41%) from “fully vaccinated” (officially 31% per CDC) as a percentage of the population. I wish I had that number from official sources, but unfortunately, I do not. I do not think that my 41% guess is crazy and I welcome comments from the CDC.

“Fully vaccinated” vs. “All who received vaccines”​

The CDC counts, as vaccinated, only the 24 children who received the Pfizer vaccine, were over 28 days after the second dose, did not receive boosters, Moderna or J&J, etc etc. Thus, the CDC excluded 157 children who received a dose of Covid vaccine and went on to develop MIS-C, leaving only 24 such children for their analysis.

So, the CDC excluded 157 kids — 87% of all children who received a Covid vaccine and got MIS-C — and then victoriously reported that only 24 children in the study with MIS-C were vaccinated! But it was not 24, but 24+157=181 vaccinated children.

We should compare unvaccinated children (who never received any vaccines) with vaccinated children (who received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine).

If a parent is deciding whether to vaccinate a child, then that parent should consider all risks pertaining to vaccination, not just risks 28 days after the second dose. The “riskier” (for MIS-C) period between the day of the first vaccination through 14 days after the second vaccination, should be counted as part of the decision to vaccinate, as it cannot be avoided.

A vaccinated child cannot magically travel in time and skip that period when most cases of MIS-C happen in vaccinated children. So, outcomes for the entire period after the first shot need to be considered, instead of being disregarded.

El Gato explained this a year ago:

why "vaccinated covid deaths/hospitalizations" are being counted incorrectly
let’s start with an example: you’re a soldier pinned down in a foxhole. across the field from you is a bunker. getting into the bunker will greatly reduce your risk of being shot. but the field you m…
Read more
a year ago · 233 likes · 89 comments · el gato malo

Most cases of MIS-C happen at elevated rates early in the vaccination process. Look at the numbers again:

• the CDC included only 24 post-vaccination cases — those occurring after 28 days past the second vaccine (and excluded boosted kids and many others too).
• the CDC excluded 79+26+23+5=133 vaccinated cases — where they actually shared the time post-vaccination with us. (other excluded cases were at uncertain positions on the timeline)

The process of Covid vaccination generally takes about 5 weeks (first Pfizer shot; three weeks wait; second shot; two more weeks post-second-vaccine). Then the child is considered to be fully vaccinated.

During these first five weeks post-first-shot, the CDC study recorded 79+26+23 = 128 cases of MIS-C in vaccinated-in-progress children. After the child is considered “fully vaccinated”, for the next 26 weeks after 14 days post-second-dose, the CDC recorded 29 cases of MIS-C.

So, the group of 128 excluded (but completely real) MIS-C cases occurring in five weeks after vaccination, occurred at the rate of 128/5 = 26 cases per week! For the 24 cases occurring in 28-200 days past the second dose (7.6 weeks), they only happen at the rate of 24/7.6, or 3 cases per week.

Again:

• First 5 weeks of vaccination: 26 cases of MIS-C with Covid per week
• Subsequent period: 3 cases of MIS-C per week (8 times less often)

This analysis shows that Covid vaccination INCREASES the chances of MIS-C by 43% overall. The cases of MIS-C are eight times more likely (26/3) to happen during the first five weeks since the beginning of vaccination, as opposed to the remaining period after vaccination.

This is actually evidence of CAUSATION, as it shows that the vaccine causes cases of MIS-C with confirmed Covid, to happen at elevated rates shortly after vaccination. In other words, I have shown that a recent vaccination increases the chances that a breakthrough Covid infection will cause MIS-C, as opposed to an unvaccinated Covid infection.

Missing Covid Cases Defined by Serology?​

The official definition of a case was

• A diagnosis of MIS-C
• A confirmed (molecularly or serologically) Covid infection

The article does not say how many cases were confirmed by “serology”. Usually, serologic confirmation of Covid-19 is defined by the presence of the so-called “nucleocapsid antibodies”.

But those N-antibodies are often missing in Cars-Cov-2 infections of vaccinated people! So counting cases by serology might undercount the number of vaccinated infections. Since we do not have the data on how many cases were confirmed by serology, I am only mentioning this for completeness and will not dwell on this.

Only Some Cases Captured?​

The article makes an interesting statement: because the site investigators worked in ICU units, not all cases of MIS-C could be captured. That is possibly why most MIS-C cases ended up in ICU — because that is where the article investigators worked!



Science at its finest.

This Only Counted MIS-C Associated with a Positive Covid Test​

As I mentioned, the study looked at ONLY MIS-C cases with a confirmed Covid diagnosis. Even so, children fully or partially vaccinated were MORE likely to have Covid-associated MIS-C.

But what about MIS-C caused by the vaccine, without a recorded Covid infection accompanying it? They were not analyzed in the CDC study. How many such instances would we need to add, to be able to compare the total risk to vaccinated vs unvaccinated children from ALL causes of MIS-C, Covid or vaccine?

This is really a topic of another article and it is complicated. But it is NOT a trivial amount. I decided not to estimate that, and not to add those cases, so as to not distract my readers and to make my post more defensible for the possibility of being fact-checked.

However, it is important to know how many cases of MIS-C due to vaccination, with no Covid infection, really happened in the same 22 states and 29 hospitals mentioned in the CDC study. Such cases would make the comparison even worse for Covid vaccines.

We will leave it for later.

Were COVID Diagnoses Given to Hide Vaccine Injuries?​

The more conspiratorially minded friends of mine would probably point out that they suspect some “Covid diagnoses” were given to very ill, recently-vaccinated hospitalized children having vaccine-caused MIS-C, in order to

• Hide their vaccine injuries by calling them “Covid complications”
• Get federal Covid support money

Some other people go further and claim, with some evidence too, that the vaccination status of those children is not properly recorded if, for example, they were not vaccinated in the same hospital chain that admitted them. That would artificially reduce the number of recorded vaccinated cases.

While I decided to mention this argument, which I have seen advanced with varying degrees of credibility, I am not using it in any way, shape, or form to write my article or to reach any conclusions. I just stick to what the CDC study provided, in doing my calculations. However, it would be unfair not to mention that possibility as food for thought to give the correct context.

Summary​

Again, this is my amateur analysis and I would love my calculations to be challenged.

When properly calculated, instead of CDC-reported 88% decrease in MIS-C following vaccination, Covid vaccine results in a 43% increase in MIS-C, among children who received covid vaccines, compared to unvaccinated children.

Is vaccination of children a good idea?

Do you trust the numbers from the CDC?

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

It's past time to throw away routine, forced masking in health care facilities

Wearing a mask from the door to the dentist chair is a waste of time, while N95s in COVID+ rooms are still reasonable.

sensiblemed.substack.com

(fair use applies)


It's past time to throw away routine, forced masking in health care facilities
Wearing a mask from the door to the dentist chair is a waste of time, while N95s in COVID+ rooms are still reasonable.
Vinay Prasad
23 hr ago

Most health-care facilities in the United States have not yet embraced what hundreds of millions of Americans have: throw away the mask, and return to normal. For hospitals this means “Yes, you can choose to wear an n95 mask in a Covid + patients room,” but “No, we don't need to force mask all visitors and all workers in the hallways between sips of coffee”. For the dentist’s office, this means that after you keep your mouth open for an hour, you don't need to put a mask on to walk back to the door. These are policies that no longer make sense in Sept 2022 and have to go.

I usually start with efficacy, but this time let’s begin with harms and downsides. Masking is a burden. If it were not obligatory, few would do it. Want evidence? Exhibit A: everywhere in America. Masking use on airplanes is almost gone. Masking in grocery stories is just a dream. Masking in restaurants and bars— non-existent. Well, except for servers and kids in headstart, who are powerless.

Masking has real downsides, particularly in hospital and clinic settings. Masking muffles speech, and irritates skin, noses, cheeks, etc. Masking makes it harder to read emotions and gauge reactions— both for your colleagues, your staff and your patients.

Masking harms patient care for older people who are hard of hearing. It harms people who are acutely short of breath. It harms older people seeking care for suspected stroke (did they suddenly develop facial droop?). It harms women giving birth (forced to mask during contractions— why? they just tested negative anyway). It prevents people from seeing your facial expression. In many cases, harm may be limited to subjective discomfort— but guess what: that is still a harm. Unless masking in hospitals has a clear upside, it has to go.

In terms of efficacy, there are zero high quality studies that universal hospital visitor masking on any important outcome. But more importantly, even if there were, that might apply to 2020, but as of Sept 2022, it no longer makes sense.

Have you walked around America? Flown anywhere? No one is wearing a mask. Most Americans have been vaccinated, had Covid, or both. In the short term, 93-97% of all people on earth will get COVID. In some age groups, we are likely already at that saturation point.

Passing out sea-turtle strangling surgical masks to hospital visitors will have zero impact on the time till total Covid19 saturation— even if worn perfectly, given the absolute lack of use outside the hospital. But consider also that they are not worn well at all.



Recently, I visited a few hospitals in different cities. I saw masks off for tea, coffee, food. I saw more noses than I could count. More masks spill out of boxes on the floor than tightly seal lips and noses.

No one wants to enforce the policy. I saw joggers duck into one hospital (it was urban and had restaurants and shops on the ground floor), maskless, and duck out, and no one said a word. Who would?

What should we do? Of course, anyone who wishes can do whatever they want. Patients who want protection can wear tight fitting n95s. Perhaps hospitals can offer fit testing for truly vulnerable, transient immunosuppression. Why haven’t they already?

Doctors who have not recently had BA4/5 can choose also to wear n95 in known COVID positive rooms. Of course, if I have not been recently infected, I would take that choice any day of the week. The short term application of a tight fitting, fit tested mask for a double digit absolute risk reduction over 15 mins is worth the short time. A doctor just getting over BA4/5 (non-infectious now) might make a different choice. Forcing a doctor who just had covid to wear a tight fitting mask to protect other patients doesn’t make sense for the simple reason that the doctor could acquire covid in that room, yes, but also in a million other places outside work, and you cannot patrol all those places. And also because having just had covid, they are unlikely to get it again.

Of course, healthcare workers who are actively sick and infectious should not be working, but guess what? They never should have, and forcing a sick health care worker to wear a flimsy surgical mask (99% of hospital policy) is little protection for a patient. A false protection.

Ultimately there is no longer any good reason to force people in hospitals to wear masks. People can make their own choices. Everyone will get COVID in the short term, and people are adult enough to decide what risks they want to take. This has always been how the world works, and always will be. Finally, here is a tweet I saw that I have no comment on, but perhaps you do.

Juli798686 @juli_bg_bs
Poor MD who spoke about "hey we have no severe Covid" got cancelled ofc. Luckily, he has some decent friends Repeat after me: Covid was REALLY bad. It is manageable now. 99% of the world get that. The 1% who don't either have agenda OR mental disorder.
Brad Spellberg @BradSpellberg
@AnilMakam 1) i understood what you mean & thank you for saying it; 2) i don’t think you need to apologize. We seem to be in a world of 2 distinct, unchallengeable realities. Either Covid will end civilization or it’s a total scam. And any thought in between is attacked by both sides. Sad.
September 13th 2022
12 Retweets41 Likes

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Corrupted deceptive CDC once again redefines what being 'fully VACCINATED' is to produce flawed MIS-C analysis to show reduced MIS-C risk if children Pfizer VAXXED; CDC outright OMITs eligible kids

I tip my hat to Igor Chudov who did an elegant job exposing the fraud we come to know now as CDC & I focus on 2 aspects to show their ineptness & corruption; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35924406/

palexander.substack.com

(fair use applies)


Corrupted deceptive CDC once again redefines what being 'fully VACCINATED' is to produce flawed MIS-C analysis to show reduced MIS-C risk if children Pfizer VAXXED; CDC outright OMITs eligible kids
I tip my hat to Igor Chudov who did an elegant job exposing the fraud we come to know now as CDC & I focus on 2 aspects to show their ineptness & corruption; BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccination Against COVID-19 is Associated with Decreased Likelihood of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in U.S. Children Ages 5-18 Years - PubMed
Dr. Paul Alexander
9 hr ago

CDC’s source by Zambrano et al. (Clinical Infectious Diseases):

BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccination Against COVID-19 is Associated with Decreased Likelihood of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in U.S. Children Ages 5-18 Years




CDC concluded:

‘Vaccination with two doses of BNT162b2 is associated with reduced likelihood of MIS-C in children ages 5-18 years. Most vaccine eligible hospitalized patients with MIS-C were unvaccinated.’

