CORONA Main Coronavirus thread

(fair use applies)


Column:
Rescinding the military's COVID vaccine rule is the Democrats' dumbest compromise in the lame-duck session
Michael Hiltzik - Los Angeles Times
Wed, December 7, 2022, 12:51 PM

If you need evidence that Congress is dominated by its stupidest members, look no further than the apparent agreement in the House to lift the requirement that members of the military be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Congressional sources say that rescinding the mandate, which Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin imposed in August 2021, is part of a compromise aimed at passing this year's $858-billion National Defense Authorization Act during the current lame-duck legislative session.

The House is expected to vote on the act Thursday, with the Senate to follow. The Democratic capitulation to the GOP's demand to rescind the vaccine mandate is an inexcusable dereliction of Congress' duty to care for the health of military service members and the general public.

Lifting the COVID vaccine mandate has been a Republican hobby horse since its inception. The GOP position reflects the consistent anti-science coloration of the party's policy stances, especially where anti-pandemic measures are concerned.

Austin and President Biden have fought back against congressional efforts to rescind the mandate. As recently as Saturday, Austin told reporters that he wanted to keep the mandate in place.

“We lost a million people to this virus,” Austin said. “A million people died in the United States of America. We lost hundreds in DOD [Department of Defense]. So this mandate has kept people healthy.”

On the other side are Republicans infused with anti-vaccine myth-making.

These include untrue claims that the vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer are not safe or effective and haven't been adequately tested — claims that have been consistently refuted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The caliber of the vaccine objections can be gleaned from the lawsuit brought in Colorado federal court by two former military officers in 2021.

They based their objections on a passel of long-debunked anti-vaccine claims, including that the vaccines were "experimental," that the Pfizer shot had never actually been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and that the shots were a "deadly... genetic modification injection."

A federal judge in Denver dismissed the lawsuit in January, but the plaintiffs appealed. At a hearing last month, a panel of federal appellate judges displayed frank skepticism about their claims. The panel hasn't yet ruled.

The partisan attacks on COVID vaccination have undoubtedly contributed to the increasing gap between Republican- and Democratic-leaning Americans in COVID death rates and vaccination rates.

A recently published study from the Yale School of Medicine found that "excess deaths during the pandemic were 76% higher among Republicans than Democrats" in Ohio and Florida. The partisan discrepancy in death rates "increased significantly after vaccines were introduced."

A survey published in November 2021 by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters made up 60% of the adult unvaccinated population, despite representing only 41% of adults; Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents accounted for only 17% of the unvaccinated.

"Political partisanship is a stronger predictor of whether someone is vaccinated than any demographic factor," the survey reported.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have tried to cast the COVID vaccine mandate as a drag on military readiness. In a Nov. 30 letter to Republican Senate leaders, 13 GOP senators led by right-winger Rand Paul of Kentucky noted that 3,400 troops had been discharged by April for refusing the vaccine.

The mandate "adversely affects our service members and our national security," they wrote. "The United States simply cannot afford to discharge our brave men and women in uniform and lose the investments we have made into each and every one of them due to an inept bureaucratic policy."

What was "inept" about the mandate they didn't say.

It should be obvious that refusing the vaccine ordered by senior Pentagon officials to maintain the health of the armed services would be a clear act of insubordination; allowing those actions to stand would undermine readiness far more than discharging the objectors.

The Pentagon said in April that about 70% of the 3,400 troops separated from the service for vaccine refusal received general discharges, which would allow them to keep their veterans benefits and return to service if they received the vaccine.

The Pentagon also said that there were "no operational impacts across the force for readiness” resulting from the mandate. About 97% of active-duty troops and officers were vaccinated by mid-April.

Austin, Biden and the Democrats in the House have stood firm against Republican demands that service members who refused the vaccine be reinstated.

In a Dec. 4 appearance on Fox News, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), said that rescinding the mandate was a nonnegotiable demand for the GOP's assent to the National Defense Authorization Act — "otherwise, the bill will not move."

The Democrats should have called their bluff and upheld its own healthcare policy. Giving in to pressure to rescind the COVID vaccine mandate could even undermine the Pentagon's other vaccine mandates for service members, which include shots for polio, measles, hepatitis, flu and tetanus.

Is it really plausible that the Republicans would have torpedoed the act over this issue? Defense spending is almost the only federal spending that the GOP favors; here's betting that the party wouldn't be comfortable with having the funding act's failure being hung around its neck.

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White House slams Congress for move to rescind military's vaccine mandate
by Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle
Wed, December 7, 2022, 1:13 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Wednesday that scrapping the requirement that U.S. troops get vaccinated for COVID-19 is a mistake, as lawmakers moved closer to requiring the Pentagon to rescind its vaccine mandate.

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who is vying to become speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and other Republicans have been pushing the Biden administration to lift the mandate, arguing in part that it hurts recruiting.

President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and military leaders have strongly backed the vaccine mandate as necessary to safeguard the health and readiness of the U.S. armed forces.

"We continue to believe that repealing the vaccine mandate is a mistake," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

"Republicans in Congress have obviously decided that they'd rather fight against the health and well being of those troops, rather than protecting them," Kirby added.

A compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which sets defense policy for the Pentagon, would scrap the vaccine mandate.

The bill is expected to pass the Senate and House this month, and be sent to the White House for Biden to sign into law.

Austin said on Monday that the military has no data to back up claims by top Republicans in Congress that the vaccine mandate is hurting recruiting.

Still, the U.S. military has faced unanticipated resistance among a minority of troops to getting vaccinated - something U.S. defense officials say is the result of misinformation about the safety of the vaccine.

According to Defense Department data, 3,717 Marines, 1,816 soldiers and 2,064 sailors have been discharged for refusing to get vaccinated.

Kirby said that more than 99 percent of active duty troops have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The defense bill does not require that troops who refused the vaccine be reinstated but it does ask for a report on the issue.

Representative Adam Smith, the House Armed Services Committee's Democrat chairman, said the question involved discipline of a military which is expected to follow lawful orders.

"I think they have to take into account that these people refused direct orders," Smith said.

Another update on the military vax mandate:


(fair use applies)


House passes defense bill scrapping COVID vaccine mandate
By KEVIN FREKING
yesterday

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bill to rescind the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. military and provide nearly $858 billion for national defense passed the House on Thursday as lawmakers scratch off one of the final items on their yearly to-do list.

The bill provides for about $45 billion more for defense programs than President Joe Biden requested, the second consecutive year Congress significantly exceeded his request, as lawmakers seek to boost the nation’s military competitiveness with China and Russia.

The House passed the bill by a vote of 350-80. It now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to pass easily, then to the president to be signed into law.

To win bipartisan support for the bill, Democrats agreed to Republican demands to scrap the requirement for service members to get a COVID-19 vaccination. The bill directs Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to rescind his August 2021 memorandum imposing the mandate. Only days earlier he voiced support for keeping the mandate in effect.

Rep. Adam Smith, Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told colleagues that the decision to impose the vaccine mandate was the right call at the time.

“It saved lives and it made sure that our force was as ready as it could possibly be in the face of the pandemic,” Smith said.

But, he said the directive only required the initial vaccination and by now that protection has worn off.

“It’s time to update the policy,” Smith said.

Republicans said the mandate hurt recruiting and retention efforts. Rep. Mike Rogers, top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said he intends in the next Congress to examine who was adversely affected by the mandate, “so we can try to revisit that and make them whole to the extent desirable.”

More than 8,000 active-duty service members were discharged for failure to obey a lawful order when they refused the vaccine.

“Some of the folks who have moved on are not going to want to come back,” said Rogers, who will become chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the next Congress.

Smith said he opposed efforts to reward those service members who disobeyed a military order.

“Orders are not optional in the United States military,” Smith said. “And if Congress expresses the opinion that they are, I cannot imagine anything that would more significantly undermine the good order and discipline within our military.”

Military leaders have argued that troops for decades have been required to get as many as 17 vaccines in order to maintain the health of the force, particularly those deploying overseas. Recruits arriving at the military academies or at basic training get a regimen of shots on their first day — such as measles, mumps and rubella — if they aren’t already vaccinated. And they routinely get flu shots in the fall.

Service leaders have said that the number of troops who requested religious or other exemptions to any of those required vaccines — prior to the COVID pandemic — was negligible.

