31 October, 2021

Covid vaccines are JUST as effective against more transmissible Delta offshoot, early tests show

Covid vaccines appear to work just as well against the more transmissible Delta variant offshoot as they do on its ancestor, health chiefs claimed today.

A report by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which replaced the now-defunct Public Health England (PHE), showed jabs are around 81 per cent effective at stopping people infected with AY.4.2 getting symptoms.

For comparison, two doses are thought to block around 83 per cent of all people falling ill with the original strain.

The UKHSA said the preliminary results do 'not suggest a significant reduction in vaccine effectiveness for AY.4.2 compared to Delta' and admitted the slight drop may be down to chance.

Almost 24,000 cases of the strain have now been spotted in Britain. But the true count could be 10 times higher because laboratories are only sequencing a fraction of all confirmed samples.

Separate surveillance data shows the variant has now been found in all but a dozen parts of England and makes up one in ten new cases — with its proportion having doubled in the space of a month.

Despite statistics showing it's still outcompeting its ancestor, some experts are now questioning how much more transmissible than Delta the subtype really is. Scientists initially estimated the strain was around 10 to 15 per cent more infectious.

Figures show while cases of the mutant strain are continuing to increase, its curve is flattening off. It is increasing slower than its predecessor did at this point after it was first sequenced.

Where did AY.4.2 come from?

This sub-variant of Delta was first detected in the UK on June 26, according to UK-based tracking.

Scientists say it is likely that AY.4.2 evolved here because the UK has much higher case numbers than other countries.

But it is possible that the variant was imported from abroad and then started to spread in the country.

Why is it only in a few countries?

AY.4.2 has been spotted in more than 40 countries including the UK, Germany, Denmark and the US to date.

It may not have been spotted in other places due to a lack of Covid surveillance, which would lead to new sub-variant not being spotted.

But travel restrictions may also be behind the slow spread, which have made it less likely that the virus will be passed between countries.

How infectious is the sub-variant?

Experts estimate that AY.4.2 is around 10 per cent more infectious than the Delta variant.

They say this may lead to a marginally higher number of cases, but that it will not trigger a spike similar to that seen when Delta arrived in the UK.

Should I be concerned about AY.4.2?

Scientists say there is no reason to be too concerned about AY.4.2.

There is no evidence to suggest that vaccines are less effective against the sub-variant, or that it increases the risk of hospitalisation and death.

But laboratory tests are underway at labs in the UK and Denmark to assess this.

Professor Lawrence Young from Warwick University said: 'There is no reason to suggest vaccines won't be as effective.'

And Professor Anders Fomsgaard from Denmark's Covid surveillance centre said: 'We are not concerned by this. We see nothing in this point of time that indicates it is more contagious, resistant or pathogenic.'

The UKHSA suggested there was little reason to worry that the variant was more effective at evading vaccines than Delta.

The agency said: 'After adjustment for the potential confounding variables there was no evidence AY4.2 differed significantly compared to non-AY4.2 Delta cases, both symptomatic and asymptomatic, across the three vaccines in circulation.'

Analysis suggested all the vaccines currently deployed in Britain were equally effective against the variant.

It comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) this week admitted it was now keeping tabs on the variant.

Experts have started to raise questions over whether the new strain is in fact more transmissible, as had previously been suggested by the data.

Northumbria University scientists involved in variant surveillance say it is still 'unclear' if AY.4.2 is actually more transmissible because too little is known about its mutations.

They pointed to the 'founder effect' as an alternative explanation, when a strain spreads rapidly because it is the only one in a specific cluster of cases, like a school.

But Professor Francois Balloux, a geneticist and Covid commentator at University College London who was among the first to raise concerns about the variant last week, said the slower rise was 'still compatible' with a 10 per cent transmission advantage.

And Professor Jeffrey Barrett, head of Covid surveillance at the Sanger Institute, said the data was 'consistent with a small, but real, growth advantage vs other Delta'.

This sub-variant of Delta was first detected in the UK on June 26, according to UK-based tracking.

Scientists say it is likely AY.4.2 evolved here because the UK has much higher case numbers than other countries.

But it is possible that the variant was imported from abroad because other countries have worse variant surveillance than the UK.

It carries two key mutations, A222V and Y145H, which both slightly alter the shape of the spike protein which the virus uses to invade cells.

Scientists claim A222V was previously seen on another variant (B.1.177) first spotted in Spain before spreading to other countries.

But studies suggest it did not make the strain more transmissible, and that it was only spread by holidaymakers returning home.

There is more concern about the mutation Y145H, which slightly changes the shape of the site antibodies bind to making it harder for them to stop an infection from happening.

Scientists say this builds on mutations in Delta, and could make the subtype even more resistant to vaccines than its parent.

AY.4.2 has been recorded in about 40 countries to date, but the UK is the only one seeing a sustained outbreak of the subtype, other than Poland.

It did rise to around one in 50 Covid cases in Denmark in early September, but it has now fallen again to below one in 100. Experts in the country say they are not concerned about AY.4.2.

UK health officials labelled it a 'variant under investigation' last week. This category is reserved for variants which are spreading in the UK that may be more transmissible or better able to evade vaccines than other mutant strains, but is a step below 'variant of concern' which includes Delta and Alpha.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10144035/Covid-vaccines-JUST-effective-against-transmissible-Delta-offshoot-early-tests-show.html

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Shock result in country ravaged by Covid-19

The number of people testing positive for Covid in the UK has plummeted by almost a quarter in just a week. Another 39,842 people were newly-diagnosed with the deadly bug on Thursday, local time – a huge drop from the same time last week, when 52,009 people were told they had the virus.

Deaths, however, are up on last Thursday, when 115 fatalities were reported. A further 165 people were recorded to have lost their lives yesterday.

Last Thursday’s case rate was the highest reported in the country since July 17.

And the fall today may be connected to schools being closed for the half-term holiday.

Despite that, the figures suggest the UK is moving in the right direction – and may avoid horrifying predictions of 100,000 new infections every day.

It’s been suggested that the country would be at risk of Plan B restrictions if cases had continued to rise. But top scientists say we could avoid a return to social distancing and masks if all those suitable for the jab sign up.

And Prof Neil Ferguson – dubbed “Professor Lockdown” after his warnings on the UK’s potential death toll led to the first restrictions last March – said the virus could be in retreat already.

“Herd immunity is having an enormous effect right now on damping transmission due to the huge amount of vaccination and the large number of people who have been infected already,” he said. “We may reach a stage in the next few weeks where immunity stops transmission. If the epidemic peaks and then starts declining, we have by definition reached herd immunity.

“We will start getting data from the booster program in the coming few weeks and I suspect it will show the boosters are highly effective at protecting individuals.”

Prof Tim Spector, lead scientist of the ZOE Covid Symptom Study App — a UK Government-funded initiative that collects reports from users about their Covid symptoms — said he believed 100,000 new infections a day is still possible.

‘We’re reaching herd immunity’

According to new data, cases increased by 14 per cent week-on-week. “The ZOE data shows the UK could hit 100,000 new cases sooner than expected and with no sign of a Plan B or Plan C,” Prof Spector said.

“The ZOE figures are consistently higher than the official confirmed daily cases because we get results from various sources, including self-reported lateral flow tests that are under-reported officially.

“With the confirmation of our estimates from the ONS’s (Office for National Statistics) fortnightly survey, it’s clear the government figures are a big underestimate, and with the highest rates in Western Europe, there’s no room for complacency.

“With the UK government delaying any decision while hospitals fill up, it’s time to take matters into our own hands to address the worsening situation.”

The Government says it’s not currently considering a ‘plan B’, which would see working from home return and vaccine passports mandated.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/shock-result-in-country-ravaged-by-covid19/news-story/403cf51eb09fbd1b1ba3a69473dd64cf

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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29 October, 2021

‘Immunity wanes’: Study finds vaccinated people easily transmit Delta in households

London: The Delta coronavirus variant can transmit easily from vaccinated people to their household contacts, according to a British study, although contacts were less likely to get infected if they were vaccinated themselves.

The Imperial College London study illustrates how the highly transmissible Delta variant can spread even in a vaccinated population.

The researchers underlined that this did not weaken the argument for vaccination as the best way of reducing serious illness from COVID-19 and said booster shots were required.

They found infections in the vaccinated cleared more quickly, but the peak viral load remained similar to the unvaccinated.

“By carrying out repeated and frequent sampling from contacts of COVID-19 cases, we found that vaccinated people can contract and pass on infection within households, including to vaccinated household members,” Dr Anika Singanayagam, co-lead author of the study, said.

“Our findings provide important insights into... why the Delta variant is continuing to cause high COVID-19 case numbers around the world, even in countries with high vaccination rates.”

The study, which enrolled 621 participants, found that of 205 household contacts of people with Delta COVID-19 infection, 38 per cent of household contacts who were unvaccinated went on to test positive, compared to 25 per cent of vaccinated contacts.

Vaccinated contacts who tested positive for COVID-19 on average had received their shots longer ago than those who tested negative, which the authors said was evidence of waning immunity and supported the need for booster shots.

Imperial epidemiologist Neil Ferguson said that the transmissibility of Delta meant that it was unlikely Britain would reach “herd immunity” for long.

“That may happen in the next few weeks: if the epidemic’s current transmission peaks and then starts declining, we have by definition in some sense reached herd immunity, but it is not going to be a permanent thing,” he told reporters.

“Immunity wanes over time, it is imperfect, so you still get transmission happening, and that is why the booster programme is so important.”

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/immunity-wanes-study-finds-vaccinated-people-easily-transmit-delta-in-households-20211029-p5947d.html

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How much less likely are you to spread covid-19 if you're vaccinated?

People who are fully vaccinated against covid-19 are far less likely to infect others, despite the arrival of the delta variant, several studies show. The findings refute the idea, which has become common in some circles, that vaccines no longer do much to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“They absolutely do reduce transmission,” says Christopher Byron Brooke at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Vaccinated people do transmit the virus in some cases, but the data are super crystal-clear that the risk of transmission for a vaccinated individual is much, much lower than for an unvaccinated individual.”

A recent study found that vaccinated people infected with the delta variant are 63 per cent less likely to infect people who are unvaccinated.

This is only slightly lower than with the alpha variant, says Brechje de Gier at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, who led the study. Her team had previously found that vaccinated people infected with alpha were 73 per cent less likely to infect unvaccinated people.

What is important to realise, de Gier says, is that the full effect of vaccines on reducing transmission is even higher than 63 per cent, because most vaccinated people don’t become infected in the first place.

De Gier and her team used data from the Netherlands’ contact tracing system to work out the so-called secondary attack rate – the proportion of contacts infected by positive cases. They then worked out how much this was reduced by vaccination, adjusting for factors such as age.

De Gier says they cannot calculate the full reduction in transmission due to vaccination, because they don’t know exactly how much vaccination reduces the risk of infection. But even assuming vaccination only halves the risk of infection, this would still imply that vaccines reduce transmission by more than 80 per cent overall.

Others have worked out the full effect. Earlier this year, Ottavia Prunas at Yale University applied two different models to data from Israel, where the Pfizer vaccine was used. Her team’s conclusion was that the overall vaccine effectiveness against transmission was 89 per cent.

However, the data used only went up to 24 March, before delta became dominant. The team is now using more recent data to work out the impact of delta, says Prunas.

The idea that vaccines are no longer that effective against transmission may derive from news reports in July claiming that vaccinated people who become infected “can carry as much virus as others”. Even if this were true, however, vaccines would still greatly reduce transmission by reducing infections in the first place.

In fact, the study that sparked the news reports didn’t measure the number of viruses in someone directly but relied on so-called Ct scores, a measure of viral RNA. However, this RNA can derive from viruses destroyed by the immune system. “You can measure the RNA but it’s rendered useless,” says Timothy Peto at the University of Oxford.

Read more: How mRNA is transforming the way we treat illnesses from flu to cancer

There are now several lines of evidence that Ct scores aren’t a good measure of the amount of virus someone has. Firstly, the fact that infected vaccinated people are much less likely to infect others. Peto has done a similar study to de Gier using contact tracing data from England and gotten similar results.

Secondly, Peto’s team specifically showed that there is little connection between Ct scores and infectiousness. “It appeared people who were positive after vaccination had the same viral load as the unvaccinated. We thought they were just as infectious. But it turns out you are less infectious,” says Peto. “That’s quite important. People were over-pessimistic.”

Yet another line of evidence comes from a study by Brooke. His team took samples from 23 people every day after they first tested positive until the infection cleared and performed tests, including trying to infect cells in a dish with the samples.

With five out of the six fully vaccinated people, none of the samples were infectious, unlike most from unvaccinated people. The study shows that vaccinated people shed fewer viruses and also stop shedding sooner than unvaccinated people, says Brooke.

The one bit of bad news is that Peto’s study shows that the protection a vaccine provides against an infected person infecting others does wane over time, by around a quarter over the three months after a second vaccine dose. “This has made me a believer in boosters,” he says. “They ought to get on with it, given that we are in the middle of a major outbreak [in the UK].”

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2294250-how-much-less-likely-are-you-to-spread-covid-19-if-youre-vaccinated/

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China problems: Europe and US face magnesium supply crisis

China's state-run tabloid Global Times says it is "unrealistic" for China to meet the urgent demand for magnesium from Europe, where stocks of the raw material could run out next month.

The paper said the magnesium shortage was not a simple issue that could be resolved by increasing production from China. "Global supply chains face challenges of climate change targets, high inflation and logistics obstacles," it noted in an editorial on Monday.

"China's efforts to tackle these challenges at its own pace are responsible and should be respected.

"It is essential to establish an economic and trade consultation mechanism on the supply chain between China and the EU [European Union]."

The European market is almost entirely (95 per cent) dependent on China for the supply of magnesium, a key ingredient in aluminium, which is used to make cars and in building supplies, among other things. Magnesium is also used in iron and steel producing.

Last Friday, a dozen industry groups issued a joint statement to urge European leaders to work towards immediate actions with their Chinese counterparts to mitigate the critical shortage issue.

"Supply of magnesium originating from China has either been halted or reduced drastically since September 2021, resulting in an international supply crisis of unprecedented magnitude," they said.

"This issue, if not resolved, threatens thousands of businesses across Europe, their entire supply chains and the millions of jobs that rely on them."

The remaining magnesium stocks in Europe were trading at $US10,000-$US14,000 a tonne, up from around $US2,000 per tonne earlier this year, the industry groups said.

The European Commission has reportedly been holding talks with China to resolve the shortage.

"Europe has none of its own supply and relies on China for imports," analysts at investment bank Morgan Stanley noted.

"With limited vessel availability and shipping times of at least two months, Europe could see limited supply until May."

Although the US is less reliant on China for magnesium, its aluminium producers are facing a similar supply issue. The largest US aluminium billet maker, Matalco, has warned of an upcoming output reduction, while the largest US raw aluminium producer, Alcoa, has expressed concerns about magnesium scarcity, Bloomberg reported.

China produces around 87 per cent of the world's magnesium, but that has been affected by the country's recent power crisis.

The Chinese government has been trying to curb domestic power consumption and regulate soaring electricity prices. Many magnesium plants have been either shut down or halved their production capacities due to the power cuts. Chinese state media has reported that China's magnesium exports are likely to drop 10 per cent this year.

"Magnesium production is the latest victim of China's power crunch as well as the government's increasingly hardline approach to emission reduction," Peter Cai, a China analyst from the Lowy Institute, told the ABC.

"Authorities are shutting down [power] plants to meet their emission reduction target."

China is still one of the world's largest carbon emitters, but President Xi Jinping is aiming for the country's CO2 emissions to peak before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

A magnesium shortage could have widespread impacts across autos, aerospace, iron or steel, chemicals, beer and soft drinks, and consumer goods.

Morgan Stanley analysts noted that many lightweight alloys relied on magnesium. "Magnesium's light weight and strengthening properties make it essential for aluminium alloys (eg sheet used in autos, beverage cans)," they wrote.

"It is also used for die-casting auto parts, as a desulphurising agent in steel, to make ductile iron, in chemicals and more."

While the analysts noted that there had been some production recovery in October, utilisation was capped at 40 per cent of capacity and that still created a big challenge for the global market.

Car-makers are set to be particularly hard hit, as they still struggle with shortages of computer chips.

"Depressed auto production levels have been masking the extent of the impact of the existing shortages; it may not be possible for auto production to recover as forecasters such as IHS anticipate."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-27/magnesium-shortage-in-europe-and-us-china-slows-down-supply/100570048

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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28 October, 2021

What Really Happened in Wuhan

Award-winning journalist Sharri Markson spent more than a year investigating the potential leak of the virus from a top-secret laboratory in Wuhan.

Ms Markson uncovered evidence of a widespread cover-up and unpacks the new theory that “patient zero” worked in the Wuhan lab.

Sky News Australia anchor and Investigations Writer at The Australian, Sharri has been at the forefront of investigating the origins of COVID-19 since early in 2020 when the virus spread globally. Since that time, the precise genesis of COVID-19 has been hotly contested, with scientists, government officials, the World Health Organization, and the Chinese authorities releasing conflicting reports.

In a coup for Australian television, Sharri secures the first sit-down interview for an Australian broadcast media outlet with Donald Trump since he was elected president in 2016.

Sharri also speaks with a range of Chinese whistle-blowers, scientists, and high-ranking intelligence officials to bring us closer to discovering the truth of what happened in Wuhan.

These include John Ratcliffe, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence from 2020 to 2021, and former head of British intelligence service, Mi6, Sir Richard Dearlove.

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How did Florida end up with one of the best COVID-19 case and death rates in the US despite Gov Ron DeSantis refusing to implement mask or vaccine mandates?

Just two months ago, Florida was experiencing the worst COVID-19 surge in the United States. The Sunshine State had the highest seven-day average of cases per day as well as the highest hospitalization rate in the country.

Despite these grim metrics, Governor Ron DeSantis did not issue new lockdowns, closures or stay-at-home orders, arguing that the spike was due to a seasonal pattern of the virus and urging residents to get vaccinated.

Now, with Halloween and Thanksgiving right around the corner, the Covid crisis looks really different in Florida. Inexplicably, cases and deaths have been going down despite DeSantis implementing no new mitigation measures.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show Florida is recording one of the best case and death rates in the country.

This is similar to what's been seen nationwide as Covid-related infections and fatalities in the U.S. drop to the lowest levels recorded since April 2021.

Additionally, the state is doing just as well as California, despite the West Coast State taking a very strict approach including implementing mask mandates, limiting gatherings and closings bars and indoor dining at restaurants.

Experts say Covid waves usually occur in a two-month cycle - with infections rising for two months before declining - and instead of trying to prevent the cycle from occurring, DeSantis just let it ride out.

The declining rates could change as Floridians head inside for the winter months, potentially causing cases to rise again, but, as of now, it seems like Florida's downward trends will only continue.

In mid-August, the COVID-19 crisis perhaps looked no more dire than in Florida. The state reached a record-high 26,000 Covid cases reported in one day or about 101 cases per 100,000 people. This is 44 percent higher than the previous peak of 18,000 cases per day recorded in January 2021, according to CDC data.

During this time, there were 17,200 COVID-19 hospitalizations - three-fold higher than the 5,700 seen just one month earlier. Additionally, Florida reported a record-high 227 deaths per day in mid-August or 1.77 per 100,000.

However, Governor DeSantis defended himself against critics and told Fox News in an interview on August 26 that the state was having 'great success' treating COVID-19 patients early with monoclonal antibodies.

He also slammed President Joe Biden for failing to end the pandemic. 'You know, he said he was going to end Covid. He hasn't done that,' DeSantis told host Jesse Watters. 'At the end of the day, he is trying to find a way to distract from the failures of his presidency.'

At the time, doctors and public health experts said that DeSantis's laissez-faire approach was a gamble, but it appears to have paid off.

CDC data show Florida is recording 64 cases per 100,000 people in a week or nine cases per 100,000 people per day as of Wednesday.

This means the The Sunshine State has the best case rate in the country behind California, Mississippi, Hawaii and Alabama, respectively.

Currently, California recording 28 cases per 100,000 people in a week or three cases per 100,000 people per day.

The same curve can be seen with Covid deaths. Florida is recording 0.2 deaths per 100,000 people in a week - making it the second best state in the nation. It is behind only California and New Mexico, which are recording 0.1 death per 100,000 people in a week.

Both of these metrics are despite DeSantis refusing to allow business and schools from implementing mask and vaccine mandates.

This is similar to what has been seen in the U.S. with the recent Delta variant-fueled surge.

On September 1, America was averaging 49.9 cases per 100,000. As of Wednesday, this has dropped to 21.2 cases per 100,000.

So does the governor deserve all the credit for Florida's improvement? Not necessarily.

These declines seem to follow a familiar two-month cycle since the pandemic began in early 2020 with cases and deaths increasing for about two months before declining, according to David Leonhardt of The New York Times.

Early explanations - such as the virus being seasonal like the flu or compliance of mask wearing and social distancing increasing and decreasing - have not held up.

However, more logical explanations include that as people have contracted COVID-19 over the last two months, the virus is (slowly) running out of people to infect.

'Since the pandemic began, Covid has often followed a regular - if mysterious - cycle. In one country after another, the number of new cases has often surged for roughly two months before starting to fall,' Leonhardt wrote.

'The Delta variant, despite its intense contagiousness, has followed this pattern.' This means a variant may only need eight weeks to spread throughout a community before it begins to recede.

During the summer 2020 surge in the U.S., cases began rising in early July before declining again in early September.

What's more, during the winter 2020-21 surge, Covid infections steeply increased in late November 2020 only to fall again in late January 2021.

It seems that what has occurred on a nationwide scale is what occurred on a much smaller scale in Florida.

The recent surge saw cases starting to rise in the Sunshine State in early July and declining in mid-September, following the two month-schedule.

And it's not the only state: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas, all of which saw cases surge during the recent fourth wave, have seen declines since early September.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10136983/How-did-Florida-end-one-best-COVID-19-case-death-rates-US.html

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CDC Director Suggests Re-Education Camps For Unvaccinated Now!

One would think that after close to two years of COVID being here that the irrational fear would begin to subside. However, that is not the case as power-grabbing leftists have found the proverbial magic bullet to convince millions of Americans to hand over the freedoms and rights for a false sense of security.

Instead of these government officials taking their gas off the pedal toward tyranny, they are doubling down and pushing for more.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is the one who dropped this bit of knowledge on the American people when she appeared on FOX News Sunday and spoke with Chris Wallace.

Walensky addressed vaccine hesitancy among law enforcement and government workers.

She then went on to BRAG, yes brag about coercing and threatening people’s livelihoods to feed their families for increased COVID-19 jab uptake.

Wallace then asked Walensky how she plans to convince millions of Americans who refuse to get the jab, roll up their sleeves and take it.

The CDC director then claimed that COVID-19 is responsible for more deaths amongst police than all other causes combined in the last 1.5 years, Walensky made a peculiar statement.

Education & counseling for those who refuse an experimental injection?

What exactly does Walensky mean by that? Perhaps re-education camps?

https://dailyheadlines.net/cdc-director-suggests-re-education-camps-for-unvaccinated-now/

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70 Percent of COVID-19 Deaths Both in Sweden and UK in September Were “Fully Vaccinated”

Government data revealed that in September, 70% of COVID-19 deaths both in Sweden and the UK were “fully vaccinated” individuals.

Swedish Public Health Agency reported that 70% of Covid 19 deaths involved “fully vaccinated” individuals between Sept. 1 and Sept. 24, according to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. The country recorded about 130 fatal Covid cases during that period.

Possible reasons for the uptick in vaccinated deaths include “that it has now been quite a while since the oldest ones were vaccinated, that the vaccine coverage has increased, that the restrictions have been eased, and that the Delta strain has taken over,” microbiology researcher Farshid Jalalvand told the paper.

Sweden’s death numbers crashed after health officials scaled back restrictions at the beginning of June, however, with virtually no COVID fatalities reported in the Scandinavian country throughout July and August. Deaths began to climb again by mid-September, by which time nearly 75 percent of Swedes older than 16 were “fully vaccinated.”

Despite Sweden’s mass vaccination campaign, the recent surge in infections has led to the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Swedish senior care residents since February.

UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA) released a COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report on October 7 that showed most COVID-19 deaths in UK were among the “fully vaccinated” individuals, as were most hospitalizations in September.

Between September 6 and October 3, 70 percent of deadly COVID cases occurred in the fully-jabbed, according to the UKHSA data, with 2,281 deaths in “fully vaccinated” people and just 611 in the unvaccinated within 28 days of a positive test. Partially vaccinated people accounted for 98 deaths.

The COVID-19 fatalities among “fully vaccinated” Brits represented a dramatic increase from August, The Exposé observed. Public Health England last month had reported 600 coronavirus deaths in the unvaccinated population between August 9 and September 5 and 1,659 in the doubly-vaccinated.

The latest UKSHA figures also showed that vaccinated patients dominated COVID-19 hospitalizations. 3,910 “fully vaccinated” people were admitted to the hospital for COVID between September 6 and October 3, compared with around 2,400 unvaccinated patients. The fully or partially vaccinated together accounted for roughly 64 percent of total COVID-related hospitalizations.

Other Western countries saw an increase in cases and deaths with “fully vaccinated” individuals including the United States. The Gateway Pundit previously reported Former CDC Director Robert Redfield claimed that more than 40 percent of people who have died from the coronavirus in the state of Maryland over the last 6-8 weeks were fully vaccinated.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/70-percent-covid-19-deaths-sweden-uk-september-fully-vaccinated/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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27 October, 2021

FDA advised to authorise Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for US children aged five to 11

An expert panel has voted overwhelmingly to recommend the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorise the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11, saying the benefits of inoculation outweigh the risks.

The vaccine, could be made available to those younger children in the US as early as next week. The FDA is not obliged to follow the advice of its outside experts, but usually does.

If the FDA authorises the shots for this age group, an advisory panel to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will meet next week to make a recommendation on the administration of the vaccine.

Pfizer and BioNTech, the companies behind the vaccine, have said the shot was 90.7 per cent effective against coronavirus in a clinical trial of children aged five to 11.

While children becoming seriously ill or dying from COVID-19 is relatively rare compared with adults, some develop complications, and infections in unvaccinated children have risen due to the highly transmissible Delta variant.

Amanda Cohn, a paediatric vaccine expert at the CDC and a voting member of the panel, said the question was "pretty clear". "We don't want children to be dying of COVID, even if it is far fewer children than adults, and we don't want them in the ICU," she said.

Pfizer and BioNTech are seeking clearance for a lower, 10-microgram dose of the vaccine in children, versus 30 micrograms for those aged 12 and older.

The advisers paid close attention to the rate of a heart inflammation, called myocarditis, that has been linked to both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, particularly in young men.

If the number of myocarditis cases in the younger age group was similar to that in 12 to 15-year-olds, the hospitalisations prevented for COVID-19 would outnumber those prevented for myocarditis in most scenarios analysed, FDA staff reviewers said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-27/fda-advisers-back-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-for-children/100571348

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Children Shouldn’t Get COVID-19 Vaccines, Harvard Professor Says

Children should not get vaccinated against the virus that causes COVID-19, according to Harvard University professor of medicine Martin Kulldorff.

“I don’t think children should be vaccinated for COVID. I’m a huge fan of vaccinating children for measles, for mumps, for polio, for rotavirus, and many other diseases, that’s critical. But COVID is not a huge threat to children,” he said on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program. The full episode can be watched on EpochTV.

“They can be infected, just like they can get the common cold, but they’re not a big threat. They don’t die from this, except in very rare circumstances. So if you want to talk about protecting children or keeping children safe, I think we can talk about traffic accidents, for example, which they are really at some risk.

“And there are other things that we should make sure [of] to keep children safe. But COVID is not a big risk factor for children.”

Vaccinating older people and people of all ages with compromised immune systems against the coronavirus has drawn support from most medical experts. But vaccinating healthy young people, particularly children, has triggered more opposition, in part because of how little risk COVID-19 poses to them.

Children are more likely to contract serious disease or die from the annual influenza, or the flu, than COVID-19, according to data and studies that Kulldorff has reviewed. Just 195 children under the age of 4 and 442 between 5 and 18 have died from COVID-19 in the United States as of Oct. 20, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children are 15 times less likely to be hospitalized with the disease than individuals who are 85 or older, and 570 times less likely to die, the agency says.

“One example is from Sweden, during the first wave in the spring of 2020, which affected Sweden quite strongly,” Kulldorff said. “But Sweden decided to keep daycare and schools open for all children ages 1 to 15. And there are 1.8 million such children who got through the first wave without vaccines, of course, without masks, without any sort of distancing in schools.