First, the CDC starts with 1,016 patients and ends up with only 24 MIS-C vaccinated patients. 24.

Yet this was erroneous and fraudulent due to how the CDC excluded MIS-C vaccinated children from analysis. I am not even looking at re-analysis yet that seems to show increased risk of MIS-C with vaccination. Here I am just by examining the methods and exclusions, and you can see that the CDC engaged in scientific malpractice, omitting eligible children so that they can run calculations to make the vaccination appear to confer greater protection against MIS-C. I leave Igor’s numbers to show the malfeasance with the math and I will focus on what jumps out at me which are two issues:

1)If you go to the Supplemental Online Content on page 9, you see:

Supplemental Figure 2. Number of days from the 2nd BNT162b2 vaccine dose to hospitalization for 29 patients considered fully vaccinated, defined as having received their 2nd dose at least 14 days prior to illness. Two vertical lines delineate the 28 day timepoint, which was used as the primary timepoint for this analysis, and the 120 day timepoint, which was used to assess waning immunity.



Yet this graph is non-sensical and Igor is correct in focusing here. It shows not what they want it to show in case you were not looking closely. It actually shows that most of the MIS-C occurs soon after vaccination which is in line with what we see in VAERS where most adverse effects and deaths accumulate post COVID shot (1-10 days or so post shot). You would think over time with declining vaccinal protection (waning immunity) as we know occurs with these mRNA vaccines, that most MIS-C cases would accumulate in the lower right part of the graph (less in the upper left as the vaccine would be assumed to be providing protection there and more in the lower right as immunity wanes).

What the graph is actually showing is that most of the MIS-C happens soon after vaccine and declines with time as the impact of the vaccine wanes. In other words, it is a good thing that the vaccinal immunity (vaccine’s effect) wanes so rapidly with these shots. For if there was not waning immunity, we would see cases many cases across time. No decline. In other words, it is the vaccine itself causing the surge in MIS-C cases in children, soon after administration and with it’s declining effect, the MIS-C cases decline too. IMO.

2)Let us focus on the gross deception by the CDC in counting MIS-C cases and moving to omit them. This my friends is what the CDC has done all along, since the start of COVID, as it functioned to lie and deceive the public. In doing it here, they produced analysis to defraud you to think the Pfizer vaccine confers protection on MIS-C.

Firstly, the CDC is going against it’s own prior deception to create this new MIS-C vaccine protection deception. Remember, the CDC itself said (redefined it as) you needed to be above 14 days post shot, certainly post 2nd shot, to be considered ‘fully vaccinated’. And then they moved to the boosters wit the same deception. So the CDC did this redefinition of being ‘vaccinated’ so that they could place the infections, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in the ‘unvaccinated’ bucket. So all of those cases and deaths could be counted as ‘unvaccinated’, when we know they were ‘vaccinated’. This allowed them to go to the media and say ‘we have a pandemic of the unvaccinated’. This was a lie. This is how they pulled off the ‘it’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated’ to get you scared to rush off to take the vaccine.

Yet now, to pull off this MIS-C deception, they are saying the 14 days no longer apply and now it is 28 days:

“Participants were classified as unvaccinated if no vaccine was received before the reference date and fully vaccinated if they had received two Pfizer BNT162b2 doses at least 28 days before the reference date…Patients who received their 2nd 1 dose between 14 and 27 days prior to the reference date (date of admission)…were excluded from the primary analysis.”

Furthermore, CDC then went on an OMISSION vendetta, omitting any and every child so that they would end up with only 24:

“Partial vaccination was defined as having received only one vaccine dose before the reference date or receiving a second dose <28 days prior to the reference date. Patients who received their 2nd 1 dose between 14 and 27 days prior to the reference date…were excluded from the primary analysis. Patients were excluded if they received a different type of COVID-19 vaccine, such as AD.26COV2.S (Janssen/Johnson & Johnson) or mRNA-1273 (Moderna) if they received heterologous doses (e.g., BNT162b2 for the first dose and mRNA-1273 for the second), or if they received >2 doses of any vaccine.”

In other words, MIS-C children were excluded, who were cases and who were indeed vaccinated, because they would have destroyed the analysis and the favorable results:



So CDC excluded children who were cases yet got the booster. Can you imagine that? Who got one shot. Can you imagine that? Who got a shot 14-27 days before admission. Where they felt it is not verified yet if vaccinated or the verification not complete. Who got mixed shots. Except for the 53 above, all others appear to be MIS-C cases who were vaccinated and as such, you can now understand why the CDC omitted them.

This is bogus fraudulent analysis. Typical CDC.

I leave the reading of the paper to you to witness the fraud.

I again lay huge praise at the feet of Igor (his stack is below) and tip my hat for fine work. Igor’s re-analysis shows that vaccinated children have a 43% HIGHER risk of MIS-C relative to unvaccinated. I have not run the data but trust him 100% and this is in line with some back of the envelope numbers I wrote down. The CDC omitted these cases to declare that the vaccine reduces risk. I say do not believe what they concluded. None of it! Nothing the CDC has said since the start of this pandemic has ever been true, nothing! It is not changed for this analysis.

Igor’s Newsletter
CDC's Own Study Reanalyzed: MIS-C is MORE Likely After Vaccination, not Less
CDC published a study in Clinical Infectious Diseases on Aug 4, purporting to show that the Pfizer Covid vaccine reduces the chances of MIS-C (Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome) in children. This substack post will show that the above study overstated the benefit…
Read more
7 hours ago · 131 likes · 91 comments · Igor Chudov

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Think Twice, Three times & henceforth, before you decide to inject healthy American children with COVID gene injections; why? Because not one, (zero), no healthy child infected with COVID has died!

Since the start of this COVID emergency; obese, severely overweight, serious underlying medical conditions is one aspect but healthy children? No! Consider them immune & already VACCINATED!

palexander.substack.com

(fair use applies)


Think Twice, Three times & henceforth, before you decide to inject healthy American children with COVID gene injections; why? Because not one, (zero), no healthy child infected with COVID has died!
Since the start of this COVID emergency; obese, severely overweight, serious underlying medical conditions is one aspect but healthy children? No! Consider them immune & already VACCINATED!
Dr. Paul Alexander
12 hr ago

Leave our healthy children alone! Consider them already all vaccinated and immune!

In a recent Kaiser survey of parents following the recent FDA’s approval of the vaccine in children as young as 6 months old, parents responded by stating their reluctance due to “concerns about the newness of the vaccine and not enough testing or research, concerns over side effects, and worries over the overall safety of the vaccines.” In my opinion, this is very positive for parents are ‘getting’ it and are on top of the science more so than even our CDC, NIH, and FDA health officials. Estimates are that only 5% have opted to vaccinate their child and in my opinion, this was 5% too much.

Where do I begin?

Firstly, you resisted the COVID gene injections because you engaged in critical thinking. You resisted the pressure around you and it was great and many if not most of us lost lots. We lost family, friends, our liberty etc. It was and still is horrendous. But I guarantee you one thing, when you look back at your life, and your children’s and grandchildren’s, you will understand it was the greatest decision you ever made. You saved your life and theirs. You will come to learn. You fought it and fought them all, all the malfeasants in our governments and big business, all the Fauci et al.’s of this world, and you are a deep critical thinker, clear minded, special by what you did. Marvelous, unique, and powerful. You did not abdicate your own sense and reasoning for ex cathedra nonsensical, unscientific, and illogical authorities.

I am honored to be in this fight with you, most I do not know save but you being here. You are instinctive and knew just when you had to make a stand! Be proud, pat yourself on the back, and stay in the fight! Stay with me, help me spread the word, support us, help us contrarians, we will wage for you knowing you are behind us!

Secondly, the vaccine makers e.g. Pfizer and Moderna, as well as the CDC and FDA and NIH and all involved policy makers and health officials know one key fact, which is that these studies that underpin the vaccines were never conducted for the time needed to exclude harms. This is a key issue for if the studies do not run for a proper duration of follow-up, then you will not know the correct outcome. The duration of follow-up needed has been non-existent. Never done, and as such, we did not know, still do not know, and will not know whether these vaccines were ever ‘safe’ and ‘effective’. When they stopped the study early for ‘benefit’ (declaring success), this could have been at a ‘random high’ and had they gone to the planned sample size and longer duration, the benefit may/would have fallen away. That is the trick, stopping early for benefit. They declared success too early and is a trick these pharma and research malfeasants usually employ.

The vaccine makers and Fauci et al. also saw to it by giving vaccine to the placebo control group. The studies at that instant were in effect, over! We know it though, by what has happened around us with friends, colleagues, co-workers, and family, we know it is dangerous and does not work. But the point is, still today, the studies were all conducted fraudulently, IMO, to deceive. The FDA should hang it’s head in shame.

To start, the fact is that any rapid mass vaccination campaign as occurred for COVID, that uses a sub-optimal antigen-specific, non-neutralizing vaccine (such as the COVID vaccines) that does not sterilize the virus and with vaccination across all age groups, and into the pandemic (during an active ongoing pandemic of a highly mutating and highly infectious respiratory virus with high infectious pressure due to circulating virus) can only result in the generation of a continued series of new variants that are increasingly infectious, increasingly vaccine-resistant (due to viral “immune escape”), and inevitably more virulent (potentially lethal, deadly).


In short, the mass vaccination campaign that has been implemented by our governments and their COVID advisors during the COVID pandemic (and which is not stopping with the new FDA EUAs for the bi-valent injections that are based on the legacy Wuhan strain and the BA.4/BA.5 variants) can potentially keep the pandemic going for many years with a potential more virulent sub-variant emerging. In other words, this pandemic will never come to a close if we keep inoculating with these non-sterilizing sub-optimal injections that do no stop infection, replication, or transmission.

Importantly, this vaccine implementation has been damaging the initiation of education and instruction (training) of the innate immune system, which is the first line of immune defense. The side effects, harms, and deaths that have accrued due to the COVID injection itself have been horrendous and in part due to the vaccine makers not properly testing the vaccine for harms. Harms were never ‘excluded’ due to the small sample sizes, stopping early for benefit, and critically, not running the studies to the powered sample sizes as well as proper longer duration. The vaccine studies have never been carried out for durations that would definitively indicate their safety profile.

It is the damage and subversion to the natural innate immune system of children that concerns me and I have gained a deep appreciation and understanding of this critical aspect of natural immunity from Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche as well as Dr. Mike Yeadon. Parents must understand that when the COVID injection is given to young children (infants, children, younger persons), this prevents the child’s innate antibodies from eliminating the virus confronted with now, and prevents the active training and teaching of the innate immune effector cells on how to properly recognize (glycosylated) viruses and distinguish them from “self” antigens (i.e., distinguish between “self” and “non-self.”). That is, the child’s immune system will not be trained on what it should attack and eliminate versus what it should leave alone, given it belongs to the child.