The politicization of the COVID-19 vaccine, however, triggered an onslaught of exemption requests from troops. As many as 16,000 religious exemptions have been or are still pending, and only about 190 have been approved. Small numbers of temporary and permanent medical exemptions have also been granted.

While the rescission of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate has generated much attention, it takes up one paragraph of what is a 4,408-page bill.

The defense policy legislation is critical in shaping the military’s future. It sets the maximum number of service members authorized to be in the various branches of the military. It authorizes money for specific major weapons programs and it establishes pay and benefits. This year’s bill authorizes money to support a $4.6% pay raise for military members and the Defense Department’s civilian workers.

The bill also authorizes $800 million in additional security assistance for Ukraine and calls for a report on whether any gaps exist in the oversight of aid to that country. That addresses the concerns of some Republicans who have been calling for a more detailed accounting of how the money has been spent.

The legislation received broad support from House members of both political parties. Opposition came from 45 Democrats and 35 Republicans.

Some Democrats said the bill authorized too much defense spending.

“While working families are being crushed by inflation, we shouldn’t be spending $45 billion MORE than the President requested,” tweeted Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y.

Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, said stripping the vaccine mandate did not go far enough.

“We must rehire these heroes with mandatory backpay,” he said of those who were kicked out for refusing the vaccine order.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the Pentagon’s COVID vaccination policy, but said Biden would judge the bill “on its entirety.”

“What we think happened here is Republicans in Congress have decided that they’d rather fight against the health and well-being of our troops than protecting them,” Jean-Pierre said. “And we believe that it is a mistake.”

The defense policy bill also has a variety of environmental measures, such as legislation to boost healthy choral reefs, enhance marine mammal research and eliminate shark fins sales.

Lawmakers failed in some instances to attach their priorities to the bill, such as an effort to prevent federal banking regulators from imposing penalties on banks that offer services to cannabis-related businesses. Also left out was legislation from Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V.., to speed permits for natural gas pipelines and other energy projects, including a pipeline project in his home state and Virginia.

Docta Jill: "The most important thing you can do to prepare for your holidays is to get your updated covid vaccine."
RT 15secs
View: https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1601262060532559872?s=20&t=v35vRP87EDzZ4Fjua282cQ

I wonder...... only 49. Another one bites the dust.... supposed heart attack:



*snip*

DOHA, Qatar—Journalist Grant Wahl, one of the most prominent chroniclers of American soccer over more than 20 years and a longtime writer for Sports Illustrated, died on Friday night while covering the World Cup in Qatar. He was 48.

Mr. Wahl was at the quarterfinal match between Argentina and Netherlands in Lusail, north of Doha, when he suffered what medics at the scene called a cardiac arrest. His death was confirmed by the U.S. Soccer Federation in a statement on social media.

Over nearly three decades as a journalist, Mr. Wahl chronicled an era of men’s and women’s American soccer, dating back to the early 1990s, before the formation of Major League Soccer or a top-tier women’s professional league.
“The entire U.S. Soccer family is heartbroken to learn that we have lost Grant Wahl,” the federation said. “Here in the United States, Grant’s passion for soccer and commitment to elevating its profile across our sporting landscape played a major role in helping to drive interest in and respect for our beautiful game.”

More:

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Fundamental Rights Could Be in Danger: COVID-19 Unvaccinated Face Prejudice Around the World
By Aarhus University
December 8, 2022

Polarization after COVID-19: Global study reveals that the unvaccinated face prejudice in most countries

Researchers call on authorities all across the world to heal the divisions in society left by the COVID-19 pandemic as the vaccinated are motivated to exclude the unvaccinated from family relationships and even protected political rights.

People show prejudice and discriminatory attitudes towards individuals not vaccinated against COVID-19 across all inhabited continents of the world. This is the finding of a global study from Aarhus University in Denmark, which has just been published today (December 8) in the journal Nature.

Many vaccinated people do not want close relatives to marry an unvaccinated person. They are also inclined to think that the unvaccinated are incompetent as well as untrustworthy, and they generally feel antipathy against them.

The study reveals that prejudice towards the unvaccinated is as high or higher than prejudice directed toward other common and diverse targets of prejudice, including immigrants, drug addicts, and ex-convicts.

In sharp contrast, researchers found that the unvaccinated display almost no discriminatory attitudes towards the vaccinated.

“The conflict between those who are vaccinated against COVID-19 and those who are not, threatens societal cohesion as a new socio-political cleavage, and the vaccinated clearly seem to be the ones deepening this rift,” says postdoc Alexander Bor, who is the lead author of the study “Discriminatory Attitudes Against the Unvaccinated During a Global Pandemic.”

Human explanation for prejudice

According to the researchers, the reason for these discriminatory attitudes appears to be that the vaccinated perceive the unvaccinated as free riders. High vaccination uptake is crucial in order to combat the pandemic and secure the public good of normal everyday life without great human or financial losses. And when some people help increase vaccine uptake while others do not, it evokes negative sentiments.

“The vaccinated react in quite a natural way against what they perceive as free-riding on a public good. This is a well-known psychological mechanism and thus a completely normal human reaction. Nonetheless, it could have severe consequences for society,” says co-author Michael Bang Petersen, who is a professor of political science at Aarhus University and head of the research project of which this study is part.

”In the short run, prejudice towards the unvaccinated may complicate pandemic management because it leads to mistrust, and we know that mistrust hinders vaccination uptake. In the long run, it may mean that societies leave the pandemic more divided and polarised than they entered it,” says Michael Bang Petersen.

Fundamental rights could be in danger

A survey fielded solely in the United States as part of the overall study shows that not only do vaccinated people harbor prejudice against the unvaccinated, they also think they should be denied fundamental rights. For instance, the unvaccinated should not be allowed to move into the neighborhood or express their political views on social media freely, without fear of censorship.

“It is likely that we will encounter similar support for the restriction of rights in other countries, seeing as the prejudice and antipathy can be found across continents and cultures,” says Michael Bang Petersen.
Researchers warn against condemnatory rhetoric

In many places, low vaccine uptake still poses a challenge to pandemic management, but the researchers warn authorities against employing a rhetoric of moral condemnation in their attempt to make more people get vaccinated. A strategy otherwise deployed in a number of countries, including France, where president Emmanuel Macron has stated that he wants to ‘piss off’ the unvaccinated to a degree that will make them get vaccinated.

”Moral condemnation may strengthen the cleavages and further feelings of exclusion that have led many unvaccinated to refuse the vaccine in the first place. Our prior research has shown that transparent communication about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines is a more viable public-health strategy for increasing vaccine uptake in the long term,” says Michael Bang Petersen.

Reference: “Discriminatory Attitudes Against the Unvaccinated During a Global Pandemic” 8 December 2022, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05607-y

Funding: Carlsberg Foundation, Danish National Research Foundation

Anyone else keeping up with the thread Helen posted about MERS?

Seems the UK is having something very dire happening over there.
Could it actually be what Geert predicted?

Whatever is going on, if you go to Twitter and read Chris Turnbull you will be terrified of what he is posting.

psychgirl said:

Anyone else keeping up with the thread Helen posted about MERS?

Seems the UK is having something very dire happening over there.
Could it actually be what Geert predicted?

Whatever is going on, if you go to Twitter and read Chris Turnbull you will be terrified of what he is posting.

Click to expand...

Ok, so I checked it out and wow. So is this guy trustworthy? I can't remember. Is anyone else posting these observations?

naegling62 said:

Ok, so I checked it out and wow. So is this guy trustworthy? I can't remember. Is anyone else posting these observations?

Click to expand...

He was all over the very first Covid wave when no one else knew what was even going on, but Chris Turnbull “can be” a bit dramatic, too.

He sounds terrified right now.

I had to go on to some other things and didn’t check around yet for other input yet. So I’m not sure about additional reports yet.

naegling62 said:

Ok, so I checked it out and wow. So is this guy trustworthy? I can't remember. Is anyone else posting these observations?

Click to expand...

Yes, I see more now.
It’s mostly what’s coming from the UK

mzkitty said:

I wonder...... only 49. Another one bites the dust.... supposed heart attack:

View attachment 383568

*snip*

DOHA, Qatar—Journalist Grant Wahl, one of the most prominent chroniclers of American soccer over more than 20 years and a longtime writer for Sports Illustrated, died on Friday night while covering the World Cup in Qatar. He was 48.