“If a child was sick, they were told to stay home. But that was basically it. And you know how many of those 1.8 million children died from COVID? Zero. Only a few hospitalizations. So this is not a risky disease for children.”

When weighing whether to vaccinate children, the risk of vaccine side effects must also be taken into account, Kulldorff said. The main risk to young people seen so far is heart inflammation, which has occurred post-vaccination at much higher than expected rates. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) added a warning label to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines over the summer about myocarditis and pericarditis, two types of heart inflammation.

“If you’re 78 years old, then it’s the no-brainer, in my view, because the benefits are so great that even if you have a small risk for some adverse reaction, the benefit far outweighs the risk,” Kulldorff said. “On the other hand, if you have already have immunity from having had COVID, then the benefits of the vaccines are much, much smaller. If you’re a child, even if you haven’t had COVID, the risk of serious disease or death is minuscule … So it’s not at all clear that the benefits outweigh the risks for children.”

Kulldorff was speaking ahead of an FDA advisory panel meeting. Members on Oct. 26 decided to advise drug regulators to authorize Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for use in children between 5 and 11. They said the benefits of vaccinating the age group, such as the predicted decrease in hospitalizations, outweighed the risks, including estimated incidence of myocarditis.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/children-shouldnt-get-covid-19-vaccines-kulldorff_4069255.html

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Moderna says COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective in children

Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for children ages 6 to 12 years, the company announced on Monday (Oct. 25).

The findings are part of a clinical trial on the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine in around 5,700 children between the ages of 6 months and 12 years; More than 4,700 children between the ages of 6 and 12 years participated in the study and were given two doses of the vaccine 28 days apart, but at half the dose (50 µg) given to adults (100 µg).

The researchers found that the vaccine at this dose was "well tolerated," and side effects were similar to what was seen in adolescents and adults, according to a statement. The majority of adverse events were mild or moderate; and the most common side effects were fatigue, headache, fever and injection site pain, the company said.

They also found that the vaccine prompted a "strong immune response" one month after the second dose; children in this age group had 1.5 times higher antibody levels than those observed in young adults, the company said.

Moderna previously submitted data to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to get authorization for use of its vaccine in people ages 12 to 17, but the agency hasn't yet responded to the request. The company now plans to also submit this new data to the FDA and other regulatory agencies around the world.

Meanwhile, the researchers will continue to monitor the participants for 12 months after their second dose to assess long-term protection and safety.

Currently, Moderna is approved for those who are 18 years or older, while Pfizer is approved for those 12 years and older. Pfizer has already submitted a request to the FDA to authorize its vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, Live Science previously reported.

https://www.livescience.com/moderna-says-vaccine-safe-and-effective-children

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Vaccine Mandate Threatens Major Trucking Disruption, Industry Insiders Say

American truckers don’t like taking orders. But the Biden administration has increased pressure on some of them to take the vaccine—willing or unwilling.

All through the pandemic, truckers endured hardships to keep America’s infrastructure running. They waited in line for hours in sight of bathrooms they weren’t allowed to use. On the road, some died alone of COVID-19.

Now, with supply chains disrupted, Americans need them more than ever. But faced with the prospect of mandated vaccination, many drivers are considering quitting.

“I’d fight it,” said veteran trucker Mike Widdins, referring to a vaccine mandate. “I think a lot of us will be quitting. Who likes to be forced to do stuff you don’t want to do?”

Widdins isn’t alone in his willingness to leave trucking if he’s required to vaccinate. Polls by trucking publications Commercial Carrier Journal and OverDrive indicate that up to 30 percent of truckers will seriously consider quitting if required to vaccinate. If they quit, the consequences for America may be massive. US Transport estimates that 70 percent of American freight goes by truck.

“It would hurt shipping big-time,” Widdins said.

President Joe Biden ordered his administration to mandate vaccines for private companies with over 100 employees. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was charged with developing the rule, and the Office of Budget and Management is currently reviewing it. The review process can take as long as 90 days.

Most of the trucking industry consists of companies with fewer than 100 employees, though a significant portion would fall under the over-100-employee umbrella.

Most truck companies have six trucks or fewer, according to the American Trucking Associations.

Some experts say the selective reach of the mandate makes it ineffective. Barbara Smithers, vice president of the Indiana Motor Truck Association, told The Epoch Times via email that it makes little sense to “cherry-pick” who to vaccinate based on company size.

“Truck drivers spend most of their work hours alone in the cab of a truck—literally one of the safest places possible during a pandemic—so why do they need to be regulated in this way?” she said. “Testing hundreds of thousands of truck drivers moving across the country every day is a virtual impossibility.”

For mandate-affected companies, Biden’s decision may drive away employees at a time when America needs them most. The American Trucking Associations estimates that America needs 80,000 more truckers to meet transportation needs.

Whether America runs short on trucks depends on the Biden administration’s orders and how truckers respond.

In the eyes of drivers, Biden’s mandate is the last step in a long line of restrictions that don’t consider their needs or wants.

For many drivers, a vaccine mandate may prove to be the final straw. Some drivers don’t trust the vaccine because of how new it is. Some distrust it for personal medical reasons. Others distrust it because they don’t trust the government.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/biden-plays-chicken-with-semitruck-drivers_4063261.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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26 October, 2021

CDC Director Reaffirms Forcing Vaccinated Children to Remain Masked, Dodges Question on Vaccine Mandates

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) made numerous Sunday show appearances this week, where she dodged questions on vaccine mandates and when children can stop having to wear masks in school.

While on NBC's "Meet the Press," Dr. Walensky was asked by host Andrea Mitchell about masking at school once children have been vaccinated:

ANDREA MITCHELL:

What is your advice to parents and to schools regarding lifting mask mandates in schools once children are vaccinated?

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY:

You know, our case numbers are coming down, and that is so encouraging. We still have 75,000 new cases a day of Covid, and we are still having death rates of about 1,200 to 1,500 deaths per day. As we roll out these vaccines for our children, and we are hopeful that we will be able to, it's also critically important that our kids are able to stay in school. We saw just a couple of weeks ago new science that demonstrated that schools that masked had three and a half times less likelihood of having outbreaks than schools that didn't. And so in my mind, the most important thing right now as we work to get our cases down, as we work to get our children vaccinated, is that we continue the masking to keep our kids in school.

Walensky and Mitchell had just been discussing how there will be an FDA advisory on Tuesday when it comes to vaccinating children ages 5-11 years old.

Such a non-answer is particularly troubling and disappointing because she had been given an opportunity to clarify her remarks from last Wednesday, but refused to take it. As Katie reported, Dr. Walenksy during a press briefing gave a disturbing directive that children will still need to wear masks at school.

"After we have authorization from FDA and recommendations from CDC, we will be working to scale up pediatric vaccination. That said, it will take some time. And as I just noted, as we head into these winter months, we know we cannot be complacent," the director said. "We are going to continue to recommend masks in all schools for all people in those schools, and we will look forward to scaling up pediatric vaccination during this period of time."

The following day, Katie also covered remarks from Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who said the data that children need to be masked is "very weak," saying that it is so weak "is a fact."

Gov. Ron DeSantis' (R-FL) executive order against schools issuing mask mandates is tied up in the courts, though a judge is set to decide soon. Schools are considering easing their mask mandates as cases drop, which they have been doing significantly in Florida.

The governor had issued his executive order in late July after consulting with experts in the field.

Mitchell also asked Walensky "did you move too soon on that? Was that a mistake?" with regards to telling people last May that they are safe if they're not wearing a mask and have been vaccinated. The direct provided another non-answer:

You know, that was at a time of the Alpha variant when vaccinated people if they were a breakthrough infection could not transmit the Alpha variant to someone else. This is really an opportunity to understand that we have to be humble with the science and to move with the science. As we have learned with this Delta variant, it's a different variant, it's a more transmissible variant, and it behaves differently in the context of breakthrough infection. So at the time, that's what the science told us we could do. We are in a very different moment with a very different variant.

It's not just Dr. Lapado who is concerned with masking children. As Emily DeCiccio reported for CNBC, Dr. Joseph Allen, who is an associate professor at Harvard University, during a Friday appearance on "The News with Shepard Smith" urged an easing of mask mandates for children.

As DeCiccio wrote:

“We have to be careful that, if we don’t set firm deadlines, it’s easy to see how we can sleepwalk into indefinite masking,” said Allen during a Friday evening interview on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.” “With the approval of vaccines, expected very shortly, for 5 to 11-year-olds, it makes sense that we should no longer have mask mandates in schools.”

Allen also highlighted that while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has set metrics for masking for adults, the agency has “inexplicably” failed to set metrics on when kids can take away masks.

The CDC did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Dr. Allen does believe the best way to protect children from the virus is by vaccinating them, as well as adults, and is in favor of vaccine mandates for teachers. "We should be mandating vaccines for all adults in schools," he said.

While on "Fox News Sunday," Dr. Walensky was asked by host Chris Wallace if she was "still full speed ahead on mandates for essential workers to get vaccinated." She refused to directly answer, though:

We have seen that these mandates are getting more and more people vaccinated. Here's what we know. The most disruptive thing that you can do to a workforce is to have a covert outbreak and not workforce. That was definitely not only send people home but send people to the hospital and some may pass. What we know from the police workforce is there have been more deaths from the coronavirus over the last year and a half than all other causes of death for that workforce combined. So we believe it is very important to get these people vaccinated. There is a plan, should these people not want to be vaccinated, towards education and counseling to get people the information they need so that they are feeling comfortable in getting vaccinated.

President Joe Biden last month signed an executive order mandating federal workers be vaccinated.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2021/10/24/cdc-director-wont-say-when-children-can-stop-wearing-masks-at-school-n2597941

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Here's Why You Should Resist Mask Mandates

Many Americans have been taught to believe that masks work—at least a little—and that wearing them comes at a minimal cost. Nearly the opposite is true.

The best scientific evidence invites a far less rosy assessment of masks’ effectiveness than is broadcast by public health officials. In its worldwide impact, the COVID-19 pandemic has been the worst in a century. As a threat to Americans’ health, however, it is closer to the 1968 Hong Kong flu or the 1957 Asian flu—neither of which noticeably altered Americans’ everyday lives—than to the 1918 Spanish flu.

In a head-to-head comparison, COVID-19 makes the Spanish flu look like the Black Death of medieval Europe. According to the best available figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and elsewhere, the typical American under the age of 40 in 1918 was more than 100 times as likely to die of the Spanish flu than the typical American under the age of 40 in 2020 was to die of COVID-19.

Whereas COVID-19 sadly shortened the lives of many older people already in poor health, the Spanish flu took people in the prime of life and left orphans in its wake.

The Spread of Public Health Officials

Americans’ reaction to COVID-19, however, has been radically different from their behavior in 1968, 1957, or even 1918. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, the Hoover Institution’s Niall Ferguson recalls that President Dwight Eisenhower asked Congress for $2.5 million in additional funding for the Public Health Service during the Asian flu. Overall, Congress has authorized about 2 million times that much for COVID-19.

In 1957, there were no widespread school closures, travel bans, or mask mandates. Ferguson quotes one person’s recollection of those days: “For those who grew up in the 1930s and 1940s, there was nothing unusual about finding yourself threatened by contagious disease. Mumps, measles, chickenpox, and German measles swept through entire schools and towns; I had all four…. We took the Asian flu in stride.”

One major difference between then and now is the increased role of public health officials. Long before their ascension, Socrates made clear in Plato’s Republic that he did not want doctors to rule. Philosophers or even poets would be better governors of society because they at least attempt to understand political and social life in its entirety and minister to the human soul.

Doctors, by contrast, tend to disregard the soul: it is the nature of their art to focus on the body in lieu of higher concerns. Moreover, Greek philosophers and poets alike celebrated courage in the face of death—Plato’s Socrates and Homer’s Achilles were undeterred from their noble missions by fear of the grave. But rule by public health officials, under which we increasingly live today, encourages excessive risk-aversion and almost transforms cowardice into a virtue.

Wear the Mask, Neanderthal

Surgical masks were designed to protect patients’ wounds from becoming infected by medical personnel, not to prevent the spread of viruses. When COVID-19 hit our shores, the CDC initially recommended that most Americans not wear masks.

On April 3, 2020, the CDC abruptly reversed this position. Surgeon General Jerome Adams explained that “new evidence” had revealed that “a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms” and “can transmit the virus to others before they show symptoms” (emphasis added).

As a rationale for wearing masks, this did not entirely make sense. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “potentially pre-symptomatic transmission…is a major driver of transmission for influenza.”

Yet the CDC does not (yet) recommend that seemingly healthy people wear masks during flu season. It seems likely that the CDC panicked in April and wanted to be seen as doing something. Plus, public health officials are naturally enthusiastic about public health interventions.

The day after the CDC endorsed nationwide mask-wearing, President Trump announced, “I won’t be doing it personally.” From that instant, the mask quickly became a symbol of civic virtue—a sort of Black Lives Matter flag that could be hung from one’s face. For many it conveyed a trio of virtues: I’m unselfish; I’m pro-science; I’m anti-Trump.

What it also conveyed, incidentally, was a rejection of longstanding Western norms, unhealthy risk-aversion, credulous willingness to embrace unsupported health claims and a pallid view of human interaction.

Masking the Science

The most reliable science on whether masks are effective in stopping the transmission of viruses comes from randomized control trials (RCTs), almost all of which were conducted before COVID-19 began.

Randomized control trials have found little to no evidence that masks work to prevent viral transmission—either from the wearer to others or vice versa. In fact, some significant evidence from RCTs indicates that masks increase transmission.

A 2020 study by Professor Henning Bundgaard and his team in Denmark is the only RCT that has tested the effectiveness of mask-wearing against COVID-19. It found that 1.8 percent of those participants in the group wearing masks, and 2.1percent of those in the unmasked control group, became infected with COVID-19 within a month. This difference was not statistically significant. The study must have had difficulty getting published since it appeared months after it was conducted.

In attempting to justify its mask guidance on its website, the CDC has relied almost entirely on observational studies while studiously disregarding RCTs.

Anyone who thinks the CDC is an impartial, politically neutral agency, dedicated solely to the pursuit of scientific truth, should perhaps consider the recent e-mail evidence that the teachers union and Joe Biden’s White House effectively rewrote sections of the agency’s return-to-school guidance.

Like so many unelected leaders, CDC officials consider themselves more accountable to “stakeholders” than to the American people. Legislatures have largely been AWOL during the coronavirus period, while public health officials and executive branch leaders have reveled in their newfound powers.

https://heartlanddailynews.com/2021/10/the-masking-of-america-commentary/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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25 October, 2021

Yale Study: Natural Immunity Protects Against COVID Three Times Longer Than Vaccine

To their dismay, the Yale School of Public Health just concluded that immunity acquired by COVID-19 infection lasts three times longer and is stronger than that provided by vaccination. Naturally, the Yale Daily News downplayed the info under the headline, “COVID-19 reinfection is likely among unvaccinated individuals, Yale study finds.”

The Yale study concluded that the risk of COVID-19 reinfection stands at 5% at three months after recovery and decreases to 50% at 17 months. By contrast, COVID-19 vaccine protection against infection can wane to a mere 20% as early as five months after full vaccination. Now, I may not be a Fauci-approved Scientist, but I’m also not stupid.

The Yale study joins the ever-growing compendium of studies that attest to the superiority of natural immunity over-vaccination for protection from COVID infection. It’s worth clicking over to the linked article because you probably had no idea there was already so much Science! proving the point.

Here are a few highlights from the Blaze Media listicle by Daniel Horowitz:

New York University, May 3, 2021

The authors studied the contrast between vaccine immunity and immunity from prior infection as it relates to stimulating the innate T-cell immunity, which is more durable than adaptive immunity through antibodies alone. They concluded, “In COVID-19 patients, immune responses were characterized by a highly augmented interferon response which was largely absent in vaccine recipients.”

Cleveland Clinic, June 19, 2021

In a study of 1,359 previously infected health care workers in the Cleveland Clinic system, not a single one of them was reinfected 10 months into the pandemic, despite some of these individuals being around COVID-positive patients more than the regular population.

Israeli researchers, August 22, 2021

Aside from more robust T cell and memory B cell immunity, which is more important than antibody levels, Israeli researchers found that antibodies wane slower among those with prior infection. “In vaccinated subjects, antibody titers decreased by up to 40% each subsequent month while in convalescents they decreased by less than 5% per month.”

Irish researchers, published in Wiley Review, May 18, 2021

Researchers conducted a review of 11 cohort studies with over 600,000 total recovered COVID patients who were followed up with over 10 months. The key finding? Unlike the vaccine, after about four to six months, they found “no study reporting an increase in the risk of reinfection over time.”

I could link these all day, but I’m sure we both have other things to do. The point is that the Science! is more consensus-y every day: those who have already recovered from a COVID infection—even a mild or asymptomatic one—have naturally superior protection from future infection than those who are merely vaccinated, and are also safer to be around than people who have been vaccinated but never had an infection.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t get vaccinated if you already had COVID, especially if you are tolerant of the vaccine’s side effects. According to the experts, you would be even better protected than people who are either only naturally immune or only vaccinated. But if you have recovered from an infection, you’re manifestly as safe as if you were only vaccinated.

Clearly, it’s time for public safety policy to recognize natural immunity as equal to vaccination.

Of course, the government-pharma complex isn’t going to give up its advantage without a fight. Big Pharma has a lock on all that sweet vaccine cash, and our leaders simply love their hot new emergency powers. But cracks are finally appearing in the “crisis” power apparatus. The more Americans insist we Follow the Science™ and grant equal rights to the naturally immune, the faster this much-needed transformation can occur.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/athena-thorne/2021/10/22/yale-discovers-natural-immunity-protects-against-covid-three-times-as-long-as-vaccine-downplays-finding-n1526017

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Sweden extends pause of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine in young people under 30 due to concerns the shot causes rare heart inflammation

Swedish health officials are extending the pause of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine in young people over continued concerns that the shot causes rare heart inflammation cases.

The pause was initially supposed to last until December 1, but will now last beyond that to a date that is yet to be announced.

Sweden is one of four Nordic nations that restricted the use of the jab in young people this month, with a fifth, Norway, also discouraging younger males from getting the Moderna shot.

Despite the concerns arising about the vaccine in Europe, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has stood by its authorization of the shots, and even authorized booster shots of the vaccine earlier this week.

Sweden paused usage of the Moderna COVID-19 shot in everyone born after 1990 earlier this month.

The decision came after health officials viewed data that found the shots were causing cases of myocarditis in young people who got the vaccine.

Sweden's Public Health Agency says that the unpublished data signals 'an increased risk of side effects such as inflammation of the heart muscle or the pericardium' - the double-walled sac containing the heart and the roots of the main vessels. It added: 'The risk of being affected is very small.'

That data is still not publicly available.

Denmark followed Sweden's lead, and restricted access to the vaccine to anyone under the age of 18 as well.

The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare said earlier this month that authorities won't give the vaccine to males under age 30, and they will be offered the Pfizer-BioNTech immunization instead, also citing the heart inflammation data.

Iceland also paused use of the vaccine citing concerns from the same data.

Norway, another Nordic country, has not taken as drastic action as its neighbors, with health officials urging people under 30 to opt for the Pfizer vaccine instead.

Myocarditis and pericarditis, both types of inflammation of the heart, are known side effects of the Covid vaccines, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) even warns that the condition may develop in young males after vaccination.

Heart inflammation is also a symptom of many viral infections like COVID-19, though, and the likelihood of developing the inflammation after infection is much higher than it is after vaccination.

Those conditions involve an inflammation of the heart or its lining.

On Thursday, data on the Moderna vaccines likelihood to cause heart inflammation was presented to a CDC advisory panel.

The presentation showed that males were much more likely to develop the condition than females - with those aged 18 to 24 at most risk, and the 25 to 29 group at risk as well.

The second dose of the vaccine is also the one that usually causes the condition.

Myocarditis risk falls off after age 30, though.

The data also shows that people who receive the Moderna shot are more likely to develop myocarditis.

For every one million doses of the Moderna shot administered, there are 13.3 more cases of myocarditis detected compared to every one million of the Pfizer jab. The reason for this is now yet known. The increased risk seems to appear for both males and females.

'The connection is especially clear when it comes to Moderna's vaccine Spikevax, especially after the second dose,' the Swedish health agency said.

A Moderna spokesperson said in an email last week that the company was aware of the decisions by regulators in Denmark and Sweden to pause the use of its vaccine in younger individuals because of the rare risk of myocarditis and or pericarditis.

'These are typically mild cases and individuals tend to recover within a short time following standard treatment and rest,' they wrote.

'The risk of myocarditis is substantially increased for those who contract COVID-19, and vaccination is the best way to protect against this.'

According to one U.S. study that has yet to undergo peer review, young males under age 20 are up to six times more likely to develop myocarditis after contracting COVID-19 than those who have been vaccinated.

Denmark said that, while it used the Pfizer vaccine as its main option for people aged 12 to 17 years, it had decided to pause giving the Moderna vaccine to people below 18 according to a 'precautionary principle'.

In June, the CDC issued a warning that young males were at an increased risk of myocarditis after receiving the vaccine.

The label for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were changed in the U.S. to reflect the warning, though usage was never paused.

Cases of inflammation after vaccination are rare, though they do occur often enough to concern regulators.

A recent study from Kaiser Permanente Southern California found that around seven out of every one million people that receive a two-shot COVID-19 vaccine will develop myocarditis.

The same study found that 47.5 out of every one million Covid patients experience heart inflammation.

While myocarditis will often resolve itself, it can be dangerous. Heart inflammation can often lead to fatigue, shortness of breath and chest pain for patients. People with inflamed hearts are at a higher risk for heart failure, heart attacks and strokes.

Attempting strenuous physical activity with an inflamed heart could also potentially lead to sudden cardiac arrest, or even death.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10116783/Sweden-extends-pause-Modernas-COVID-19-vaccine-young-people-30.html

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IN BRIEF

Biden says police officers and first responders should be fired for refusing jab exercising individual liberty (Fox News)

Friendly fire fact-check: Biden overstates his record on COVID vaccine (AP)

Merrick Garland grilled on Loudoun County case, says he “doesn’t know” about alleged hellacious assault by boy in girls’ bathroom (Daily Wire)

“I’m comfortable with zero”: Joe Manchin reportedly willing to tank reconciliation to avoid overspending (Daily Caller)

Scranton Joe keeps telling bizarre Amtrak story that was already debunked (Fox News)

House votes to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress (New York Post)

Federal Reserve imposes new restrictions on investments after trading controversy (NPR)

NIH admits to funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan but disingenuously blames EcoHealth for violating reporting requirements (National Review

Afghan placed in Montana by Biden administration charged with raping teen (Daily Wire)

Once again, COVID hospitalizations are increasing in the North, declining in the South (National Review)

Bunch of liars: Email from Loudoun County superintendent alerted school board on day of bathroom assault (WTOP)

Man who allegedly dressed as woman charged with child porn, reportedly used pen cameras laced into sneakers (Daily Wire)

“We’re hiring”: Indiana invites Chicago cops to move to state (Daily Wire)

Policy: What is the root cause of our supply chain problems? (Daily Signal)

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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24 October, 2021

Pfizer says its COVID-19 vaccine is more than 90% effective against infection in children aged 5-11

Pfizer-BioNTech says their COVID-19 vaccine is about 91 percent effective against infection in elementary school-aged children.

Details of the study were posted online on Friday as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers expanding Covid vaccinations to youngsters between ages five and 11.

If federal regulators give the go ahead, shots could begin rolling out early next month, meaning the first children in line could be fully inoculated by Christmas.

Parents have been split 50/50 over vaccinating children because kids rarely get severely ill and make up less than 0.1 percent of all Covid deaths in the U.S.

According to clinicaltrials.gov, Pfizer recruited 2,268 children between ages five and 11 for the study. About half of the kids were given two doses 21 days apart and the other half were given placebo shots.

The team then tested the safety, tolerability and immune response generated by the vaccine by measuring antibody levels in the young subjects.

Pfizer said it had selected lower doses for COVID-19 vaccine trials in children than are given to teenagers and adults.

Those aged 12 and older receive two 30 microgram (?g) doses of the vaccine. However, children between ages five and 11 were given 10 ?g doses - one-third of the size given to adolescents and adults.

Sixteen children who received the placebo contracted COVID-19 compared with three in the vaccinated group - while Pfizer said equates to 90.7 percent efficacy.

In the vaccination group, one participant each had two, three and four Covid symptoms.

Comparatively, in the placebo group, half of the pediatric patients had five or more symptoms.

No life-threatening adverse events were reported with the most common side effect being pain at the injection site, reported in more than 70 percent of kids.

This is about equal with the up to 83 percent of 16-to-25-year-olds in the adult clinical trial who reported the same thing.

Other common side effects included fatigue, headache and redness/swelling at the site of injection.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10120283/Pfizer-says-COVID-19-vaccine-90-effective-kids.html

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Why even fully vaccinated older people are at high risk for severe COVID-19

Many factors weaken the aging immune system. But vaccines—and booster doses—do offer protection from hospitalization and death.

Mounting data suggest that older people are at higher risk of severe disease from a breakthrough infection of COVID-19—and scientists say that should come as no surprise. After all, older age brackets have been disproportionately at risk throughout the pandemic, and that continues to be true even once someone is fully vaccinated.

Concerns about breakthrough infections bubbled up again this week when news broke on October 18 that former Secretary of State Colin Powell had died after contracting COVID-19. Powell was 84, but his cause of death was more complex: The former statesman suffered from multiple myeloma, a cancer of white blood cells. People with this form of cancer tend not to respond well to vaccines.

But in addition to the immunocompromised, health officials are seeing worrying evidence that older age groups continue to be at higher risk from the pandemic. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people over 65 account for 67 percent of hospitalizations and 85 percent of deaths from breakthrough cases. And recent media reports citing data from Seattle, Washington, and the United Kingdom show that older vaccinated people face similar—and, in some cases, greater—risks of severe disease than unvaccinated children.

“The huge risk factor is age,” says William Petri, an immunologist at the University of Virginia. That’s why the U.S. prioritized vaccinating older people and those in long-term care facilities when it first rolled out the vaccines, he explains. “If you’re under 45, your chances of dying are almost nonexistent, and then it increases exponentially.”

Concerns over breakthrough infections are also why U.S. regulators have approved booster doses of the Pfizer vaccine for people over 65—and are poised to do the same for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson jabs. (Why the CDC and FDA only approved booster shots for some Americans.)

Here’s what scientists know about the aging immune system—and why breakthrough infections don’t change the fact that COVID-19 vaccines remain remarkably effective for people at any age.

Aging immune systems

Experts say they still don’t have an adequate explanation for why older people were more susceptible to COVID-19 even before vaccines were available. “It’s just one of the great mysteries of the virus,” says Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona.

Scientists who study aging say it likely has to do with some of the hallmarks of getting older. For example, the human body normally clears away cells that have become damaged due to disease, injury, or stress. But as the body ages, this process becomes less efficient, and it starts to accumulate so-called senescent cells, which are damaged but won’t die. These cells secrete chemicals that damage neighboring healthy cells and trigger inflammation. Senescent cells thus weaken the body and make it harder to fight off infections.

But there’s a lot more going on in an aging body, and many elements of aging likely work together to undermine the immune response, says Eric Verdin, president and chief executive officer of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, a biomedical research group based in California.

Among older people, he says, there are two broad abnormalities of the immune system: a hyperactive innate response, and an underactive adaptive response.

Innate immunity is the defense system you were born with—and the first to respond to invaders. It doesn’t target a specific pathogen, but rather mounts a generic inflammatory response. When that response is inappropriately intense, as happens in older people, it can trigger a cascade of damage throughout the body, from the lungs to the heart to the kidneys. (Here’s what the coronavirus does to the body.)

The adaptive immune response targets a specific invading pathogen. Vaccines provide a preview of the germ and teach the body how to create antibodies that recognize and latch onto a virus and block it from entering any of the body’s cells. If the virus does manage to break through, then T cells join in and kill the infected cell. Verdin likens it to an army that defends the body from attackers. If the amount of virus is small, the antibodies and T cells can easily defeat it.

A larger viral force, however, can overwhelm the adaptive immune system. Older people, who are less able to mount a vigorous adaptive response, may therefore be particularly susceptible to breakthrough infections.

“Everything gets worse with age, is the bottom line,” Bhattacharya says.

Breakthrough infections

Annual flu shot drives have shown that age can dampen the effectiveness of some vaccines. Verdin says a third of people over age 70 don’t respond at all to the flu vaccine, which is why it still kills a disproportionate number of older Americans every year.