Moreover, the innate immune system will not be properly trained on how to handle a broad range of pathogen the child will confront in the environment as the child gets older. Thus the training of the innate antibodies and innate immune system educates the immune response on pathogen confronted at present e.g. COVID virus, pathogen to be confronted in the future, and the differentiation of ‘self’ versus ‘non-self’ components as well as all the variations in-between e.g. ‘self-like’, ‘self-mimicking’ etc. given the virus uses components of the self to trick the immune system. It can take on the appearance of the self to evade the immune system. Therefore, it is a critical education that mitigates vulnerability to auto-immune disease.

This is a critical window of innate immunity training in early childhood development and for any immune system to learn at an early stage of life (once passive maternal immune protection is no longer available e.g. at about 4 to 6 months) so as to provide for a healthy and appropriate immune response especially in the future. This interference with the initiating foundational education of a child’s developing innate immune system can cause a COVID-vaccinated child to be less capable of handling glycosylated viruses (and glycosylated pathogens in general). This predisposes such children to immune pathology (e.g., autoimmune disease). Moreover, such children will be at risk of serious illness from a broad range of pathogen and not only glycosylated viruses. We are seeing a range of illnesses now in children in the era of COVID vaccination and we argue that it can be explained in part by damage to and subversion of the immune system itself (e.g. damage to the natural immunity).

Substack Alexander COVID News evidence-based medicine ​

BREAKING: NEJM study as a clear example of the COVID gene injection vaccine subverting, damaging established natural immunity in prior infected (COVID-recovered) children (Dan-Yu Lin et al.)​

Is this why Geert Vanden Bossche was right when he said Africa will win this insane COVID injection madness by not vaccinating their children, or at least allowing time for their innate antibodies to train their innate immune systems? Is this why African nations have fared so well against COVID and especially omicron BA.5 clade in terms of infection/cas…​

a day ago · 83 likes · 25 comments · Dr. Paul Alexander​

The issue is that the COVID gene injection induces antigen-specific vaccinal antibodies that are highly specific to the target antigen and they can potentially outcompete and sideline the innate antibodies from their binding to viruses and thus the training of the innate immune system. By the vaccinal antibodies binding to the antigen (e.g. receptor binding domain, N-terminal domain and other binding sites etc.), this blocks the innate antibodies from binding and as such it’s capacity to clear out the virus. This can render the child’s immune system sub-optimal and dysfunctional, and as such the child will be very vulnerable to pathogen and pathology.

Parents have to understand that in America, since the start of the pandemic, not one child, not one healthy child has gotten COVID infection and died from it. Not one.

Dr. Marty Makary’s research team (Johns Hopkins) showed this conclusively (Johns Hopkins and FAIR health study SOURCE utilized near one half of the US’s health insurance data). They found that 100% of pediatric COVID-19 deaths were in children with a pre-existing condition (chronic severe health condition).

Their study showed that not one healthy child died from COVID across the pandemic in the United States.

What does this suggest to you as a parent? Well, it shows what I and others have argued for 2.5 years now that children have basically zero risk. It shows that based on proper risk-benefit calculations, children absolutely do not need these injections (I argue no child) yet parents may consider vaccinating their high risk child who has serious comorbidities (with chronic severe health conditions, or immunocompromised children). This can be a consideration in instances of severe overweight or obesity on children. This should be done case-by-case and is not the same as mandating vaccines carte blanche across the board for all age-groups and certainly not in any healthy child given their near statistical zero risk of severe outcome if COVID infected. Certainly given that the vaccine has been shown to be harmful e.g. myocarditis, pericarditis, blood clots, bleeding etc.

Recall that Marshall et al. reported on “7 cases of acute myocarditis or myopericarditis in healthy male adolescents who presented with chest pain all within 4 days after the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination”.

So why would a parent inject their healthy child or even healthy teenagers with these COVID injections? There is no basis. None! Even the MIS-C new cases (potentially linked to COVID) as Makary reported, has declined decreased to zero. “And this week, a CDC report on child hospitalizations for COVID-19 in March and April, 2021 found zero deaths in the entire cohort of children studied.”

An important opinion written by pediatricians that may be one year old now but is very seminal and applicable, as they wrote “As pediatricians, we say please don’t use precious coronavirus vaccines on healthy children”. Makary has pointed to this seminal piece by Malley and Finn, where the authors are importantly pointing to the need of safety first before being offered. “The universal vaccination of healthy children 2 to 11 years old simply shouldn’t be a priority and may ultimately prove unnecessary. The relatively small group of children at risk because of underlying medical conditions should of course be offered the coronavirus vaccines, once they have been established as safe and effective for that age group.”

[continued next post]

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

[continued from post above]

Let me end by reminding you of the seminal paper by Turner et al. published in NATURE (one year ago) showing us that natural immunity based on prior infection is life-long, ‘SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans’. My argument is that our children are largely immune, and we must leave them alone with this COVID gene injection. Even the CDC has reported in February 2022 (MMWR) that the immunity in children was approximately 75% to 80%, yet at this time, it is near 100% (CDC report finds 75 percent of children and teens had Covid by February).

We also knew that long-lived bone marrow plasma cells (BMPCs) provided robust protection. We always knew this (see 1,2,3,4,5,6,7). We also knew that once COVID-recovered, you were at significantly lower risk of re-infection with COVID virus and that the virus had to be appreciably different (substantially mutated on the target antigen) to breach immunity (see 8,9,10). Omicron is highly infection (e.g. BA.4 and BA.5 clades) and presents as a nearly different (sufficiently different) virus given the multiple mutations on the spike protein to present the immune system with a rechallenge and a potential breach. However, the predominant symptoms are mild akin to a common cold.

We know of the robust (seminal) study by Shrestha et al. that looked at employees of the Cleveland Health System, who reported that “not one of the 1359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study.” This was another seminal study that was covered up and not mainstreamed by the legacy media e.g. CNN etc. for it showed that natural COVID recovered immunity was robust, and called into question vaccinating COVID-recovered persons. Same here for our children who are immune. These potent studies published in 2020 and 2021 were disregarded by the legacy media, the CDC, NIH, and FDA as the deceptive narrative was spun on the inferiority of natural immunity to vaccinal immunity. Yet they all knew better than that, they all knew they were being duplicitous and misleading to the general public to force vaccine. They were lying!

We also know that natural immunity (innate and acquired-adaptive) can last 100 years (Yu et al.: Neutralizing antibodies derived from the B cells of 1918 influenza pandemic survivors; “here we show that of the 32 individuals tested that were born in or before 1915, each showed sero-reactivity with the 1918 virus, nearly 90 years after the pandemic.”) and if our children are now immune from near certain prior exposure to COVID virus, infection, and recovery (were largely asymptomatic), then leave them alone with these gene injections.

In closing, are children at risk for COVID that would warrant a vaccine?

Well, let me conclude by reminding you that the infection mortality rate (IFR) is (and has remained) roughly similar (or likely lower once all infection data are collected) to seasonal influenza. Stanford’s John P.A. Ioannidis identified 36 studies (43 estimates) along with an additional 7 preliminary national estimates (50 pieces of data) and concluded that among people <70 years old across the world, infection fatality rates ranged from 0.00% to 0.57% with a median of 0.05% across the different global locations (with a corrected median of 0.04%). Survival for those under 70 years is 99.5% (Ioannidis update). Moreover, with a focus on children, “The estimated IFR is close to zero for children and young adults.” The global data is unequivocal that “deaths from Covid are incredibly rare” in children.

The published evidence is conclusive that the risk of severe illness or death from Covid-19 in children is almost nil (statistical zero) and this evidence has accumulated for well over a year now; in fact we knew this for over 18 months. It is clear that children are at very low risk of spreading the infection to other children, of spreading to adults as seen in household transmission studies, or of taking it home or becoming ill, or dying, and this is settled scientific global evidence. Children are less at risk of developing severe illness courses, and also are far less susceptible and likely to spread and drive SARS-CoV-2 (references 1, 2, 3, 4). This implies that any mass injection/inoculation or even clinical trials on children with such near zero risk of spread and illness/death is contraindicated, unethical, and potentially associated with significant harm.

I would also add material (see 6 pieces of evidence below) I published in Brownstone (Jeff Tucker’s publication) prior, asking Pfizer to leave our children alone. The reality is that children are not candidates for the COVID vaccines (see evidence here and here) and may well be (are) immune and can be considered “fully vaccinated.”

Is there more evidence I wish to table in my clarion call to you parents? Yes there is:

1.) The virus uses the ACE 2 receptor to gain entry to the host cell, and the ACE 2 receptor has limited (less) expression and presence in the nasal epithelium in young children (potentially in upper respiratory airways); this partly explains why children are less likely to be infected in the first place, or spread it to other children or adults, or even get severely ill; the biological molecular apparatus is simply not there in the nasopharynx of children as reported eloquently by Patel and Bunyavanich. By bypassing this natural protection (limited nasal ACE 2 receptors in young children) and entering the shoulder deltoid, this could release vaccine, its mRNA and LNP content (e.g. PEG), and generated spike into the circulation that could then damage the endothelial lining of the blood vessels (vasculature) and cause severe allergic reactions (e.g. here, here, here, here, here).

2) Research (August 2021) by Loske deepened our understanding of this natural type biological/molecular protection even further by showing that pre-activated (primed) antiviral innate immunity in the upper airways of children work to control early SARS-CoV-2 infection…resulting in a stronger early innate antiviral response to SARS-CoV-2 infection than in adults.”

3) When one is vaccinated or gets infected naturally, this drives the formation, tissue distribution, and clonal evolution of B cells which is key to encoding humoral immune memory. There is research evidence by Yang published in Science (May 2021) that blood examined from children retrieved prior to Covid-19 pandemic have memory B cells that can bind to SARS-CoV-2, suggestive of the potent role of early childhood exposure to common cold coronaviruses (coronaviruses). This is supported by Mateus et al. who reported on T cell memory to prior coronaviruses that cause the common cold (cross-reactivity/cross-protection).

4) Weisberg and Farber et al. suggested (and building on research work by Kumar and Faber) that the reason children can more easily neutralize the virus is that their T cells are relatively naïve. They argue that since children’s T cells are mostly untrained, they can thus immunologically respond more rapidly and nimbly to novel viruses.

5)A Yale University report (Yale and Albert Einstein College of Medicine report Sept. 18, 2020 in the journal Science Translational Medicine) indicated that children and adults display very diverse and different immune system responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection which helps understanding why they have far less illness or mortality from COVID. “Since the earliest days of the COVID-19 outbreak, scientists have observed that children infected with the virus tend to fare much better than adults…researchers reported that levels of two immune system molecules — interleukin 17A (IL-17A), which helps mobilize immune system response during early infection, and interferon gamma (INF-g), which combats viral replication — were strongly linked to the age of the patients. The younger the patient, the higher the levels of IL-17A and INF-g, the analysis showed…these two molecules are part of the innate immune system, a more primitive, non-specific type of response activated early after infection.”

6) Dowell et al. (2022) published and commented on antibody and cellular immunity in children (aged 3-11 years) and adults. Their findings confirm a biological basis for why SARS-CoV-2 infection is generally mild or asymptomatic in children. They reported that antibody responses against spike protein were elevated in children and seroconversion “boosted responses against seasonal Beta-coronaviruses through cross-recognition of the S2 domain. Neutralization of viral variants was comparable between children and adults. Spike-specific T cell responses were more than twice as high in children and were also detected in many seronegative children, indicating pre-existing cross-reactive responses to seasonal coronaviruses.” Very key in the findings were that children maintained and preserved “antibody and cellular responses 6 months after infection, whereas relative waning occurred in adults. Spike-specific responses were also broadly stable beyond 12 months. Therefore, children generate robust, cross-reactive and sustained immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 with focused specificity for the spike protein.”