Mr. Wahl was at the quarterfinal match between Argentina and Netherlands in Lusail, north of Doha, when he suffered what medics at the scene called a cardiac arrest. His death was confirmed by the U.S. Soccer Federation in a statement on social media.

Over nearly three decades as a journalist, Mr. Wahl chronicled an era of men’s and women’s American soccer, dating back to the early 1990s, before the formation of Major League Soccer or a top-tier women’s professional league.
“The entire U.S. Soccer family is heartbroken to learn that we have lost Grant Wahl,” the federation said. “Here in the United States, Grant’s passion for soccer and commitment to elevating its profile across our sporting landscape played a major role in helping to drive interest in and respect for our beautiful game.”

More:

Prominent Soccer Journalist Grant Wahl, 48, Dies While Covering World Cup in Qatar

Wahl, who chronicled men’s and women’s soccer in the U.S. for more than two decades, collapsed during the Argentina-Netherlands match.

www.wsj.com

Click to expand...

There's been an awful lot of that going around...

Heliobas Disciple said:

“We lost a million people to this virus,” Austin said. “A million people died in the United States of America. We lost hundreds in DOD [Department of Defense]. So this mandate has kept people healthy.”

Click to expand...

We lost a million people to Fauci and his no-treatment policy, blocking HCQ and IVM. We have actually lost more military to the vax than to Covid itself. We have lost from 30,000 to several hundred thousand, up to 20-40% excess non-Covid deaths probably from the vaccine. No other explanation.
This is why I don’t seek out yahoo news.

Heliobas Disciple said:

Representative Adam Smith, the House Armed Services Committee's Democrat chairman, said the question involved discipline of a military which is expected to follow lawful orders.

"I think they have to take into account that these people refused direct orders," Smith said.

Click to expand...

Since one cannot mandate unapproved (EUA) vaccines per the FDA, those orders are not lawful.

psychgirl said:

Anyone else keeping up with the thread Helen posted about MERS?

Seems the UK is having something very dire happening over there.
Could it actually be what Geert predicted?

Whatever is going on, if you go to Twitter and read Chris Turnbull you will be terrified of what he is posting.

Click to expand...

It could be the Geert variant, it could be something totally new. No way to tell right now, but definitely something to keep an eye out. It is disturbing, as are the reports of people getting sick after attending the World Cup. I am going to copy over the tweets in case they disappear. Thanks for the head's up to check out Helen's MERS thread.



View: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1601540008200265729

Chris Turnbull-MastodonEnemyInAState@union.place @EnemyInAState
19 h - 20h

ATTENTION: People are dropping dead rapidly with COVID like symptoms that rapidly accelerate: from mild to full on respiratory failure and often they are dead before they can be saved. We have seen the pattern multiple times now: wear a mask and do not get infected.

We are not sure exactly what's happening: the situation moves at break-neck speed: all I know is avoid all sickness right now. We will work this out over time. Right now: I don't know exactly what's happening: we have various theories: but it's rapidly killing people: ANYBODY

It's killing kids, adults: everybody. This is a warning: what we are seeing is worse than Covid.
-Wear a Protective Mask
-Stay away from people
-Avoid indoor areas in particular

I honestly don't know what we're dealin with: all I know is it's killing people rapidly.

Kids and young people are dropping dead after a few days of mild symptoms. it's happening all over. This is starting looking Spanish flu level.

If you have any symptoms of a cold: do not push yourself: REST.

Something is brewing in China as well. Going to post a few articles about what's going on over there too.



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Facing COVID surge, China expanding hospitals, ICUs
By JOE McDONALD
2 hours ago

BEIJING (AP) — Facing a surge in COVID-19 cases, China is setting up more intensive care facilities and trying to strengthen hospitals as Beijing rolls back anti-virus controls that confined millions of people to their homes, crushed economic growth and set off protests.

President Xi Jinping’s government is officially committed to stopping virus transmission, the last major country to try. But the latest moves suggest the ruling Communist Party will tolerate more cases without quarantines or shutting down travel or businesses as it winds down its “zero-COVID” strategy.

A Cabinet meeting called Thursday for “full mobilization” of hospitals including adding staff to ensure their “combat effectiveness” and increasing drug supplies, according to state media. Officials were told to keep track of the health of everyone in their area aged 65 and older.

It isn’t clear how much infection numbers have increased since Beijing last week ended mandatory testing as often as once a day in many areas. But interviews and social media accounts say there are outbreaks in businesses and schools across the country. Some restaurants and other businesses have closed because too many employees are sick.

The virus testing site in Beijing’s Runfeng Shuishang neighborhood shut down because all its employees were infected, the neighborhood government said Saturday on its social media account. “Please be patient,” it said.

Official case numbers are falling, but those no longer cover large parts of the population after mandatory testing ended Wednesday in many areas. That was part of dramatic changes that confirmed Beijing was trying gradually to join the United States and other governments that ended travel and other restrictions and are trying to live with the virus.

On Sunday, the government reported 10,815 new cases, including 8,477 without symptoms. That was basely one-quarter of the previous week’s daily peak above 40,000 but only represents people who are tested after being admitted to hospitals or for jobs in schools and other higher-risk sites.

Shaanxi province in the west has set aside 22,000 hospital beds for COVID-19 and is ready to increase its intensive care capacity 20% by converting other beds, the Shanghai news outlet The Paper reported, citing Yun Chunfu, an official of the provincial health commission. Yun said cities are “accelerating the upgrading” of hospitals for “critically ill patients.”

“Each city is required to designate a hospital with strong comprehensive strength and high treatment level” for COVID-19 cases, Yu was cited as saying at a news conference.

China has 138,000 intensive care beds, the general director of Bureau of Medical Administration of the National Health Commission, Jiao Yahui, said at a news conference Friday. That is less than one for every 10,000 people.

Health resources are distributed unevenly. Hospital beds are concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities on the prosperous east coast. Thursday’s Cabinet statement told officials to make sure rural areas have “fair access” to treatment and drugs.

China’s controls kept its infection rate low but crushed already weak economic growth and prompted complaints about the rising human cost. The official death toll is 5,235, compared with 1.1 million for the United States.

China’s official total case count of 363,072 is up nearly 50% from the Oct. 1 level after a rash of outbreaks across the country.

Protests erupted Nov. 25 after 10 people died in a fire in Urumqi in the northwest. Internet users asked whether firefighters or people trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other anti-virus measures. Authorities denied that, but the disaster became a focus for public anger.

Xi’s government promised to reduce the cost and disruption after the economy shrank by 2.6% from the previous quarter in the three months ending in June. That was after Shanghai and other industrial centers shut down for up to two months to fight outbreaks.

Forecasters say the economy probably is shrinking in the current quarter. Imports tumbled 10.9% from a year ago in November in a sign of weak demand. Some forecasters have cut their outlook for annual growth to below 3%, less than half of last year’s robust 8.1% expansion.

It isn’t clear whether any of the changes were a response to the protests.

In a show of official confidence, the No. 2 leader, Premier Li Keqiang, was shown by state media meeting with leaders of the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions without masks last week in the eastern city of Huangshan. Earlier, Xi skipped a photo-taking session with Russian and Central Asian leaders during a summit in Uzbekistan in September at which the others wore no masks.

Still, health experts and economists say “zero COVID” is likely to stay in place at least through mid-2023 because millions of elderly people need to be vaccinated before restrictions that keep most visitors out of China be lifted. The government launched a campaign last week to vaccinate the elderly, a process that might take months.

Experts warn there still is a chance the ruling party might reverse course and reimpose restrictions if it worries hospitals might be overwhelmed.

Meanwhile, experts cited by state media called on the public to reduce the strain on hospitals by treating mild COVID-19 cases at home and putting off treatment for less serious problems.

Patients are standing in line for up to six hours to get into fever clinics. Accounts on social media say some hospitals turn away patients with problems deemed not serious enough to need urgent treatment.

“Blindly going to the hospital” is depleting resources and might delay treatment for serious cases, “resulting in serious risk,” the vice president of Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai, Chen Erzhen, told The Paper.

“We recommend trying to manage health at home,” Chen said. “Leave medical resources for people who really need treatment.”