On the other hand, responses to COVID-19 vaccines have been a lot stronger. “I think one of the more surprising things is how well the mRNA vaccines did with those older populations,” Bhattacharya says. “If you look at the initial immune responses, they weren’t very much different at all between people over 65 and those below. So that was a pretty pleasant surprise.”

However, in September the CDC reported that the vaccines are only about 78 percent effective at preventing infection among people of all ages after six months. It’s unclear exactly what is responsible for this drop in effectiveness. Bhattacharya says some studies do show that immunity is waning in people over 65, but he points out that it could also be caused by the rise of the Delta variant, which has proven better able to evade the body’s immune response.

In late September, New York magazine’s David Wallace-Wells wrote of “the overwhelming age skew of the disease” even among the vaccinated, citing data from the United Kingdom showing that vaccinated people over 60 died from COVID-19 at higher rates than unvaccinated people under 50. The New York Times also recently wrote about hospitalization rates in the Seattle area, which show that the risks for vaccinated people in their 50s are similar to the risks for unvaccinated children under age 15.

Bhattacharya says he doesn’t like comparing the two age groups, arguing that it’s much more important to compare the risks among unvaccinated versus vaccinated people no matter their age. These data clearly show that everyone benefits from a vaccine: In the U.K., for instance, the death rate for unvaccinated adults is several times higher than it is for vaccinated adults in every age group.

And despite the drop in effectiveness in preventing infection, the Pfizer vaccine remains 90 percent effective at preventing hospitalization, which shows that it remains a solid defense against severe disease and death. A recent report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said that vaccines “may have helped prevent hundreds of thousands of new COVID-19 infections and tens of thousands of deaths among seniors.”

Bhattacharya says that federal regulators in the U.S. have approved boosters for people over 65—and not the general population—because of the extra risks that they face. He and other scientists emphasize that high-profile breakthrough infections and the approval of booster shots should not discourage anyone from getting vaccinated. On the contrary, it should be seen as confirmation that the vaccines work.

“Rest assured, these are the best vaccines we’ve ever had,” Petri says.

Verdin agrees: “Getting vaccinated really puts things on your side. Think about it as a war where you want to have all the ammunition that you can possibly have.”

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/why-older-vaccinated-people-face-higher-risks-for-severe-covid-19

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Study finds no link between COVID-19 vaccine and pregnancy loss

An international study has found no link between COVID-19 vaccinations and miscarriages early in pregnancy.

The study, conducted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, found no evidence of a direct effect of the vaccination on pregnancy and miscarriages.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the study used 20,000 Norwegian registries on first trimester pregnancies to perform the case-controlled research. Each pregnant woman's COVID-19 vaccination status, background characteristics and underlying health conditions were considered as factors.

Of the 13,956 women with ongoing pregnancies 5.5 per cent were vaccinated, and of the 4521 women with miscarriages 5.1 per cent were vaccinated.

Following the analysis, it concluded that there was "no evidence of an increased risk for early pregnancy loss after Covid-19 vaccination".

Australia's Department of Health cites pregnant people as a priority group for COVID-19 vaccination with Pfizer as the recommended vaccine.

"Pregnant people have a higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 and their babies have a higher risk of being born prematurely. Vaccination is the best way to reduce these risks", their website states.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/health/medical/study-finds-no-link-between-covid-19-vaccine-and-pregnancy-loss/ar-AAPOp4o

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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22 October, 2021

Scottish study: Vaccines '90% effective' at preventing Delta variant deaths

Vaccination is 90% effective at preventing deaths from the Delta variant of Covid-19, researchers say. The data, released by the University of Edinburgh, was gathered using a Scotland-wide Covid surveillance tool.

Figures suggest the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 90% effective and the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab 91% effective at preventing deaths.

It looked at people who have been double-vaccinated but who have tested positive for Covid in the community.

The study is the first to show across an entire country how effective vaccines are at preventing death from the Delta variant, which is the most dominant form of Covid in the UK.

Researchers defined death from Covid as anyone who died within 28 days of a positive PCR test, or with Covid recorded as a cause of death on their death certificate.

The study analysed data from 5.4 million people in Scotland between 1 April and 27 September this year.

During this period, 115,000 people tested positive for Covid using a PCR test in the community, rather than in hospital, and there were 201 Covid-related deaths recorded.

Tracked in real time

No deaths have been recorded in those who have been double-vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine in Scotland, according to the data.

Researchers said it is therefore not possible to estimate this particular vaccine's effectiveness in preventing Covid-related deaths.

The research team from the University of Edinburgh, University of Strathclyde and Public Health Scotland analysed the dataset as part of the EAVE II project - Early Pandemic Evaluation and Enhanced Surveillance of Covid-19.

It uses anonymised, linked-patient data to track the pandemic and the vaccine rollout in real time.

Age groups second dose

So far, 87.1% of adults in Scotland have taken a second dose of the Covid vaccine.

Third "booster" doses are being offered to everyone over 50, along with frontline medical staff and younger adults with some underlying health conditions.

Prof Aziz Sheikh, director of the University of Edinburgh's Usher Institute and EAVE II study lead, said: "With the Delta variant now the dominant strain in many places worldwide, and posing a higher risk of hospitalisation than previous variants seen in the UK, it is reassuring to see that vaccination offers such high protection from death very shortly after the second dose.

"If you still have not taken up your offer to be vaccinated, I would encourage you to do so based on the clear benefits it offers."

Follow-up studies

Prof Chris Robertson, of the University of Strathclyde and Public Health Scotland, said: "This study shows the value of carrying out analyses of routine healthcare data available in near real-time.

"Our findings are encouraging in showing that the vaccine remains an effective measure in protecting both ourselves and others from death from the most dominant variant of Covid-19."

He added that it was important to validate these early results with follow-up studies.

The team behind the study said due to the observational nature of the figures, data about vaccine effectiveness should be interpreted with caution and said it was not possible to make a direct comparison between both vaccines.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-58987835

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England data: How are COVID vaccines faring against Delta?

New research, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, has confirmed that both AstraZeneca and Pfizer COVID vaccines have a lower efficacy against Delta, with a single dose of either vaccine around 30% effective against the strain, compared to 48% for the Alpha variant.

However, after two doses, only modest differences were observed, with Pfizer 88% effective against Delta compared to 93% for Alpha, and AstraZeneca 67% effective against Delta and 74.5% for Alpha.

So how is this playing out in the UK?

With Delta now the dominant strain, case numbers have started to soar, with more than 330,000 people testing positive in the past seven days. Hospitalisation rates have also started to increase, with 4510 people admitted between 8–14 July, up 38.6% on the previous seven days, and 366 deaths recorded between 15–21 July, up 59.8% from the past week.

That is with 69.1% of the adult population fully vaccinated and 88.1% having received one dose.

But infectious diseases physician and microbiologist Associate Professor Paul Griffin told newsGP that the findings are not unexpected as Delta is more infectious, and that the reduced efficacy is ‘not all that significant’.

‘We know people that are fully vaccinated can still get infected,’ he said.

‘But what we also know is that they’re, at least modestly, reduced in terms of their ability to transmit, and have very significantly reduced chances of getting really sick, being hospitalised and dying.

‘And, again, that doesn’t mean that the numbers of deaths will go to zero. Even if we had 100% of people vaccinated, there’d still be one or two people per 100, and there’d still be 10 people that do get sick – but it’s significantly reduced.

‘We just have to look at the proportion that get really sick, and make sure that that doesn’t jump up indicating that our vaccines are no longer working. But we’re clearly not at that point yet.’

In Israel, where Delta is causing a fourth wave, health officials are less certain.

The country’s Ministry of Health earlier this month lowered its projection of Pfizer being 95.3% effective to just 64% against Delta, and warned that it could be even lower, as about 90% of new confirmed cases in those aged over 50 are fully vaccinated.

However, it is worth noting that while case numbers have risen from zero on 5 June to 668 on 19 July, deaths have remained low, with only two recorded on 19 July.

With 85% of adults vaccinated in Israel, Associate Professor Griffin says that in and of itself could be why the proportion of cases who are vaccinated appear to be overrepresented, but that more information is needed.

‘It’s hard to know what those case numbers would have been had they not had so many people vaccinated,’ he said.

‘So, it’s not really, at this stage, data that lends itself to concluding that the vaccine performs less well there.

‘I think part of it is a bit of a skewing of the numbers. The key thing there will be looking at, again, the serious cases, hospitalisations, and deaths. If they truly climb there would be concern about the actual efficacy being less than we think.’

Comparing Delta waves in countries with a high proportion of vaccinated adults to those with low vaccination rates, also suggests current vaccines are effective at reducing hospitalisations and deaths.

Likewise, the UK research, funded by Public Health England, has concluded the findings support efforts to maximise vaccine uptake with two doses among vulnerable populations.

As children appear to be more susceptible to the Delta variant, a number of countries have already approved COVID vaccination in children, including Israel, the US, France and Italy, with the UK set to offer vaccination to those aged 12–15 who are at higher risk of COVID due to disability or illness.

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/how-are-covid-vaccines-faring-against-delta

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Pfizer says COVID-19 booster shot showed high efficacy in large study

Berlin: A booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech restored efficacy to 95.6 per cent against the virus, including the Delta variant, data released by the companies from a large study shows.

The companies said in a press release that the trial, which has not been peer-reviewed, tested 10,000 participants aged 16 and older, and found that the booster shot had a favourable safety profile.

Dr Walid Gellad, a professor at University of Pittsburgh’s medical school, said there seems to be a benefit of having the third dose in the Delta wave for symptomatic COVID-19.

“I’m just still very curious if this is primarily in people who are much, much older. Because what we don’t want to do is run out and give boosters to 25-year-olds who had COVID before and got two doses of the vaccine, just based on this press release,” Gellad said.

Pfizer had said its two-shot vaccine’s efficacy drops over time, citing a study that showed 84 per cent effectiveness from a peak of 96 per cent four months after a second dose. Some countries had already gone ahead with plans to give booster doses.

The trial results come a day after the US Food and Drug Administration authorised booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, and said Americans could choose a different shot from their original inoculation as a booster.

The agency previously authorised boosters of the Pfizer/BioNTech shot at least six months after the first round of shots to increase protection for people aged 65 and older, those at risk of severe disease and those who are exposed to the virus through their work.

The drugmakers said on Thursday, local time, the median time between the second dose and the booster shot or the placebo in the study was around 11 months, adding there were only five cases of COVID-19 in the booster group, compared with 109 cases in the group which received the placebo shot.

The median age of the participants was 53 years, with 55.5 per cent of participants between 16 and 55 years, and 23.3 per cent at 65 years or older.

Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said the trial results add to mounting data that boosters could help in providing long-lasting protection from symptomatic infection.

There were no reported cases of severe disease, suggesting robust protection from infection with only the primary vaccination series, Yee wrote in a note.

The companies said they would submit detailed results of the trial for peer-reviewed publication to the US FDA, the European Medicines Agency and other regulatory agencies, as soon as possible.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/pfizer-says-covid-19-booster-shot-showed-high-efficacy-in-large-study-20211022-p5926c.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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21 October, 2021

FDA Authorizes Moderna and J&J Boosters, Backs ‘Mix-and-Match’

The Food and Drug Administration authorized booster shots for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccines on Wednesday.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel will issue recommendations on Thursday regarding which groups should receive boosters and on what timeframe. Once those recommendations are made, booster shots for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines could be available within days, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The FDA also authorized mixing and matching coronavirus vaccines, allowing Americans to receive a different vaccine for their booster shot than their original vaccine.

Some research has indicated that mixing coronavirus vaccines may produce stronger immune responses, and several European countries as well as Canada have already allowed residents to mix vaccines prior to booster shots. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau received an AstraZeneca vaccine for his first shot and Moderna for his second.

The FDA authorization allows any recipient of the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine to receive a second dose of either the Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, or Pfizer vaccines, at least two months after the first shot.

However, recipients of the two-dose Moderna and Pfizer vaccines must wait at least six months before receiving a booster. For now, seniors or people at higher risk of COVID-19 because of underlying medical or workplace conditions may receive a booster shot.

The Biden administration authorized boosters for the Pfizer vaccine last month for seniors and immunocompromised Americans. That decision came following some confusion over the authorization timeline, after the president claimed in August that boosters would soon be authorized for the general population.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/f-d-a-authorizes-moderna-and-jj-boosters-backs-mix-and-match/

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Kyrsten Sinema Is Arizona’s New Maverick

Nothing reveals the double standard by which Beltway Washington deals with mavericks than the different treatment accorded two independent-minded senators in recent years.

The late John McCain of Arizona was celebrated for going against his party, never more so than when, in 2017, his one vote killed a GOP repeal of parts of Obamacare. But now, for standing up to the $3.5 trillion Biden budget extravaganza, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema is fast becoming a pariah in her party, as McCain was in his.

Media scorn has been brutal. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times attacked her. Saturday Night Live portrayed her as obstructionist and came as close as one is still allowed in these PC times to saying that she was a dumb blonde. Liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias denounced her as a tool of corporate lobbyists and asked, “Is Kyrsten Sinema on the take?”

Her former colleagues in the House have singled her out. “This is not progressives versus moderates,” said Representative Ro Khanna (D., Calif.), a progressive and the assistant whip of the House Democratic caucus. “This is the entire Democratic Party and Joe Biden versus Kyrsten Sinema.”

Back home in Arizona, the state Democratic Party just passed a resolution criticizing her and hinted at a possible primary challenge in 2024. Angry, hectoring left-wing activists pursued her into a public restroom and proudly posted a video of their stunt.

Key Washington Democrats have effectively disowned her. When Democratic leaders issued a joint statement condemning the bathroom harassment, Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) withheld his endorsement because the statement didn’t include a rebuke of Sinema’s policy views.

President Biden was little better. Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan pointed out his passive-aggressive response: “I don’t think they’re appropriate tactics, but it happens to everybody. . . . It’s part of the process.” Noonan noted that “to announce it is part of the process is to make it part of the process. It was as if he were saying: Yeah, she’s got me mad. Hound her some more.”

The left-wing anger against Sinema may in part be explained by her having once been such a strong progressive. A bisexual triathlete who was raised in poverty and became a social worker, Sinema in 2013 became the first member of Congress to list “None” as her religion. In the early 2000s, she was the spokeswoman for the Green Party and dressed up in a black veil and a pink tutu to protest the war in Iraq. As a Democrat, she was elected to the state house in 2004 and retained her bomb-throwing zeal.

When I met her at an immigration conference in Phoenix in 2006, she introduced herself by extending her hand and saying, “Hi. I’m Kyrsten. I’m in the Arizona house and I’m a socialist.” The lefty Phoenix New Times named her “Best Local Lefty Icon” as late as 2011, praising her as “a valiant champion for the poor, the underprivileged, and the state’s immigrant population.”

But glimmers of a changed attitude and a suspicion of the limits of impersonal government programs could be seen early on. In her 2009 book Unite and Conquer: How to Build Coalitions That Win and Last, she wrote dismissively of “the dread disease” of “identity politics” and how liberals too quickly embraced the “mantle of victimhood.” When she ran for Congress in 2012, she said her social-work ethos prompted her to pledge to govern “the same way I try to live my life — which is to seek understanding of those around me rather than to move forward with a combative attitude.”

Once in Congress, Sinema did follow that new course. She sought out Republicans to co-sponsor her bills, she tempered her rhetoric, she became a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, and she voted three times against electing Nancy Pelosi as speaker. When she ran for the Senate in 2018, one of her ads deplored how people in Washington “are more interested in their talking points and their ideology than getting stuff done.”

In her first year in the Senate, the nonpartisan GovTrack survey found her to be the most conservative Democrat. One notch less conservative than she was eclectic libertarian senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.).

In May, the Arizona Republic asked her what her long-term goals in the Senate were. She replied:

Most folks in Arizona aren’t thinking to themselves, “What is the government doing for me today?” They’re often thinking about what the government is doing to me today, right? . . . I want Arizonans to, one, not have to think about their government very much. But, two, when they do, to think to themselves: “Well, that it is at least a little less bad than it used to be, it’s less painful than it used to be and Kyrsten has done some work to help make my life a little bit easier and a little bit better.”

It’s no wonder that such a minimalist governing agenda prompted a senior Senate Democratic aide to describe her as “an enigma shrouded in mystery.”

But perhaps she isn’t. She has long held out McCain as a political role model, and in her first speech as a senator she called him “a personal hero.”

“I think she definitely would like for her legacy to be ‘the maverick’ like him,” Grant Woods, a former state attorney general of Arizona and a former chief of staff to McCain, told Time magazine. “He was instinctively drawn to doing the opposite of what he was told and what people expected. She’s definitely attracted to that image.”

On substance, she has emulated McCain in putting herself in the room where deals are cut, as she did when she helped broker the COVID-19 relief package in March and, in August, the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package that won 19 Republican votes in the Senate.

But the media clearly reject any comparisons to their hero McCain. “Sinema is missing perhaps the most important facet of McCain’s persona — the glue that, more than any stubbornness or mavericky vote, . . . was responsible for his exalted status,” explained Mother Jones reporter Tim Murphy. “He absolutely craved the spotlight. He practically had an endowed chair on Meet the Press. He appeared in Wedding Crashers. When McCain died, several thousand reporters all filed stories at once about his famous press scrums in the Capitol or on the campaign trail.” In other words, McCain treated the media as the important players they like to see themselves being. Left unsaid was the fact that McCain was the most prodigious leaker of Senate insider stories that body had ever seen. The media reward loose lips.

Sinema doesn’t leak, distrusts the media, and avoids giving interviews in nonnational outlets. In 2018, National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar laughed that “trying to report on Sinema’s Senate campaign was like having to deal with an incompetent cable company. Calls and e-mails to her campaign went unreturned for days.”

The liberal sources the media rely on have long made clear their view of her as a non–team player. In 2016, she was nowhere to be seen at a massive Hillary Clinton pre-election rally at Arizona State University, which is in her home district and where Sinema teaches. A Democratic operative spotted her at a local coffee shop instead, holding a campaign event for herself at the same time.

To pressure Sinema to pledge her vote for Biden’s $3.5 trillion bill, progressives have tried everything, from accosting her on airplanes to putting her face on a milk carton at local football games. They are actively recruiting Representative Ruben Gallego, who took Sinema’s House seat, to primary her in 2024.

But defeating her won’t be easy. She has $3.6 million in her campaign account, and an OH Predictive Insights poll found her overall favorability rating roughly equal to that of fellow Arizona Democratic senator Mark Kelly. Sinema is less popular among Democrats but has a 40 percent favorability rating among Republicans.

In addition, it’s entirely possible that Sinema could win her primary even if most Democrats vote against her. Arizona law allows unaffiliated voters — one in three of all those registered — to vote in any primary. In both 2010 and 2016, John McCain lost the votes of registered Republicans in his party primary but prevailed by cleaning up with independents.

Some Sinema sympathizers also believe she can build back some goodwill within the party if both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and a pared-back version of Biden’s social-welfare extravaganza eventually become law.

But don’t bet on it. The Hill reported that other issues will continue to stick in the craw of progressive groups, chief among them her stubborn support of the Senate filibuster.

So if progressives continue to find reasons to lust for a primary challenge, they should realize they are putting her Senate seat at risk. Many Democrats aren’t convinced that a liberal such as Gallego could win the general elecyion after a bloody internecine primary. “There’s a near zero chance he would win statewide,” a Democratic operative told The Hill. “That’s something Democrats will really have to ask themselves in seeking to defeat Sinema, is do they want someone to primary her who will almost certainly hand the seat to Republicans?”

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/11/01/kyrsten-sinema-is-arizonas-new-maverick/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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20 October, 2021

Another Leftist Myth Debunked: Stats Show More COVID Deaths on Biden's Watch Than Trump's

Biden’s bid for the presidency was focused largely on his promise to effectively fight the spread of the virus. Despite the fact that he had vaccines, therapeutics and mandates at his disposal, he has failed to deliver.

The fact is that 372,000 Americans have died from COVID during Biden’s presidency while 352,000 died during Trump’s. The numbers come from John’s Hopkins University, as reported by host Sean Hannity on Fox News.

Some say they doubt the validity of the numbers. Who can blame them? Everything can be doubted in a world where all is relative and facts are what you make of them. Confusion is the new plague.

It’s also a fact that the virus was just amping up when Trump was in office. It should be noted that Trump’s total was from a 10-month period and Biden surpassed that total in just 8 months.

Trump took on the virus with a fighting spirit and masks. Biden had a toolbox full of options and didn’t manage to make a dent.

Biden has to come to terms with the facts. Instead, Democrats are using the emergence of the delta variant to explain away their numbers. There is truth to this assertion, but only if you add the fact that the Biden administration catalyzed vaccine hesitancy with horrendous messaging.

Officials with the Coronavirus Research Center recently observed that “vaccine hesitancy continues and testing has lagged.”

“So I would say the simple strategies are, first, to listen to what the concerns are and try as best as possible to understand them,” Dr. Bill Moss, the center’s vaccinology lead, said, according to the Washington Times.

“If it’s due to misinformation or disinformation, having the right messenger convey that information to the target audience is really critical, and that’s a person who the community or individual trusts, whether that’s a religious leader or a celebrity or sports figure.”

Biden and company are clearly not the “right messenger.” Too many people simply do not trust the administration.

COVID vaccines, instead of being a reasonable option for American citizens, are now divisive. The unvaccinated beware: Biden’s “patience is wearing thin.” The unvaccinated are being treated as enemies of the state.

Reasonable people have legitimate concerns about taking the vaccine, largely due to Biden’s misinformation about everything from Facebook “killing people” to red-state election laws being the new Jim Crow.

The administration has downplayed the effectiveness of natural immunity. They have also encouraged Big Tech to silence discourse around the vaccine.

Instead of treating reasonable people like deplorable idiots, it might help to treat them as citizens and address their concerns with understanding instead of malice.

Faith alone won’t work when it comes to COVID vaccines. People will need to be convinced through reason before they decide whether or not to take that leap.

The Biden administration chose to run the country’s COVID response much differently than Trump. They now have to own the 372,000 deaths. Mr. President, please stop blaming your mistakes on the citizens of the United States.

https://www.westernjournal.com/another-leftist-myth-debunked-stats-show-covid-deaths-bidens-watch-trumps/

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Former CDC Director Gives Disturbing Statistic on Fully Vaccinated COVID Deaths

Deaths were rare but 40 percent of people who did die in Maryland were fully vaccinated

Speaking during an interview with Fox News Monday afternoon, former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said that more than 40 percent of people who have recently died from the coronavirus in Maryland were fully vaccinated.

"A lot of times people may feel it's a rare event that fully vaccinated people die. I happen to be the senior advisor to Governor Hogan in the state of Maryland. In the last 6-8 weeks, more than 40 percent of people who died in Maryland were fully vaccinated," Redfield said, responding to the death of former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

At the time of his death from virus complications, Powell was also fighting a blood cancer that lowers the ability to stave off infection. According to the Maryland Department of Health, 65.7 percent of adults in the state are fully vaccinated.

Redfield served as CDC director under President Donald Trump and currently works as an advisor for Maryland's Republican Governor Larry Hogan.

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The likelihood of catching Covid-19 if you’re fully vaccinated

The Australian data

Covid-19 has a mortality rate of 1.06 per cent in Australia. Around 1,400 Aussies are currently in hospital with the virus, including 288 people in Intensive Care Units across the country.

The Health Minister said getting the jab would diminish most people’s risk of being hospitalised with Covid-19 to almost nothing. “We do know that what vaccination does is it reduces significantly your risk of getting the disease, but it doesn't prevent it,” Mr Hunt said.

“In the best case study, 47,000 people in NSW and the ACT between the ages of 16, and I believe 65, have been diagnosed. Of those, only four per cent have been fully vaccinated.”

And even if you catch Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated, Mr Hunt says the chance of becoming seriously ill is still very low for Australians who are double-dosed.

“It reduces very significantly your risk of serious illness or hospitalisation,” the Health Minister said.

Of the 47,000-person case study in NSW and the ACT, Mr Hunt said only one per cent of positive cases who died from the virus were fully vaccinated.

Australia’s Intensive care units reflect a similar trend. According to NSW Health, less than 2 per cent of people admitted to intensive care in NSW in the first 11 weeks of the state’s most recent outbreak were fully vaccinated.

Of the 4654 people hospitalised with Covid-19 over that period, just three per cent were double-dosed.

Eighteen per cent of hospitalisations were partially vaccinated, and the remaining 79 per cent were either unvaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/health/greg-hunt-reveals-the-likelihood-of-catching-covid19-if-youre-fully-vaccinated/news-story/96153496de15c50e4749e998974aff66

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GOP Reps Introduce Bill Requiring Federal Agencies to Recognize Natural Immunity Against COVID-19

On Monday, Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) introduced a bill requiring federal agencies to take into account naturally acquired immunity from a previous Wuhan coronavirus infection when issuing any measures aimed at stopping the spread of the virus.

The bill, titled the “Natural Immunity is Real Act” states that agencies are to “truthfully present, and incorporate, the consideration of natural immunity as it pertains to COVID-19” and that nothing in the Act “shall be construed to allow for, or authorize, a Federal vaccination mandate.”

As we’ve previously covered, last month, President Biden announced new COVID-19 vaccine mandates that would require all federal workers to be vaccinated and require employers with over 100 workers to require the vaccine or be subject to regular testing. Shortly after, the Biden administration began pushing a booster shot campaign.

“[T]he Biden Administration must ‘follow the science’ and be open, honest and transparent about the millions of Americans who have natural immunity against the COVID-19 virus,” Harshbarger said in a press release. “[M]y bill is a necessary and timely legislative action resulting from President Biden’s continued politicization of COVID-19 which continues to create deep divisions among Americans, such as when he chillingly said his national vaccine mandate requirements are ‘not about freedom or personal choice.’

Now more than ever, we need to pursue every scientific measure — such as natural immunity — that can help mitigate the pandemic without threatening people’s jobs, our economy, or denying Americans access to everyday life activities based on COVID-19 vaccination status.”

“We are over a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has failed to recognize the effectiveness of natural immunity,” Van Drew said in the press release. “We know vaccines work, but natural immunity could be equally or similarly as effective in certain individuals. If the CDC would devote time into its research, we would have robust, evidence-based research that could help America finally move on from this virus.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/madelineleesman/2021/10/19/gop-reps-introduce-bill-requiring-federal-agencies-to-recognize-natural-immunity-n2597653

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IN BRIEF

State Department IG to probe Biden administration’s chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal (Fox News)

“I will share my thoughts in the coming days and weeks”: Top U.S. envoy to Afghanistan steps down (Washington Examiner)

Midnight runs: Biden secretly flying underage migrants into New York in the dead of night (New York Post)

Haiti kidnappers demand $17 million ransom for missionaries (BBC News)

The writing is on the wall: House Democrat retirement rush continues with two new departures (Politico)

Supreme Court protects cops from lawsuits in two qualified immunity cases (Fox News)

China’s GDP slows to disappointing 4.9% in third quarter (The Hill)

U.S. careening into another recession as worried consumers flash warning signs (New York Post)

LA ports a ghost town much of the weekend despite President Biden’s goal to move cargo (Washington Examiner)

Climate backfire: Coal-fired power jumps as natural gas prices soar (Washington Times)

City leaders, police departments push back over impending COVID vaccine mandates (USA Today)

Nick Rolovich fired as Washington State football coach after refusing COVID vaccine (The Oregonian)

Jury selection moving slowly in Ahmaud Arbery slaying trial (AP)

Ten absurdly wasteful items tucked into the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend monstrosity (Daily Signal)

DOJ ignores Washington Post-prompted death threats against Waukesha, Wisconsin, school board member (The Federalist)

Silent disgrace: Where is the national media on abandoned Americans in Afghanistan? (Hot Air)

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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19 October, 2021

FDA Panel Unanimously Recommends Authorization of Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine Booster

Moderna officials presented data from clinical trials, including a small trial that studied the safety and effectiveness of a booster shot, as did officials from Israel, one of the first countries in the world to start giving booster shots, and the FDA, which performed an analysis of Moderna’s data but didn’t support or oppose the company’s application for an emergency use authorization expansion.

The FDA can overrule the panel’s recommendations but rarely does so. If the recommendation is approved, anyone aged 65 and older will be able to get a Moderna booster shot if they’ve received the primary two doses of the Moderna series. People between the ages of 18 and 64 who are deemed “at high risk of severe COVID-19” or whose “frequent institutional or occupational exposure to SARS-CoV-2 puts them at high risk of serious complications of COVID-19” will also have access to the booster shot.