What can be concluded? Pulling these emerging research findings together strengthens the case that children are not candidates for the COVID vaccines and are to be considered already “fully and completely COVID-vaccinated.” Furthermore, as lucidly outlined by Whelan, it is potentially disastrous to children if we move forward with vaccines without proper study of the possible harms to them. Vaccine developers failed to conduct the proper safety studies and for the duration that would unravel any harms.

To end, is the COVID injection a consideration for a child who has underlying medical conditions or is obese or immunocompromised? Maybe, and this is a risk management decision parents must make with their doctor. Case by case I argue. Yet there should be no mandate and no healthy child should be in receipt of these injections, none! There is no basis as the risk is near zero. There is no case made that justifies these COVID injections for healthy children. No one has made the case, no CDC, no NIH, no FDA, no Fauci, no Francis Collins, no Walensky, no Bourla, no Bancel, no one!

Leave the children alone and the recent FDA approval (and CDC rubber-stamp) of the gene injection in children 6 months old to 5 years was a catastrophic mistake, not only because there was no evidence to support this, but because the evidence put forth by the vaccine makers was ludicrously thin and non-existent. The FDA should hang it’s head in shame for this EUA approval. The FDA is actually acting very recklessly and dangerously.

 

[Zoner]

‘Stunning’: The Real Reason Health Officials Won’t Let Independent Scientists Examine mRNA Vaccine Vials

A data leak suggests the real reason health officials don’t want individual vaccine vials examined by independent scientists is that the vials are all different — and the mRNA in the shots is not intact.

childrenshealthdefense.org

(fair use applies)


‘Stunning’: The Real Reason Health Officials Won’t Let Independent Scientists Examine mRNA Vaccine Vials
A data leak suggests the real reason health officials don’t want individual vaccine vials examined by independent scientists is that the vials are all different — and the mRNA in the shots is not intact.
By Dr. Joseph Mercola
09/13/22

Story at a glance:

• The reason health officials don’t want individual vaccine vials examined by independent scientists is that the vials are all different — and the mRNA in the shots is not intact.
• For an effective mRNA product, the mRNA integrity needs to be 100%, meaning all the RNA must be intact. Considering how ineffective the jabs are, it seems fair to question whether lack of mRNA integrity might be to blame.
• Fragmented RNA could potentially also be hazardous to health by generating incomplete spike proteins. While we do not know if incomplete spike proteins are dangerous, it’s possible they might contribute to cellular stress.
• The “bad batch” phenomenon may also be indicative of quality problems. Independent investigations have revealed that some lots of the shots are associated with very severe side effects and death, whereas other lots have very few or no adverse events associated with their use.
• However, the fact that “hot” lots are being released in a coordinated fashion suggests vaccine makers may in fact be doing intentional lethal-dose testing on the public, and that these “bad batches” are not merely the result of intermittently poor manufacturing.

A 14-minute video (below) that has been overlooked for nearly two years has now resurfaced, exposing stunning information about the COVID-19 jabs and why health officials don’t want individual vaccine vials examined by independent scientists.

What does the EMA leak show?

This video, and it's contents, are published on the grounds of public interest and public safety. The contents disclosed were the minimum necessary to back-up my claims. As neither Pfizer nor the European Medicines Agency will confirm the leaked information, their veracity is unknown, however...

www.brighteon.com

13 min 55 sec

The reason, it turns out, is because the vials are all different — and the mRNA in the shots “is not intact.” Both of these pose potentially serious problems.

In an Aug. 31 Substack article, Steve Kirsch explains:

“Even if you are getting 100% intact mRNA which would be really rare, you’re still not getting anything that resembles the virus. So the efficacy as far as PROTECTING you will be next to nothing.

“However, what it will do very effectively, if you got reasonably intact mRNA, is to cause you significant harm. You are playing a game of chance with your immune system and what is in the bottle.”

The video notes that members of the European Parliament were only allowed to read the contracts with the drug makers after they’d been heavily redacted. Why the heavy-handed secrecy, even toward legislators?

Leaked documents reveal serious quality issues

The finding that the mRNA in the shots was of questionable quality was revealed in a British Medical Journal feature investigation article published in March 2021.

As explained by the author, journalist Serena Tinari, cyber attackers retrieved more than 40 megabytes of Pfizer COVID-19 jab data from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in December 2020.

The hacked data was subsequently sent to journalists and academics worldwide. It was also published on the dark web. Some of the documents show European regulators had significant concerns over the lack of intact mRNA in the commercial batches sampled.

Compared to the clinical batches, i.e., the shots used in the clinical trial, 55% to 78% of the commercial shots had “a significant difference in % RNA integrity/truncated species.”

In one email, dated Nov. 23, 2020, a high-ranking EMA official noted that the commercial batches failed to meet expected specifications, and that the implications of this RNA integrity loss were unclear. In response to the findings, the EMA sent a list of questions and concerns to Pfizer.

While we do not know if and how the EMA’s concerns were actually addressed and corrected, the EMA authorized Pfizer’s COVID-19 jab Dec. 21, 2020.

According to its public assessment report, “the quality of this medicinal product, submitted in the emergency context of the current (COVID-19) pandemic, is considered to be sufficiently consistent and acceptable.”

Similarly, Health Canada told the Britsh Medical Journal that “changes were made in their processes to ensure that the integrity was improved and brought in line with what was seen for clinical trial batches.” The EMA further tried to deflect concern by claiming some of the leaked documents had been doctored.

As reported by the British Medical Journal:

“EMA says the leaked information was partially doctored, explaining in a statement that ‘whilst individual emails are authentic, data from different users were selected and aggregated, screenshots from multiple folders and mailboxes have been created, and additional titles were added by the perpetrators.’”

Intact mRNA is essential to its effectiveness

Curiously, when the Britsh Medical Journal asked Pfizer, Moderna, CureVac and several regulators to specify the percentage of mRNA integrity considered acceptable, none replied with specifics.

According to the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the FDA and Health Canada, the specification limit on RNA integrity is “commercially confidential.” What we do know — and the EMA has acknowledged — is that intact mRNA is essential for efficacy.

As noted by the Britsh Medical Journal:

“The documents offer the broader medical community a chance to reflect on the complexities of quality assurance for novel mRNA vaccines, which include everything from the quantification and integrity of mRNA and carrier lipids to measuring the distribution of particle sizes and encapsulation efficiency.

“Of particular concern is RNA instability, one of the most important variables relevant to all mRNA vaccines that has thus far received scant attention in the clinical community. …

“RNA instability is one of the biggest hurdles for researchers developing nucleic acid based vaccines. It is the primary reason for the technology’s stringent cold chain requirements and has been addressed by encapsulating the mRNA in lipid nanoparticles.

“‘The complete, intact mRNA molecule is essential to its potency as a vaccine,’ professor of biopharmaceutics Daan J.A. Crommelin and colleagues wrote in a review article in The Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences late last year.

“‘Even a minor degradation reaction, anywhere along a mRNA strand, can severely slow or stop proper translation performance of that strand and thus result in the incomplete expression of the target antigen.’”

For an effective product, mRNA integrity needs to be 100%. Considering how ineffective the jabs are, it seems fair to question whether lack of mRNA integrity might be to blame. We also do not know whether nonintact mRNA might be harmful.

As noted by Kirsch, “Unstable mRNA means the spike protein … could collapse, making the whole process useless to support immunity, but still dangerous in terms of damage to cells. So, you get all the risk and no benefit.”

While our public health agencies claim fragmented RNA poses no health risk, just how do they know that? The leaked documents revealed they specifically did not have an answer to that question, and no research into the matter has been published, that I’m aware of.

Fragmented RNA may produce incomplete spike proteins

In May 2021, Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., a senior research scientist at MIT for over five decades, published an excellent paper in which she highlighted several potential dangers of the COVID-19 jabs, including the unknown hazard of injecting fragmented RNA.

That same month, I interviewed her about her concerns. You can find that interview in “COVID Vaccines May Bring Avalanche of Neurological Disease.”

In her paper, Seneff noted:

“The EMA Public Assessment Report … describes in detail a review of the [Pfizer] manufacturing process … One concerning revelation is the presence of ‘fragmented species’ of RNA in the injection solution.

“These are RNA fragments resulting from early termination of the process of transcription from the DNA template.

“These fragments, if translated by the cell following injection, would generate incomplete spike proteins, again resulting in altered and unpredictable three-dimensional structure and a physiological impact that is at best neutral and at worst detrimental to cellular functioning.

“There were considerably more of these fragmented forms of RNA found in the commercially manufactured products than in the products used in clinical trials. The latter were produced via a much more tightly controlled manufacturing process. …

“While we are not asserting that non-spike proteins generated from fragmented RNA would be misfolded or otherwise pathological, we believe they would at least contribute to the cellular stress that promotes prion-associated conformational changes in the spike protein that is present.”

Kirsch points out that the EMA also expressed concern over visible particles in the vials, which the Britsh Medical Journal did not follow up on. “Is it still a problem?” Kirsch asks. That’s a good question, and the answer is probably yes.

But even worse is that we have absolutely no idea what these incomplete spike proteins are doing, none, zero, nada. It has never been directly examined. For that matter efforts to evaluate, and complications of the jab, have been consciously suppressed as have following simple metrics such as increases in all-cause mortality.

Deaths dismissed and side effects misclassified

The leaked EMA documents also showed that Pfizer dismissed all deaths in its trial as “unrelated to the vaccine,” even though no proper investigation was ever conducted.

We now have additional evidence of this — just like the court-ordered FOIA documents showed what Pfizer did in their U.S. trials. At least they are consistent in implementing their fraud.

As reported by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) back in June, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents, released by court order, reveal Pfizer classified nearly all severe reactions in its trials as unrelated to the shot, even in cases where the health problems in question are extremely difficult to dismiss as anything other than a direct effect of the shot:

“The latest release by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine documents reveals numerous instances of participants who sustained severe adverse events during Phase 3 trials. Some of these participants withdrew from the trials, some were dropped and some died. …

“The CRFs [case report forms] included in this month’s documents contain often vague explanations of the specific symptoms experienced by the trial participants. They also reveal a trend of classifying almost all adverse events — and in particular severe adverse events (SAEs) — as being ‘not related’ to the vaccine. …

“The many serious adverse events — and several deaths — recorded during the Phase 3 trials are also apparent in a separate, massive document exceeding 2,500 pages, cataloging such adverse events.

“This document lists a wide range of adverse events suffered by trial participants classified as toxicity level 4 — the highest and most serious such level. However, not one of the level 4 (most severe) adverse events listed in this particular document is classified as being related to the vaccination.”

As just one example, a teenage girl got the shot Sept. 11, 2020, and in mid-November 2020 was diagnosed with right lower extremity deep vein thrombosis, which we now know is a potential side effect of the jab.

According to the CRF, her condition was due to a bone fracture that occurred before the date of her injection — a determination that seems questionable at best.

What’s the cause behind the ‘bad batch’ phenomenon?

The “bad batch” phenomenon may also be indicative of quality problems. Independent investigations have revealed that some lots of the shots are associated with very severe side effects and death, whereas other lots have very few or no adverse events associated with their use.

According to howbadismybatch.com, a site that matches up vaccine lot codes with reports in the VAERS system, approximately 5% of the lots are responsible for 90% of all adverse reactions. Some of these batches have 50 times the number of deaths and disabilities associated with them, compared to other lots.

Another website that basically does the same thing is WelcomeTheEagle’s VAERS Dashboard. A video explaining how to use the dashboard can be found on Bitchute.

However, an even deeper dive into this data suggests random quality issues are not the problem. In the video above, Reiner Fuellmich, cofounder of the German Corona Investigative Committee, and Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, a former member of the German parliament, discuss this “smoking gun” evidence.

According to Fuellmich and Wodarg, the lot-dependent data suggests vaccine makers may be conducting secret experiments within the larger public trial. In other words, they appear to be doing lethal-dose testing on the public.