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China's Looming 'Tsunami' of COVID Cases Will Test Its Hospitals
Alexandra Stevenson, Joy Dong and Olivia Wang - NY Times
Sat, December 10, 2022, 11:26 AM

Until recently, China, the world’s most populous nation, was also the world’s last COVID holdout. But in a matter of weeks it will be hit by a wave that a top health official predicts could infect many hundreds of millions of people.

This week, Beijing took its biggest step toward living with COVID, all but abandoning an unpopular and costly “zero-COVID” policy of lockdowns and mass quarantines it had hoped would eliminate infections. The abrupt pivot has raised the specter of tremendous strain on a health care system that is overstretched even in normal times. That could get worse in a month, when people travel across the country to see their families during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Feng Zijian, an adviser on China’s COVID task force, said this week that the surge could infect 60% of the country’s 1.4 billion population — or more than 840 million people. For most Chinese, it will be their first encounter with COVID.

Like many countries, China is now facing omicron variants that are highly infectious, but have so far been milder than earlier iterations. Unlike the rest of the world, China had nearly three years to prepare for this surge. But it spent most of that time focusing on lockdowns instead of on vaccinations and preparing the population for living with COVID, a prospect that many experts had warned would be inevitable.

“A tsunami of cases is coming no matter if they stick to ‘zero-COVID’ or not,” said Jin Dong-Yan, a virus expert at Hong Kong University.

The question is how many cases will become severe and require more serious medical attention. Even the current picture is unclear. According to official data released by the National Health Commission, there were 159 severe cases of COVID nationwide by Friday, an increase of about 60 from the start of the month.

“That number is still very low because in reality there should be many more confirmed cases that are going underreported now,” Jin said. Another difficulty: the definition of a “severe” case can vary from one city to another, he added.

What is clear is that the government is bracing for the wave to be big. Officials on Friday announced plans to double the capacity of critical care beds and to increase the number of doctors and nurses staffing such wards. Also in the works: to upgrade temporary facilities previously built to quarantine people deemed close contacts, turning them into secondary hospitals. Officials additionally said that workers at the community level would classify residents by risk level — assigning color codes denoting risk based on vaccination status, age and other health conditions, a shift away from surveillance that had tracked residents based on contact tracing and infections.

China wants to ration hospital beds for the most severe cases, but officials now need to convince the majority of infected people to stay home, despite having told them for years to fear COVID. A triage system has been set up to funnel COVID patients to community health centers, but most people are unaccustomed to seeing a doctor outside the hospital. The government is relying on an army of volunteers to field phone calls and deliver cold medicine and COVID test kits to the sick at home, but there are already early signs of understaffing and of shortages of the necessary supplies.

To some extent, the complications China is facing as it opens up are not unique. Other countries that have shifted from strict pandemic controls to adapting to the virus have experienced some level of shock as people unused to the virus flooded hospitals for help. But in places like Singapore and New Zealand, that change was more controlled. Officials removed restrictions only after telling the public what to expect and when, allowing hospital systems more time to prepare for the oncoming surge, and citizens more time to get vaccinated.

“Singapore adopted a cautious approach with a gradual opening up,” said Paul Anantharajah Tambyah, a practicing infectious diseases doctor and president of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection. Mild and moderate cases were treated outside of the hospital system, he added. “That helped communications a lot and was easier for the general population to accept than a dramatic shift towards a ‘business as usual’ approach.”

China is only now trying to step up a vaccination campaign that had mostly stalled in the spring as resources were diverted to building and enforcing a national mass testing system. More than 600 million vaccinated people have not yet received a booster shot, a necessary prerequisite to prevent serious cases among those given the Chinese vaccines, which have proved to be weaker, according to the World Health Organization. Among those 80 and older, only 40% have had booster vaccinations.

After the loosening was announced Wednesday, officials hastened to write new guidelines on everything from home isolation to rapid antigen testing and to free up resources for a coming deluge of cases.

Dale Fisher, a professor of medicine and the head of the National Infection Prevention and Control Committee of Singapore’s Health Ministry, said that Chinese health officials would need to ensure that extra hospital beds were ready, ventilators on hand and medical staff redeployed.

China has moved quickly in recent days to do this, more than doubling its intensive care bed capacity to 10 beds per 100,000 people, up from less than four just a month ago.

The National Health Commission on Friday also said it would redirect 106,000 doctors and 177,700 nurses to intensive care units. According to the most recent official figures reported in 2020, China has three registered nurses for every 1,000 people and two practicing physicians for every 1,000 people.

Some of the changes have created confusion as authorities act quickly in response to new measures. In cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, authorities removed many testing booths almost as soon as the new guidelines Wednesday called for testing requirements to be limited. But by Friday, the National Health Commission said that testing sites should not be arbitrarily removed, and that they should be made available for those who need to enter nursing homes and medical facilities, where a negative test result is still required.

As cases mount in Beijing, many people have been lining up at hospitals and laying in supplies of fever-reducing medication and home test kits. Some city residents reported that hospitals were turning away people with symptoms, telling them that their cases must first be reported by local neighborhood officials.

Wakeman Wang, a resident in Beijing, said he had hoped to take his 7-year-old son to see a doctor after he had briefly choked on a fish bone earlier this week. But the boy had tested positive for COVID. Wang’s local neighborhood worker — tasked with overseeing pandemic policies at the community level — told him health workers were unable to arrange a closed-loop transfer to a hospital and suggested that Wang either take the child to the hospital by himself or call family doctors.

Wang said his wife tried calling several local family doctors who had been quickly assembled to help sort out community medical issues, but none of the numbers she tried worked.

“I felt desperate and guilty,” he said. “When my child was in danger, I couldn’t solve the problem, and I couldn’t ensure his safety.”

Scarlet Zhang, a resident in Fengtai, a district in the city’s southwest, said she tried to go to a hospital after testing positive with a fever of 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

She said she tried several times to call an ambulance, but the municipal emergency number, comparable to 911 in the United States, was always busy. A pharmacy near her home was out of fever medication, she said.

“It is my third day having a fever, I cannot get advice from a professional, and I don’t know what to do now,” she said.

Because of the hard line previously taken on the severity of the virus, Chinese officials now face a big challenge to assuage the public’s fears, Fisher said.

“The messaging to the public is really tricky when you’ve been saying for two to three years that this is deadly, and now you are saying, ‘If you get it, just stay home and isolate yourself,’” he added.

(fair use applies)


China May Face Wave of Infections, New Variants After Relaxing COVID Restrictions: Fauci
By Alex Wu
December 10, 2022 Updated: December 11, 2022

Outgoing U.S. NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned that infections are set to surge in ill-prepared China as the central government lifts it’s draconian “zero-COVID” restrictions, after a British analytics company forecast millions of death in China this winter from the policy change.

The ruling communist regime in China abruptly relaxed some of its COVID social controls on Dec. 7, amid unprecedented mass protests against the policy and a slumping economy.

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) announced that mass PCR testing requirements have been dropped, health QR code checks are no longer required for traveling or entering most public places; and that COVID patients with mild symptoms and close contacts will be allowed to quarantine at home instead of being sent to centralized facilities.

After the policy change, official reports of COVID-19 cases dropped in number as authorities across the country dropped mass testing. However, large cities have reported COVID patients flooding fever clinics and almost paralyzing local hospitals, including in Beijing and Shanghai.

Meanwhile, residents in major Chinese cities, such as Beijing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, and others, are panic buying fever medicine, emptying the shelves of local pharmacies due to the populace’s fear of the disease in response to three years of dire government warnings.

Fauci on Vaccinations

Fauci expressed concern for the situation in China on Dec. 7, saying at the Financial Times’ Global Boardroom conference, “You’re going to have a wave of infections which are certainly going to be associated with a certain degree of severity of disease” due to the majority of the Chinese population being inoculated with Chinese vaccines, which are considered by some to be less effective than western vaccines.

He called for Beijing to approve the use of western mRNA vaccines in China for booster shots made for the Omicron strain.

Experts around the globe previously said that due to China’s zero-COVID lockdowns, its population had limited immunity from infection due to an overall lack of exposure to the virus.

That, combined with low vaccination rates among older residents in China and less effective vaccines, could trigger a huge wave of infections. Fauci also warned that if that happens, there’s an increased chance of mutations that could create faster-spreading new variants.