The boosters would be a 50 microgram dose for people at least six months after they’ve received their second dose, which is itself typically administered one month after the initial dose. The primary two-dose series is 100 micrograms each.

Moderna said its small trial, consisting of just 171 people who got the regular primary series and a half-dose booster, showed a smaller amount could still bolster protection against CCP virus infection.

Officials discussed how data from other trials signal that the vaccine is still holding up well against severe disease, but that there’s been plummeting effectiveness against infection, particularly after the Delta variant became dominant in the United States.

Some panel members struck a skeptical tone on widespread boosters, pointing to the small number of people who got another shot and were studied and highlighting how some populations, including young, healthy people, don’t seem to need another shot.

“I’m not wild about a bunch of 20-year-olds going out and getting a booster dose, unless they’re at increased risk of either exposure or severe outcome,” Dr. Mark Sawyer, professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of California–San Diego School of Medicine and a temporary panel voting member, said before the vote.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel will ultimately make the decision on who should get a Moderna booster, Sawyer said, though it’s in danger of being overruled by the agency’s head, as happened with Pfizer’s additional shot.

There was discussion about amending the third piece of the recommendation, but a number of members brushed aside the talk, in part because of a desire to match the recommendation the same panel gave for a booster for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in September. No one dissented.

“We already approved it for Pfizer. I don’t see how we can possibly not approve it for Moderna and not have most U.S. folks be completely confused. I know that’s not part of what we’re supposed to think about, but I think it’s a pragmatic issue,” said Dr. Stanley Perlman, a temporary voting member and a professor in the University of Iowa’s Departments of Microbiology and Immunology.

Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at the Tufts University School of Medicine and a panel member, twice asked for evidence that people can be at high risk for serious complications based on their work. Dr. Doran Fink, an FDA official, said there was no “specific data,” but that there’s concern about so-called long COVID, or alleged problems that stem from COVID-19 and are seen even after somebody stops testing positive for the disease.

Meissner endorsed the recommendations, but warned the panel against voting for evidence-free language. “If we can’t defend these recommendations based on evidence, it’s going to further complicate getting this vaccine into every single adult American, and that’s really what we want to do,” Meissner said.

Dr. James Hildreth, president and CEO of Meharry Medical College and a temporary voting member (pdf), challenged Meissner, saying that the only evidence he needed for the occupational risk advice was that minorities are more likely to have underlying conditions, putting them at higher risk of severe cases of COVID-19.

Perlman said the piece was important because the United States can’t afford to have health care workers test positive for COVID-19, because that means they’ll have to miss work, even if they’re not showing symptoms.

Many spoke in favor of advising the FDA to widen the emergency use authorization again, after previously allowing people with weak immune systems to get a third dose of the vaccine. They said the fact that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are similar means that data regarding Pfizer booster shots, including virtually all the information from Israel, informed their decision, as did the millions of Americans who have already gotten the third shot. “We need boosters in some populations,” Sawyer said.

Dr. Patrick Moore, a temporary voting member and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, said his vote was based on “more of a gut feeling” than serious data.

“The data itself is not strong but it is certainly going in a direction that is supportable of this vote,” Moore said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/fda-panel-unanimously-recommends-authorization-of-moderna-covid-19-vaccine-booster_4049572.html

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Is America Repeating Cultural Split Between Rome and Byzantium?

In A.D. 286, the Roman emperor Diocletian split in half the huge Roman Empire administratively—and peacefully—under the control of two emperors.

A Western empire included much of modern-day Western Europe and northwest Africa. The Eastern half controlled Eastern Europe and parts of Asia and northeastern Africa.

By 330, the Emperor Constantine institutionalized that split by moving the empire’s capital from Rome to his new imperial city of Constantinople, founded on the site of the old Greek polis of Byzantium.

The two administrative halves of the once huge empire continued to drift apart. Soon there arose two increasingly different, though still kindred versions, of a once unified Romanity.

The Western empire eventually collapsed into chaos by the latter fifth century A.D.

Yet the Roman eastern half survived for nearly 1,000 years. It was soon known as the Byzantine Empire, until overwhelmed by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 A.D.

Historians still disagree over why the East endured while the West crumbled. And they cite the various roles of differing geography, border challenges, tribal enemies, and internal challenges.

We moderns certainly have developed unfair stereotypes of a supposedly decadent late imperial Rome of Hollywood sensationalism that deserved its end. And we likewise mistakenly typecast a rigid, ultra-orthodox bureaucratic “Byzantine” alternative that supposedly grew more reactionary to survive in a rough neighborhood.

Yet in both cases, separate geography multiplied the growing differences between a Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian and older civilization in the East, versus a more or less polyglot and often fractious Christianity in the Latin West.

Byzantium held firm against ancient neighboring Persian, Middle Eastern, and Egyptian rivals. But the West disintegrated into a tribal amalgam of its own former peoples.

Unlike in the West, the glue that held the East together against centuries of foreign enemies was the revered idea of an ancient and uncompromising Hellenism—the preservation of a common, holistic Greek language, religion, culture, and history.

By A.D. 600, at a time when the West had long ago fragmented into tribes and proto-European kingdoms, the jewel at Constantinople was the nerve center of the most impressive civilization in the world, stretching from the Eastern Asia Minor to southern Italy.

There is now much talk of a new American red state/blue state split—and even wild threats of another civil war. Certainly, millions of Americans yearly self-select, disengage from their political opposites, and make moves based on diverging ideology, culture, politics, religiosity or lack of it, and differing views of the American past.

More conservative traditionalists head for the interior between the coasts, where there is usually smaller government, fewer taxes, more religiosity, and unapologetic traditionalists.

These modern Byzantines are more apt to define their patriotism by honoring ancient customs and rituals—standing for the national anthem, attending church services on Sundays, demonstrating reverence for American history and its heroes, and emphasizing the nuclear family.

Immigration in fly-over country is still defined as melting pot assimilation and integration of new arrivals into the body politic of a hallowed and enduring America.

While red states welcome change, they believe America never had to be perfect to be good. It will always survive, but only if it sticks to its 234-year-old Constitution, stays united by the English language, and assimilates newcomers into an enduring and exceptional American culture.

In contrast, the more liberal blue state antithesis is richer from globalist wealth. The West Coast, from Seattle to San Diego, profits from trade with a thriving Asia. It is bookended by the East Coast window on the European Union from Boston to Miami.

The great research universities of the Ivy League—the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Caltech, Stanford, and the University of California System—are bicoastal. Just as Rome was once the iconic center of the entire Roman project, so blue Washington, D.C., is the nerve center for big-government America.

The salad bowl is the bicoastal model for immigration. Newcomers can retain and reboot their former cultural identities.

Religion is less orthodox; atheism and agnosticism are almost the norm. And most of the recent social movements of American feminism, transgenderism, and critical race theory grew out of coastal urbanity and academia.

Foreigners see blue coastal Americans as the more vibrant, sophisticated, cosmopolitan—and reckless—culture, its vast wealth predicated on technology, information, communications, finance, media, education, and entertainment.

In turn, they concede that the vast red interior—with about the same population as blue America but with vastly greater area—is the more pragmatic, predictable, and home to the food, fuels, ores, and material production of America.

Our Byzantine interior and Roman coasts are quite differently interpreting their shared American heritage as they increasingly plot radically divergent courses to survive in scary times.

But as in the past, it is far more likely that one state model will prove unsustainable and collapse than it is that either region would ever start a civil war.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/10/14/is-america-repeating-the-cultural-split-between-rome-and-the-byzantine-empire/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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18 October, 2021

Should you mix and match COVID-19 vaccines?

Can someone get their initial COVID-19 vaccine from one manufacturer and then get a booster from another? The question has intrigued medical professionals since before the first shot went into an arm—and it’s far more than an academic issue. Allowing people to mix and match COVID-19 shots could significantly improve vaccine distribution and may even offer some medical benefits.

This afternoon an advisory committee to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will review data from a recent National Institutes of Health study that seeks to answer the question. The preliminary results of this very small study hint that the answer may be yes.

If the FDA eventually endorses mixing brands, the decision could help nationwide vaccination efforts, says Pedro Piedra, professor of molecular virology, microbiology, and pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “At any time, a pharmaceutical company can have a manufacturing issue, whether that’s a contamination problem or a shortage of a reagent, so it’s helpful to have options,” he says.

Doctors and pharmacists would also benefit, says Robert M. Jacobson, medical director of the primary care immunization program at the Mayo Clinic. “Practitioners could just pick one brand to carry and know they could give that to anyone in the middle of their vaccine series, rather than have to turn some patients away,” he says. This would reduce waste, because more people could be inoculated from each open vial, he notes.

Globally, scientific support for mixing vaccines would be an especially big benefit for low-income countries, many of which don’t have national stockpiles. They’d be able to use whatever shots they receive from aid groups or donations at a given time. That’s particularly important when just 2.5 percent of people in these countries have received even one jab.

Extensive mixing data from England

Researchers at the University of Oxford in the U.K. conducted some of the earliest research on mixing COVID-19 vaccines in studies conceived in late 2020, before any vaccines were authorized in that country. Known as the Com-COV study, for Comparing COVID-19 vaccine schedule combinations, the team initially looked at mixing and matching the vaccines made by AstraZeneca-Oxford and Pfizer-BioNTech. (Find out how the different COVID-19 vaccines work in our vaccine tracker.)

“The initial thinking was really about the roll-out: What if there was a problem with the supply of one vaccine, or if there was a safety signal with it, or if a person turned up and you didn’t know which vaccine they’d had before,” says Matthew Snape, an Oxford vaccinologist and the chief investigator on the Com-COV trials.

But interest quickly shifted to whether such mixing, known in medicine as a heterologous vaccination schedule, could offer immunological advantages. When the researchers gave 830 people either a double dose of the AstraZeneca or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines four weeks apart, or a mix of each, all achieved an immune response above the threshold indicating good protection.

The strongest response occurred in people who first got the AstraZeneca shot followed by Pfizer. The levels of antibodies (indicating the body’s ability to fight the coronavirus) and T-cells (responsible for limiting internal spread of the disease) rose highest under this combination. Which of these two immune reactions is most important isn’t yet known, Snape says. Researchers are also still investigating whether the advantage holds months after the shots; new blood samples taken six months after the initial doses are currently being studied, he says.

Mixing vaccines did lead to slightly more adverse reactions in this research, but all the reported side effects were no worse than bothersome headaches, fevers, and chills that dissipated within days. No combinations raised safety concerns.

“These results created a lot of chatter,” says Waleed Javaid, an epidemiologist and director of infection prevention and control at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York City. But without longer-term data, they don’t confirm that the combination is worth doing, he says.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is not authorized in the U.S., but many experts compare the shot with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because both use the same type of delivery system, known as a viral vector. In both vaccines, an adenovirus like the ones that cause the common cold delivers a small piece of the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s genetic code into the body, triggering an immune response.

However, the AstraZeneca is made from a chimpanzee adenovirus, while the J&J shot uses a human version. That means the two vaccines are distinct enough that you can’t apply study results from one to the other, says Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

“Heterologous vaccinations schedules might offer advantages, because each vaccine brings different features to the table. But every combination must be specifically studied for safety and immunogenicity,” Barouch says.

In recent months, Oxford has added Moderna and Novavax, another type of vaccine not authorized in the U.S., into its research mix. It expects to present results from the combinations of these four vaccines later this month, Snape says.

What the NIH found out about mixing

The NIH embarked on its own mix-and-match research in June, and the interim preliminary results were released online Wednesday. They are now under review by the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

The scientists recruited some 450 people who had received a full series of any of the three vaccines authorized in the U.S. At least three months later these people received a booster shot, either of the same brand or a different one. When the NIH team checked the participants’ blood for antibody levels 15 days after the booster, mixing was shown to enhance the shots’ effects, especially for those whose first inoculation was with the J&J jab.

The roughly 50 people who boosted their J&J shot with Moderna saw their antibody levels rise 76-fold, compared to just 4-fold in those getting another J&J vaccine. A Pfizer booster gave this group a 35-fold increase in antibodies.

Switching from one mRNA shot to another was less dramatic. Pfizer-Moderna recipients saw a 32-fold boost, while Pfizer-Pfizer’s was 20-fold. The Moderna-Pfizer combination turned out to be largely similar to Moderna-Moderna’s. And no mRNA recipient got a larger increase with a J&J booster compared to one from their original shot type.

If the final results of this study, along with others in process worldwide, continue to find advantages, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) might ultimately green-light a mix-and-match protocol. But it has not done so at this time.

The only combination protocol authorized in the U.S. is for immunocompromised people getting a third mRNA shot to enhance their generally weak response to the first two. The CDC recommends using the same brand throughout, but if that is unavailable, it says a different mRNA vaccine can be used.

Why only some vaccines are interchangeable

Historically, combining vaccine doses from different manufacturers has rarely been authorized for other diseases, Jacobson points out. This is due to the way vaccine research is financed in this country, he says. Before any product is authorized, its manufacturer must pay hefty sums to conduct sufficiently large studies proving their vaccine is safe and effective. They must also convince the FDA that they are able to manufacture every dose going forward to the exact same specifications as were used in its clinical trials.

“A manufacturer is not going to also put money into seeing whether its product mixes with other brands. There is no financial benefit for them to do that,” Jacobson says.

Independent scientists sometimes perform this research on their own and present the data to ACIP. Based on this independent data, for instance, the committee has agreed that children under age nine getting their first-ever flu shot, which requires two doses, can safely receive any two of the nearly one dozen products available, Jacobson says. People can similarly swap brands for subsequent doses of Hepatitis A or Hepatitis B vaccines.

“Decades of research has shown that, in general, if antigens are generated by a vaccine in similar fashion, you can mix and match. But there are some huge exceptions,” Jacobson says. For instance, mixing among meningococcal B manufacturers is not allowed. “If the provider can’t get the boost in the same brand as the original shot, you have to start the whole series over,” he says.

Some countries have already decided that certain recipients can receive a different second COVID-19 shot. When a rare blood clotting disorder appeared in a small number of younger recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine, some governments were hesitant to insist that everyone who’d gotten the first shot continue with the second.

“This is exactly what we anticipated in wanting to generate data,” Snape says of the Com-COV studies. Canada’s policy allows people who received a first AstraZeneca dose to finish the series with an mRNA vaccine if they prefer.

Should you try to mix and match?

With the fragmented healthcare system in the U.S., it’s possible that some people here have gotten a second or third dose of a different vaccine through less than legitimate means. You probably know someone who has done this, perhaps swayed by data showing stronger protection for some vaccines or annoyed that boosters for the Moderna and J&J vaccines are not yet approved.

Even though the preliminary NIH results show some advantage, the number of people tested was small. And while no serious adverse events occurred, uncommon reactions wouldn’t be discovered until tens of thousands or more recipients get the combination, Piedra says. It also remains to be seen whether the changes in the immune system seen 15 days after the vaccine ultimately translate into disease protection.

Plus, if you choose your own unauthorized booster shot, what happens if later research proves a different combination is better? That’s why experts say it’s a bad idea to become your own vaccine advisory committee and get a shot out of turn. “Deciding whether to mix,” Javaid says, “should be done in a safe and scientific matter rather than randomly.”

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/should-you-mix-and-match-covid-19-vaccines-experts-weigh-in

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IN BRIEF

Associate reportedly shuffled money between Joe and Hunter Biden accounts; president potential target of FBI investigation (Daily Wire)

Andrew McCabe, disgraced FBI official fired by Trump administration, gets pension restored (Fox News)

Chuck Schumer plans vote on phone election bill compromise next week (NBC News)

Democrats flip-flop on contempt, seeking it for Steven Bannon after opposing it for Eric Holder (Just the News)

Nearly half of the Taliban government’s leaders are designated terrorists (Free Beacon)

Cold hard malaise: Winter heating bills set to sharply jump as inflation hits home (AP)

U.S. wholesale prices rose record 8.6% over 12 months (AP)

Biden pushing vaccines for small kids (Daily Wire)

Judge sides with New York healthcare workers seeking religious exemption to vax mandate (Spectrum News)

Judge blocks United Airlines from suspending employees over vax mandate (Washington Examiner)

“Hold the line”: Chicago police union president tells officers to resist city vax requirement (Daily Wire)

Nursing schools see applications rise despite COVID burnout (AP)

Family of alleged rape victim in Loudoun County to sue school district (Daily Wire)

Systemic injustice: Loudoun Schools did not record multiple alleged sexual assaults over a period of years (Daily Wire)

Appeals court keeps Texas pro-life law in place (AP)

Democrat LA City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas indicted on federal corruption charges (Los Angeles Daily News)

Southlake, Texas, school leader tells teachers to balance Holocaust books with “opposing” views (NBC News)

Walmart CRT training encourages employees to accept that “white is not right” (National Review)

Walgreens closes five more San Francisco stores over rampant theft (Washington Examiner)

D'oh! Biden Supreme Court commission opposes adding justices (Fox News)

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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17 October, 2021

Johns Hopkins Doc Says Natural Immunity 27 Times More Effective Than Vaccine

“Nurses, who are heroes, are now getting laid off. Soldiers are getting dishonorably discharged. They’ve got immunity. It’s just not the type that our public health officials have sanctioned.”

The Biden administration’s refusal to acknowledge the relevance of natural immunity in the fight against COVID-19 has become glaring.

The administration that constantly insists they are following the science is actually engaging in willful blindness.

Hell-bent on enforcing their COVID vaccine mandate, they deliberately ignore every scientific study that finds natural immunity to be superior to vaccine immunity.

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine professor Dr. Marty Makary appeared as a guest on Thursday’s edition of “Morning Wire,” a podcast hosted by The Daily Wire.

“The data on natural immunity are now overwhelming,” Makary told the Morning Wire. “It turns out the hypothesis that our public health leaders had that vaccinated immunity is better and stronger than natural immunity was wrong. They got it backwards. And now we’ve got data from Israel showing that natural immunity is 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity. And that supports 15 other studies.”

Despised by the left for his criticism of the vaccine mandate, Makary finds it bizarre that natural immunity is not seen as legitimate in the eyes of the U.S. government.

“It’s ruining the lives of people who are getting fired,” he said. “Nurses, who are heroes, are now getting laid off. Soldiers are getting dishonorably discharged. They’ve got immunity. It’s just not the type that our public health officials have sanctioned.”

“This is a failure of government, not a failure of science,” he declared. “But how about some flexibility? How about recognizing natural immunity and allowing those who have circulating antibodies to get credit? That’s how they do it in parts of Europe, and that’s how they do it in Israel.”

Makary said the recent drop-off in COVID cases can be attributed to both the tens of millions of Americans who have already had the virus and those who have been vaccinated.

The government refuses to acknowledge that the natural immunity acquired from having had COVID has played any role at all in moving us closer and faster to the desired goal of herd immunity. Makary is essentially saying natural immunity has played an enormous role.

This point is compelling and has been underreported.

“That decline [in new cases of COVID] is really natural immunity kicking in,” Makary explained. “What we’re seeing is that when a very few people in a population are susceptible, that is almost everybody has either had COVID or the vaccine. You do see this rapid decline. It’s basically a part of herd immunity kicking in.”

He believes “we’re done with the surges. What we may see is bumping cases, seasonally, depending on pockets of the country where there’s low immunity rates. And remember: breakthrough infections are real. They will happen, but they have downgraded COVID from a major public health threat to a mild, common, cold-like illness.”

Makary feels that the vaccines are safe and that complications are “exceedingly rare.” I know a few people who might disagree with that assessment.

At any rate, Makary told the Morning Wire, “When I talked to doctors nationwide, it’s pretty clear that the vaccine-related complications are exceedingly rare and the vaccines we have are safer than any other vaccine we’ve ever had in the past. And I think if you if you’re on the fence about getting vaccinated, you want to do it right now, like today, because we are getting to a point where it’s so contagious, it’s ripping through the population pretty quickly.”

The consequences of the government’s rejection of natural immunity as a valid reason to skip the vaccine have become apparent throughout the country, particularly in the health care industry and at all levels of law enforcement.

Democrats pushing Biden’s misguided blanket vaccine mandate all parrot the same old tired line: “We follow the science.” That’s nonsense. It has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics — the politics of power and control.

In a September Op-Ed published in The Washington Post, Makary wrote, “It’s okay to have an incorrect scientific hypothesis. But when new data proves it wrong, you have to adapt. Unfortunately, many elected leaders and public health officials have held on far too long to the hypothesis that natural immunity offers unreliable protection against COVID-19 — a contention that is being rapidly debunked by science.”

Makary argued that over 15 studies have confirmed the power of natural immunity. He cited the recent 700,000-person Israeli study which found that those who had recovered from COVID “were 27 times less likely to get a second symptomatic COVID infection than those who were vaccinated.”

The results of the Israeli study, Makary wrote, confirmed the findings of a Cleveland Clinic study released in June. None of the health care workers who had previously contracted the virus were reinfected. The research team concluded that “individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination.”

And the Cleveland Clinic’s results, he noted, affirmed the conclusions of a Washington University study conducted in May, which “found that even a mild COVID infection resulted in long-lasting immunity.”

Maybe it’s time for the Biden administration to take politics out of it and actually look at the science.

https://www.westernjournal.com/johns-hopkins-doc-says-natural-immunity-27-times-effective-vaccine/

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Immune response from Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines spikes and then drops while antibody levels after J&J's shot remain low but stable, study finds

The immune response from the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines spikes and then drops drastically while the response from the Johnson & Johnson shot remains low but stable, a new study finds.

Researchers compared blood samples from a few dozen people fully vaccinated with one of three shots available in the U.S.

Findings - published in The New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the advisory committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on J&J boosters on Friday - showed antibody levels among people who got the Pfizer and Moderna were initially 12 times to 40 times higher than the J&J shot.

However, eight months later, the levels of the two-dose vaccines waned while those of the J&J vaccine 'remained relatively stable.'

The findings may throw a wrench in the advisory committee's discussions with some experts saying the results appear to suggest that a booster shot isn't needed after all.

For the study, researchers looked at 61 people at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston who were fully vaccinated.

Of the participants, 31 patients received the Pfizer vaccine, 22 received the Moderna vaccine and eight received the J&J vaccine.

Blood samples were taken between two to four weeks after the second dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines or after the one J&J dose, six months later and then eight months later.

Neutralizing antibody levels were measured in ID50, or the number of antibodies produced to prevent infection in 50 percent of normal adult humans exposed

Results showed that the median level for Pfizer was 1,789 ID50 and for Moderna was 5,848 ID50.

However, by eight months, the levels substantially declined to 53 ID50 in Pfizer, or a 34-fold drop, and to 133 ID50 in Moderna, or a 44-fold drop.

Comparatively, two to four weeks after the one-dose vaccine, median antibody levels for J&J were 146 ID50, lower than the other two vaccines.

This number then jumped to 629 ID50 eight months later.

'I think the data should be reassuring for people who received the J&J vaccine, that immune responses are stable over time,' study co-author Dr Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, told The Boston Globe.

'After about eight months, the antibody responses are relatively similar among the three vaccines.'

This difference may be attributed to the fact that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use new messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.

The technology works by using part of Covid's genetic code to trick the body into producing a harmless piece of the virus.

This gets the body to recognize the invader and mount an immune response by making customized proteins that are ready to attack if a person becomes infected.

But J&J's immunization is what is known as a viral vector vaccine, which combined genetic material from the new virus with the genes of the adenovirus -which causes the common cold - to induce an immune response.

The study also looked at levels of T-cells, which are a type of white blood cell that binds to and kills viruses, and found they were stable over eight months for all three vaccines.

Despite the findings that antibody levels for J&J's vaccine are steady, Barouch told The Globe that the firm still wants the FDA to authorize a booster dose.

'Although protection is maintained over time with a one-dose vaccine, it is not in the 90 percent range. It is in the 70 to 80 percent range,' he said during the meeting.

'A booster could bump efficacy to a level that is substantially higher.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10096293/Pfizer-Moderna-immunity-spikes-drops-J-Js-shot-remains-low-stable.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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15 October, 2021

‘Highly potent’ Covid antibody may be a new weapon in the battle against the virus

Scientists say they have discovered a “highly potent” Covid-19 antibody that “neutralises” variants of the virus, including the deadly Delta strain.

The UK‘s Health Security Agency chief executive Dr Jenny Harries this week said the dominance of the Delta variant globally has seen other coronavirus variants “become extinct”, but warned we still need to “stay alert”.

Now it looks like science may have discovered a new weapon in the battle against the virulent variant.

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), who made the breakthrough, said the antibody “is one of the most powerful” identified so far against SARS-CoV-2.

“Scientists at Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and EPFL have discovered a highly potent monoclonal antibody that targets the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and is effective at neutralising all variants of concern identified to date, including the delta variant,” EPFL said in a statement.

“The newly identified antibody was isolated using lymphocytes from COVID-19 patients enrolled in the ImmunoCoV study being carried out by CHUV’s Service of Immunology and Allergy.

“The antibody blocks the spike protein from binding to cells expressing the ACE2 receptor, which is the receptor the virus uses to enter and infect lung cells.

“That means the antibody halts the viral replication process, enabling a patient’s immune system to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 from the body.

The EPFL added that the new antibody is designed to have a lasting effect in humans.

“A typical unaltered antibody provides protection for up to three to four weeks,” they said. “But this new one can protect patients for four–six months,” they said.

Meanwhile, US pharmaceutical giant Merck has applied for emergency use authorisation of its oral anti-Covid drug in the United States, a major step towards finding a simple pill to treat the disease.

On Monday local time, Merck submitted the application for molnupiravir, which it said earlier this month was shown to reduce hospitalisation by 50 per cent.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/coronavirus/coronavirus-world-latin-america-records-15-million-deaths-from-covid19/news-story/7b1064bf9367d59db11ee26d7f16cd8b

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Top British doctor issues horror winter Covid warning as cases sky-rocket to three-month high

BRITAIN has been warned the NHS is facing an "exceptionally difficult" winter and an equally bleak Christmas as Covid cases spike to a three-month high - with chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty admitting the idea of a virus-free end to 2021 was "an impossible dream".

Speaking to delegates at the annual conference of the Royal College of GPs in Liverpool, Prof Whitty said: "In terms of where Covid will go over the winter, well I think the winter as a whole, I regret to say, is going to be exceptionally difficult for the NHS. "That is, irrespective of whether we have a relatively low but non-trivial amount of Covid, or whether we actually have a further surge in the winter.”

Prof Whitty, who was speaking a day after the UK recorded 42,776 new infections – a three month high and seven per cent increase compared with last week - added: "I think if you asked 100 modellers you're going to get over 100 answers, exactly as to how this is going to go out.

"I think what we're confident of is the very top end, what we would have faced potentially had things gone wrong last winter is not going to happen, barring an extraordinary escape mutant variant, but let's assume we don't get something which actually can basically evade our defences completely, I think the top end risks are much lower.

"But we could certainly go up, we're only two to three doubling times away from a really quite serious pressure on the NHS and it's already serious, but one that actually will be very difficult to deal with. "So the margin of error is quite small."

He warned of tough months ahead for the health service as it battles COVID-19, flu, other viruses and the usual winter problems such as trips and falls.

However, he praised GPs - who are currently under fire over face-to-face appointments - for all their "outstanding" hard work and professionalism over the last two years.

Regarding flu, he said there was a lot of debate over whether there could be low levels as people are still not mixing as much, or whether a lack of natural immunity could lead to "a really serious spike", with the possibility the flu vaccine is not very well matched to the strain that affects the UK.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1506106/covid-warning-coronavirus-winter-chris-whitty-christmas-vaccine-cases-flu-NHS

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The Three Words That Could Describe the Ashli Babbitt Shooting

It wasn’t our best day as a nation. It also wasn’t the worst. We have clowns in the liberal press saying that the January 6 riot was worse than the 9/11 attacks. We have comparisons that this was worse than the American Civil War. False on all accounts, but they need to exaggerate this incident because they want to ensnare Donald Trump again.

If this was such a horrific event, why haven’t they released the hours of security camera footage? It’s possibly because it’s boring as hell—just hundreds of people walking around the US Capitol. These people didn’t murder anyone as well. No cops were killed. Officer Brian Sicknick, who the liberal media tried to weaponize against conservatives, died of natural causes. The only person who was killed inside the Capitol building was Ashli Babbitt who was shot by police.