The tipoff that these “hot” batches are not caused by intermittent poor manufacturing is the fact that they’re being released in a coordinated fashion.

Wodarg argues that the evidence for this is very clear from the data. Basically, the vaccine manufacturers are coordinating their lethal-dose experiments so that they’re not all releasing their most toxic lots at the same time, or in the same areas. This avoids detection through clustering.

New boosters will not undergo additional testing

Considering the multitude of open questions surrounding the safety of the original COVID-19 shots, the fact that new, reformulated boosters will not require any additional testing whatsoever is beyond disturbing.

In the “Friday Roundtable” video above, Dr. Meryl Nass, Toby Rogers, Ph.D., Aimee Villella McBride, Polly Tommey and Brian Hooker, Ph.D., discuss the FDA’s decision to allow vaccine makers to reformulate their COVID-19 shots without additional testing, in perpetuity.

As noted by Rogers, Pfizer’s bivalent booster against Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5 was tested on a total of eight mice, and only to check antibody levels. Moderna also used mice to ascertain antibody responses, but has not disclosed the number of mice used.

That’s the extent to which these shots were tested. The original COVID-19 jabs are the most dangerous drugs ever released to the public, and these newer boosters may turn out to be even worse.

As explained by Rogers, the shots “imprint” your immune system to respond only to the antigen in the shot, while simultaneously impairing your immune system so that it’s less capable of protecting you against other pathogens.

Another term for this process is “original antigenic sin.” It essentially explains why those who are jabbed are getting infected and sicker than those who avoided the jabs.

Rogers predicts we’ll be faced with a winter of severe illness and death among those who have gotten the jabs. All the rest of us can do is stand back, avoid the shots at all costs and “let the mainstream system self-destruct.” Hopefully, he’s correct in his other prediction, which is that the vast majority of Americans will reject these boosters.

Just really outrageous that they have allowed this. Quality control in vaccines is crucial. Exact potency and purity in each dose is mandatory.

 

[Zoner]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1569789389022138371

View: https://twitter.com/mildanalyst/status/1569789389022138371?s=46&t=8aTXeeiDuDGKcQLi3NIr8Q

 

[psychgirl]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1569789389022138371

View: https://twitter.com/mildanalyst/status/1569789389022138371?s=46&t=8aTXeeiDuDGKcQLi3NIr8Q

This might turn out to be the real deal for Geert!

 

[Zoner]

I found a newer interview with Geert, I haven't watched it yet.

CHD Friday Roundtable

On this CHD.TV program, viewers hear from various leading experts in their fields — discussing topics related to science, medicine, law, media and more.

live.childrenshealthdefense.org

(fair use applies)


Live Every Friday at 11:30a.m. PT, 1:30p.m. CT, 2:30p.m. ET • Get Text Alerts

Friday Roundtable

Inquiring minds wanted. The Children’s Health Defense team answers your questions on the issues of the day. Regular guests include: Polly Tommey, Brian Hooker, Meryl Nass, Liz Mumper and Aimee Villella-Mcbride.

*The opinions expressed by the hosts and guests in this show are not necessarily the views of Children's Health Defense

Most Recent Episode - September 9

‘Friday Roundtable’ Episode 24: Agents of the State – CA Bill Criminalizes Informed Consent

Read More


Previous Episodes

September 2, 2022
‘Friday Roundtable’ Episode 23: New Booster Rollout With No Human Testing With Meryl Nass, M.D., Toby Rogers, Ph.D. + Brian Hooker, Ph.D.


August 26, 2022
‘Friday Roundtable’ Episode 22: With Geert Vanden Bossche, DVM, Ph.D.




Link to video:

https://rumble.com/v1hfwtb-friday-roundtable-episode-22-with-geert-vanden-bossche.html?mref=6zof&mrefc=5
1 hr 9 min 50 sec

I just finished watching the video and I got a lot out of it. I think the big disagreement between Geert and Dr. Nass was over the Ebola vaccine. I think they came to the same conclusion that it was OK to give the vaccine to people who were going over to Africa but that you don’t give the vaccine to people who are living in Africa who are in the middle of an ebola pandemic.

It was good to see Geert getting feisty. He stated a couple times that he is going to go all in for truth. He says it is no longer a theory to him that you don’t vaccinate in the middle of a pandemic. Furthermore he was very clear that he is waiting for the virus to mutate into a very lethal variant. You’ll find this from the 30:00 - 33:00 minute mark.

He has not changed his mind. He was simply off on the timing but I think he was merely stating that it could’ve begun as early as July but that there could be a break out In hospitalization and death at any time.

I was a little surprised that he did not want to talk about treatments and said everyone should listen to Dr. Peter McCollough. I don’t think he believes in ivermectin paste. I’ve done my own research on that and found that the ingredients added for animals really cannot hurt humans as long as you take the proper dosage.

Dr. Nass ended up agreeing with him about why we shouldn’t be taking these Covid vaccines simply because they have completely thrown out stringent demands for exact potency and purity. But she was clearly out of her element when she started to question Dr. Vanden Bossche. Geert is the GOAT.

 

[Zoner]

This might turn out to be the real deal for Geert!

It might be PG. This is the variant Dr. McMillan believes is the strain that will cause mass hospitalization and... death.

 

[psychgirl]

It might be PG. This is the variant Dr. McMillan believes is the strain that will cause mass hospitalization and... death.

I am praying it fizzles out.

But then again, I’m keeping us both stocked up with the protocols and meds.

And I don’t care what the majority thinks about masks either. DH and I are still masking in stores, etc.

We’re giving it until spring and waiting to see what happens

 

[Zoner]

I am praying it fizzles out.

But then again, I’m keeping us both stocked up with the protocols and meds.

And I don’t care what the majority thinks about masks either. DH and I are still masking in stores, etc.

We’re giving it until spring and waiting to see what happens

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

 

[Profit of Doom]

COVID boosters well-tolerated during and after pregnancy

The COVID-19 booster shots are well tolerated by both pregnant and nursing women, a new study published Sept. 8 in JAMA Network Open concluded.

medicalxpress.com

(fair use applies)


COVID boosters well-tolerated during and after pregnancy
by University of Washington School of Medicine
September 13, 2022

The COVID-19 booster shots are well tolerated by both pregnant and nursing women, a new study published Sept. 8 in JAMA Network Open concluded.

The UW Medicine-led study with over 17,000 participants showed that "there were very few obstetric concerns after patients received the boosters," noted lead author and UW Medicine OB-GYN Dr. Alisa Kachikis.

In addition, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynocologists issued a practice advisory today encouraging pregnant or lactating individuals to receive the latest COVID-19 booster, which has been modified to protect against the BA.4 and BA.5 variants. That booster became available last week.

"This shot is going to be recommended for all individuals who have two months since their last booster," said UW Medicine OB-GYN Dr. Linda Eckert, "And if you're pregnant, that includes you. If you're postpartum, that includes you."

Eckert said that this study backs up the importance of pregnant and lactating women getting their boosters. Eckert, who is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, was the senior author on the study.

"The majority of pregnant and lactating participants did really well with the COVID-19 booster. In fact, most participants reported that symptoms with the booster or 3rd dose were less severe than symptoms with their initial COVID-19 vaccine series," Kachikis added.

As such, it's important that primary-care providers continue to recommend both the initial vaccine series and the boosters to pregnant and lactating women, she said. Findings from this study are especially pertinent now with the new COVID-19 booster becoming more widely available this month, she added.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1KP1mWGiuw
Credit: University of Washington School of Medicine
1 min 41 sec

Kachikis and her team collected data from a follow up survey which was sent out to just over 17,500 participants last October. These participants were part of an ongoing cohort survey to monitor the reaction of pregnant and lactating individuals to both the initial vaccine, and to, in this study, the booster shots.

Just over 97% of the cohort completed the follow-up survey on boosters. In this cohort group, 11% were pregnant; 60% were lactating and 27% were neither pregnant or lactating at the time of the survey. Most (82%) reported soreness at the injection site; with 68% reporting another symptom such as fatigue or fever

Importantly, when it came to a COVID-19 booster or third dose, pregnant participants were significantly more likely to list their health-care professional as an important source for information and to have received a recommendation to receive the booster. This suggests that clinicians may play a significant role in vaccine acceptance and as a source for vaccine information.

The original study, launched in January 2021, was designed to monitor the reaction of pregnant and lactating individuals to the initial COVID-19 vaccinations. The mean age of the group was 33 years, with 92% of the group identifying as white and 99% identifying as female. When Kachikis designed this online cohort study of women, it included those who were pregnant or lactating and those who were neither pregnant nor lactating.

This follow up study of the online cohort, as they receive booster doses, continues to support the finding that pregnant and lactating individuals tolerate the COVID booster vaccines well, and that they should be included in clinical trials for other relevant vaccines, Eckert said.

Aside from the CDC vsafe registry, this is the largest U.S. study of this issue. Canada has created a registry based on Kachikis' model.

According to the CDC, 71.3% of pregnant women in the United States have received at least the primary COVID-19 vaccine series either before or during pregnancy. ACOG estimates 55% have received a booster. This study offers importance reassurance to pregnant and lactating individuals who are due for a booster dose. Kachikis hopes this study, as well as other reassuring studies, will encourage pregnant and lactating women to get boosted, and vaccinated, if they have not done so already.

Excuse me while I puke.

 

[Profit of Doom]

COVID was deadlier for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities

Why focusing COVID vaccination efforts on least advantaged populations benefits everyone

I feel an agenda here. Claiming the “short bus” people are at great risk of Covid and really need the clot shot, it’s just a little too eugenic for me. I admit I’m working from the headlines and did not read the entire articles.

 

[Zoner]

New Science Shows Vaccines Help Omicron Spread: Peer-Reviewed Study

A team of 19 scientists from the United Kingdom have published new research that helps explain why countries ...

www.theepochtimes.com

A team of 19 scientists from the United Kingdom have published new research that helps explain why countries with the highest vaccination rates are experiencing the highest numbers of what they call “breakthrough infections,” as well as reinfection with other variants of COVID-19.

This research article, published on June 14, 2022 in the peer-reviewed journal Science, has been downloaded nearly 277,500 times in less than two months. That is very unusual for a densely worded highly technical scientific study.

We can only speculate the reason so many people have been reading it. But what this study suggests—which many clinicians and research scientists have expressed concerns about—is that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines as well as the booster shots may be making our immune response less effective against the Omicron variant of the virus.

If this is correct, it means that the vaccine itself is leading to widespread infection. Instead of stopping the virus, it appears that the mRNA vaccination programs around the world may have inadvertently made the virus more ubiquitous.

Higher Vaccine Uptake Leads to Higher Infection Rates​

As the British scientists point out, countries with higher vaccine uptake rates are experiencing high numbers of primary infections and frequent reinfections with SARS-CoV-2.

In contrast, in places where vaccine campaigns have not been widely implemented—including most countries in the continent of Africa—people are not becoming infected.

Analyzing why the most vaccinated populations are getting the most Omicron infections, this study focused on the most-vaccinated professionals: Medical personnel who had been given the two doses of mRNA vaccines early on, and were then given booster shots twice more. To find out what was happening on a cellular level with these highly vaccinated healthcare workers, the scientists kept close track of the different types of immunoglobin in the participants’ blood.

Immunoglobin (Ig), also known as antibody (Ab), finds viruses, bacteria, and such and leads the immune system to respond appropriately.

Scientists have identified several types of immunoglobulins, each guiding the immune response in a different way for different phases and types of infection.

IgG4, a Tolerance Immune Response​

IgG4 is the form of immunoglobin that activates a tolerance response in the immune system, for things you have been exposed to repeatedly and do not need to mount an inflammatory response to. This is good if you are trying to avoid immune sensitivity to a food, for example. But it is not the kind of immune response that the COVID-19 vaccines were designed to create.