“And once you get a brand new variant, that could have an impact on the rest of the world,” Fauci said.

On Dec. 6, Feng Zijian, China’s former CDC deputy director, said during an online discussion hosted by Tsinghua University about “How to Rationally Face Omicron” that no matter how epidemic prevention and control policies are adjusted, most people in China will inevitably be infected once.

“According to calculations by mathematical models, when the first wave of large-scale infection reaches its peak, the infection rate in the population may reach about 60 percent, and then gradually fall back to a plateau, and eventually 80 to 90 percent of our people will be infected,” he said about the model’s predictions.

However, China is ill-prepared to face these scenarios following the easing of restrictions. It’s considered lacking in vaccination and booster vaccination rates for the elderly, hospital intensive care capacity, and its stockpile of antiviral drugs, among other preparations, analysts have said.

While the Omicron variant is milder than the previous strains, even a small percentage of severe cases among vulnerable and under-vaccinated groups such as the elderly could overwhelm hospitals if infections surge across the country among its 1.4 billion people.

It’s estimated that between 1.3 million and 2.1 million people may die in China due to COVID this winter, according to London-based research firm Airfinity.

Sticking to ‘Zero-COVID’ Delayed Preparation

Current affairs commentator Tang Jingyuan wrote in his column for The Epoch Times on Dec. 9 that if there is a tsunami-scale infection in mainland China, it could lead to high death tolls due to the exhaustion of medical resources. However, such a result will not mean that the “zero-COVID” policy is correct.

“On the contrary, it is precisely because the CCP is putting its political power above everything else and wrongly touted ‘zero-COVID’ policy as ‘a proof of the superiority of its system,’ sticking to it for so long, it has delayed the stockpile and reservation of medical resources and missed the opportunity to coexist with the virus, which leads to such a difficult situation today. This situation is not caused by easing COVID controls, but by the ‘zero-COVID’ policy.

“No matter what, the risk of an imminent massive outbreak of COVID cannot be avoided, and the huge economic losses [due to the ‘zero-COVID’ policy] cannot be recovered,” he wrote.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article wrongly attributed the forecasted millions of death to Fauci. The Epoch Times regrets the error.

(fair use applies)


CCP’s Zero COVID Policy Devastates the Chinese Economy, Millions Could Die If Policy Is Removed
By Jenny Li and Olivia Li
December 10, 2022

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) draconian zero-COVID policy is facing its biggest challenges now. In the face of rising protests, many cities have begun to relax their zero-COVID rules but at the same time are building large numbers of quarantine facilities. The CCP is facing a dilemma due to the low vaccination rate and the ineffectiveness of China’s COVID-19 vaccines, which means that relaxing the rules could lead to over a million COVID-19 deaths.
Local Governments in Debt Due to Zero-COVID

The costs of COVID nucleic acid testing every two days and enforcing mandatory quarantine policies have left local governments short of funds. Over the past three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, bills have been mounting, putting enormous financial pressure on local governments in the world’s most populous country.

In the first 10 months of this year, local government spending in China grew by 11.8 trillion yuan (about $1.65 trillion) more than its revenue, according to China’s Ministry of Finance. The ever expanding government debt poses a direct threat to China’s economy. It not only increases the risk that local authorities will default on their debts, but also limits the government’s ability to stimulate growth, stabilize employment, and expand public services.

The Toronto-based global credit rating agency DBRS Morningstar said in February that China’s high local government deficits are a serious problem. They estimate that the rising deficit and slowing GDP growth will cause China’s general government debt to rise to 50.6 percent of GDP in 2022, much higher than 38.1 percent in 2019, the year before the pandemic began.

The weak fiscal position of local governments is affecting China’s overall economy. According to CNN’s calculations based on data from the CCP’s Ministry of Finance, China’s broad fiscal deficit reached 6.66 trillion yuan (about $944 billion) in the first 10 months of 2022, nearly twice as much as a year earlier.

Zhao Wei, chief economist at Shanghai-based IFC Securities, estimates that China’s broad fiscal deficit could exceed 10 trillion yuan (about $1.4 trillion) this year, reaching the highest level in history.

The zero-COVID policy has also led to a worsening of other economic indicators. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the youth unemployment rate soared to a record 19.9 percent in July this year. Total profits of Chinese industrial enterprises plummeted in October. Between January and October, profits in 41 industrial sectors in China fell by 3 percent. Nomura Securities lowered its forecast for China’s economic growth in the fourth quarter of this year to 2.4 percent from the previous 2.8 percent.

Rejection of Western Vaccines Could Lead to Millions of Deaths

There are some concerns that if China abandons its pandemic policies, problems will ensue.

The British scientific information and analytics company Airfinity said in November that China could see between 1.3 million and 2.1 million deaths if the zero-COVID policy is removed, due to low vaccination rates and a lack of hybrid immunity.

According to a study published by Nature Medicine in May, Chinese and American scientists estimated that without any safeguards, such as better vaccination and access to treatment, China would be at risk of having more than 1.5 million deaths from COVID-19.

U.S. National Intelligence Director Avril Haines told the Regan Defense Forum in California on Dec. 4 that despite the negative social and economic impact of COVID-19 on China, Xi Jinping was “reluctant to obtain a better vaccine from the West, relying instead on a Chinese vaccine that is not as effective against the Omicron strain.” Reuters further reported that U.S. officials suggest that it is very unlikely for China to approve a western vaccine.

Large Number of Quarantine Facilities Under Construction

In the face of the pandemic, the CCP has been quietly constructing a large number of COVID-19 isolation facilities in China, and so far massive numbers of people have been quarantined in them as a part of China’s draconian zero-COVID rules.

Chen Chuangchuang, Chinese dissident and director of the Democratic Party of China, told The Epoch Times on Dec. 4: “Due to this massive wave of resistance, the Xi Jinping regime has made an early gesture of relaxation of the zero-COVID policy, but all the structural problems have not been solved— whether it’s medical resources or vaccines. Xi is unprepared for what experts say might lead to millions of deaths. What we can reasonably guess now is that he is still building more quarantine facilities in various places for the purpose of transferring the seriously ill to the quarantine facilities and leaving them there to fend for themselves, knowing that China’s medical resources are totally inadequate and impossible to deal with the pandemic.”

In a sign of the CCP’s conflicted mindset about the zero-COVID policy, the COVID-19 nucleic acid testing stations in Beijing, which were removed in a big way over the past week, have reopened since Dec. 5 to quell public discontent. Beijing residents say that while buses, subways, and hospitals no longer require a negative COVID test, many places such as office buildings, large shopping malls, general stores, and parks still require negative tests, and the removal of the stations has made it impossible for people to get tested and thus travel.

Stupid people.

Heliobas Disciple said:

It could be the Geert variant, it could be something totally new. No way to tell right now, but definitely something to keep an eye out. It is disturbing, as are the reports of people getting sick after attending the World Cup. I am going to copy over the tweets in case they disappear. Thanks for the head's up to check out Helen's MERS thread.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1601540008200265729

View: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1601540008200265729

Chris Turnbull-MastodonEnemyInAState@union.place @EnemyInAState
19 h - 20h

ATTENTION: People are dropping dead rapidly with COVID like symptoms that rapidly accelerate: from mild to full on respiratory failure and often they are dead before they can be saved. We have seen the pattern multiple times now: wear a mask and do not get infected.

We are not sure exactly what's happening: the situation moves at break-neck speed: all I know is avoid all sickness right now. We will work this out over time. Right now: I don't know exactly what's happening: we have various theories: but it's rapidly killing people: ANYBODY

It's killing kids, adults: everybody. This is a warning: what we are seeing is worse than Covid.
-Wear a Protective Mask
-Stay away from people
-Avoid indoor areas in particular

I honestly don't know what we're dealin with: all I know is it's killing people rapidly.

Kids and young people are dropping dead after a few days of mild symptoms. it's happening all over. This is starting looking Spanish flu level.

If you have any symptoms of a cold: do not push yourself: REST.

Click to expand...

And thank you for sharing the text! If you follow all of his tweets, they are painting a terribly frightening scenario .
If…..it’s true what Turnbull is saying. But he’s certainly screaming in hopes someone will listen!

psychgirl said:

Anyone else keeping up with the thread Helen posted about MERS?