This has been a topic of discussion for some, as people wondered if the use of force was necessary. Look, in this situation, everyone inside should have known that these situations could turn deadly. That’s not to say she deserved it, and new documents from Judicial Watch further feeds the narrative that this was a cover-up. Tom Fitton added that the documents reveal Babbitt was shot for <font style="background-color:yellow; font-weight:bold;"> “no good reason” </font> (via Fox News):

More than 500 pages of internal documents from DC Metropolitan Police concerning the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt in the Capitol on Jan. 6 reveal witness accounts stating she was not holding a weapon at the time of her death and how "upset" the officer was after shooting her.

"These previously secret records show there was no good reason to shoot and kill Ashli Babbitt," stated Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which obtained the documents through a May 2021 FOIA lawsuit. "The Biden-Garland Justice Department and the Pelosi Congress have much to answer for the over the mishandling and cover-up of this scandalous killing of an American citizen by the U.S. Capitol Police."

Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was shot and killed during the storming of the Capitol by a bullet fired by Capitol Police officer Lt. Michael Byrd. The documents from the DC Metropolitan Police department show that witnesses did not see Babbitt holding a weapon prior to her being shot, and reveal conflicting accounts of whether Byrd verbally warned Babbitt before shooting her.

"Sergeant [redacted] never went on the other side of the barricaded east door. He also did not know that it was Lieutenant Byrd who shot his gun until he talked to him moments after it occurred. Lieutenant Byrd looked upset and stated, ‘I was the one who took the shot,’" the report continued.

Judicial Watch noted that in a written transcript of the interview with the sergeant, he detailed he was not sure "if something happened to" Byrd that "caused him to take the shot or not."

"Uh, I saw Lieutenant Byrd kinda. I don’t know if it was before or after. Cause I was trying to figure this out of, but there was at one point where I remember seeing him and he kind of went like this and then came back up again. Uh, I don’t know if that was from him taking the shot and then stepping back from that shot or if it was before that, I can’t, no matter how I tried to rack my brain, I can’t, I can’t figure out when that happened, but uh, so I don’t know if something happened to him where [sic] caused him to take the shot or not," the written transcript states.

The lawyer for the Babbitt family went so far as to allege that Capitol Police ambushed Ashli. Meanwhile, Lt. Byrd was interviewed by NBC Nightly News’ Lester Holt where he said that his actions saved lives. Talk about giving the finger to the rest us, man. In an era where almost every police shooting is characterized as an assassination, we have this guy getting a pass and a hero’s welcome when all the facts have not been reviewed. But who needs to do that for this officer-involved shooting, right? A reportedly nutty conservative rioter was shot and killed. Next.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/10/14/new-docs-show-that-ashli-babbitt-was-shot-for-no-good-reason-n2597429

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IN BRIEF

Too little, too late: President Biden steps in as delays cripple supply chain (CBS News)

“One heck of a job”: Biden incredulously lauds port czar — despite supply chain crisis (New York Post)

“High class problems”: Elitist White House chief of staff dismisses supply chain crisis and surging inflation (Fox News)

Leftmedia personified: Katie Couric covered up RBG’s dislike for taking a knee (Daily Mail)

Mark Zuckerberg spent $419 million on nonprofits ahead of 2020 election — and got out the Dem vote (New York Post)

What’s the point of checking in? Leaked Border Patrol docs show mass release of illegal immigrants into U.S. by Biden administration (Fox News)

Five people onboard flight out of Afghanistan “intended to hijack the aircraft” (Daily Wire)

Suicides in the U.S. Army’s active-duty forces jump 46% (Fox News)

Five dead in Islamist bow and arrow attack in Norway (BBC)

Inflation returns to highest level in 13 years (Bongino.com)

Social Security benefits to increase 5.9% in 2022 amid rising inflation (National Review)

Huge Social Security cost-of-living increase could accelerate trust’s depletion (Fox Business)

Drug overdose deaths hit record high during pandemic 12-month period (Washington Examiner)

Employer vaccine mandate a step closer to reality as OSHA submits rule text to OMB for review (Fox News)

Follow the Science™: Man’s kidney transplant canceled … because DONOR wasn’t vaccinated (New York Post)

The REAL cover-up: Virginia Democrats voted to allow schools to refrain from reporting sexual battery last year (National Review)

Seattle school cancels Halloween over “equity,” says black kids don’t celebrate (KTTH)

D'oh! Virginia city that removed police from schools following “defund the police” protests reinstates officers (Washington Examiner)

State school board groups disavow School Boards Association’s parent inquisition (Daily Signal)

Trump team claims Mark Milley never told them of China worries (Washington Times)

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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14 October, 2021

Note:

Another article just up on my <a href="https://john-ray.blogspot.com/">Food & Health</a> blog saying that wine with dinner is good for you

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Joe Biden’s bizarre presidency is like The Truman Show

Joe Biden has taken to staging media events at a fake White House set across the road from the real White House. He sits in a fake Oval Office behind a tiny desk in front of an ersatz window framing an outdated digital image of the Rose Garden in full spring bloom.

Former Trump aide Stephen Miller claims the imitation White House setup is designed so the President can read a script from a special monitor without being detected. But the charade has led to charges that Biden is running a “Truman Show presidency”, all smoke and mirrors and no substance.

To add to the inauthentic atmosphere, Vice President Kamala Harris released a bizarre YouTube video of herself last week with a group of young teens in which she gushes with patently fake enthusiasm about space exploration. The well-behaved kids, who turned out to be child actors, watch mutely as she waves her arms around in exaggerated fashion and uses a weird baby voice in the “Get Curious with Vice President Harris” video made to celebrate World Space Week.

“You guys are gonna see, you’re gonna literally see the craters on the moon with your own eyes,” she enthused, pointing at her bulging eyes as if she were talking to retarded toddlers. It’s hard to describe just how cringe-worthy the performance was but it sums up the awkwardness of her vice presidency, in which she has shirked jobs assigned her by Biden in favour of low-risk humanising roles to remedy her unpopularity before she takes a run at the top job.

As Biden’s polls numbers plummet and multiple crises erupt, Americans are growing alarmed at the curious passivity of a White House which seems focused exclusively on optics.

Every weekend at college games and other sporting events, crowds now chant “F--k Joe Biden”. At the NASCAR race at the Talladega Superspeedway a couple of weeks ago, the crowd took up that chant as winner Brandon Brown was being interviewed. NBC reporter Kelli Stavast misheard the obscenity as “Let’s go Brandon!” and a meme was born.

Now “Let’s Go Brandon” chants and banners are popping up everywhere as a euphemism to express frustration at the president.

Biden seems oblivious. He just took another three-day weekend at his Delaware mansion and isn’t expected to address the supply chain problem that threatens Christmas supplies until Wednesday.

Illegal migration at the southern border is exploding, inflation is on the rise, petrol prices are up, the latest jobs numbers fell well below expectations, food shortages are setting in and shop shelves are half empty, cargo ships are piling up off the coast, and truck drivers are in short supply.

Biden won a wafer-thin victory last November, with an evenly split Senate and a tight majority in the House but is governing as if he had a massive mandate, pushing multi-trillion spending bills which can’t make it past squabbling members of his own party.

He inherited a stable border, vaccines already being rolled out at the rate of 1.5 million jabs a day, and a recovering economy but squandered it all with a spiteful determination to undo all things Trump.

As Donald Trump said at his rally in Iowa on the weekend: “If Biden would have just gone to the beach, just take it easy, enjoy the surf, he’d have a great border today.”

Biden’s Covid-19 vaccine mandates are another self-created crisis, as workers quit or are fired for refusing to get vaccinated, throwing hospitals, transportation and other sectors of the economy into chaos.

On the weekend, Southwest Airlines cancelled as many as 2000 flights, using the official excuse of bad weather and staffing issues with air traffic controllers.

But the real reason reportedly was that large numbers of pilots, flight attendants and other staff had called in sick to protest the airline’s threat to fire them. Biden couldn’t care less about the pointless mayhem he’s unleashed in a country in which almost 70 per cent of adults are fully vaccinated and an estimated 115 million people have natural immunity to Covid, according to a report in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Last week in a speech in Chicago he gave a shout out to United Airlines for raising its vaccination rate for employees from 59 per cent to 99 per cent.

He didn’t mention that the miraculous figure was achieved by firing people who refused to get vaccinated in order to comply with his December 8 deadline.

“When you see headlines and reports of mass firings, and hundreds of people losing their jobs, look at the bigger story,” he prattled blithely. “United went from 59 per cent of their employees [vaccinated] to 99 per cent”. No wonder he’s now more unpopular than Donald Trump, despite his sycophantic media.

A recent Quinnipiac poll had his approval rating at 38 per cent and disapproval at 53 per cent. A majority of voters disapprove of his handling of the economy (55 per cent), the military (58 per cent), taxes (54 per cent), foreign policy (58 per cent), immigration (67 per cent).

Even on Covid he is under water with 50 per cent disapproval versus 48 per cent approval.

Worse still, a majority of voters have savagely marked him down on personality traits such as honesty, leadership skills and whether he cares about the average American.

More than half of Americans (55 per cent) say his administration is not competent.

“Battered on trust, doubted on leadership, and challenged on overall competency, President Biden is being hammered on all sides as his approval rating continues its downward slide to a number not seen since the tough scrutiny of the Trump administration,” said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy.

As well, last month, a Fox News poll found fewer than half of Americans think Biden is “mentally stable” enough to hold his job.

Disproportionately it is independents who have turned on him. Their eyes were opened by the Afghanistan debacle in which 13 young American service members were killed in the botched withdrawal from Kabul airport and American citizens and Afghan allies were abandoned a few days after Biden vowed he would leave no one behind.

Last week his attorney-general Merrick Garland sicced the FBI onto parents protesting at school board meetings about left wing propaganda in the classroom – from critical race theory and gender ideology to racial quotas excluding Asian students and pandemic scare campaigns requiring kids to be masked and vaccinated without regard to their wellbeing.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/miranda-devine-joe-bidens-bizarre-presidency-is-like-the-truman-show/news-story/2866e97c76137f8748c6fb36eb787373

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Many Cities Are Reversing Course on 'Defund the Police'

It’s been a year since local officials across the U.S. voted to defund police departments in the wake of widespread protests over George Floyd’s death, but now, many are having a change of heart.

From coast to coast, police departments that were victim to the defund movement are now getting money back, The New York Times reports. In New York, for example, local officials have voted to give $200 million to the NYPD, while the LAPD got a 3 percent budget increase.

The abrupt reversals have come in response to rising levels of crime in major cities last year, the exodus of officers from departments large and small and political pressures. After slashing police spending last year, Austin restored the department’s budget and raised it to new heights. In Burlington, Vt., the city that Senator Bernie Sanders once led as mayor went from cutting its police budget to approving $10,000 bonuses for officers to stay on the job.

But perhaps nowhere has the contrast been as stark as in Dallas, where [Mayor Eric] Johnson not only proposed to restore money to the department but moved to increase the number of officers on the street, writing over the summer that “Dallas needs more police officers.” […]

After the mayor proposed increasing funding, no protests followed. When the Council backed a budget that restored many of the cuts made last year, few came to the public hearing, and even fewer spoke against the plan, which included the hiring of 250 officers. It passed with little fanfare last month. (NYT)

Conservatives weren’t surprised to see the 180 on police funding.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/10/11/defund-the-police-n2597240

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IN BRIEF

All 206 House Republicans voted against raising the debt ceiling (Insider)

Nancy Pelosi signals colossal spending package will shrink to only $2 trillion (Washington Examiner)

Not Leftmedia enough: Pelosi lectures reporters, says they “could do a better job selling” Build Back Better (Fox News)

Pelosi doubles down on the powerful IRS tracking bank accounts (Bongino.com)

Revisionist historian Kamala Harris denounces European explorers for ushering in “wave of devastation” for Native Americans (Fox News)

House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth to retire, giving GOP prime pickup opportunity (Washington Examiner)

DHS secretary orders ICE to stop worksite raids in latest limits on immigration enforcement (Fox News)

U.S. to reopen land borders in November for fully vaccinated (unless you’re an illegal immigrant) (AP)

Brave Marine who criticized military over Afghan withdrawal to plead guilty at court martial (CBS News)

Drivers wanted: U.S. supply chain can’t keep on trucking (Washington Times)

Supply chain crunch: White House admits “there will be things you can’t get” at Christmas (Breitbart)

A record 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in August, led by food and retail industries (CNBC)

Famed Art Institute of Chicago fires all docents, primarily white women. Critics charge racism. (Daily Wire)

“People don’t want to be the police:” Chicago and other cities suffering officer shortage, can’t find recruits (Daily Wire)

“I don’t know”: Ben and Jerry’s cofounder stumped when pressed about Israel boycott hypocrisy (Daily Wire)

Cancel culture failure: Professor booted from MIT lecture draws thousands for alternative online speech (Daily Wire)

Judge’s ruling strikes blow to Kentucky’s new school choice law (Louisville Courier Journal)

Second Facebook whistleblower is willing to testify before Congress (New York Post)

NBA team bans star player Kyrie Irving until he gets vaccine (Fox News)

Policy: America’s inflation problem won’t be solved by ignoring it (1945)

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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13 October, 2021

The Virus of Biden’s Authoritarianism

More Americans died of COVID in 2021 than 2020. Is that Joe Biden’s fault?

“I’m not going to shut down the country. I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m going to shut down the virus.” —Joe Biden, October 30, 2020

“I promise you if I’m elected, I won’t waste any time getting this virus under control. I’ll call Dr. Fauci and ask him to stay on. I’ll bring together top experts and leaders from both parties to chart a path forward. We’ll get it done, together.” —Joe Biden, August 11, 2020

“If the president had done his job from the beginning, all the people [who have died from coronavirus] would still be alive.” —Joe Biden, September 17, 2020, when coronavirus deaths surpassed 200,000

To a certain extent, it’s true that a president is responsible for how he handles a crisis on his watch. That ought to be less true of a novel virus than, say, a deliberate and humiliating military surrender, but still. Unfortunately, Trump became the poster child for COVID misery — because Democrats and their Leftmedia allies made him so in order to defeat him in November.

Well, if a president is to be judged by how he handles a crisis — if Joe Biden is to be judged by the standard to which Joe Biden held Donald Trump — then Joe Biden is a colossal failure.

The U.S. recently passed 700,000 COVID deaths, not 200,000 as it stood before the election. Biden called this “astonishing.” The pandemic has claimed more Americans lives in 2021 than in 2020. (Insert caveats here for the whole “died of COVID” versus “died with COVID” debate.)

To a large extent, neither president is directly responsible for deaths caused by a virus (or comorbidity factors), especially when that virus was leaked from a Chinese lab.

A president does, however, set the tone for the national response, and both presidents bear some responsibility for how the virus has been politicized. But this is not a “well both sides did it” argument. The far greater fault lies with Biden.

It was Biden who hid in his basement for most of 2020 while armchair quarterbacking the hard work Trump’s team put into responding to a new threat. Trump surely hoped his response to the virus would help him win, but he didn’t have the entire mainstream media at his disposal as Biden did to weave a political narrative.

It was Democrats, not Republicans, who politicized the vaccines last year, insisting that they couldn’t possibly take one when the Bad Orange Man had anything to do with development. And it’s Democrats who continue to politicize the vaccines now through hectoring, cajoling, passports, and constitutionally dubious federal mandates. Masks, likewise, are more often a virtue signal or badge of party identification than they are useful tools.

If you think vaccines are beneficial and effective at preventing more serious illness or deaths — and there is evidence indicating that’s true — then you should be outraged that millions of Americans are choosing not to be vaccinated in large part because Democrats are now so adamant about it after hysterically warning against it just a few short months ago. How many unvaccinated Americans have died because of Democrat politicization?

If you think vaccines are a big conspiracy by the pharmaceutical companies or you merely wonder why everyone is inexplicably ignoring factors like natural immunity — and we’ve warned against ignoring it — then you should be outraged that an entire political party has vested its electoral hopes in forcing compliance among the entire population. And not just one shot. Not just two shots, either. But continued boosters. Likewise, you should be outraged that social media giants censor even legitimate questions about the vaccines.

These questions should be settled between patients and doctors, not a presidential diktat.

The gross irony of Biden’s authoritarianism is that we’re further from herd immunity than we would have been if anyone could trust the government or the “experts.” That has cost lives, and it’s on him.

“Today,” Biden told us on July 4, “we’re closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus.” Are we? Not if he can help it.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/83275-the-virus-of-bidens-authoritarianism-2021-10-07

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Let Life Resume

John Stossel

America remains bound by often extreme pandemic restrictions.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends staying 6 feet away from others. In Oregon, everyone must wear a mask outdoors. In parts of the country, 2-year-olds must wear masks.

Are such rules necessary?

Recently, Denmark lifted all pandemic restrictions.

"Go Denmark!" cheers George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux in my latest video. "We in the United States should do the same."

"We reduced COVID, through vaccination, to a fairly mild ailment for the vast majority of people," says Boudreaux. "You don't have to worry if the bartender at your favorite bar is vaccinated or not. You are protected against suffering severe consequences. Get vaccinated, and then go about your life normally!"

Portugal and Sweden recently removed most restrictions, too. The United Kingdom ditched plans to require "vaccine passports."

"We don't have to continue to upend human life in our quest to eliminate COVID, which can't happen anyway," says Boudreaux.

"Why not?" I ask. "We eliminated smallpox."

"Smallpox resides only in human beings," explains Boudreaux. COVID-19 can live in animals -- bats, deer, dogs, cats. "We have never eliminated a disease that uses both humans and animals as reservoirs."

Still, China acted as if eliminating COVID-19 were possible.

They've kept deaths much lower (if you believe their numbers) than other countries by imposing nasty repressive measures like quarantines at gunpoint and even locking people in their homes.

"It's just awful. It's tyrannical. It's what you expect of a Communist tyrannical government," says Boudreaux.

Australia's been almost that tough. They've also imposed curfews and arrested people for not wearing masks. In some places, police proudly announced they "smashed windows of people in cars and pull them out ... because they weren't telling us where they were going."

Don't worry about losing freedom, says Daniel Andrews, premier of the state of Victoria. "They're not rules that are against you. They are rules for you."

"So say all dictators and tyrants," retorts Boudreaux.

These countries can't lock down forever. When the lockdowns stop, COVID-19 will return.

That's why Denmark ended COVID-19 restrictions.

"It's not admitting defeat; it's admitting reality," says Boudreaux. "We learn to live with COVID in the same way that we learn to live with many other pathogens. ... The bacteria that caused the Black Death is still circulating in the human population. A handful of people every year still die of it."

In the Wall Street Journal, he wrote, "Eradication of Covid is a dangerous and expensive fantasy."

"We live with countless hazards, each of which we could but sensibly choose not to eradicate. Automobile fatalities could be eradicated by outlawing motor vehicles. Drowning could be eradicated by outlawing swimming and bathing. Electrocution could be eradicated by outlawing electricity. We live with these risks not because we're indifferent to suffering but because we understand that the costs of zero-drowning or zero-electrocution would be far too great. The same is true of zero-Covid."

That's why, now that we have largely effective vaccines, he says it's time to end pointless lockdowns and do what Denmark is doing:

"Live life normally again! Travel, go to parties, weddings, sporting events. Live life and be joyous! Hopefully, humanity will come to its senses soon."

I hope he's right.

https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2021/10/13/let-life-resume-n2597333

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Experts Say Adults Who Contracted COVID-19 and Are Fully Vaccinated Do Not Need to Rush for a Booster Shot

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, several studies conducted by health experts and scientists show that individuals who’ve had COVID-19 and were fully vaccinated have strong protection against the virus, including variants like the Delta variant, and do not need a booster. The data, which was compiled by experts who specialize in vaccines and immunology, is preliminary and currently incomplete.

Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) advisory panel on vaccines said to the WSJ that those who were infected and now vaccinated “just won the game.”

“I wouldn’t ask them to get a booster dose. I think they just got it,” Offit explained, meaning that their COVID-19 infection “counts” as their booster. The studies suggest that exposure to COVID-19 effectively serves as a dose of the vaccine, as it prompts the immune system to generate antibodies against the virus for the future. This combination of immunity from real-world exposure and infection compounded with the protection generated from the vaccine is known as “hybrid immunity.”

As we covered, President Biden announced in August that his administration plans to move forward with a coronavirus booster shot program for adults who are fully vaccinated. So far, only the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine booster has received approval from the FDA to be administered to limited age groups. Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have not received approval for their boosters.

Since Biden’s announcement, two top officials at the FDA resigned due to the administration’s interference with booster shots, as Katie reported, claiming there is not enough data to support booster shots across all demographics.

According to CNBC, [t]wo senior Food and Drug Administration officials responsible for reviewing Covid-19 vaccine applications are leaving the federal agency this fall,” and that “[t]heir announced plans to depart come as the Biden administration prepares to begin offering Covid vaccine booster shots to the general public the week of Sept. 20. Some health experts saw the move as premature and political, especially because the FDA hasn’t finished reviewing data on boosters yet.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/madelineleesman/2021/10/11/experts-say-adults-who-contracted-covid-19-and-are-fully-vaccinated-do-not-need-t-n2597244

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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12 October, 2021

British Health secretary’s alarm at ‘huge’ and growing problem of long Covid

Long COVID now has an official WHO clinical definition

Health secretary Sajid Javid has expressed alarm at the rising numbers of people suffering long Covid symptoms, telling a private meeting of health officials that the problem was “huge” and “getting bigger”.

The meeting was given an update on long Covid treatment, with NHS England bosses revealing 10 per cent of all clinic appointments were being taken up by NHS staff in a sign of the potential longer term impact of coronavirus and the risk it could undermine already depleted staffing levels.

NHS staff are most likely to be affected by long Covid, followed by staff in social care and teachers. As many as 125,000 NHS staff may be affected by persistent symptoms.

Public Health England has faced criticism over its guidance for NHS staff which suggested most should wear only basic surgical masks instead of higher grade masks to guard against airborne spread. Some NHS trusts have ignored the rules amid concern staff were being put at increased risk.

The meeting also heard that patients getting appointments at long Covid clinics were disproportionately white, with just under a fifth coming from the most deprived communities. This is despite infection levels overall being highest in these areas.

The latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week revealed more than 1.1 million people were now reporting lasting symptoms from a Covid-19 infection, with 405,000 suffering its effects for more than a year.

The ONS found 211,000 people had reported their ability to carry out daily activities was being significantly affected by the condition.

Concerns over the potential impact of long Covid is rising in Whitehall as some officials fear the impact on the NHS and the wider economy. Patient groups have reported long delays in being seen, with some criticising doctors for not believing their symptoms.

At a roundtable update at the end of September, Mr Javid heard details from statisticians at the ONS setting out the scale of the problem and the wider prevalence of cases.

There were also “hideous” stories from two long Covid patients who urged the health secretary to do more.

Sources who attended the meeting said the minister highlighted “the new challenge” posed by the condition and that experts were still having to learn about it and understand what exactly it is.

After being told the latest estimates of people suffering for more than a year, the secretary of state said: “That’s huge. The numbers are only getting bigger.”

He urged those on the call from the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS to listen to patient experiences as “we’re the ones that can do something”.

He described long Covid as a “hugely important topic” facing the government and said new health minister Maria Caulfield, a former nurse, would be leading the response.

Mr Javid told the meeting there was still a lack of consensus on what exactly long Covid was and how to measure it.

He also said the vaccination rollout to school children was an important step in protecting some youngsters as many would be unable to avoid being infected at some stage.

Cathy Hassell, director of clinical policy, quality and operations at NHS England, told the meeting the health service had achieved five of its 10 long Covid targets and now had every part of the country served by at least one dedicated clinic.

She said the number of appointments at clinics taken up by NHS staff was “disproportionately high” and work was going on to make sure affected NHS staff had access to specialist mental health hubs, occupational health service and rapid referral to the long Covid clinics.

The meeting was told that around 6,000 referrals were being made in each four-week period, with 4,000 specialist assessments and 5,000 follow-up appointments a month.

The meeting heard more action was needed to increase referrals as the numbers coming forward for help were much smaller than the levels of people reporting problems to the ONS. A new enhanced GP service has gone live this month which may help direct more patients to clinics.

Another concern was the demographics of those using the clinics. The meeting was told 63 per cent accessing the service were women, and 81 per cent were white. Only 17 per cent were from the most deprived areas.

This could mean ethnic minorities and people in the poorest areas, which were worst hit by the Covid pandemic, are not accessing help from the long Covid clinics.

The NHS has invested £125m in setting up clinics and providing better GP care for patients with lasting symptoms.

An NHS England spokesperson said: “The NHS is taking practical action to help patients suffering ongoing health issues as a result of coronavirus – bringing together experts and setting up 90 specialist clinics covering the whole country, as well as collecting and publishing data on the demographics of patients referred with long Covid to develop a greater understanding of this new condition.

“Anyone who is concerned about long-lasting symptoms following Covid-19 should continue to get in touch with their GP?practice so they can get a referral or go online to the NHS ‘Your Covid Recovery’ website for further advice.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/sajid-javid-long-covid-nhs-b1934861.html

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The January 6 Insurrection Hoax

it is absolutely critical to the Democrat Party narrative that the incident be made to seem as violent and crazed as possible.

Notwithstanding all the hysterical rhetoric surrounding the events of January 6, 2021, two critical things stand out. The first is that what happened was much more hoax than insurrection. In fact, in my judgment, it wasn’t an insurrection at all.

An “insurrection,” as the dictionary will tell you, is a violent uprising against a government or other established authority. Unlike the violent riots that swept the country in the summer of 2020 — riots that caused some $2 billion in property damage and claimed more than 20 lives — the January 6 protest at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. lasted a few hours, caused minimal damage, and the only person directly killed was an unarmed female Trump supporter who was shot by a Capitol Police officer. It was, as Tucker Carlson said shortly after the event, a political protest that “got out of hand.”

At the rally preceding the events in question, Donald Trump had suggested that people march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically” — these were his exact words — in order to make their voices heard. He did not incite a riot; he stirred up a crowd. Was that, given the circumstances, imprudent? Probably. Was it an effort to overthrow the government? Hardly.

I know this is not the narrative that we have all been instructed to parrot. Indeed, to listen to the establishment media and our political masters, the January 6 protest was a dire threat to the very fabric of our nation: the worst assault on “our democracy” since 9/11, since Pearl Harbor, and even — according to Joe Biden last April — since the Civil War!

Note that phrase “our democracy”: Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and various talking heads have repeated it ad nauseam. But you do not need an advanced degree in hermeneutics to understand that what they mean by “our democracy” is their oligarchy. Similarly, when Pelosi talks about “the people’s house,” she doesn’t mean a house that welcomes riff-raff like you and me.

I just alluded to Ashli Babbitt, the unarmed supporter of Donald Trump who was shot and killed on January 6. Her fate brings me to the second critical thing to understand about the January 6 insurrection hoax. Namely, that it was not a stand-alone event.

On the contrary, what happened that afternoon, and what happened afterwards, is only intelligible when seen as a chapter in the long-running effort to discredit and, ultimately, to dispose of Donald Trump — as well as what Hillary Clinton might call the “deplorable” populist sentiment that brought Trump to power.

In other words, to understand the January 6 insurrection hoax, you also have to understand that other long-running hoax, the Russia collusion hoax. The story of that hoax begins back in 2015, when the resources of the federal government were first mobilized to spy on the Trump campaign, to frame various people close to Trump, and eventually to launch a full-throated criminal investigation of the Trump administration.

Which brings me back to Ashli Babbitt, the long-serving Air Force veteran who was shot and killed by a nervous Capitol Police officer. Babbitt was a useful prop when the media was in overdrive describing the January 6 events as an “armed insurrection” in which wild Trump supporters, supposedly at Trump’s instigation, attacked the Capitol with the intention of overturning the 2020 election.

According to that narrative, five people, including Babbitt, died in the skirmish. Moreover, it was said, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was bludgeoned to death by a raging Trump supporter wielding a fire extinguisher. That gem of a story about the fire extinguisher, reported in our former paper of record, The New York Times, was instantly picked up by other media outlets and spread like a Chinese virus.

Of course, it is absolutely critical to the Democratic Party narrative that the January 6 incident be made to seem as violent and crazed as possible. Hence the comparisons to 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the Civil War. Only thus can pro-Trump Americans be excluded from “our democracy” by being branded as “domestic extremists” if not, indeed, “domestic terrorists.”

The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution accords American citizens the right to a speedy trial. But most of the political prisoners of January 6 — many of whom have been kept in solitary confinement — are still waiting to be brought to trial. And although the media was full of predictions that they would be found guilty of criminal sedition, none has.

Indeed, the prosecution’s cases seem to be falling apart. Most of the hundreds who have been arrested are being charged with trespassing. Another charge being leveled against them is “disrupting an official proceeding.” This is a felony charge designed not for ceremonial procedures like the January 6 certification of the vote, but rather for disrupting Congressional inquiries — for example, by shredding documents relevant to a Congressional investigation. It originated during the George W. Bush administration to deal with the Enron case.