Beekeepers, when they are repeatedly stung by bees over their career, mount an IgG4 response to the assault on their immune systems. Basically, their bodies learn that the bee venom is not dangerous and their immune response to bee venom becomes an IgG4 response, so they are able to tolerate the stings very well. While the bee venom itself will not harm the body, the body’s own inflammatory response can be dangerous. If the body overreacts and develops a generalized response in which the inflammation itself jeopardizes a person’s breathing, the immune response can be lethal.

More Vaccines Lead to More COVID-19 Infections​

This study demonstrates exactly how the repeat vaccinations are causing people to be more susceptible to COVID-19. Initial doses of the vaccine brought about classic inflammatory immune responses. Inflammation is a fundamental part of an immune response (to a vaccine or to an infection), and is responsible for most of what you feel when you are sick: fever, aches, lethargy, etc. This inflammation is why you may feel sick if you get a flu shot, and why the COVID-19 vaccine has become famous for making people feel so sick for a few days. Your body is producing an inflammatory response to the COVID-19 proteins.

But what happens in the body after you have had two vaccines and then you are given a third? The scientists found that successive doses of the mRNA vaccines start to habituate or desensitize the subjects to the COVID-19 proteins, migrating their immune response over to being dominated by the IgG4 form, which essentially teaches the body to tolerate the proteins.

A Different Kind of Protection?​

The participants’ response to COVID-19 had actually been turned off, making them even more vulnerable to infection and less likely to mount a response to it than those who had never been vaccinated.

When you are exposed to a cold or any other virus repeatedly, spaced out over a lifetime, which is what happens with natural exposure, you don’t develop a tolerance to it, your body fights it off without you knowing it. Your body is using the normal disease-fighting immune response but, since it recognizes the infectious agent, you do not get symptoms of inflammation. This is why when you are naturally exposed to many diseases, you then have lifelong immunity.

In contrast, this new study shows that the repeated mRNA injections and boosters for COVID-19 are producing a tolerance response, as if they were allergy shots. They are habituating the body to the virus, so that you no longer recognize it as something dangerous.

Another study, published in July by a team of more than 20 German scientists, independently confirmed that successive COVID-19 shots and boosters were converting the immune response from the protective class of IgG response to the toleration class.

At the same time, creating this vaccine-induced tolerance did not mean that the subjects were left unprotected.

Keeping People Sick​

So the vaccine and booster program have ended up doing the opposite of what was intended to do: keeping people from getting sick.

But was this ever a realistic goal? COVID-19 is like related endemic coronaviruses. Just like the common cold, it appears that SARS-CoV-2 isn’t going away, nobody can avoid it indefinitely, and that it will keep mutating.

On the one hand, this study suggests that the vaccines are helping the body’s immune system not overreact to the virus. The virus itself was not killing people—it was the interaction of the virus with patients’ immune systems that caused severe and sometimes lethal infections, as the immune system overreacted to a novel virus.

On the other hand, naturally acquired immunity appears to be stronger than vaccine acquired immunity, and the dangers of the vaccines themselves, especially for young people, suggest that the risks of vaccination far outweigh the benefits.

If the vaccinated are now readily getting the virus but having only mild reactions because their immune systems are telling them to tolerate it, this may have been a benefit to vaccination.

But the booster shots were never necessary to produce tolerance: the study showed that the subjects started developing tolerance after only two doses. The vaccines may have helped desensitize the population to harmful inflammatory immune responses to COVID-19. They have played their part. There is no need to continue with successive boosters.

 

[jward]

hmm.

Alex Berenson
@AlexBerenson

Denmark just BARRED additional Covid jabs for most people under 50. Yes, you read that right.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1570082109682847751

View: https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1570082109682847751?s=20&t=8z6juf9nQJ-ah7h0XfOuLQ

 

[psychgirl]

hmm.
Alex Berenson
@AlexBerenson

Denmark just BARRED additional Covid jabs for most people under 50. Yes, you read that right.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1570082109682847751

View: https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1570082109682847751?s=20&t=8z6juf9nQJ-ah7h0XfOuLQ

Too late.

Damage done.
Explain THAT to your sick citizenry.

 

[jward]

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Under COVID lockdown, Xinjiang residents complain of hunger

BEIJING (AP) — Residents of a city in China’s far western Xinjiang region say they are experiencing hunger, forced quarantines and dwindling supplies of medicine and daily necessities after more than 40 days in a virus lockdown.

apnews.com

(fair use applies)


Under COVID lockdown, Xinjiang residents complain of hunger
By DAKE KANG
yesterday

BEIJING (AP) — Residents of a city in China’s far western Xinjiang region say they are experiencing hunger, forced quarantines and dwindling supplies of medicine and daily necessities after more than 40 days in a virus lockdown.

Hundreds of posts from Ghulja riveted users of Chinese social media last week, with residents sharing videos of empty refrigerators, feverish children and people shouting from their windows.

The dire conditions and food shortages are reminiscent of a harsh lockdown in Shanghai earlier this year, when thousands of residents posted complaints online that they were delivered rotting vegetables or denied critical medical care.

But unlike in Shanghai, a glittering, cosmopolitan metropolis of 20 million people and home to many foreigners, the harsh lockdowns in smaller cities such as Ghulja have received less attention until recently.

As more infectious variants of the coronavirus creep into China, flareups have become increasingly common. Under China’s “zero-COVID” strategy, tens of millions or people are experiencing rolling lockdowns, paralyzing the economy and making travel uncertain.

The lockdown in Ghulja is also evoking fears of police brutality among the Uyghurs, the Turkic ethnic group native to Xinjiang. For years, the region has been the target of a sweeping security crackdown, ensnaring huge numbers of Uyghurs and other largely Muslim minorities in a vast network of camps and prisons. An earlier lockdown in Xinjiang was particularly tough, with forced medication, arrests and residents being hosed down with disinfectant.

Yasinuf, a Uyghur studying at a university in Europe, said his mother-in-law sent fearful voice messages this past weekend saying she was being forced into centralized quarantine because of a mild cough. The officers coming for her reminded her of the time her husband was taken to a camp for over two years, she said.

“It’s judgment day,” she sighed in an audio recording reviewed by The Associated Press. “We don’t know what’s going to happen this time. All we can do now is to trust our creator.”

Food has been in short supply. Yasinuf said his parents told him they were running low on food, despite having stocked up before the lockdown. With no deliveries, and barred from using their backyard ovens for fear of spreading the virus, his parents have been surviving on uncooked dough made of flour, water and salt. Yasinuf declined to give his surname for fear of retribution against his relatives.

He hasn’t been able to study or sleep in recent days, he said, because thoughts of his relatives back in Ghulja keep him up at night.

“Their voices are always in my head, saying things like I’m hungry, please help us,” he said. “This is the 21st century, this is unthinkable.”

Nyrola Elima, a Uyghur from Ghulja, said her father was rationing their dwindling supply of tomatoes, sharing one each day with her 93-year-old grandmother. She said her aunt was panicking because she lacked milk to feed her 2-year-old grandson.

Last week, the local governor apologized at a news conference for “shortcomings and deficiencies” in the government’s response to the coronavirus, including “blind spots and missed spots,” and promised improvements.

But even as authorities acknowledged the complaints, censors worked to silence them. Posts were wiped from social media. Some videos were deleted and reposted dozens of times as netizens battled censors online.

Multiple people in the region told AP the posts online reflected the dire nature of the lockdown, but declined to detail their own situations, saying they feared retribution.

On Monday, local police announced the arrests of six people for “spreading rumors” about the lockdown, including posts about a dead child and an alleged suicide, which they said “incited opposition” and “disrupted social order.”

Leaked directives from government offices show that workers are being ordered to avoid negative information and spread “positive energy” instead. One directed state media to film “smiling seniors” and “children having fun” in neighborhoods emerging from the lockdown.

“Those who maliciously hype, spread rumors, and make unreasonable accusations should be dealt with in accordance with the law,” another notice warned.

The AP was unable to independently verify the notices. China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As the authorities mobilize, conditions have improved for some. One resident, reached by phone, said food deliveries resumed after stopping for a couple of weeks. Residents in her compound are now allowed to take walks in their courtyard for a few hours a day.

“The situation is gradually improving, it’s gotten a lot better,” she said.

Authorities have ordered mass testing and district lockdowns in cities across China in recent weeks, from Sanya on tropical Hainan island to southwest Chengdu, to the northern port city of Dalian.

In the city of Guiyang, in mountainous southern Guizhou province, a zoo put out a call for help last week, asking for pork, chicken, apples, watermelons, carrots and other produce out of concern they could run out of food for their animals.

Elsewhere in the city, residents in one neighborhood complained of hunger and missing food deliveries, prompting a surge of comments online. Local officials apologized, saying that despite their best efforts, they were overwhelmed.

“Due to lack of experience and inappropriate methods,” they said in a public notice, “the supply of basic necessities wasn’t enough, bringing inconvenience to everyone. We are deeply sorry.”

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

WHO: COVID end 'in sight,' deaths at lowest since March 2020

The head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday that the number of coronavirus deaths worldwide last week was the lowest reported in the pandemic since March 2020, marking what could be a turning point in the years-long global outbreak.

news.yahoo.com

(fair use applies)

WHO: COVID end 'in sight,' deaths at lowest since March 2020
Wed, September 14, 2022, 12:04 PM

GENEVA (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday that the number of coronavirus deaths worldwide last week was the lowest reported in the pandemic since March 2020, marking what could be a turning point in the years-long global outbreak.

At a press briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world has never been in a better position to stop COVID-19.

“We are not there yet, but the end is in sight,” he said, comparing the effort to that made by a marathon runner nearing the finish line. “Now is the worst time to stop running,” he said. “Now is the time to run harder and make sure we cross the line and reap all the rewards of our hard work.”

In its weekly report on the pandemic, the U.N. health agency said deaths fell by 22% in the past week, at just over 11,000 reported worldwide. There were 3.1 million new cases, a drop of 28%, continuing a weeks-long decline in the disease in every part of the world.

Still, the WHO warned that relaxed COVID testing and surveillance in many countries means that many cases are going unnoticed. The agency issued a set of policy briefs for governments to strengthen their efforts against the coronavirus ahead of the expected winter surge of COVID-19, warning that new variants could yet undo the progress made to date.

“If we don’t take this opportunity now, we run the risk of more variants, more deaths, more disruption, and more uncertainty," Tedros said.

The WHO reported that the omicron subvariant BA.5 continues to dominate globally and comprised nearly 90% of virus samples shared with the world's biggest public database. In recent weeks, regulatory authorities in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere have cleared tweaked vaccines that target both the original coronavirus and later variants including BA.5.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, said the organization expected future waves of the disease, but was hopeful those would not cause many deaths.

Meanwhile in China, residents of a city in the country's far western Xinjiang region have said they are experiencing hunger, forced quarantines and dwindling supplies of medicine and daily necessities after more than 40 days in a lockdown prompted by COVID-19.

Hundreds of posts from Ghulja riveted users of Chinese social media last week, with residents sharing videos of empty refrigerators, feverish children and people shouting from their windows.

On Monday, local police announced the arrests of six people for “spreading rumors” about the lockdown, including posts about a dead child and an alleged suicide, which they said “incited opposition” and “disrupted social order.”

Leaked directives from government offices show that workers are being ordered to avoid negative information and spread “positive energy” instead. One directed state media to film “smiling seniors” and “children having fun” in neighborhoods emerging from the lockdown.

The government has ordered mass testing and district lockdowns in cities across China in recent weeks, from Sanya on tropical Hainan island to southwest Chengdu, to the northern port city of Dalian.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Global leaders failed during the COVID pandemic. Experts explain what went wrong.