Seems the UK is having something very dire happening over there.
Could it actually be what Geert predicted?

Whatever is going on, if you go to Twitter and read Chris Turnbull you will be terrified of what he is posting.

Click to expand...

Some of us don’t Twitter. Care to share a few tweets you find terrifying?

I am interested, but I am not willing to put a Twitter app on my devices.

ParanoidNot said:

Some of us don’t Twitter. Care to share a few tweets you find terrifying?

I am interested, but I am not willing to put a Twitter app on my devices.

Click to expand...

I will later
I’m not a member there either but anyone can go look around. You just can’t post anything.
I usually go back to an original tweet someone here has posted, click on that then go where I want from there.
You have to avoid the prompts of Twitter asking you to log in, by simply hitting the “x” or the “I will layer” prompt (whichever it says, I forget)

The vet in Texas killed my beautiful British Shorthair 3 year old with this new rabies. I am still heart broken and in shock as to what they are now doing to all of earths creatures. They are putting hydrogel mrna in all our pet vax!

Warning: do not trust animal vaccines, fight this now or all is lost.

Lion in the wild or huge animal park starts turning round and round 'looking at something' and then goes to the ground in full seizure and seems dead

In The Wild Or Huge Animal Park Starts Turning
Round And Round 'Looking At Something' And Then
Goes To The Ground In Full Seizure And Seems Dead
Is This Global Genocide To Remove Animals Too?


Pet Ownership is Now Under Attack by Unhinged Climate Extremists – Says Dogs and Cats are Part of the Climate Problem
By Jim Hoft
Gateway Pundit
Nov 26, 2022

[snip]

In an effort to lessen their “carbon pawprint,” unhinged climate activists are now advocating for the death of millions of dogs and cats worldwide.

An article published by CNN claims that dogs, cats, and other household pets that regularly consume meat contribute to “global warming.”

You can’t make this up.

“Our four-legged friends don’t drive gas-guzzling SUVs or use energy-sucking appliances, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a climate impact. In fact, researchers have showed that pets play a significant role in the climate crisis,” according to a recent CNN column.

“But what do Barkley and Whiskers have to do with our warming planet? It’s the products we buy for them that need a closer look,” the outlet added.


The news outlet added that most of the carbon pawprint comes from their diet, which is extremely high in meat and so requires a lot of resources (including energy, land, and water) to create.

(fair use applies)


Health Experts Urge Beijing To Accelerate Approval Of Enhanced Covid Jabs Amid 'Winter Wave' Of Deaths
by Tyler Durden
Monday, Dec 12, 2022 - 11:20 PM

China's government dramatically pivoted from its ultra-harsh 'zero Covid' policy in the last several weeks, which will likely cause a massive outbreak, as health experts urged Beijing to speed up the approval process of new vaccines to counter Covid-19 variants.

Sinovac and Sinopharm Covid jabs have been widely distributed among the majority of the Chinese population to fight the original Covid strain from Wuhan in 2020. But old vaccines might not be enough to fight variants.

The health advisor, who spoke under cover of anonymity, said CDC facilities "are filled with Wuhan virus-based vaccines that aren't of much use."

Beijing has yet to approve the latest version of the jabs to target more infectious Covid variants, leaving the older generation vulnerable this cold season.

According to a new projection by Feng Zijian, a former deputy chief at the CDC, relaxed health restrictions could result in 80 to 90% of the Chinese population being injected with the virus.

While China faces a 'winter wave' of deaths as the economy reopens, Beijing has yet to import foreign-made messenger RNA vaccines.

The CDC adviser said that China needed "locally made mRNA vaccines in our toolbox," which might not arrive until "next April." There are seven domestic companies in the late stage of clinical trials. The advisor added clinical trial results for the improved Sinovac and Sinopharm jabs will be announced in March, then "the government may issue an emergency use license."

Jin Dong-yan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, said the coming "tsunami" of infections means "China should have an accelerated mechanism for approval to change vaccines based on the circulating strains. There is no need for a full clinical trial."

Infections across the country are already moving higher.



Dong-yan warned that by the time new jabs are approved, Covid variants would be the dominant strain:

So the question we have: Why did Beijing ease zero Covid policies when no preparations have been made to meet the coming winter 'tsunami' of infections?

(fair use applies)


New Research Reveals That COVID Virus Alters RNA in Infected Cells
By FAPESP
December 12, 2022

A new study describes how the functioning of RNA changes in cells infected by SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus. The findings provide clues as to how different variants can escape the immune system, and serve as a basis for the development of novel treatments.

For the first time, scientists have shown that infection by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, changes the functioning of host cell RNA. The researchers, from the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) in Brazil, arrived at this conclusion by analyzing 13 datasets obtained during four studies of viral, human, and animal cell RNA.

The most recent study, reported in an article published in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, examined the epitranscriptome of Vero cells (derived from monkeys) and human Calu-3 cells by direct RNA sequencing. An epitranscriptome is the collection of biochemical modifications of cell RNA, such as methylation.

“Our first important finding in this study was that infection by SARS-CoV-2 increases the level of m6a [N6-methyladenosine], a type of methylation, in host cells compared with non-infected cells,” Marcelo Briones, last author of the article, told Agência FAPESP. Briones is a professor at UNIFESP’s Medical School (EPM) and a researcher affiliated with its Center for Medical Bioinformatics.

Methylation is a biochemical modification involving the addition of a methyl group to a substrate. It occurs in cells via the action of enzymes capable of transferring part of one molecule to another. This changes the behavior of proteins, enzymes, hormones, and genes. The researchers demonstrated changes to infected cell RNA quantitatively by analyzing all the RNAs present in the cells and qualitatively by locating on a map the number of methylations per region in the nucleotides.

The study was a continuation of an earlier genomic analysis published in 2021, where the researchers analyzed the methylation pattern in SARS-CoV-2.

“Methylation has two functions in viruses. It regulates protein expression, and it defends the virus against the action of interferon, a potent antiviral substance produced by the host organism,” Briones said.

In both studies, the researchers analyzed m6a because it is the most common type of RNA nucleotide modification and is involved in several significant processes, such as intracellular location and protein translation. RNA nucleotides contain nitrogenous bases (adenine, guanine, uracil, or cytosine) running along a single strand. The team also discovered that different strains of the virus displayed variations in the sequences of nitrogenous bases in their nucleotides. “Some strains may be much more methylated than others. If so, they can proliferate better inside host cells,” Briones said.

They also found that nucleotide sequences known as m6a DRACH motifs were slightly different in SARS-CoV-2 and in cells. In this acronym, which is frequently used in epigenetics, the letter D stands for adenine, guanine, or uracil; R for adenine or guanine; A for the methylated residue; C for cytosine; and H for adenine, cytosine or uracil.

The virus uses cell enzymes for its own methylation, producing evolutionary pressure for adaptation of viral DRACH sequences so that they become more similar to cell sequences. The viral strains that adapt best are able to escape interferon more successfully.

After completing their investigation of how SARS-CoV-2 modifies m6A in host cells, the scientists’ next step will be to analyze the stored data in search of a correlation between viral RNA methylation levels and the number of viruses released from each infected cell, known as viral burst size.

“The more methylated the viruses, the more they grow in the cell cytoplasm and the larger the burst size,” Briones explained. Under normal conditions, without stimuli, a viral particle replicates a thousand times. “The findings pave the way to novel treatments for COVID-19 and repurposing of known drugs.” They also offer elements for a deeper understanding of how viral strains escape the immune system.
Methodology

The Nanopore direct RNA sequencing method (Oxford Nanopore Technologies) used in the study has several advantages, according to the researchers. One of these is that it dispenses with the modifications required by the conventional method (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, or RT-PCR) to read the RNA strand.

To examine a virus using RT–PCR, scientists must first convert its RNA to DNA (reverse transcription). The result is cDNA, where the ‘c’ stands for complementary. This is because only DNA (which is double-stranded) can be copied. The cDNA is then amplified by being copied hundreds of thousands of times, creating billions of clones so that enough of the target sections of viral DNA are available for analysis, instead of a minuscule amount.

For Briones, researchers may be confused by distortions resulting from the production of viral sequences from cDNA. “Some scientists think nucleotides are switched owing to the presence of epigenetically modified bases. This needs to be investigated in a systematic manner,” he said.