The indisputable fact about January 6 is that although five people died at or near the Capitol on that day or soon thereafter, none of these deaths was brought about by the protesters. The shot fired by Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd that hit Ashli Babbitt in the neck and killed her was the only shot fired at the Capitol that day. No guns were recovered from the Capitol on January 6. Zero.

The liberal commentator Glenn Greenwald further diminished the “armed insurrection” narrative in an important column last February titled “The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot.” The title says it all. Kevin Greeson, Greenwald notes, was killed not by the protesters but died of a heart attack outside the Capitol. Benjamin Philips, the founder of a pro-Trump website called Trumparoo, died of a stroke that day. Rosanne Boyland, another Trump supporter, was reported by The New York Times to have been inadvertently “killed in a crush of fellow rioters during their attempt to fight through a police line.” But later video shows that, far from that, the police pushed protesters on top of Boyland and would not allow other protesters to pull her out.

Four of the five who died, then, were pro-Trump protesters. And the fifth? Well, that was Officer Sicknick — also a Trump supporter, as it turned out — who, contrary to the false report gone viral of The New York Times, went home, told his family he felt fine, but died a day later from, as The Washington Post eventually and grudgingly reported, “natural causes.” No fire extinguishers were involved in his demise.

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/83300-the-january-6-insurrection-hoax-2021-10-08

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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11 October, 2021

Do Immigrants Import Their Economic Destiny?

Large numbers of Hispanic immigrants will tend to make the USA into another failed Hispanic State

How do immigrants change the countries they move to? Immigration has become a big political issue in the U.S., the UK, Germany, and beyond, and experts and pundits alike have tried answering this question. At least among economists, almost all the debate has focused on the short run, and most of that has focused on lower-skilled immigrants. The overall answer is fairly clear: low-skilled immigrants don’t have a major effect on the rest of the economy one way or the other. That means that in the short run, the most important effect of low-skilled immigration is that it helps low-skilled migrants themselves.

But what happens in the very long run? As immigrants shape the culture of their new homelands, will they import more than just new ethnic cuisines? Will they also import attitudes and policies that wound the golden goose of first-world prosperity? Ultimately, will migrants make the countries they move to a lot like the countries they came from?

This is one of the great policy questions in our new age of mass migration, and it’s related to one of the great questions of social science: Why do some countries have relatively liberal, pro-market institutions while others are plagued by corruption, statism, and incompetence? Three lines of research point the way to a substantial answer:

The Deep Roots literature on how ancestry predicts modern economic development,

The Attitude Migration literature, which shows that migrants tend to bring a lot of their worldview with them when they move from one country to another,

The New Voters-New Policies literature, which shows that expanding the franchise to new voters really does change the nature of government.

Together, these three data-driven literatures suggest that if you want to predict how a nation’s economic rules and norms are likely to change over the next few decades, you’ll want to keep an eye on where that country’s recent immigrants hail from.

The Deep Roots of Prosperity

A glance at the map tells much of the tale: Today’s rich countries tend to be in East Asia, Northern and Western Europe, or are heavily populated by people who came from those two regions. The major exceptions are oil-rich countries. East Asia and Northwest Europe are precisely the areas of the world that made the biggest technological advances over the past few hundred years. These two regions experienced “civilization,” an ill-defined but unmistakable combination of urban living, elite prosperity, literary culture, and sophisticated technology. Civilization doesn’t mean kindness, it doesn’t mean respect for modern human rights: It means the frontier of human artistic and technological achievement. And over the extremely long run, a good predictor of your nation’s current economic behavior is your nation’s ancestors’ past behavior. Exceptions exist, but so does the rule.

Recently, a small group of economists have found more systematic evidence on how the past predicts the present. Overall, they find that where your nation’s citizens come from matters a lot. From “How deep are the roots of economic development?” published in the prestigious Journal of Economic Literature:

A growing body of new empirical work focuses on the measurement and estimation of the effects of historical variables on contemporary income by explicitly taking into account the ancestral composition of current populations. The evidence suggests that economic development is affected by traits that have been transmitted across generations over the very long run.

From “Was the Wealth of Nations determined in 1000 B.C.?” (coauthored by the legendary William Easterly):

[W]e are measuring the association of the place’s technology today with the technology in 1500 AD of the places from where the ancestors of the current population came from…[W]e strongly confirm…that history of peoples matters more than history of places.

And finally, from “Post-1500 Population Flows and the Economic Determinants of Economic Growth and Inequality,” published in Harvard’s Quarterly Journal of Economics:

The positive effect of ancestry-adjusted early development on current income is robust…The most likely explanation for this finding is that people whose ancestors were living in countries that developed earlier (in the sense of implementing agriculture or creating organized states) brought with them some advantage—such as human capital, knowledge, culture, or institutions—that raises the level of income today.

To sum up some of the key findings of this new empirical literature: There are three major long-run predictors of a nation’s current prosperity, which combine to make up a nation’s SAT score:

S: How long ago the nation’s ancestors lived under an organized state.

A: How long ago the nation’s ancestors began to use Neolithic agriculture techniques.

T: How much of the world’s available technology the nation’s ancestors were using in 1000 B.C., 0 B.C., or 1500 A.D.

When estimating each nation’s current SAT score, it’s important to adjust for migration: Indeed, all three of these papers do some version of that. For instance, without adjusting for migration, Australia has quite a low ancestral technology score: Aboriginal Australians used little of the world’s cutting edge technology in 1500 A.D. But since Australia is now overwhelmingly populated by the descendants of British migrants, Australia’s migration-adjusted technology score is currently quite high.

On average, nations with high migration-adjusted SAT scores are vastly richer than nations with lower SAT scores: Countries in the top 10% of migration-adjusted technology (T) in 1500 are typically at least 10 times richer than countries in the bottom 10%. If instead you mistakenly tried to predict a country’s income today based on who lived there in 1500, the relationship would only be about one-third that size. The migration adjustment matters crucially: Whether in the New World, across Southeast Asia, or in Southern Africa, one can do a better job predicting today’s prosperity when you keep track of who moved where. It looks like at least in the distant past, migrants shaped today’s prosperity.

Do migrants bring their institutions with them?

So migration from high-SAT countries bring the seeds of prosperity: But what exactly are they bringing? As the authors of the Quarterly Journal of Economics article speculated, did they bring along a tendency to establish good institutions—the rule of law, low corruption, and competent government?

Fortunately, an economist has already checked to see whether SAT-type scores drive good institutions. James T. Ang recently published a truly remarkable paper in the Journal of Development Economics, “Institutions and the Long-Run Impact of Early Development.” Ang ran a variety of statistical tests to see if ancestry-adjusted SAT-like scores had a strong relationship with good institutions. Overall, Ang’s findings are quite clear:

[N]ations that were more developed in the pre-modern era tend to have better institutions today.

He goes on to note:

[M]easures adjusted for the global migration effect perform significantly better than their unadjusted counterparts in explaining the variation in institutions across countries, thus highlighting the fact that migration has played a significant part in shaping current economic performance.

One wonders: If migration shaped institutions in the past, perhaps migration will shape institutions in the future. Or perhaps not: while violent European colonizers imposed their institutions and their culture on lands that had belonged to Native Americans, perhaps peaceful mass migration in the 21st century will leave today’s institutions and culture undisturbed. Perhaps, to coin a phrase, this time really is different.

Let’s consider the case of Chinese migration throughout Asia. By the standards of European colonization, Chinese migration post-1500 has been relatively (I emphasize relatively) peaceful. The non-Chinese residents of these countries tended to have lower ancestral SAT scores than Chinese residents, so we can ask: did Asian countries with a higher percentage of Chinese-descended migrants end up economically freer? Of course, since this is a question about migration from China, China itself should be left out of the analysis. The graph below tells the story. It compares Chinese ancestry data from the Putterman-Weil global migration matrix with the Fraser Economic Freedom of the World Index for Asian countries with substantial numbers of Chinese immigrants:

Overall, the relationship between a nation’s percent population of Chinese descent in 1980 and current economic freedom is strongly positive. Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, the countries with the largest percentage of post-1500 Chinese immigrants, are the freest. Hong Kong, which had only a few thousand Chinese residents before the British arrival, is now the economically freest country in the world. Malaysia (a third of whose residents are of Chinese descent) and Thailand (10 percent) are next, and Malaysia is clearly the freer of the two. The remaining countries, Laos and Myanmar, are substantially less economically free than Singapore. Of course, including China in this graph would weaken the relationship, but to repeat: we aren’t interested in ancestry per se, but in relatively peaceful migration.

Economists have long known that some of the strongest statistical predictors of long-run national prosperity have been “percent Confucian” and “percent Buddhist.” A famed paper coauthored by Xavier Sala-i-Martin demonstrated that conclusively. It’s time for scholars to investigate whether, for most countries, a pro-Confucian migration policy is a good option.

Migrating Attitudes

So, how do migrants change the governments in countries they move to? For a partial answer, we can look at the Attitude Migration literature. The simplest approach is to see if the descendants of, say, Italian migrants to America tend to have the same attitudes toward government as Italians living back in Italy. If they do have similar attitudes, then there really is such a thing as “Italian attitudes toward government,” portable and relatively durable around the globe.

Since public opinion surveys are common around the world, this is an easy topic to investigate. One study looks at attitudes toward income redistribution, finding that second-generation immigrants to the U.S. are more likely to favor income redistribution policies if they come from a country where the average citizen today also favors more redistribution. In this case, attitudes migrate, so heavy immigration from pro-redistribution cultures will tend to boost a nation’s number of pro-redistribution citizens decades later. More importantly, the same holds for trusting behavior: A study published in the American Economic Review, provocatively entitled “Inherited Trust and Growth,” finds that

…inherited trust of descendants of US-immigrants is significantly influenced by the country of origin…of their forbears…

So trusting attitudes migrate. And the link from trust to economic performance is well-accepted at this point: One famous paper, “Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff?” [Answer: Yes] is now routinely cited in economics textbooks. And why do low-trust societies generate worse economic performance? One reason is that low-trust individuals demand more government regulation. In “Regulation and Distrust” the authors report:

Using the World Values Survey, we show both in a cross-section of countries, and in a sample of individuals from around the world, that distrust fuels support for government control over the economy.

The authors suggest that this happens because in low-trust societies, people want someone checking up on untrustworthy businesses and individuals, and a strong government is one way to do just that. Together, this literature suggests that migration from low-trust societies will tend to hurt long-run economic performance, partly because low-trust individuals demand more government regulation.

One particular attitude has been well-studied in the migration literature: Strong family ties. This is often known as “amoral familism,” the view that you should help out your family, right or wrong. In comparative anthropology and sociology, it’s well known that cultures strong in amoral familism tend to be places where children live with their parents into adulthood, where corruption is common, and where identity is heavily shaped by one’s extended family. A remarkable handbook chapter by Alesina and Giuliano finds that:

…on average familistic values are associated with lower political participation and political action. They are also related to a lower level of trust, more emphasis on job security, less desire for innovation and more traditional attitudes toward working women.

It’s safe to predict that voters and politicians with these traits are unlikely to support much Schumpeterian creative destruction. And, unsurprisingly at this point, amoral familism itself tends to migrate:

…family values are quite stable over time and could be among the drivers of institutional differences and level of development across countries: family values inherited by children of immigrants whose forebears arrived in various European countries before 1940 [!] are related to a lower quality of institutions and lower level of development today.

At this point, it’s clear that attitudes migrate to a substantial degree, and at least in democracies, they’re likely to take those attitudes into the voting booth. There’s an old saying in the migration policy world, a line by Max Frisch: “We wanted workers, we got people instead.” It looks like that saying needs updating: “We wanted workers, we got voters instead.”

Attitude Convergence: A two-way street

Of course immigrants don’t just become voters: they sometimes become taste-makers, opinion-setters. As immigrants join the culture, they start to shape the culture. That means that immigrants and their descendants may shape political opinions the way they often shape people’s opinion about food: Migrants start eating some of the foods of the country they move to, but at the same time older residents start trying some foods from immigrant cultures. There’s a mutual exchange, and behavior meets somewhere in the middle. As students of migration repeatedly claim, acculturation is a two-way street: America is different because of Italian and Irish migration, and not just because of the food we eat.

To some extent, this point is obvious, but it has far-reaching implications. It means that one important way that immigrants and their descendants will shape a political system isn’t by directly bringing their own attitudes into the voting booth: It’s also by shaping the political attitudes of their fellow citizens. That’s what happens in a melting pot: We all become a little like each other. So if we really are shaped by our neighbors, then we have yet another good reason to choose our neighbors wisely.

This means that the Attitude Migration channel is perhaps only half the story, but it also means that the other part of the story will be harder to detect. If a nation of 100 million has, say, a million migrants from a particular country, it would be hard to pick out the effect of those migrants on “native” attitudes: the effect of the migrants would be diluted partly because they’re only 1% of the population, and partly because the change in “native” attitudes will occur slowly over the decades.

So while it’s important to know whether migrants assimilate completely or partially, it’s just as important to know how much do migrants change their fellow citizens. Past researchers have documented two quite separate findings:

Many migrant attitudes persist to their descendants

Migrants and their descendants seem to make their new homes quite a bit like their old homes.

The first point need not be the only cause of the second point. There’s a third point suggested by the common-sense claim that we’re all shaped at least a bit by the attitudes of those around us:

Migrants and their descendants tend to influence the attitudes of their new fellow citizens, so that all groups in society become at least a bit more like each other.

New Voters = New Policies

We’ve seen that in the extremely long run immigrants have dramatically changed the countries they’ve moved to; and in the medium run we’ve seen that immigrants and their children bring home-country attitudes along for the ride. But as I’ve already noted, some critics will argue that perhaps “this time is different”, and that even if immigrants import their cultural attitudes to their new homes, maybe they’ll leave those views just outside the voting booth. Perhaps, when it comes time to vote, migrants completely conform to their new home countries.

Here’s one way to check this “New Voters = No Change” theory: Look at times when large groups of individuals were suddenly given the vote, and then check to see if government policies changed within a few years. Even better, only look at large groups of individuals who had been living somewhat peacefully in the nation for decades. Here’s one such case: The women’s suffrage movement across Western civilization. This extension of the franchise has been heavily studied by economists: The best-known paper draws on the fact that different U.S. states extended the vote at different times to create a kind of natural experiment. It turns out that, contrary to the “New voters = No change” theory, giving the vote to women really did change government in a more progressive, expansionist direction:

Suffrage coincided with immediate increases in state government

expenditures and revenue and more liberal voting patterns

for federal representatives, and these effects continued growing

over time as more women took advantage of the franchise…On the basis

of these estimates, granting women the right to vote caused expenditures to rise immediately by 14 percent…by 21 percent after 25 years, and by 28 percent after 45 years.

Women did not quietly, meekly vote for whatever the men around them supported. They had their own minds, and those minds, when empowered by the vote, moved policy in a more progressive direction. And notice that the longer-run effect was twice the immediate effect: Expanding the franchise to a group that favored more government spending indeed increased government spending, but it took decades to see the full effect. In U.S. history, new voters have mattered.

And this is no one-off study: the policy impact of female suffrage has been studied extensively. To quote a study focused on Europe:

Using historical data from six Western European countries for the period 1869-1960, we provide evidence that social spending out of GDP increased by 0.6-1.2% in the short-run as a consequence of women’s suffrage, while the long-run effect is three to eight times larger.

Again, the long run effect matters more than the short run effect. New voters, new policies: NVNP.

Which brings us to one last test of the NVNP hypothesis: The increase in voting rights for when poll taxes were eliminated in the United States. Here again, evidence supports NVNP: the University of Chicago’s Journal of Political Economy reports that “eliminating poll taxes raised welfare spending by 11 to 20 percent” among other findings, so once again, new voters made important progressive policy change a reality.

How immigrants shape institutions

We now have the key pieces of the puzzle:

The Deep Roots literature which shows that in the long run, migration deeply shapes a nation’s level of pro-market institutions, and that a nation’s ancestry-adjusted SAT score (States, Agriculture, Technology) is a good predictor of prosperity.

The Attitude Migration literature, which shows that migrants bring a substantial portion of their attitudes toward markets, trust, and social safety nets with them from their home country.

The New Voters = New Policies literature, which shows that governments really do change when new voters show up, and that the changes start to show up in just a few years.

Government policies don’t radiate from subterranean mineral deposits: they are in large part the product of its voting citizens. And in the long run, new citizens lead to new policies.

Together, these three literatures provide a combination of big-picture and close-up evidence that if a country is choosing between high-SAT and low-SAT immigration policies, the high-SAT approach will yield big benefits in the long run. Individual countries will always be exceptions to the rule, so some countries taking the low-SAT immigration path will still look pretty good. But wise citizens don’t bet on being the exception: they bet on being the rule.

https://evonomics.com/do-immigrants-import-their-economic-destiny-garrett-jones/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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10 October, 2021

Finland joins Sweden and Denmark in pausing use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in young people over fears the shots are causing rare heart inflammation

Finland has become the latest Nordic nation to pause use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in young people due to fears that the shots are causing rare heart inflammation.

The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare said on Thursday that authorities won't give the vaccine to males under age 30, and they will be offered the Pfizer-BioNTech immunization instead.

The government agency said it found that young men and boys were at a slightly higher risk of developing myocarditis.

It comes after health officials in Sweden and Denmark made a similar decision earlier this week.

In Sweden, the Moderna jab will no longer be available to any one born after 1990, or those aged 30 and younger.

Denmark has restricted access to the vaccine to anyone under the age of 18.

Norway, another Nordic country, has not taken as drastic action as its neighbors, with health officials urging people under 30 to opt for the Pfizer vaccine instead.

All four countries based their decision on an unpublished study with Sweden's Public Health Agency saying that it signals 'an increased risk of side effects such as inflammation of the heart muscle or the pericardium' - the double-walled sac containing the heart and the roots of the main vessels.

It added: 'The risk of being affected is very small.'

Heart inflammation is also a symptom of many viral infections like COVID-19, though, and the likelihood of developing the inflammation after infection is much higher than it is after vaccination.

The Swedish health agency said it would pause using the shot for people born in 1991 and later as data pointed to an increase of myocarditis and pericarditis among youths and young adults who had been vaccinated.

'The connection is especially clear when it comes to Moderna's vaccine Spikevax, especially after the second dose,' the health agency said.

A Moderna spokesperson said in an email the company was aware of the decisions by regulators in Denmark and Sweden to pause the use of its vaccine in younger individuals because of the rare risk of myocarditis and or pericarditis.

'These are typically mild cases and individuals tend to recover within a short time following standard treatment and rest,' they wrote.

'The risk of myocarditis is substantially increased for those who contract COVID-19, and vaccination is the best way to protect against this.'

According to one U.S. study that has yet to undergo peer review young males under 20 are up to six times more likely to develop myocarditis after contracting COVID-19 than those who have been vaccinated.

Denmark said that, while it used the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as its main option for people aged 12 to 17 years, it had decided to pause giving the Moderna vaccine to people below 18 according to a 'precautionary principle'.

In June, the CDC issued a warning that young males were at an increased risk of myocarditis after receiving the vaccine.

The label for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were changed in the U.S. to reflect the warning, though usage was never paused.

Cases of inflammation after vaccination are rare, though they do occur often enough to concern regulators.

A recent study from Kaiser Permanente Southern California found that around seven out of every one million people that receive a two-shot COVID-19 vaccine will develop myocarditis.

The same study found that 47.5 out of every one million Covid patients experience heart inflammation.

Attempting strenuous physical activity with an inflamed heart could also potentially lead to sudden cardiac arrest, or even death.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10073273/Finland-joins-Sweden-Denmark-pausing-use-Moderna-COVID-19-vaccine-young-people.html

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Fumento Misdiagnoses Remdesivir

Lawyer and author Michael Fumento recently argued in an AIER article that the FDA’s approval of the Covid-19 treatment remdesivir has failed patients and provides another example of the failure of the “Do something, anything” approach to combat the pandemic.

Referencing several critical studies and a condemning statement from the WHO, Mr. Fumento argues that remdesivir “doesn’t work.” However, since it remains the only fully approved Covid-19 treatment, and the FDA hesitates to retract drugs it already approved, remdesivir remains on the market. The agency’s wrongdoing in approving it also allows remdesivir’s producer Gilead to charge an alarmingly high price for treatment ($3,000 above production cost).

Frustrated but not surprised, Mr. Fumento concludes his article by stating, “At best, this can be a lesson to us all about pandemic drug approvals. But as noted we’ve had those lessons and they didn’t stick. Don’t expect this to have any impact, either.”

Having studied the FDA’s approval process for eight years and the history of remdesivir for the past two, I’m afraid I have to disagree with his assessment.

Mr. Fumento correctly notes that remdesivir previously struggled to receive FDA approval. But he neglects to mention why the drug remained off the market.

Beginning in 2014, remdesivir entered a clinical trial to help combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Reviewing data, an article published in Drugs and Context found that remdesivir, “performed well in pre-clinical studies.” However, Gilead later withdrew the drug for financial reasons, fearing it could not afford to continue with the FDA’s approval process (which often requires over $1 billion to complete) after underperforming in a small-sample efficacy test (which wouldn’t have counted in its approval application).

Remdesivir later entered clinical trials to help treat MERS during a 2016 outbreak in the Middle East. This time, the drug received financial and other support from the NIH and several medical schools. Here again, medical scientists noted the drug’s usefulness in “providing evidence to support new indications for this compound against human viruses of significant public health concern.” But the FDA’s burdensome approval process again prevented the promising experimental drug from advancing due to an inadequate number of patients in the clinical trials.

Far from being “a drug in search of a cure,” as Mr. Fumento suggests, medical literature suggests remdesivir was a promising treatment that helped patients during two previous epidemics. Its greatest challenge was regulatory, not clinical.

Mr. Fumento also fails to mention that there was a considerable demand to use remdesivir well before the FDA approved it. The first patient formally diagnosed with Covid-19 in the US received remdesivir. As cases spread, physicians and other medical establishments petitioned the FDA to grant patients access through the agency’s Compassionate Use program—giving dying patients a chance to try an experimental (unapproved) treatment to prolong their lives. Nearly two dozen US citizens tried remdesivir from January 25th—March 1st, 2020. Many more patients in 70 other countries were able to access remdesivir to treat Covid-19 despite many drug supply channels being shut down to prevent disease spread.

As patients recovered, the FDA issued its first Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the drug on May 1st, 2020, for severe cases of Covid-19. After nearly half a million doses of remdesivir reached patients, the FDA issued an EUA to treat milder cases of Covid-19. By late October, the agency fully approved remdesivir despite the drug never undergoing the full approval process.

Over the same time period, the FDA withdrew two EUAs for other drugs to treat Covid-19 (chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine), and several Covid-19 tests passed with EUA. If remdesivir is ineffective, why wasn’t it also withdrawn?

I have been critical of Mr. Fumento’s analysis of remdesivir. But I take the message of his article seriously. Policy changes enacted out of desperation to address a crisis can be wasteful, counterproductive, and harmful. His concerns are justified.

But remdesivir provides no such cautionary tale. Instead, it gives a story of the triumph of innovation during a difficult period. The lesson we should take away is not “Do something, anything,” it is to get government out of the way so we can find solutions.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13788

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Don’t freak out: Catching Covid after you are vaccinated improves immunity

For 20 months we’ve cowered behind masks, scrubbed ourselves with hand sanitiser and socially distanced to avoid Covid — now most people are vaccinated, experts are telling us we need to prepare to catch the virus.

It sounds counterintuitive but the argument is if you are vaccinated and catch Covid, you are unlikely to get seriously ill or go to hospital and getting the virus will further boost your immunity.

The new message comes as infections in the US and worldwide appear to have peaked and some scientists are noticing the virus has a wave pattern — two months of high infections followed by a decline then two months of high infections.

With lockdowns in three states due to ease in coming weeks Australian National University’s infectious diseases expert Professor Peter Collignon and University of Newcastle’s Professor Nathan Bartlett said fully vaccinated people needed to change their attitude to the virus.

Prepare yourself to be infected and don’t “freak out” if you do catch it when lockdowns end, they said.

“You might want to get it, you definitely want to get it. You definitely want to be vaccinated before you get it, because if you’re vaccinated your risk of death goes down,” said Prof. Collignon.

Prof. Bartlett said: “It’s immunity you want supported by the vaccine but then sort of topped up, by circulation and that’s really is what’s going to ultimately lead to make this turn this virus into basically an endemic, common cold causing virus, and that’s what you want it to be”.

The head of the Australian Society of Infectious diseases (ASID) Allen Cheng said he expected “everyone will probably be exposed, eventually.”

“We want to be vaccinated, so we have the best defences against it when it happens that we meet the virus,” he said.

A study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and another by one of Israel’s largest health providers found people who’d recovered from Covid and were later vaccinated had half the risk of reinfection compared with unvaccinated people who’d previously had Covid.

The Kaolinska Institute’s Charlotte Thalin told The Conversation combining natural infection with protection from a vaccine may work better because natural infection exposes our immune system to several viral proteins while vaccines introduce a single antigen: the spike protein.

But, like the other experts, she cautions you want to be vaccinated before getting infected because getting a natural infection first exposes you to the risks of death, blood clots and long Covid.

Many vaccinated people are likely to get infected because vaccines are less effective at preventing infection with the Delta variant.

Pfizer’s protection plunges from 93 per cent to 53 per cent after four months, a study published in The Lancet this week found.

However, the vaccines are still good at preventing 80-90 per cent of infected people from needing a hospital bed and are almost 100 per cent protective against death.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/dont-freak-out-catching-covid-after-you-are-vaccinated-improves-immunity/news-story/a65e560935dc5f4a271e9bcba226478e

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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8 October, 2021

Pfizer immunity drops off fairly quickly

I mentioned this Kaiser Permanente study yesterday but yesterday's report did not detail the drop in immunity over time. Some reports have claimed much longer immunity from the British Astra-Zenica vaccine. That is the one I have had (with NO side effects)

Overall, vaccine effectiveness against all SARS-CoV-2 infections fell from 88% one month after receiving two doses of the vaccine to 47% six months post vaccine; however the effectiveness of the vaccine still reduced the severity of the virus further reducing the number of hospitalizations by 90%, the study showed.

Vaccine effectiveness against the Delta variant infections fell from 93% at one month after receiving the full dose to 53% four months post-vaccine, however still reduced the severity and need for hospitalization by 93%.

The findings, published Oct. 4 in The Lancet medical journal, are in line with initial reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Israel Ministry of Health showing declines in the Pfizer vaccine’s effectiveness against infection after about six months.

“Our study confirms that vaccines are a critical tool for controlling the pandemic and remain highly effective in preventing severe disease and hospitalization, including from the Delta and other variants of concern. Protection against infection does decline in the months following a second dose,” study lead author Dr. Sara Tartof, from the department of research & evaluation at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, said in a journal news release.

“While this study provides evidence that immunity wanes for all age groups that received the vaccine, the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has called for additional research to determine if booster shots should be made available to all age groups eligible for this vaccine,” she noted.

https://zerohourpatriots.com/new-study-of-pfizer-vaccine-yields-shocking-results/

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Denmark, Sweden Halt Use of Moderna for Everyone Under 30

Public health officials in both Denmark and Sweden, countries which are routinely praised by the far left in America, have paused the use of Moderna’s vaccine for people under 30 years of age, citing an increased risk of heart problems associated with the COVID shot.

Both Nordic countries are commonly pointed to by so-called “democratic socialists” as models for good governance, social policies and medicine. Both countries also looked at the data and decided they would suspend Moderna’s vaccine, for now.

After reviewing research from Swedish and Nordic data sources, the Swedish Public Health Agency noted there was an increased risk for inflammatory conditions like myocarditis and pericarditis in young people who received the second Moderna shot.

“The Swedish Public Health Agency has decided to pause the use of Moderna’s vaccine Spikevax, for everyone born in 1991 and later, for precautionary reasons,” a translation of the health agency’s news release said. “The cause is signals of an increased risk of side effects such as inflammation of the heart muscle or heart sac. However, the risk of being affected is very small.”

Sweden’s health experts noted that heart inflammation issues “usually go away on their own,” but noted any symptoms “need to be assessed by a doctor.” “

“The conditions are most common among young men, in connection with, for example, viral infections such as covid-19. In 2019, approximately 300 people under the age of 30 were treated in hospital with myocarditis.

“Data point to an increased incidence also in connection with vaccination against covid-19, mainly in adolescents and young adults and mainly in boys and men. For the individual, the risk of being affected is very small, it is a very rare side effect,” the agency said.