How did global leaders fail in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic? World renowned experts explain.

news.yahoo.com

(fair use applies)


Global leaders failed during the COVID pandemic. Experts explain what went wrong.
Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY
Wed, September 14, 2022, 6:30 PM

More than two years after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, a group of renowned experts are calling out international leaders over how they failed to prevent world's deadliest outbreak.

Key findings: In The Lancet Commission published Wednesday, authors detailed “massive global failures” that led to more than 6.9 million reported deaths and ultimately an estimated 17.2 million deaths, as reported by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Some highlights:

• They found widespread failures in prevention, transparency, basic public health practices, and international cooperation and solidarity.
• Authors argued governments were too slow to respond to COVID-19, paid little attention to vulnerable communities, and fueled misinformation with lackluster or confusing messaging.
• Ending the pandemic will require all countries to adopt a “vaccination-plus" strategy, work simultaneously with other nations, and strengthen national health systems and preparedness plans, the authors say.

“We must face hard truths,” said commission chair Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University and president of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. “The staggering human toll of the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic is a profound tragedy and a massive societal failure at multiple levels.”

Who are the authors? The report was written by leading experts in public policy, international governance epidemiology, vaccinology, economics, international finance, sustainability and mental health, in consultation with over 100 contributors from 11 global task forces.

Lack of cooperation between governments

Key takeaway: International governments should have been aligned in their pandemic responses, but the commission argues this turned out to be one of their most prominent failures.

Authors said world leaders needed to coordinate with each other on policies including travel protocols, testing, public health mitigation measures, commodity supply chains, data and reporting systems, and public messaging.

This lack of coordination was also evident when vaccines became available as governments failed to manage intellectual property rights, technology transfer, international financing, allocation, and campaigns in lower-middle income countries. This last point, the commission argues, came at “a great cost in terms of inequitable access.”

The report also criticizes governments for being too slow to respond to the viral threat. Authors praised the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific region, including countries like China and New Zealand, that adopted a containment strategy for the first two years of the pandemic.

In China, this strategy was known as the “zero-COVID strategy” and emphasized aggressive testing, contact tracing and isolating to keep transmission low. The commission says this strategy was successful at suppressing mortality but was later abandoned during the omicron variant wave, leading to more deaths.

Policy failures

Key takeaway: Commission authors criticize policy decisions, asserting they weren’t informed by evidence-based data and didn’t address the unequal effect of the pandemic.

These policy failures impacted burdened groups like essential workers, low-income communities, racial and ethnic minorities, children, and women, who all faced higher unemployment, safety and income losses that were exacerbated by the pandemic.

Authors argued policies also contributed to public opposition to health measures, like wearing face masks and getting vaccinated, which reflected a lack of social trust and low confidence in government advice.

Inconsistent messaging also fueled public opposition, which the report said led to extensive misinformation and disinformation campaigns.

World Health Organization failures

Key takeaway: The report also partly blames the World Health Organization for acting too cautiously and slowly in its response to the growing threat.

As a leader in international health, authors argue the agency was too slow in warning about human transmissibility, declaring a public health emergency of international concern, supporting international travel protocols designed to slow spread, endorsing public health measures and recognizing airborne transmission.

“In the swirl of uncertainty during the COVID-19 outbreak, WHO ... repeatedly erred on the side of reserve rather than boldness,” they said.

How to end the pandemic

Experts say there are three things that will pull the world out of the pandemic:

• Implementing a “vaccination-plus” strategy
• Promoting multilateralism
• Strengthening national health systems and preparedness plans

On vaccinations: The “vaccination-plus” strategy should combine mass vaccination with available and affordable testing, treatment for new infections and long COVID, public health measures, safe work places, and economic support for self-isolation.

On multilateralism: Governments should also establish stronger means of cooperation and coordination, which also means incorporating a new pandemic agreement to prepare against future emerging infectious diseases, the report said.

On preparedness: The authors call for countries to revamp their national health systems by bolstering relationships with local and community organizations, surveillance and reporting systems, robust medical supply chains, health education, and effective communication strategies, among others.

“We have the scientific capabilities and the economic resources to do this,” Sachs said. “Now is the time to take collective action that promotes public health and sustainable development to bring an end to the pandemic.”

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Fact check: NIH continues to recommend against using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment

The National Institutes of Health has not added ivermectin to its list of COVID-19 treatments. Claims that it has are false.

news.yahoo.com

(fair use applies)


Fact check: NIH continues to recommend against using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment
Sudiksha Kochi, USA TODAY
Wed, September 14, 2022, 8:16 PM

The claim: The National Institutes of Health added ivermectin to its list of COVID-19 treatments

Medical experts have repeatedly debunked claims that ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug used primarily for farm animals, can treat COVID-19.

Nevertheless, the assertion that ivermectin is an effective COVID-19 treatment continues to circulate on social media, especially among those who are not vaccinated, and now some are arguing the drug has been endorsed by federal health officials.

"Yesterday, the National institute (sic) of health added Ivermectin to the list of covid (sic) treatment," reads a Sept. 1 tweet shared by Jake Shields, a professional mixed martial artist. "Looks like the conspiracy theorist (sic) were right and the 'experts' wrong (sic) once again."

Jesse Kelly, a conservative radio host, re-tweeted the claim, adding, "Remember when the FDA called Ivermectin 'horse dewormer' and pharmacies refused to fulfill doctor prescriptions for it?"

A screenshot of Kelly's tweet was shared on Instagram, where it garnered over 700 likes in less than a week. All together, Shields' and Kelly's tweets amassed over 64,000 likes.

But the claim is baseless.

The National Institutes of Health does not recommend ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, according to the agency's website. There is no evidence the agency recently changed its stance on ivermectin.

USA TODAY reached out to Shields, Kelly and the social media users who shared the claim for comment.

Agency has not changed its position on ivermectin

Ivermectin is included in the COVID-19 treatment guidelines section of the National Institutes of Health's website, and it is labeled an anti-parasitic drug that is "being evaluated to treat COVID-19." It has been in the treatment guidelines section for over a year, according to an archive.

The agency last updated its guidance on ivermectin in April and “recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, except in clinical trials.” There have been no recent changes to the guidance, according to USA TODAY's analysis of archived pages.

The recommendation was primarily based on published, randomized controlled trials that showed "the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 had no clinical benefit," according to the agency's website.

When contacted for comment, the National Institutes of Health referred USA TODAY to its website.

Both the Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization have also recommended against the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19, as USA TODAY previously reported.

The FDA has either approved or given emergency-use authorizations to only a few drugs for the treatment of COVID-19, including remdesivir and molnupiravir, according to the National Institutes of Health.

PolitiFact and the Associated Press have also debunked the claim.

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that the National Institutes of Health added ivermectin to its list of COVID-19 treatments. The federal agency does not recommend ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, according to its website. The agency has not made any recent updates regarding ivermectin.

Our fact-check sources:​

• PolitiFact, Sept. 7, No, NIH doesn’t recommend using ivermectin to treat COVID-19
• Associated Press, Sept. 3, Posts mislead on NIH COVID-19 guidelines for ivermectin
• Amanda Fine, Sept. 9, Email exchange with USA TODAY
• Food and Drug Administration, Dec. 10, 2021, Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19
• National Institutes of Health, Aug. 18, Antiviral Therapy
• National Institutes of Health, April 29, Ivermectin
• National Institutes of Health accessed via Wayback Machine, June 12, 2021, Antiviral Therapy
• National Institutes of Health accessed via Wayback Machine, June 12, 2021, Ivermectin
• USA TODAY, Aug. 13, 2021, Fact check: Ivermectin is not a proven treatment for COVID-19
• USA TODAY, Feb. 2, Why do Americans keep taking ivermectin for COVID despite FDA warnings? Hundreds of doctors continue to prescribe it.
• National Institutes of Health, Aug. 8, Antiviral Drugs That Are Approved, Authorized, or Under Evaluation for the Treatment of COVID-19
• World Health Organization, March 31, 2021, WHO advises that ivermectin only be used to treat COVID-19 within clinical trials
• National Institutes of Health via Wayback Machine, accessed Sept. 12, Ivermectin

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Exclusive-Biden urges Mexico to take migrants under COVID expulsion order he promised to end

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -As border crossings have soared to record highs, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is quietly pressing Mexico to accept more migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela under a COVID-19 expulsion order that the White House has publicly sought to end...

news.yahoo.com

(fair use applies)


Exclusive-Biden urges Mexico to take migrants under COVID expulsion order he promised to end
Ted Hesson, Dave Graham and Humeyra Pamuk
Wed, September 14, 2022, 3:58 PM

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -As border crossings have soared to record highs, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is quietly pressing Mexico to accept more migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela under a COVID-19 expulsion order that the White House has publicly sought to end, seven U.S. and three Mexican officials said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised concerns about an escalating number of crossings by migrants from the three countries during a visit on Monday to Mexico City, two U.S. and two Mexican officials told Reuters, but Mexico did not promise any specific actions.

One U.S. official said trying to convince Mexico to agree is "an uphill battle."

All sources requested anonymity to discuss internal government matters.

Mexico already accepts U.S. returns of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. So far, this fiscal year about 299,000 people from those nations have been expelled at the border, compared to about 9,000 returns from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The U.S. effort to pressure Mexico on these three particular nationalities illustrates the depth of concern within the Biden's Democratic administration about their border crossings. Most migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela who cross into the United States are allowed to stay to pursue asylum claims, since they are difficult to deport due to frosty diplomatic relations with their governments.

Mexico's foreign ministry declined to comment. A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council declined to discuss "diplomatic conversations" but said that nations in the region "have already begun to take collective responsibility to manage migration flows, including through repatriations."

U.S. border agents have made a record 1.8 million migrant arrests so far in fiscal year 2022, with many attempting to cross multiple times, creating humanitarian challenges and political liabilities for Biden ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm election.

Of those arrests at the southwest border, nearly a quarter of the migrants were from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, up from 8% in 2021 and 3% in 2020. Most were let into the United States to pursue immigration cases.

The Biden administration has publicly sought to end the COVID health order, known as Title 42. Issued in early 2020 under former Republican President Donald Trump, it allows U.S. border authorities to rapidly expel migrants to Mexico or other countries without the chance to seek U.S. asylum. A federal Trump-appointed judge in Louisiana blocked the administration from ending the order earlier this year, even as U.S. health officials said it was no longer needed to protect against COVID spread.

But behind closed doors, some Biden officials still view expanding expulsions as a way to deter crossers, one of the U.S. officials said, even if it contradicts the Democratic Party's more welcoming message toward migrants.

Advocates and many Democrats fiercely oppose Title 42, saying it has exposed migrants to dangerous conditions in Mexico, including kidnapping and extortion.

"I think this really betrays their commitments to refugee protection," said Robyn Barnard, associate director for refugee advocacy with the New York City-based non-profit organization Human Rights First.

MEXICO HESITANT

Two Mexican officials told Reuters that Mexico does not want to take Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans expelled from the United States because those countries resist accepting deportation flights from Mexico as well.

Instead, Mexico aims to step up internal flights of migrants from its northern border to its southern border to relieve pressure on the shared frontier, one of the officials said.

Mexico would like Washington to relax economic sanctions against Venezuela to help curb the exodus from the country and make it easier for migrants to work in the United States legally, two Mexican officials said.

Meanwhile, U.S. border officials in El Paso, Texas, say they have been forced to release hundreds of migrants on city streets near shelters and bus stations to ease overcrowding at their facilities.

Many of the Venezuelans arriving have no family members or sponsors, further straining charity and government agencies that assist them, said Mario D'Agostino, El Paso's deputy city manager.