The increase in cell methylation was mapped by two m6A detection programs. One of these (m6anet) used a machine learning technique called multiple instance learning (MIL). The other (EpiNano) validated the results using a technique called support vector machine (SVM).

Reference: “The epitranscriptome of Vero cells infected with SARS-CoV-2 assessed by direct RNA sequencing reveals m6A pattern changes and DRACH motif biases in viral and cellular RNAs” by João H. C. Campos, Gustavo V. Alves, Juliana T. Maricato, Carla T. Braconi, Fernando M. Antoneli, Luiz Mario R. Janini and Marcelo R. S. Briones, 16 August 2022, Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.
DOI: 10.3389/fcimb.2022.906578

The study was part of a Thematic Project (“Investigation of induced host elements in response to immunization with ChAdOx1 nCOV-19 vaccine in a Phase III clinical trial”), for which the principal investigator is Luiz Mário Janini, penultimate author of the article.

The research team also included Juliana Maricato, Carla Braconi, Fernando Antoneli, João H. C. Campos, first author of the article supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from FAPESP, and Gustavo V. Alves, second author and an undergraduate in health information technology.

(fair use applies)

Shocking Study Finds Severe COVID-19 Linked With Molecular Signatures of Brain Aging
By Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
December 12, 2022

Scientists emphasize the value of neurological follow-up in recovered individuals.

It’s true that COVID-19 is primarily a respiratory disease. However, neurological symptoms have been described in many COVID-19 patients, including in recovered individuals. In fact, a range of symptoms has been reported by patients including brain fog or lack of focused thinking, memory loss, and depression. Additionally, scientists have demonstrated that patients with severe COVID-19 exhibit a drop in cognitive performance that mimics accelerated aging. But, what has been lacking is molecular evidence for COVID-19’s aging effects on the brain.

In a series of experiments, scientists discovered that gene usage in the brains of patients with COVID-19 is similar to those observed in aging brains. The scientists, from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), used a molecular profiling technique called RNA sequencing to measure the levels of every gene expressed in a particular tissue sample. This allowed them to assess changes in gene expression profiles in the brains of COVID-19 patients and compare them to those changes observed in the brains of uninfected individuals. The team’s analysis suggested that many biological pathways that change with natural aging in the brain also changed in patients with severe COVID-19. The study was published on December 5 in the journal Nature Aging.

“Ours is the first study to show that COVID-19 is associated with the molecular signatures of brain aging,” said co-first and co-corresponding author Maria Mavrikaki, PhD, an instructor of pathology at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School. “We found striking similarities between the brains of patients with COVID-19 and aged individuals.”

Mavrikaki and colleagues analyzed a total of 54 postmortem human frontal cortex tissue samples from adults 22 to 85 years old. Of these, 21 samples were from severe COVID-19 patients and one from an asymptomatic COVID-19 patient who died. These samples were age- and sex-matched to uninfected controls with no history of neurological or psychiatric disease. The scientists also included an age-and sex- matched uninfected Alzheimer’s disease case for analysis as a control to a COVID-19 case which had co-morbid Alzheimer’s disease, as well as an additional independent control group of uninfected individuals with a history of intensive care or ventilator treatment.

“We observed that gene expression in the brain tissue of patients who died of COVID-19 closely resembled that of uninfected individuals 71 years old or older,” said co-first author Jonathan Lee, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School. “Genes that were upregulated in aging were upregulated in the context of severe COVID-19; likewise, genes downregulated in aging were also downregulated in severe COVID-19. While we did not find evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was present in the brain tissue at the time of death, we discovered inflammatory patterns associated with COVID-19. This suggests that this inflammation may contribute to the aging-like effects observed in the brains of patients with COVID-19 and long COVID.”

“Given these findings, we advocate for neurological follow-up of recovered COVID-19 patients,” said senior and co-corresponding author Frank Slack, PhD, director of the Institute for RNA Medicine at BIDMC and the Shields Warren Mallinckrodt Professor of Medical Research at Harvard Medical School. “We also emphasize the potential clinical value in modifying the factors associated with the risk of dementia — such as controlling weight and reducing excessive alcohol consumption — to reduce the risk or delay the development of aging-related neurological pathologies and cognitive decline.”

Better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying brain aging and cognitive decline in COVID-19 could lead to the development of novel therapeutics to address cognitive decline observed in COVID-19 patients. The team is now trying to understand what drives the aging-like effects in the brains of COVID-19 patients.

Reference: “Severe COVID-19 is associated with molecular signatures of aging in the human brain” by Maria Mavrikaki, Jonathan D. Lee, Isaac H. Solomon and Frank J. Slack, 5 December 2022, Nature Aging.
DOI: 10.1038/s43587-022-00321-w

Isaac H. Solomon, MD, PhD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, also contributed to this work, which was supported by the National Institute of Aging (NIA; R01 AG058816). The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

(fair use applies)


Montana Law That Bars COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates in Health Care Settings Is Unconstitutional: Judge
Katabella Roberts
Dec 12 2022

A federal judge in Montana has ruled that parts of the state’s law preventing discrimination against individuals in health care settings based on their COVID-19 vaccination status are unconstitutional.

Republican-backed House Bill 702 was passed in 2021 by the Montana Legislature as an anti-discrimination measure and signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte in May of that same year.

The bill banned employers from mandating that employees get vaccinated or share their vaccine status through an immunity passport.

In a 41-page ruling on Dec. 9, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy stated that the law was unconstitutional as it applies to employers and employees of health care settings.

“No party questions the authority of the Montana Legislature and Governor to exercise their respective legislative or executive authority to enact or modify public health and anti-discrimination laws,” the lawsuit states. “Rather, the challenge, in this case, stems from an ostensibly purposed anti-discrimination statute and its incongruent impact on healthcare providers and patients, hospitals, nursing homes, doctor’s offices.”

Law Fails to Deal Specifically With COVID-19

State Attorney General Austin Knudsen and Department of Labor Commissioner Laurie Esau were named as defendants in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit goes on to state that the law passed in 2021 failed to distinguish between vaccines and did not deal specifically with COVID-19, instead encompassing “all vaccines whether for measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, hepatitis, or flu.”

This, in turn, plaintiffs argue, “caused critical concerns for health care providers whether hospitals, doctor’s offices or other medical facilities by limiting the ability of such providers to know the vaccination status of patients and employees.”

Plaintiffs also argue that the law “preemptively precludes health care providers and other employers from knowing the vaccination status of employees or patients if the employee or patient refuses to answer any inquiry about vaccination status or immunity passports.”

“That situation, for any number of reasons, creates untoward problems for healthcare providers of any description in trying to protect the environment where services to patients are rendered and to prevent the spread of diseases,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit argues that the law as it pertains to health care settings violated a string of laws.

In his ruling on Friday, Molloy said that plaintiffs had successfully argued that the law violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services regulations.

Specifically, he said, plaintiffs had successfully argued that the law was preempted by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act which requires employers to consider accommodation to create a safe work environment for workers, including employees who are immunocompromised.

‘A Win for All Montanans’

“Deprived by law of the ability to require vaccination or immunity status of an employee, a health care employer is not able to properly consider possible reasonable accommodations if an employee asks to limit his or her exposure to unvaccinated individuals,” wrote Molloy, a Clinton appointee.

The judge further noted that HB 702 “removes an essential tool from the health care provider’s toolbox to stop or minimize the risk of spreading vaccine-preventable disease.”

Molloy also found that plaintiffs had successfully proven that “vaccine-preventable diseases constitute recognized hazards in the workplace,” meaning that HB 702 was not compatible with the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

In a statement on Dec. 10, Nurse’s Association attorney Raph Graybill called the order “a win for all Montanans, who shouldn’t have to worry about catching an infectious disease when they go to see the nurse or doctor.”

A spokesperson for Attorney General Knudsen said in a statement to Montana Free Press that his office is reviewing the ruling to determine what they will do next.

“Attorney General Knudsen is continuing to fight for the rights of health care workers,” spokesperson Emilee Cantrell said while pointing to a recent petition signed by Knudsen and 21 other state attorneys general calling for the vaccine mandate for health care workers to be scrapped amid chronic shortages.

The Epoch Times has contacted Knudsen’s office for comment.

Another article from Thailand Medical News. Please ignore his snark to get to the science. I didn't want to not post because of it, the rest of the info is similar to Geert's analysis.