“New preliminary [analyses] from Swedish and Nordic data sources indicate that the connection is especially clear when it comes to Moderna’s vaccine Spikevax, especially after the second dose. The increase in risk is seen within four weeks after the vaccination, mainly within the first two weeks.”

The Swedish Public Health Agency is recommending young people use the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine if they wish. The agency will reassess the situation regarding Moderna’s shot in December.

https://flagandcross.com/denmark-and-sweden-halt-use-of-moderna-covid-vaccine-for-everyone-under-30/

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What Merck’s Experimental COVID Pill Can and Can’t Do

The drug, molnupiravir, is named after Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir. But its power depends on reaching the right people, in the right time frame.

Two years into the pandemic, we’ve gotten a lot better at tackling the coronavirus at the extremes of infection. We have preventives—including masks, distancing, ventilation, and our MVP vaccines—that can be deployed in advance of a viral encounter. We have regimens of last resort: drugs, such as dexamethasone, that do their best, lifesaving work in hospitals with trained health-care workers, in patients whose disease has already turned severe. But in the chasm that sits in between—the hazy period after infection and before severe illness—decent tools that can derail COVID’s progression have been sparse.

We now have a new candidate aiming to fill that crucial niche: the experimental antiviral molnupiravir, developed by Merck and Ridgeback, which comes in an easy-to-swallow pill. According to a company press release posted this past Friday, the drug can halve rates of hospitalization among people recently diagnosed with mild or moderate COVID-19. Molnupiravir hasn’t yet been given emergency clearance by the FDA, and won’t be available for at least a few months, but Merck and outside experts have said they expect a formal green light soon. With the Delta variant still ravaging the world’s unvaccinated, a pill such as this one could ease the burden on overtaxed health-care systems—which most other COVID treatments have struggled to do. “To have something to take by mouth the minute you’re diagnosed, that reduces your chances of getting severely sick … that’s kind of the dream,” Nahid Bhadelia, the founding director of Boston University’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research, told me.

But in that middling stretch of the COVID timeline, molnupiravir might be able to stake out only limited territory. The drug is meant to be taken within the first five or so days of illness, “the earlier, the better,” George Painter, a pharmacologist at Emory University and one of molnupiravir’s early developers, told me. That’s a punishingly tight window, especially in nations short on diagnostics to detect the virus—as well as access to health workers and infrastructure to prescribe and provide the drug. “Rolling out an oral medication is hugely important,” Erin McCreary, a clinical pharmacist and COVID-treatment expert at the University of Pittsburgh, told me. But a pill, she said, has to be “paired with access”—of which a drug itself is no guarantee.

Despite its experimental status, molnupiravir is a pretty familiar face to the antiviral-research community. In the pre-COVID era, the drug generated some buzz when scientists found that it could stamp out a menagerie of viruses, including influenza. Its modus operandi is pretty similar to that of remdesivir, the only COVID-19 drug with full FDA approval. Both mimic building blocks of SARS-CoV-2’s genetic code, allowing them to mess with the fastidious self-xeroxing process that the virus uses to generate copies of itself inside human cells.

The two antivirals are slightly different agents of chaos, though. To make more of itself, SARS-CoV-2 deploys a scribe-like enzyme called a polymerase to scan and duplicate its genome letter by letter. When the polymerase spots a stray remdesivir molecule, it stumbles, as if flustered by a bad typo. Molnupiravir is more insidious still. It’s such a good mime of the letters in the viral alphabet that the polymerase often overlooks the interloper, making genome copies riddled with mistakes. “An analogy might be gross misspellings,” Painter said. The drug’s sabotage is so extensive that experts call it an “error catastrophe”: Dangerous viral particles have essentially no shot of emerging out the other end.

Molnupiravir’s packaging might give it another leg up. Researchers have long known that a bad case of COVID-19 tends to unfurl in two stages—one dominated by the virus, and a second by the immune system’s overzealous reaction. The point of antivirals is to act early, and fast—to nip a growing virus population in the bud, before it can wreak havoc on our tissues, or trip too many of the body’s hypersensitive alarms. These drugs are largely useless once people have descended into the second phase. Remdesivir has to be delivered intravenously, over several days—usually in a hospital, after most patients are pretty sick. (This might explain why remdesivir studies in these settings have produced mixed or underwhelming results.) Molnupiravir, meanwhile, was designed as a pill so it could be “easily administered in the outpatient setting,” Daria Hazuda, Merck’s vice president of infectious disease and vaccine discovery, told me. The drug is easily shipped and stored, and can be taken pretty much anywhere.

Merck’s recent trial, which has yet to be documented in a peer-reviewed scientific study, used the drug in people who had at least one risk factor for developing severe COVID-19 and had just begun to feel ill. Only 7 percent of them ended up getting hospitalized, compared with 14 percent in a placebo group, and none of them died. “That’s hugely clinically significant,” Ilan Schwartz, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Alberta, who wasn’t involved in the drug’s development, told me. The pill also, so far, appears to be playing nice with human cells, dealing its deathly blows only to viruses—no serious side effects have been reported yet, though Merck’s final data are expected to provide more details upon publication. And there’s been little sign that SARS-CoV-2 can evolve to skirt molnupiravir’s effects, which should make the drug relatively variant-proof. The trial’s results were so promising that an independent panel of experts evaluating the data decided to halt the study early so the company could move forward with its product.

Realistically, molnupiravir might be better compared to monoclonal antibodies—the only treatments for COVID’s early-infection phase that have gotten emergency authorization from the FDA so far. Across trials, monoclonals have proved highly effective at stopping mild and moderate cases of COVID-19 from ballooning into serious ones; some formulations have even been okayed for use in people who have recently been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 but haven’t yet developed symptoms. But monoclonals have weaknesses, too: They still need to be infused or injected by professionals, viruses can adapt to resist them, and skyrocketing demand has seriously strained supply. Molnupiravir, if it pans out, could expand the therapeutic options for this stage of disease. In a best-case scenario, the people who take it would be able to stop themselves from getting seriously sick, while also shortening the length of time the virus lingers in their body—potentially making them less of an infectious threat. Treated people could end their disease earlier in the COVID timeline.

Molnupiravir’s name, however tough to pronounce, has a story behind it. The drug’s been packing such a punch in trials, Emory’s Painter said, that it inspired him and his collaborators to name it after Mjölnir, the mythical hammer of the Norse god (and Marvel Avenger) Thor. “All we wanted was something that carried the idea of potency,” he told me, referencing Arthur C. Clarke’s The Hammer of God, a novel about a human mission to deflect an asteroid on course to collide with Earth. “That it can stop something.”

The Mjölnir reference might work in another way too. Wielding a hammer effectively requires impeccable timing. A powerful tool still needs to hit its mark.

Treatments are, by definition, reactive; a drug, no matter how early it’s dosed, can’t undo an infection, or a prior transmission event. It can only contain the fallout. The 50 percent reduction in hospitalizations noted in Merck’s press release is stellar, but some participants “still did get hospitalized,” Bhadelia pointed out, and without public data, outside researchers can’t yet identify who benefited most, or least, from the pills. Drugs such as this one might not block other outcomes, including long COVID. And Merck has yet to test the pill in pregnant people and kids. Experts also pointed out the paucity of data on the drug’s performance in vaccinated people, most of whom remain at very low risk of severe disease but could still benefit from early treatment, especially if they’re in high-risk groups. Molnupiravir won’t ever replace tools that can exert their effects before the virus even shows up. “I’m really hoping people don’t look at this as a reason to not get a vaccine,” Elizabeth Campbell, an expert in COVID antivirals at the Rockefeller University, told me.

Also, Molnupiravir is going to be used by humans, not gods. Which means it’s going to be subject to some very human limitations. For the pill to work, people will need to realize they’re sick and confirm that with a test; they will need to seek care from a health-care provider and successfully nab a prescription; they will need to access the drug and have the means to obtain it. Then they will need to take the drug successfully, which, according to Merck, means swallowing four capsules twice a day for five days—a total of 40 pills.

Molnupiravir’s been billed as a cheaper alternative to remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies, which can carry price tags of up to about $3,000 and $2,000, respectively, for the drugs alone. But at a projected $700 per course of treatment, molnupiravir still “isn’t very affordable,” Bhadelia said, especially in lower-income countries, where vaccination rates have been low and drugs like these are desperately needed. Merck has pledged to set up tiered pricing that could cut the pill’s cost abroad, and has partnered with several other manufacturers in other parts of the world to speed the timeline of availability “in maybe 100-plus countries,” Hazuda, of Merck, told me.

Even if pills were free and abundant, their effects could still be constrained by a diagnostic bottleneck. Since the pandemic’s early days, access to timely, accurate testing has been woefully inadequate, an issue that’s been exacerbated by the structural barriers faced by communities of color, Utibe Essien, a health-equity researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, told me. If a result comes too late, or a test seems out of reach, then the sick person can easily miss that crucial early-infection window—a big loss, considering that molnupiravir has essentially “no effect on patients once they’re in hospitals,” Campbell told me. “If treatment is contingent on diagnosis, we need to make sure testing is more readily available,” Essien said, or risk widening equity gaps. In this arena, in particular, molnupiravir might stand to be a bit less like its namesake: accessible only to those deemed worthy enough to wield it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/10/mercks-experimental-covid-pill-cant-fix-everything/620320/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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7 October, 2021

Incredible Covid trend in Japan baffles experts as cases suddenly plummet

I think I have a fair idea of what is going on. Delta is highly infective but only for a minority of people. So once it has infected them it dies out

Despite our enjoyment of the Olympics from afar, there was a debate around whether or not the games should have gone ahead, given what was happening in Japan at the time.

The nation of 125 million had done reasonably well for a country of its size and population density before then, keeping Covid cases relatively under control and preventing deaths from the virus.

But then, almost in tandem with Australia, things started to head south in July with the introduction of the Delta strain.

It was terrible timing for Japan, with the Olympics about to bring athletes and dignitaries from all around the world into the country just as cases began to take off.

Many residents and health experts wanted the games to be called off.

Things were not looking good after athletes returned home either, as infections kept rising.

By the end of August, Japan — which has the world’s third largest economy — was clocking up more than 24,000 cases a day. Deaths began to climb too, with the seven-day average hovering around 50-60 for several weeks.

However, something truly remarkable has happened since then, and experts around the world can’t believe what they are seeing.

As other parts of Asia are seeing their cases rise, infections in Japan have plummeted to their lowest levels in nearly a year.

New daily cases in Tokyo dropped to just 87 on Monday, the city’s lowest tally since November 2 last year and a massive decline from the thousands of new cases each day seen just a matter of weeks ago.

Other cities around the nation are seeing the same trend, with the average number of daily new infections falling by more than 8000 in the past three weeks.

Experts scratching their heads

The huge decline in cases is obviously welcome news to everyday Japanese residents, but the reasons behind it are leaving experts around the world perplexed.

Professor Mark Woolhouse, epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, said the plunge was probably because the Delta variant appears to “move faster through populations”.

“Spikes for the Delta variant tend to be spikier. They go up faster, and they come down faster,” he told the UK’s inews.

Although the drop in cases itself is not a “particular surprise”, cases have come down “fast”, he said.

“We first saw that in the first wave of Delta which hit India and that had the same characteristic; it went up very fast, and it came down very fast,” he said.

He added that is because the Delta variant has a shorter “generation time”, meaning how long it takes one infected person to infect another.

He and government experts in Japan have put the drop in cases largely down to vaccinations and recent restrictions linked to the state of emergency.

Much of Japan has been under virus emergency measures for a large part of the year, with the restrictions finally lifting last week due to the decline in infections.

Other experts, like Kyoto University’s Hiroshi Nishiura, say the recent spike in cases has ended because of changes in the flow of people, with fewer travellers now holidaying and socialising in Japan.

Mr Nishiura believes infectivity, as measured by the effective reproduction number, is correlated with holiday breaks.

“During the holidays, we meet persons whom we seldom meet up with, and moreover, there is a substantial chance to eat together in a face-to-face environment,” Mr Nishiura, a top infectious disease modeller advising the government, told Reuters.

He said recent record cases in South Korea and Singapore may be connected to some mid-year holidays, and a convergence of Asian and Western holidays at the end of the year could lead to a “nightmare”.

Another school of thought is that the virus comes in vicious cycles, fuelled by one particular age demographic.

Jason Tetro, a Canada-based infectious disease expert and author of The Germ Code, said different age cohorts become “fuel” for the virus to spread, depending on vaccination rates and prior infections, at different times.

“Without elimination of the virus, we will continue to see spikes until 85 per cent of the population is immune to the dominant strain,” he told Reuters.

“This is the only way to get out of these vicious cycles.”

Another theory is that Covid-19 and its variants tend to move in two-month cycles, though Mr Tetro argued the cycles were “more a factor of human nature than mother nature”.

Fears as Japan heads into winter

Although cases have dropped significantly, there are fears of another wave as the nation heads into winter.

More than 60 per cent of the population is now fully vaccinated, but there are concerns that the healthcare system could easily become overwhelmed again, should a new wave emerge.

Japan’s vaccination rollout was initially slow compared to other G7 nations. Frontline health care workers were jabbed on February 17, but the rollout to older people did not start until late April.

However, Japan picked up quickly and now more than 158 million doses have been administered, with 63.5 per cent of people aged 12 and over double jabbed. That’s 57 per cent of the total population.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/incredible-covid-trend-in-japan-baffles-experts-as-cases-suddenly-plummet/news-story/1e7397de12a97fd43ed25b89716a8288

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Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines were 95% effective against infection and 91% against hospitalization among US veterans - with NO deaths, study finds

Data from early this year

COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing infections and hospitalizations among U.S. veterans, a new study finds.

Researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Food and Drug Administration looked at data from the first three months of the shots' availability.

They found that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines had an efficacy of 95 percent against infection and were 91 percent effective at preventing hospitalization.

There were also no deaths among fully vaccinated veterans.

The team says the findings shows how protective the vaccines were early on in the roll out and why it was so important to get veterans - who are a population at increased risk of severe Covid - immunized quickly.

Researchers gathered data from 6.6 million veterans between December 2020 to March 2021. They found that 1.3 million - almost one out of every five - received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine during that period.

Older veterans were more likely to have received the shots at this point than their younger counterparts, though researchers found little difference in vaccination rates across racial lines.

At the time, the Covid vaccines were not available to all Americans, but instead only to certain groups depending on what state someone live in.

Seniors were prioritized in basically every state - which is why older veterans had better vaccine coverage - but veterans with certain comorbidities or who were front line workers were eligible in some states as well.

More than 472,000 participants in the study had tested for COVID-19 at some point during the study period, with 15,000 positive cases being detected.

Of the positive cases, 41 were breakthrough cases detected in fully vaccinated people, 270 were in partially vaccinated veterans and 14,799 were among the unvaccinated.

Researchers, who published their findings in JAMA Network Open on Wednesday, found that only 22.8 out of every 100,000 participants who were at least partially vaccinated in the study contracted Covid.

The rate of infection is more than ten-fold for the unvaccinated, with 280 out of every 100,000 people contracting the virus.

When adjusting for other factors, such as age, race and geography, researchers found that the vaccine is 95 percent effective at preventing infection, and 91 percent effective at preventing hospitalization.

There were also no COVID-19 deaths among fully vaccinated participants in the study.

Partial vaccination - meaning receiving only one shot of a two-dose series - still provides protection as well with 64 percent vaccine effectiveness against infection.

One shot was also 48 percent effective at preventing hospitalization and 63 percent effective at preventing deaths, the researchers found.

While the results of the study do capture the initial effectiveness of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, the situation in America has changed since data was captured.

The Delta variant, a highly contagious strain of the virus that caused a massive surge of cases in the U.S. over the summer, had not yet reached the nation in March.

More recent data also shows that the vaccine's effectiveness at preventing infection does wane over time, meaning the earliest adopters of the shots - who would be among those vaccinated seven months ago - will not be as protected now as they were then.

In order to combat the waning effectiveness, booster shots have been made available to people over the age of 65 or with comorbidities that put them at serious risk from the virus.

Currently in the U.S., 65 percent of people have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 56 percent of residents are fully vaccinated.

Just over six million booster doses have been administered as well, according to official data.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10065147/Covid-vaccines-95-effective-against-infection-91-against-hospitalization-veterans.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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6 October, 2021

Covid cases plunge after Norway abruptly gets rid of all restrictions

The autumnal drizzle is falling on Norway and the days are getting shorter but if you were able to take a walk along the streets of Oslo, you would feel as if you’re in an alternate reality to our lives at home.

There are no masks in sight, no talk of vaccine passports, no social distancing markers on the ground and people are meeting their family and friends for a meal, a movie or concert.

The only indication that the pandemic ever happened is that there are a couple of Covid testing facility cabins at public places where staff wear face masks.

Other than that, Norwegians have reclaimed their lives after the last of their Covid restrictions were confined to the dustbin last week.

There were rowdy celebrations over the weekend with dozens of disturbances and violent clashes including mass brawls in Norway’s big cities after streets, bars, restaurants and nightclubs were filled with people celebrating the end of restrictions that lasted for more than a year.

It came after the government there abruptly announced on Friday that most of the remaining coronavirus restrictions would be scrapped beginning on Saturday and that life in the nation of 5.3 million would return to normal.

The announcement by outgoing Prime Minister Erna Solberg took many Norwegians by surprise – and is perhaps one of the reasons there were such chaotic scenes in the capital, Oslo, and elsewhere in the country.

“It has been 561 days since we introduced the toughest measures in Norway in peacetime,” Ms Solberg said on Friday at a news conference. “Now the time has come to return to a normal daily life.”

But the best news of all is that Covid cases and deaths there are dropping at a rapid rate even though the rules have been eased — following a similarly positive trend in neighbouring Nordic nations that have also scrapped all Covid rules.

And, despite their dismal weather, the Scandinavian countries that have done away with their rules are performing far better in avoiding deaths than many other developed nations.

Any fears of a rise in cases since the reopening in Norway have been slapped back by the early indications in infection numbers.

Cases have plummeted 40 per cent in the short time that Norway has reopened and new daily cases have dropped by 50 per cent over the last two weeks.

And, unlike many other nations that are reopening, Norway will not order its citizens to show proof of vaccination or a negative test result to enter nightclubs, bars and restaurants.

Sixty-seven per cent of the population are fully vaccinated and a further 10 per cent have had a first dose, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.

Norway is one of three Nordic nations that has scrapped all Covid rules in the past few weeks – along with Sweden and Denmark.

Denmark lifted all of its restrictions two weeks prior to Norway’s announcement. The government there also no longer requires digital proof of vaccination to enter nightclubs, saying the virus is no longer “a socially critical disease”.

“This can only be done because we have come a long way with the vaccination rollout, have a strong epidemic control, and because the entire Danish population has made an enormous effort to get here,” Denmark’s Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said.

Around 75 per cent of the Danish population is fully vaccinated with at least 77 per cent having received at least one dose. The fully vaccinated include around 96 per cent of people who are over 50 years old, according to the Foundation for Economic Education.

Interestingly, cases have also dropped by 40 per cent since restrictions were lifted three weeks ago.

Meanwhile, Sweden – which had been criticised for not going hard on restrictions early on in the pandemic and has not prevented as many cases or deaths as Denmark and Norway – is performing better than most Western nations after dropping restrictions six days ago.

Sweden’s death rate from the virus of 1462 confirmed deaths per million is much higher than that of both Denmark and Norway, where deaths number 457 per million and 156 per million respectively, according to Our World in Data.

However, Sweden’s death rate is lower than several Western countries, including Spain, with 1847 deaths per million; Britain at 2005, the US at 2080, and Italy at 2167.

Daily Covid deaths are also low in all three Nordic nations that have scrapped restrictions.

According to Our World in Data, Sweden saw approximately nine confirmed deaths in the most recent seven-day rolling average, while Norway saw one death and Denmark three deaths. Adjusting for population, that’s 0.84, 0.26, and 0.47 deaths per million, respectively.

However, as jabs roll out worldwide, there is a positive trend emerging globally.

The weekly number of coronavirus deaths worldwide has fallen to levels unseen for almost a year at an average of 7606 each day, according to an AFP count based on official national figures.

By their count, coronavirus has killed at least 4,798,207 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019.

The US is the worst-affected country with 701,176 deaths, followed by Brazil with 597,948, India with 448,997, Mexico 278,801 and Russia 210,801.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Russia with 883 new deaths, followed by the US with 246 and Iran with 229.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/covid-cases-plunge-after-norway-abruptly-gets-rid-of-all-restrictions/news-story/d8c810f94ad5d6a5448dd03ac7d09ae0

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AstraZeneca launches new drug to prevent COVID symptoms

COVID-19 vaccine maker AstraZeneca has applied for emergency approval in the US of a new coronavirus-fighting drug that could provide another therapeutic option.

The pharmaceuticals giant confirmed overnight it has lodged an application with the US Food and Drug Administration to approval its AZD7442, a “long-acting antibody” drug designed to prevent symptoms of the virus before an individual is exposed to COVID-19.

The drugmaker says the antibody cocktail, which is injected into the veins, could be used to protect people who have had a coronavirus vaccine but may not have mounted a strong immune response to the virus because they are immuno-compromised.

Early data from a phase 3 study of the product showed that the treatment reduced the risk of developing a symptomatic case of COVID-19 compared to a placebo.

If the product is approved in the US, it would be the first treatment of its kind to get the green light. The company said it was already open for talks about supply agreements around the world.

“Discussions regarding supply agreements for AZD7442 are ongoing with the US government as well as other governments around the world,” AstraZeneca said in a statement.

Australia has spent the past month upping its arsenal of COVID-19 therapeutics, including increasing its orders for GSK’s early intervention IV treatment and buying 300,000 doses of Merck Sharp & Dohme’s experimental antiviral pill Molnupiravir.

On Tuesday, the Australian regulator also granted a “provisional determination” to Pfizer for its COVID treatment, which paves the way for Pfizer to submit full data for consideration.

Pfizer launched a study of the drug in 2,660 patients last week. Its treatment is designed as a pill that is taken over five days at the first sign of infection or awareness of exposure to the virus, acting to block the activity of the enzyme the virus uses to replicate.

AstraZeneca’s vice-president of biopharmaceuticals R&D, Mene Pangalos, said products like AstraZeneca’s treatment will hopefully act as an additional option to protect against the virus, along with vaccines.

“Vulnerable populations such as the immuno-compromised often aren’t able to mount a protective response following vaccination and continue to be at risk of developing COVID-19,” Mr Pangalos said

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/astrazeneca-launches-new-drug-to-prevent-covid-symptoms-20211006-p58xlb.html

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Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine’s Effectiveness Falls Below 50 Percent After 5 Months: Study

According to a new study published in The Lancet medical journal on Oct. 4.

The study (pdf), which was funded by Pfizer, aimed to evaluate the overall variant-specific effectiveness of the companies’ vaccine against CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus infections and COVID-19-related hospital admissions over time.

Researchers analyzed electronic health records of more than 3.4 million men and women who were members of the health care organization Kaiser Permanente Southern California between Dec. 14, 2020, and Aug. 8, and assessed the vaccine effectiveness up to six months after they were inoculated.

They found that the Pfizer vaccine was 88 percent effective in the first month after full vaccination, but dropped to 47 percent effectiveness after five months.

The vaccine was also found to be highly effective against the Delta variant, providing 93 percent effectiveness in the first month after full vaccination but declining to 53 percent after four months.

By comparison, effectiveness against other non-Delta variants was 97 percent after a month and declined to 67 percent after four to five months, according to the study.

Effectiveness against Delta-related hospital admission remained high at 93 percent for up to six months, the researchers said.

Researchers said that the reduction in effectiveness was likely because of waning immunity over the period of time since the individual was given the second shot as opposed to the Delta strain.

“Our results provide support for high effectiveness of BNT162b2 against hospital admissions up until around six months after being fully vaccinated, even in the face of widespread dissemination of the Delta variant,” the researchers wrote.

“Reduction in vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infections over time is probably primarily due to waning immunity with time rather than the Delta variant escaping vaccine protection.”

“Our results reiterate in a real-world U.S. setting that vaccination with [the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine] remains an essential tool for preventing COVID-19, especially COVID-19-associated hospital admissions, caused by all current variants of concern,” they added.

The latest Pfizer-funded study comes one day after a separate BioRxiv study published on Oct. 4 that found that antibody levels generated by two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can undergo up to a 10-fold decrease seven months following the second vaccination.

The research, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, noted that the drop in antibody levels would compromise the body’s ability to defend itself against COVID-19 if an individual becomes infected.

The study focused on 56 healthy participants who had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The participants’ blood was tested once after receiving the second vaccination and once again after six months.

Researchers suggested administering a third booster shot as a measure to improve vaccine efficacy.

Both studies reiterate findings from Pfizer and BioNTech that were released in July showing that vaccine effectiveness dropped from 96 percent to 84 percent over six months.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the most widely used in the United States. More than 226 million doses have been administered as of Sept. 30, compared with 151 million Moderna shots and 15 million of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/effectiveness-of-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-falls-below-50-percent-after-5-months-study_4032448.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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5 October, 2021

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine is more than 90% effective against hospitalization from all variants - including Delta - for first six months after receiving shots

Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine remains effective at preventing hospitalizations for at least six months, a new study suggests..

Researchers at Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC) gathered data from the company's health care network to discover how often fully vaccinated people were either testing positive for the virus or being hospitalized because of it.

They found the Pfizer vaccine was 90 percent effective at preventing hospitalizations for the first six months after becoming fully vaccinated.

Existing variants also seem to have little ability to bypass the vaccines, including the highly transmissible Delta variant, which is now responsible for nearly all cases in the U.S.

The vaccine's effectiveness at preventing infection does significantly wane over time, though, falling as low as 47 percent after five months.

Previous studies have had similar findings regarding the effectiveness of the Covid vaccines at preventing infection and hospitalization.

The results of the study show that a recent uptick in breakthrough cases may have less to do with any factors specific to the Delta variant, but instead have to do with the efficacy of the vaccines falling over time.

These breakthrough cases are less serious, though, with the vaccine still showing the ability to prevent hospitalizations and death.

'Our variant-specific analysis clearly shows that the [Pfizer] vaccine is effective against all current variants of concern, including Delta,' said Dr Luis Jodar, senior vice president of Pfizer Vaccines, in a statement.

'COVID-19 infections in people who have received two vaccine doses are most likely due to waning and not caused by Delta or other variants escaping vaccine protection.'

For the study, published in The Lancet, the team gathered data from 3.4 million members of the KPSC health network.

They analyzed health records to find how often people tested positive or required medical treatment due to the virus.

People whose data was included in the study were separated by age to find any potential differences in vaccine effectiveness over the six months following the second jab.

Researchers found little differences among age cohorts in both the ability to prevent hospitalizations or infection.

Among all age groups, the vaccine's effectiveness slowly declined over the months, eventually falling to around 50 percent.

Overall, the vaccine showed 73 percent effectiveness at preventing infection during the first six months after vaccination.

Effectiveness against hospitalization remained stable for all ages, showing little change over the first six months.

Other studies have made similar findings, including a Mayo Clinic study from August that found the Pfizer vaccine is only 42 percent effective at preventing infection in July, though still 75 percent effective at preventing hospitalization.

At the time, it was believed that the Delta variant was the cause for declining efficacy, though the KPSC findings state otherwise.

Another study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also found that efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine declined to around 50 percent over time.

The findings match what many health officials have said in recent weeks in conversations regarding Covid booster shots.

The White House, wanted to roll out boosters for all Americans starting on September 20, citing the waning efficacy of the vaccines as the reason for the third shots.

Some officials and experts disagreed, including 18 senior Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials who published a report opposing the boosters last month, instead cite the vaccine's effectiveness at preventing hospitalizations as a reason why the boosters are not needed.

The FDA declined to authorize the boosters for all Americans over the age of 18, instead only giving authorization for the Pfizer boosters to be used for Americans aged 65 or older or with a comorbidity that makes them vulnerable to the virus.

Eligible Americans quickly took advantage of the boosters availability, with nearly two million of the shots being administered last week, the White House reported.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10058817/Pfizers-COVID-19-vaccine-90-effective-against-hospitalization-six-months.html

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Safe to receive Covid and flu jabs at the same time, study shows

Research also finds that co-administration has no negative impact on immune response generated by both vaccines

It is safe for people to receive a dose of the Covid and flu vaccine at the same time, new research shows, and nor is there any negative impact on the immune response as a result of co-administration.