The Democrat-controlled city has contracted charter buses to carry migrants north to New York City, an effort that comes after the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona drew national attention by busing thousands of migrants to Democrat-led northern cities.

PRESSURING OTHER NATIONS

Biden officials are also exploring ways to push responsibility to other nations beyond Mexico, sources said.

For example, the White House wants Panama to accept deported Venezuelans if they passed through the Central American nation en route to the United States, two of the U.S. officials said.

Nearly 70,000 Venezuelans entered Panama from its Colombian border this year through August, compared with 1,150 in the same period last year, according to official data.

Panamanian government officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Separately, the Biden administration had been sending a small number of Venezuelans to the Dominican Republic on commercial flights, two of the U.S. officials said, a continuation of a Trump-era practice.

But the program was halted after pushback earlier this year from the office of Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, according to one of the U.S. officials and a person familiar with the matter. In February, Menendez called deporting migrants fleeing Venezuela's "cruel regime" to third countries "extremely disturbing."

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

US Navy Quietly Cancels Vaccine Requirement Order For SEALs | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

(fair use applies)


US Navy Quietly Cancels Vaccine Requirement Order For SEALs
by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Sep 14, 2022 - 07:20 PM

The US Navy quietly rolled back Trident Order #12, an order denying religious exemptions for covid vaccinations, a few months after an injunction was issued by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in early 2022 as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by First Liberty Institute. The suit was initiated on behalf of 35 active-duty SEALS and three reservists seeking exemptions to the mandate due to the possibility of covid vaccines being developed using cells and tissues from aborted fetuses.

This information has only become publicly available after a new filing in the case this week. Trident Order #12 made any non-compliant SEALS and other troops impossible to deploy and designated them as medically disqualified. This development runs in tandem with a growing trend among government institutions; they back away from their original draconian mandates but in a manner that reduces media exposure and avoids any admission that the mandates are unconstitutional.

A communication order was circulated by the Navy on May 23 with the subject: "NSWC CLOSEOUT TO TRIDENT ORDER #12 - MANDATORY VACCINATION FOR COVID-19." NSWC refers to the Naval Special Warfare Command:

"This order rescinds reference A," it states, referring to "Ref A" as "Trident Order #12 on COVID-19 Vaccinations."

The May 23 communication order also said Navy commands "will continue to follow guidance, as appropriate, regarding COVID-19 vaccination, accommodation requests, and mitigation measures."

The Navy along with every other branch of the US military is facing a severe recruitment crisis, with a record low number of Americans eligible to serve. In particular, far too many potential recruits are unable to meet the physical requirements to complete basic training. This has led to discussions on lowering standards, but even this would not solve low recruitment numbers for special operations and SEALS, which require highly capable candidates regardless.

An implosion in recruitment may have partially contributed to the Navy's abandonment of vax restrictions, along with the flood of scientific evidence showing that the vaccines make very little difference in immunity and mortality, especially for young and fit individuals, when compared to natural immunity. Numerous studies show superior immunity among unvaxxed people that have already had covid.

The US government continues to refuse to acknowledge natural immunity as an acceptable status for the military or federal employees, though their attempts to enforce proof of vaccination (vaccine passports) have all but failed anyway.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Estimated to Turn Negative Over Time in Children: Study

The effectiveness of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine against infection turned negative over time for children aged 5 to 11, ...

www.theepochtimes.com

(fair use applies)


COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Estimated to Turn Negative Over Time in Children: Study
By Zachary Stieber
September 14, 2022

The effectiveness of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine against infection turned negative over time for children aged 5 to 11, according to a new study.

Researchers found that for kids in the age group, the effectiveness peaked at 60 percent to 70 percent several weeks after the first dose. It then dropped, nearing zero at week 18 for previously uninfected children and week 20 for previously infected children. After that, the effectiveness was pegged as turning negative, which means the vaccinated children were more likely to contract COVID-19 than unvaccinated children.

Researchers cautioned against reading too much into the estimates because of potential confounding factors.

“Our study showed a decline over time of vaccine effectiveness against omicron infection in children. However, not many children had been vaccinated for more than 5 months, so there was great uncertainty in the estimate of vaccine effectiveness after 5 months,” Dan-Yu Lin, a professor of biostatistics at the University of North Carolina, told The Epoch Times via email. “Thus, one should focus on the trend of waning effectiveness rather than the estimate at the end.”

Researchers said in the study, which was published by the New England Journal of Medicine, that the effectiveness estimates may have been confounded by earlier infection and vaccination in children more at-risk from COVID-19 due to underlying serious health problems. That could have led to the vaccine’s effectiveness being underestimated.

The group analyzed data from the North Carolina COVID-19 Surveillance System and the COVID-19 Vaccine Management System, with records on 887,193 children aged 5 to 11 available. That included data on vaccination from Nov. 1, 2021, to June 3, 2022, and data on clinical outcomes such as a positive COVID-19 test from March 11, 2020, to June 3, 2022. The group employed a Cox regression model to estimate the vaccine effectiveness.

The research was funded in part by a National Institutes of Health grant.

Pfizer did not respond to a request for comment.

Other Findings

In addition to studying vaccine effectiveness, the researchers wanted to see what kind of protection previous infection, or natural immunity, provided against the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus.

Omicron became dominant in the United States in late 2021 and one of its subvariants is the currently dominant strain.

While natural immunity was better than the hybrid natural immunity–vaccination during the Delta wave, getting a vaccine in addition to natural immunity provided better shielding during the Omicron era, according to the study.

Unvaccinated children with natural immunity had 90.7 percent protection against infection at two months past infection and 51 percent protection at five months, researchers estimated. Among vaccinated children who also had natural immunity, protection was 94.3 percent at two months and 60.9 percent at five months.

Natural immunity did appear to do better against hospitalization. After starting at 99.5 percent in the first month, the protection was still high, at 86.9 percent, after 10 months, according to the estimates. The effectiveness of Pfizer’s vaccine, known as BNT162b2, against hospitalization peaked at 88.2 percent at four weeks after dose one and was down to 76.1 percent at week 20.

The uncertainties surrounding the estimates of protection against hospitalization in both groups were greater because of the small number of hospitalizations, researchers said.

“Both the BNT162b2 vaccine and previous infection were found to confer considerable immunity against omicron infection and protection against hospitalization and death,” the researchers said. “The rapid decline in protection against omicron infection that was conferred by vaccination and previous infection provides support for booster vaccination.”

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Over 300 Million in 74 Cities Under COVID Lockdown Ahead of China's 20th Party Congress

Since late August, more than 300 million people in at least 74 cities in China have been placed ...

www.theepochtimes.com

(fair use applies)

Over 300 Million in 74 Cities Under COVID Lockdown Ahead of China’s 20th Party Congress
Chinese think tank warns of high socio-economic costs
By Julia Ye
September 14, 2022

Since late August, more than 300 million people in at least 74 cities in China have been placed under full or partial lockdown. A Chinese think tank criticized the move, describing it as having high social and economic costs to the country.

The widespread shutdown comes as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) prepares for its 20th national congress, a major meeting set to take place on Oct. 16 in Beijing. The twice-a-decade conclave is expected to unveil the Party’s new top leadership, during which Chinese leader Xi Jinping is seeking a record-breaking third five-year term in office.

China’s National Health Commission on Sept. 8 announced that enhanced prevention and control measures would be implemented to ensure no large-scale pandemic occurs “around the Mid-Autumn Festival (Sept. 10) and National Day (Oct. 1) holidays.”

The health authority said the COVID-19 curbs would begin on Sept. 10 and end on Oct. 31.

The measures include advocating for the public to celebrate the holidays locally and avoid big gatherings. Passengers who travel by air, high-speed rail, trains, inter-provincial long-distance buses, and ships must show proof of a negative nucleic acid test within 48 hours.

In addition, inter-provincial travelers would be inspected for COVID after arriving at their destinations. Key places such as hotels and tourist attractions would require health codes and negative nucleic acid test results.

Chinese media Caixin reported on Sept. 3 that during the peak tourist season this summer, Hainan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Yunnan, and other tourist destinations have successively implemented “static management,” resulting in a large number of tourists left stranded.

Static management forces residents to stay indoors and suspends public transportation.

For example, Sanya, a city in Hainan Province, has implemented static management since Aug. 6 and has yet to be lifted (at the time of this reporting).

Between the end of August and the beginning of September, many Chinese provinces such as Hebei, Sichuan, Liaoning, and Guangdong have upgraded their control measures to static management.

Presently, at least 33 cities, including seven provincial capitals and one municipality directly under the central government, are still under full or partial lockdown, affecting more than 65 million residents.

Since Aug. 20, at least 74 cities with over 313 million residents have been under partial or complete lockdown, according to a CNN report. The lockdowns cover entire cities and districts, including 15 provincial capitals and Tianjin, a provincial-level municipality.

Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, told CNN that the CCP “wants to make sure nothing untoward, such as a major outbreak, could potentially threaten social stability, shadow the leadership transition process … and Xi’s personal leadership credibility.”

Huang said he expects more cities to be placed under lockdown “in the coming month and a half” and local officials to double down on the “zero-COVID” approach to “demonstrate their loyalty to Xi.”

Think Tank Calls on Beijing to ‘Adjust’ Pandemic Policies

On Aug. 28, Beijing-based think tank Anbound Consulting criticized the CCP’s “zero-COVID” policy, arguing that its prevention and control measures have incurred high social and economic costs to the country.

The piece was titled “It’s Time for China to Adjust Its Pandemic Prevention and Control Policies.” The think tank had rarely criticized or gone against the CCP’s public policies.

However, the piece was removed from social media such as WeChat and Weibo the day after it was published. But sites like China Digital Times, a U.S.-based website covering China, had retained the publication.

The report said the risks of COVID-19 had been significantly reduced and that “preventing an economic slowdown should be the number one task.”

“The country needs to adjust its pandemic prevention and control policies, focus on economic recovery, and gradually integrate with the world under the complex geopolitical and economic situation,” the report said.

It added that the risks from the real estate market, local debt, financial institutions, and other vital fields continue to deteriorate and develop into systemic risks for the country.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfufhbVYfJw
UK Restricts Vaccine for Children (5-15 Years)
37 min 49 sec
Streamed live Sept 14, 2022
Drbeen Medical Lectures

Let's review the details of this restriction and also compare the vaccination authorization/approval in the US, Germany, Denmark, Australia, and Europe.

URL list from Wednesday, Sep. 14 2022

Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine for children aged 5 to 15 - NHS

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronav...

JCVI statement on vaccination of children aged 5 to 11 years old - GOV.UK

https://www.gov.uk/government/publica...

Anger at plans to roll back Covid vaccines to under-11s in England | Coronavirus | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/detai...

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/detai...

COVID-19 Green Book chapter 14a
https://assets.publishing.service.gov...

COVID-19 Vaccination | UK Healthcare

https://ukhealthcare.uky.edu/covid-19...

PIMS | NHS inform

https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-....

Germany's vaccine panel says one COVID shot enough for children | Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/business/heal...

CDC Recommends COVID-19 Vaccines for Young Children | CDC Online Newsroom | CDC

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/20...

COVID-19 vaccines for children aged 6 months to under 5 years | Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care

https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives...

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USKDUvKmN5Q
11 reasons an annual COVID-19 booster is NOT LIKE an annual flu shot
14 min 44 sec
Sep 14, 2022
Vinay Prasad MD MPH

See my thread

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1569693780743458816

View: https://twitter.com/VPrasadMDMPH/status/1569693780743458816


An annual COVID19 mRNA not is *NOT AT ALL LIKE* an annual flu shot, a small list of differences

1. It is far more reactogenic
More people take a day off work/ way more AEs than flu

2. Flu vax tries to predict FUTURE North America strains, BA4/5 are PAST strains...

(go to twitter link for the other 9 reasons)