Scientists behind the Combining Influenza and Covid-19 Vaccination (ComFluCov) study said their findings support government plans to roll out Covid booster jabs alongside flu shots, where it is deemed practical.

A trial led by a team at the University of Bristol showed that the reported side effects of co-administration were mainly mild to moderate, concluding that “concomitant vaccination raises no safety concerns and preserves the immune response to both vaccines”.

Dr Rajeka Lazarus, a consultant in infectious diseases and microbiology, and chief investigator for the ComFluCov study, said the research demonstrated that “it is possible to protect people from both Covid-19 and flu at the same appointment”.

She added: “This is a really positive step which could mean fewer appointments for those who require both vaccines, reducing the burden on those who have underlying health conditions and would usually be offered the influenza vaccine.

The results of the study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, have already been shared with the the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and the UK’s medicines regulator.

They were used to help shape preparations for the autumn and winter plan. Under this, more than 50 million Covid booster jabs are to be offered, while some 30 million flu shots will also be rolled out.

As part of the ComFluCov trial, two Covid and three flu vaccines were tested – six combinations in all.

Study participants were over the age of 18 and had already received one dose of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, and were awaiting their second dose.

A total of 679 volunteers took part in the study across 12 NHS sites in England and Wales.

One group received their second dose of the Covid vaccine and the flu vaccine at their first study visit, then a placebo at their second visit.

A second group received their second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine and a placebo at their first visit and then the flu vaccine at their second visit.

Participants also attended a third study visit to discuss any side effects and give a blood sample.

The most common side effects were pain around the injection site and fatigue.

Some combinations saw an increase in the number of people who reported at least one side effect when both Covid-19 and flu vaccine were given together, but the reactions were mostly mild or moderate, researchers found.

According to the study, the immune responses to both the flu and Covid-19 vaccine were preserved when given together, and 97 per cent of participants said they would be willing to have two vaccines at the same appointment in the future.

Professor Andrew Ustianowski, clinical lead for the Covid-19 vaccination programme at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), said: “This research has quickly provided important and reassuring results that could make vaccination more efficient for both patients and the NHS.”

The study was led by researchers at the Bristol Trials Centre at the University of Bristol and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust, and supported by the Clinical Research Network West of England.

Dr Peter English, a former chair of the BMA Public Health Medicine Committee, said “there is a long history of vaccinating people against more than one disease simultaneously”.

He added: “I cannot think of any examples where co-administration of vaccines is in any way unsafe.

“We would not expect any problems to arise from co-administration of flu and Covid-19 vaccines; but it is wise and precautionary to check for possible problems in clinical trials before authorising or recommending widespread co-administration. This study does just that.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/covid-flu-vaccine-doses-booster-latest-b1930112.html

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IN BRIEF

WaPo runs interference for Biden, gives him just 2 Pinocchios for the “zero dollars” whopper (Washington Post)

“We can get you out of office if you don’t support what you promised us”: Kyrsten Sinema pestered by immigration activists (Fox News

Dems tuck multibillion-dollar handout to illegal immigrants into reconciliation (Free Beacon)

Friendly fire: House Democrats blast Nancy Pelosi after spending bills holdup (New York Post)

Dr. Anthony Fauci isn’t sure that you can gather for Christmas, but he is sure that you must give up your individual rights (American Thinker)

CDC implements gun violence study after wrongly naming it a “public health threat” (PM)

No joke: Catch-and-release at border up more than 430,000% in August (Washington Times)

Havana Syndrome continues to baffle U.S. officials (Washington Times)

Woke infighting: Women’s March cancels “Handmaid’s Tale” imagery over its use by white women (PM)

Facebook whistleblower trashes the social media giant on “60 Minutes” ahead of her congressional testimony (New York Post)

Seven of the 10 states in worst financial condition are run by Democrats (Just the News)

Self-proclaimed shaman accused of starting California fire said she was trying to boil bear urine (Washington Examiner)

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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4 October, 2021

First Covid test which can detect the virus from a saliva swab will be rolled out across the UK

The KnowNow antigen test mimics the surface of a human cell to identify the virus and only recognises 'infectious' or 'active' Covid.

By comparison, PCR and lateral flows are susceptible to picking up 'harmless viral fragments' - meaning some people test positive and have to isolate despite not having the virus.

The test is designed to mimic the experience of brushing your teeth rather than sticking a swab up the nose and swiping the back of the throat, and is more accurate than its predecessors.

A spokesman said: 'KnowNow enables testing to keep people safe, whilst minimising disruption, increasing trust and keeping society and the economy open.'

While currently registered in Britain and the EU and undergoing clinical trials, it is yet to be screened across the US.

Vatic Health Limited, a UK based health-tech company, has today signed the supply agreement with one of the largest manufacturers of lateral flow tests in Europe, Abingdon Health.

Together, they hope to roll out up to 100 million of the KnowNow Covid tests every year.

Alex Sheppard, co-founder of Vatic, said: 'We are now moving into a new phase where the pandemic as we know it is over, and now we are having to deal with disruptions as we learn to live with the virus.

'Unfortunately with the rise of several mutations across the world, vaccinations alone are not the total solution.

'Regular testing technologies are needed to help reduce the overall spread and keep the economy back up and running.

'Our unique test technology, combined with a UK-based manufacturing roll-out is a major milestone in testing.

'With the potential to manufacture two million tests per month initially, and significantly more beyond this as we scale, this deal will help us ensure the hard-fought wins around societal reopening are retained and we can really make a global impact.

'Covid-19 testing will remain alongside booster vaccinations, a key pillar of our collective biosecurity.'

Chris Yates, Chief Executive Officer of Abingdon Health, commented: 'We are delighted to be working with Vatic on the technology transfer of their cutting edge Covid-19 test into Abingdon Health and to have secured this long-term manufacturing arrangement.

'We expect to have concluding tech transfer shortly and having already completed the first phase of the expansion of our manufacturing capacity, we are now at the forefront of Covid-19 rapid testing and part of the UK's diagnostic manufacturing capacity.

'The agreement with Vatic is testament of our ability to provide high-quality services for our partners, whether for Covid-19 tests or non-Covid assays.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10054471/First-Covid-test-detect-virus-saliva-swab-rolled-UK.html

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The booster effect? Israel's Covid infections plummet nearly THREE-FOLD in a fortnight and hospital admissions drop by a third

Coronavirus cases are plummeting in Israel for the first time in months and hospital admissions are now firmly in retreat — in a sign of the booster jab programme taking effect.

The country is recording on average fewer than 4,000 Covid infections each day now compared to 11,000-plus at the peak of its third wave on September 14, which was more than at any other point in the pandemic.

Cases have been in freefall now for weeks despite Israeli schools returning from the summer break this month and record numbers of tests being deployed in classrooms.

It puts an end to a meteoric rise in infections in recent months that was believed to be due to waning immunity and the rise of the exceptionally infectious Delta variant.

Israel launched its trailblazing booster jab programme in July in response to the rising wave, which initially targeted over-60s before expanding to everyone aged 12 and above who had been double-dosed.

The number of people being admitted to hospital with the virus each week has been falling for the past month, in what Israeli scientists believe is the result of heightened immunity from the third dose.

Stats compiled by Oxford University-based research team Our World in Data shows there were 110 admission per million people in the week up to September 26, the most recent date, compared to about 165 per million on August 29.

Britain last week launched its own booster vaccine programme, with more than 30million people aged 50 and over, frontline medics and carers and patients with weak immune systems in line for a third jab.

Data from Israel suggests a booster shot slashes the risk of infection by 11 times less and makes people up to 20 times less likely to need hospital care.

A major study published New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on September 15 found that over-60s given a third dose were 11.3 times less likely to become infected with Delta two weeks after the booster.

The research looked at more than 1.1million Israelis. It also found that people given a booster were 19.5 times less likely to be hospitalised with Covid than those who were still relying on protection from two doses.

Britain's Covid outbreak has shrunk for the first time in nearly two weeks, while hospital admissions and deaths continue to drop.

Another 36,480 positive tests were recorded across the UK on Thursday, down 0.6 per cent on the 36,710 infections spotted last week.

Week-on-week cases had been rising steadily for the previous 12 days.

Despite the fall in official numbers, it could be a blip because other surveillance measures today revealed cases are still rising.

King's College London data today showed the number of Britons catching Covid every day rose almost 30 per cent last week.

Cases have soared in children ever since millions of youngsters returned to classrooms following the summer holidays. But now infections appear to be spilling over into their parents, a trend MailOnline revealed earlier this week.

Meanwhile, Covid hospitalisations and deaths continued to fall, with 657 people infected with the virus requiring NHS care (down by 12 per cent on last week) and 137 fatalities recorded (down by a quarter).

Both figures lag several weeks behind infections because of how long it can take for infected patients to become seriously ill.

Latest data from the country's health ministry suggests that the booster programme is creating strong protection in the elderly.

The rate of severe Covid illness in over-60s is currently nine times higher among those who have had two vaccine doses compared to the triple-jabbed — on September 25 it was 36 per 100,000 in the two dose group compared to just four per 100,000 in the booster group. Among those who are completely unvaccinated, the rate was 170.

The results in Israel have not yet convinced the UK's health officials to recommend a mass booster campaign for younger age groups.

No10's vaccine advisory panel, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), believes younger people had higher immunity from two doses because of the UK's unique dosing strategy.

While Israel, the US and many other nations spaced the two doses three weeks apart, Britain extended this to three months.

At the time that decision was made, at the height of the second wave, it was to get more jabs in more arms in the hope that partial protection for many rather than full protection for some would drive down the epidemic.

Studies later showed that the wider gap generated stronger and longer lasting immunity.

Britons are only being invited to come forward for a booster if they had their second jab at least six months ago, which officials said was the 'sweet spot' for boosters.

Third doses will be rolled out to the top nine priority groups during the initial drive, with the elderly, medics and carers first in line again.

Doses of the Pfizer jab, or a half dose of Moderna, will be administered as boosters, regardless of which jab they initially received, because studies showed they were the most effective at topping up immunity.

For those who cannot get either of those two mRNA jabs, such as due to an allergy, they will be given a dose of AstraZeneca's vaccine. A half dose of Moderna has been chosen because it was found to have fewer side effects but similar efficacy.

The UK also started vaccinating healthy 12 to 15-year-olds for the first time last week with the hope of keeping the epidemic at bay and preventing school closures this winter. They are being offered a single dose of Pfizer for now.

Officials have not yet released data on how many Britons have received third doses of the vaccine or how many 12 to 15-year-olds have received their first injection, despite both programmes beginning earlier this month.

It comes after Britain's Covid outbreak shrunk for the first time in nearly two weeks yesterday.

Another 36,480 infections were recorded across the UK, down 0.6 per cent on the number last Thursday. Week-on-week cases had been rising steadily for the previous 12 days.

Both figures lag several weeks behind infections because of how long it can take for infected patients to become seriously ill.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10032371/The-booster-effect-Israels-Covid-infections-plummet-nearly-THREEFOLD-fortnight.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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3 October, 2021

People not fully vaccinated against Covid are 57 TIMES more likely to die and 41 times more likely to be hospitalized due to spread of the Delta variant, Fauci says

The nation's top infectious diseases expert said Americans who are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are several times more likely to be hospitalized or die.

During a White House COVID-19 Response Team press briefing on Friday, Dr Anthony Fauci shared data on virus outcomes by vaccination status from Public Health - Seattle & King County in Washington state.

The data found individuals who had not started or completed their vaccine series were eight times more likely to test positive for Covid.

These people were also 41 times more likely to be hospitalized due to the virus and 57 times more likely to die than those were fully vaccinated.

Fauci said that because these figures are from the past month, this shows how highly transmissible the Delta variant is and how protective vaccines are against the most severe effects of Covid. 'This is COVID-19 data over the past 30 days - essentially Delta data,' he said.

'COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, convenient and free. They protect you, your loves ones, and your community.'

The data compared King County residents with 'breakthrough cases,' which occur when people test positive for Covid at least 14 days after receiving their final dose, to unvaccinated people who contract the virus.

Officials have previously stated that no vaccine provides 100 percent protection, which means there will be more breakthrough cases as more people get vaccinated.

However, studies have shown that less than one percent of people who are fully vaccinated contract the virus, and even fewer have severe complications.

As of September 20, the most recent date for which Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data is available, 14,643 out of more than 181 million fully vaccinated people were hospitalized. An even smaller number - 4,493 - died.

The new data, compiled by King County officials, show just how uncommon breakthrough infections are and how protective COVID-19 vaccines are against critical illness.

Fully vaccinated residents were compared to 'not fully vaccinated' people - meaning the unvaccinated, people who just started their vaccine series and those who completed vaccination within the last 14 days.

Results showed that, over the last 30 days, 11,868 not fully vaccinated people tested positive for Covid compared to 5,640 fully vaccinated residents.

The daily case rate for fully vaccinated people was 10.7 new cases per 100,000 people compared to 82.4 per 100,000 among the not fully vaccinated.

This means that people not fully vaccinated were 7.7 times more likely to contract the virus. When it came to hospitalizations and deaths, the risk was even higher among not fully vaccinated individuals.

Over the last month, 543 not fully vaccinated residents were hospitalized with a rate of 8.72 per 100,00 per day.

Comparatively, 131 people who completed their immunization series were hospitalized with a daily rate of 0.21 per 100,000 per day - meaning the fully vaccinated were 41.4 times less likely to need inpatient care.

During the same time period, 90 not fully vaccinated individuals died as did 26 fully vaccinated people.

With a daily case rate of 2.28 deaths per 100,000 for the not fully vaccinated compared to 0.04 per 100,000 for the fully vaccinated, it means those who have not started or completed their vaccine series are 56.7 times more likely to die of Covid.

Because these cases, hospitalizations and deaths occurred over the last month, Fauci said these are linked to the Delta fueled-surge.

A report last week from the state Department of Health showed that, as of September 11, all virus samples that underwent genetic sequencing were confirmed to be Delta, meaning the variant is essentially responsible for 100 percent of all infections.

The variant is at least twice as contagious as previous dominant strains including the Alpha variant, which originated in the UK.

'We are extremely concerned by this increased spike in cases, driven by the delta variant, spreading like wildfire amongst men, women, and children,' Washington's Secretary of Health Dr Umair Shah said last month.

'Vaccination the best tool we have in this pandemic, but we also recommend that individuals mask indoors, and avoid large, crowded settings vaccinated or not.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10050053/People-not-fully-vaccinated-against-Covid-57-TIMES-likely-die-Fauci-says.html

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Pfizer no better than AstraZeneca long term, UK study finds

Over 60s holding out for the Pfizer Covid jab are in for a harsh reality check — it is no better than the AstraZeneca jab they could have got months ago in long-term efficacy.

A new study shows after four months, both vaccines provide similar protection against the virus.

The large UK study found the efficacy of the Pfizer jab fell by 22 per cent per month — from an original 84 per cent for adults overall — and after four and a half months it had around the same effectiveness against the Delta strain as AstraZeneca.

AstraZeneca’s efficacy began at 69 per cent for adults overall a fortnight after the second dose, before falling to 61 per cent after 90 days, the study by the University of Oxford, the UK Office for National Statistics and the UK Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) found.

“Extrapolating declines beyond the observed follow-up, both vaccines would be equally effective against PCR-positives with (4.6 months) after the second dose and 116 days (3.8 months) against PCR-positives with symptoms,” the study found.

The study has not yet been peer reviewed by other experts or published in a medical journal, so the findings must be treated with caution.

Both vaccines were much more effective against Delta in younger people and provided stronger protection if the person had contracted Covid as well as being vaccinated, the study found.

Pfizer was 90 per cent effective against Delta in those aged 18-34 years versus 77 per cent for those aged 35-64 years.

AstraZeneca was 73 per cent effective in people aged 18-34 years and only 54 per cent effective in people aged 35-64 years.

Overall the third vaccine option, Moderna, holds its efficacy for at least six months, other studies show.

University of Newcastle, Australia immunologist Professor Nathan Bartlett AstraZeneca said the UK study showed “AstraZeneca is an excellent vaccine. It’s always been comparable to the Pfizer vaccine in terms of protection against severe disease.”

“There is early evidence to suggest that maybe AstraZeneca does confer a little bit longer, or you know, the waning is a little less rapid than Pfizer but it’s not a huge difference and we don’t know whether or not that’s important. In the long run I think we’re still going to need boosters,” he said.

More important than protection against infection was the fact both vaccines were equally good at preventing hospitalisation and death, he said.

Australian National University infectious diseases expert Professor Peter Collignon said there had been vaccine snobbery in Australia with some people shunning the AstraZeneca jab.

“I haven’t said too much but I thought, won’t it be ironic if the AstraZeneca ended up giving you a better prediction than Pfizer over six to 12 months. We don’t know at the moment but it may actually,” he said.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/coronavirus/pfizer-no-better-than-astrazeneca-long-term-uk-study-finds/news-story/6ebf2509db2b7a40151f5116425adc68

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Merck’s COVID-19 pill cuts risk of death, hospitalisation by half in study

Merck & Co Inc’s experimental oral drug for COVID-19, molnupiravir, reduced by around 50 per cent the chance of hospitalisation or death for patients at risk of severe disease, according to interim clinical trial results announced on Friday.

Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics plan to seek US emergency use authorisation for the pill as soon as possible, and to submit applications to regulatory agencies worldwide. Due to the positive results, the Phase 3 trial is being stopped early at the recommendation of outside monitors.

“This is going to change the dialogue around how to manage COVID-19,” Robert Davis, Merck’s chief executive officer, said.

If authorised, molnupiravir, which is designed to introduce errors into the genetic code of the virus, would be the first oral antiviral medication for COVID-19.

Rivals including Pfizer Inc and Swiss pharmaceutical Roche Holding AG are racing to develop an easy-to-administer antiviral pill for COVID-19 but so far, only antibody cocktails - which have to be given intravenously - are approved for treating non-hospitalised COVID-19 patients.

A planned interim analysis of 775 patients in Merck’s study found that 7.3 per cent of those given molnupiravir were either hospitalised or had died by 29 days after treatment, compared with 14.1 per cent of placebo patients. There were no deaths in the molnupiravir group, but there were eight deaths of placebo patients.

“Antiviral treatments that can be taken at home to keep people with COVID-19 out of the hospital are critically needed,” Wendy Holman, Ridgeback’s CEO, said.

In the trial, which enrolled patients around the world, molnupiravir was taken every 12 hours for five days.

The study enrolled patients with laboratory-confirmed mild-to-moderate COVID-19, who had symptoms for no more than five days. All patients had at least one risk factor associated with poor disease outcome, such as obesity or older age.

Merck said viral sequencing done so far shows molnupiravir is effective against all variants of the coronavirus, including highly transmissible Delta.

The company said rates of adverse events were similar for both molnupiravir and placebo patients, but did not give details of the side effects.

Merck has said data shows molnupiravir is not capable of inducing genetic changes in human cells, but men enrolled in its trials have to abstain from heterosexual intercourse or agree to use contraception. Women of child-bearing age cannot be pregnant and also have to use birth control.

Merck said it expects to produce 10 million courses of the treatment by the end of 2021, with more doses coming next year.

The company has a US government contract to supply 1.7 million courses of molnupiravir at a price of $700 per course.

CEO Davis said Merck has similar agreements with other governments worldwide, and is in talks with more. The company said it plans to implement a tiered pricing approach based on country income criteria.

Merck has also agreed to license the drug to several India-based generic drugmakers, which would be able to supply the treatment to low- and middle-income countries.

Molnupiravir is also being studied in a Phase 3 trial for preventing coronavirus infection in people exposed to the virus.

Merck officials said it is unclear how long the FDA review of the drug will take. “I believe that they are going to try to work with alacrity on this,” said Dean Li, head of Merck’s research labs.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/merck-s-covid-19-pill-cuts-risk-of-death-hospitalisation-by-half-in-study-20211001-p58wl7.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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1 October, 2021

UK: Astonishing charts show how Covid poses a tiny threat to children (even if they HAVEN'T had any vaccines): Official data shows risk of dying from virus is one in 300,000 for 10 to 14-year-olds

Figures published by the Department of Health highlight the tiny risk children face from coronavirus, which becomes deadlier the older a person is.

They show around one in 330,000 boys aged between 10 and 14 and one in 200,000 girls of the same age who test positive for Covid end up dying. The rates include both healthy children and those with underlying health conditions which put them at a much higher risk of death.

Separate figures also show unvaccinated children also face smaller odds of succumbing to the illness than fully-vaccinated adults in their twenties — another age-group known to be at little risk.

Britain's vaccine advisory panel, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), has said that the risk of Covid death in a healthy child is around one in 2million.

For comparison, the figures suggest one in every 25 people over the age of 90 who catch Covid succumb to the disease. For people in their 80s it is about one in 90 and those in their 60s have a death rate of about one per 1,000 — rates which have been drastically slashed by vaccines.

Scientists today said the findings for children were 'reassuring'. It comes after millions of 12 to 15-year-olds were made eligible for a single dose of Pfizer's jab last week.

The JCVI said earlier this month that immunising them would only provide 'marginal' benefit to their health, which was not enough to advise a mass rollout.

But the experts recommended that ministers sought the advice of Professor Chris Whitty and the chief medical officers in the devolved nations. They came down in favour of expanding the inoculation drive after weighing up the wider benefits to children, claiming that hundreds of thousands of school absences could be prevented.

Latest official figures show that within 28 days of testing positive for the virus, 0.5 girls aged 10 to 14 will die from the virus per 100,000. The figure for boys of the same age is 0.3 per 100,000.

Covid is deadlier as people get older — but the risk among 15 to 19-year-olds is still low at 1.1 per 100,000 for girls and 1.9 per 100,000 for boys.

Meanwhile, men aged 50 to 54 face a 72.8 per 100,000 risk of dying once becoming infected, while the figure for women is 43.8.

The risk rises dramatically among the oldest groups, with 4,092 women aged over 90 who catch the virus dying per 100,000, while the figure is 6,035 for men.

Earlier this month, the JCVI said just two healthy children per million would be admitted to hospital for Covid, while those with underlying conditions were more at risk - at 100 per million.

Meanwhile, three to 17 children per million were estimated to develop rare vaccine side effect myocarditis after receiving a single dose of Pfizer. The figure rose to 12 to 34 per million after the second dose.

It found the Covid pandemic may have exacerbated the mental health crisis in young people, with two-thirds of children saying their lives were worse in lockdown.

The report estimated 17.4 per cent of children aged six to 16 had a 'probable' mental disorder now, compared to 11.6 per cent, or one in nine, in 2017.

In older teens, the prevalence of mental health issues is believed to have risen from one in 10 to one in six, according to the survey of more than 3,600 youngsters.

Two-thirds of under-16s claimed lockdowns had made their lives worse, with social isolation and school closures to blame.

Meanwhile, the proportion of youngsters with eating problems has almost doubled since 2017 to 13 per cent.

Nearly one in six older teens were suspected of having an eating disorder, which could include anorexia and bulimia in extreme cases.

Professor Dame Til Wykes, a clinical psychologist at King's College London, said the rises 'may have been accelerated by the pandemic'.

She told MailOnline: 'But it seems part of a longer term progression and recognition of mental health difficulties in the young.'

Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show 23 children aged 14 and under who died this year had the virus listed on their death certificate.

This doesn't mean the virus was the underlying cause in all cases, but catching the virus may have contributed to their death.

The number of children aged five to 14 who will die from the virus is 14 per million, according to estimates from the chief medical officers, which is lower than the risk posed from seasonal flu infections.

And the proportion of children who develop Covid symptoms and require hospital care is 0.1 per cent for under-nines and 0.3 per cent for 10 to 19-year-olds.

Professor Paul Hunter, an expert in medicine at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline: 'JCVI believes that the health benefits of immunizing 12 to 16 year olds is marginal and I think they are right.

'Because younger age groups are even less likely to suffer severe consequences from Covid and possibly be more at risk of myocarditis.

'I do not think JCVI would support immunising children under 11 and I think they would be right.'

But he warned it is difficult to interpret official death data, because it includes fatalities where Covid was a 'coincidental finding' as well as people who died from the virus.

This is 'less of an issue' among older groups because the proportion of all deaths that were due to Covid was high, but could be more inaccurate among children because there was so few deaths.

He added: 'Of course death is not the only adverse outcome of Covid, so should not be all the reason why we decide whether or not to vaccinate any particular age group.

'But all the evidence points to younger age groups having less severe non-fatal disease anyway.'

Professor Helen Bedford, an expert in children's health at University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health: ‘It is reassuring that the latest figures from the Department of Health confirm children and young people to be at very low risk of dying from Covid.

'The recent decision to offer Covid vaccine to young people over the age of 12 years is based on its wider benefits such as reducing disruption to schooling.

'A recent UK study showing that most over 12-year-olds were willing to accept the vaccine suggests the programme will be successful.'

Professor David Livermore, a microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline: 'Vaccination of the elderly and vulnerable is clearly of benefit. Given that vaccine efficacy fades over time, boosters are likely to be warranted for these folks.

'The figures don't however justify vaccinating healthy children, whose death rate from Covid is tiny, at around 0.1 to 1.9 per 100,000.

'What is more, most of the few children who have died had underlying health issues. There is general agreement, and a recommendation from the JCVI, that this minority of unwell children should be vaccinated.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10045767/Astonishing-charts-Covid-poses-tiny-threat-children.html

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AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine shows 74% efficacy against infection in US trial as the company plans to file for full FDA approval this fall

AstraZeneca Plc's COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective against infection - especially among older adults, according to new data from the company's U.S. clinical trial.

The vaccine, developed with researchers from the University of Oxford, was found to be 74 percent effective against symptomatic Covid infection.

Efficacy increased to nearly 84 percent among participants who were aged 65 and older.

This makes AstraZeneca's vaccine less protective against infection than the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines at 88.8 percent and 96.3 percent, respectively, but more protective than Johnson & Johnson's vaccine at 70 percent.

It comes as AstraZeneca plans to seek full approval of the shot with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this fall after numerous setbacks delayed the firm from applying for the faster emergency use authorization (EUA) in the spring.

AstraZeneca's COVID-19 immunization is known as a viral vector vaccine, the same type of shot that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is.

Viral vector vaccines combine genetic material from SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes Covid - with the genes of the adenovirus, which causes the common cold.

The portion taken from SARS-CoV-2 codes for the spike protein that the coronavirus uses to enter and infect cells in order to train the body to recognize the virus and induce an immune response if infected.

For the trial, which has results published in The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, the team looked at 32,000 volunteers in the U.S., Chile and Peru.

Two-thirds of the volunteers received two shots of the vaccine spaced four weeks apart while the remaining one-third received two placebo shots.

There were no cases of severe or critical symptomatic COVID-19 among the participants who got the vaccine compared with eight such cases among the volunteers who got the placebo.

Additionally, there were two Covid deaths in the placebo group but none among those who received the vaccine.

Researchers determined the COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated 74 percent efficacy at preventing symptomatic disease and 83.5 percent efficacy in people aged 65 and older.

'I was pleasantly surprised,' Dr Anna Durbin, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins University and one of the study's investigators, told Reuters of the overall result.

'It was also highly protective against severe disease and hospitalization.'

The most common side effects reported by the vaccine recipients were general pain, headache, injection-site pain and fatigue.

There were no cases of a rare but serious blood clotting side effect called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia that has been linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The company had originally planned to file for EUA in the U.S. in spring 2021, but suffered several setbacks starting last year.

In September 2020, the U.S. arm of AstraZeneca'a vaccine trial was paused after a British participant was rushed to the hospital following a serious reaction that triggered spinal cord inflammation.

Then the company did not turn over trial safety data to the FDA for a month, further delaying the study's resumption.

When AstraZeneca released results from an interim analysis of its clinical trial showing 79 percent efficacy in March 2021, U.S. health officials claimed the figure was based on 'outdated information.'

The British drugmaker revised the figure days later to 76 percent.

In April, the firm said it was struggling to pull together the data necessary to apply for emergency use authorization in the U.S.

AstraZeneca said in late July it planned to file for full approval with the FDA rather than seek emergency use authorization.

CEO Pascal Soriot told a media briefing at the time he hoped the vaccine could still play a role in the U.S., even though the process was taking longer than expected.

The company is exploring booster doses for people who have already been vaccinated with two doses of either its own shot or mRNA-based vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna.

Durbin told Reuters she does not expect the vaccine to be used much in the U.S., considering most adults have already received one and children are likely to only be allowed to take the Pfizer shot.

But, she added that securing FDA approval 'does give them gravitas.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10043013/AstraZeneca-COVID-19-vaccine-shows-74-efficacy-large-U-S-trial.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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