(fair use applies)

COVID-19 News: Hybrid Immunity And Bivalent Boosters Have Little Effect On New Omicron Sub-Lineages BQ.1.1 And BA.2.75.2 Due To Immune Imprinting
Thailand Medical News
Dec 12, 2022

Despite various governments, health authorities and mainstream media are trying to downplay the dire situation we are in with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic and are concealing COVID-19 statistics and also implications of long term catastrophic issues while making stupid claims that the disease is now endemic or that we have to learn to live with the SARS-CoV-2 virus or that that we have many tools to deal with the virus…..the reality is that there no such tools left expect for masking and isolation and even those might not be that effective anymore considering that fact the newer SARS-CoV-2 variants and sub-lineages have undergone evolution and conformational changes that enhances them to not only be what we would term as “Super Airborne” but are also able to withstand various extreme environmental factors from temperature, pH and humidity, in order to remain infectious in the environment for longer periods of time.

It has already been covered in our past COVID-19 News coverages that none of the approved monoclonal and combined monoclonal therapeutics are effective against most of the new SARS-CoV-2 variants and sub-lineages and the same can be said about all the useless U.S. FDA antivirals that are still being promoted.










There are currently more than 300 of about 500 plus new variants and sub-lineages in circulation globally that have gained the right viral fitness, enhanced transmissibility and increased immune evasiveness.

It is only matter of time before the new variants CH.1.1, BR.2 and BN.1 that are expected to lead the next continuous virus onslaught after the BQ.1.1 and XBB sub-lineages, begins to pick up interesting mutations on the 680-699 residues of the spike that will make them more pathogenic and virulent that the Delta with its 681 mutation! Already some such emerging CH.1.1 variants have been detected in Austria!


Health authorities are now simply promoting the new bivalent boosters as the only means to ride off the situation with claims that these boosters prevent disease severity and mortality. (However, the number of older people and others in the vulnerable groups dying despite getting all these boosters is being to cast suspicions over these claims!)

A new study by German researchers from the Infection Biology Unit, German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen-Germany and Hannover Medical School-Germany has found that hybrid immunity and the new bivalent boosters have very little neutralizing effect on the new Omicron Sub-lineages BQ.1.1 And BA.2.75.2 due to immune imprinting!

The study findings showed that the newly emerged Omicron sub-lineages BQ.1.1 and particularly BA.2.75.2 efficiently evade neutralization independent of the immunization history.

Despite the fact that current monovalent and the new bivalent boosters both induce high neutralizing activity and increase neutralization breadth, BA.2.75.2-specific and BQ.1.1-specific neutralization activity remained relatively very low.

The study finding is in keeping with the concept of immune imprinting by initial immunization with shots targeting the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 B.1 lineage.

Importantly, the observation that neutralization of BA.2.75.2 and BQ.1.1 was most efficient in the cohort that had a breakthrough infection during the BA.1 and BA.2 wave and later received a bivalent booster shot, but was still less efficient than neutralization of B.1, implies that affinity maturation of antibodies and two-time stimulation with different omicron antigens might still not be sufficient to overcome immune imprinting.

Hence, urgent novel vaccination strategies have to be developed to overcome immune imprinting by ancestral SARS-CoV-2 antigen.

The study findings were published in the peer reviewed journal: The Lancet Infectious Diseases.


The study is the first to evaluate in detail the effects of hybrid immunity and booster shots on Omicron sub-lineages.

Typically, COVID-19 jabs-elicited neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) target the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike (S) protein to neutralize the virus.

Most of the currently used COVID-19 shots, including messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) shots, use the S protein of the strains that circulated during the beginning of the pandemic (e.g., B.1 lineage).

The newly developed bivalent mRNA boosters use the S proteins of both the B.1 lineage and Omicron BA.5 sub-lineage.

To date, they have only shown good immunogenicity against Omicron sub-lineages in mouse models!

Worryingly however, data on their effectiveness in humans is inadequate!

The German study team developed particles pseudo-typed (PP) with S protein(s) from Omicron sub-lineages to mimic antibody-mediated SARS-CoV-2 neutralization.

The study team then examined the effects of both jabbed and prior infection-elicited nAbs against BA.1, BA.4, BA.5, BA.4.6, BA.2.75.2, BJ.1, and BQ.1.1 Omicron sub-lineages.

It should be noted that early Omicron sub-lineages, such as BA.4 and BA.5, shared an identical S protein. Its sub-lineage BA.2.75.2 is circulating primarily in India, whereas BQ.1.1 is in the United States (US) and Europe. Notably, BJ.1 is the parental lineage of a highly mutated XBB SARS-CoV-2 recombinant.

The study team first tested neutralization sensitivity to antibodies elicited by three doses of a COVID1-9 jab regimen and subsequent monovalent and bivalent boosting.

They next tested the effect of COVID-19 shots plus breakthrough infection by BA.1/BA.2/BA.5 sub-lineages.

The study findings showed that the neutralization sensitivity of B.1pp was the highest, a particle pseudo-typed with the B.1 spike and next stood BA.4-5pp and BA.1pp.

However, the neutralization of BJ.1pp and BA.4.6pp was ~2.2 times, and that of particles pseudo-typed with BA.2.75.2 and BQ.1.1 S proteins was ~15.5 times lower than BA.4-5pp.

The study findings suggest that Omicron sub-lineages, BQ.1.1, in particular BA.2.75.2, possessed a higher capacity to evade nAbs elicited by diverse COVID-19 shots or boosters.

Interestingly, breakthrough infections by BA.1/BA.2.BA.5 in triply jabbed individuals induced 3.7 to 8.5 times higher Omicron sub-lineage neutralization.

But triple jabbed, BA.2/BA.1 breakthrough infection, and a subsequent bivalent booster attained the highest Omicron sub-lineage neutralization. Together, this combination induced 17.6 times more neutralization than triply vaccinated individuals with no breakthrough infection by BA.1/BA.2.

The research findings showed that Omicron sub-lineages BA.2.75.2 and BQ.1.1 escaped neutralization, regardless of the COVID-19 shots or booster history.

It was also found that mono- and bivalent boosters induced two- and 2.1-times higher neutralizing activity, respectively.

Furthermore, they increased neutralization breadth.

However, BQ.1.1 and BA.2.75.2 specific neutralization sensitivity remained on the lower side.

This study finding elucidates the phenomenon of immune imprinting triggered by primary vaccination with vaccines attacking the B.1 S.

Interestingly, the increased affinity, avidity, and anti-pathogen activity of elicited nAbs and double stimulation with two Omicron antigens could not diminish the effects of immune imprinting.

Hence, future inoculation strategies should pursue overcoming immune imprinting by parental SARS-CoV-2 antigens.

The next few months will be interesting times, as its only a matter of time before SARS-Cov-1 variants and sub-lineages that are more pathogenic and virulent emerge considering the current kinetics of the pandemic and the way it is being badly managed.

Heliobas Disciple said:

According to a new projection by Feng Zijian, a former deputy chief at the CDC, relaxed health restrictions could result in 80 to 90% of the Chinese population being injected with the virus.

​

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Freudian slip?

pinkelsteinsmom said:

The vet in Texas killed my beautiful British Shorthair 3 year old with this new rabies. I am still heart broken and in shock as to what they are now doing to all of earths creatures. They are putting hydrogel mrna in all our pet vax!

Warning: do not trust animal vaccines, fight this now or all is lost.

Lion in the wild or huge animal park starts turning round and round 'looking at something' and then goes to the ground in full seizure and seems dead

In The Wild Or Huge Animal Park Starts Turning
Round And Round 'Looking At Something' And Then
Goes To The Ground In Full Seizure And Seems Dead
Is This Global Genocide To Remove Animals Too?


Pet Ownership is Now Under Attack by Unhinged Climate Extremists – Says Dogs and Cats are Part of the Climate Problem
By Jim Hoft
Gateway Pundit
Nov 26, 2022

[snip]

In an effort to lessen their “carbon pawprint,” unhinged climate activists are now advocating for the death of millions of dogs and cats worldwide.

An article published by CNN claims that dogs, cats, and other household pets that regularly consume meat contribute to “global warming.”

You can’t make this up.

“Our four-legged friends don’t drive gas-guzzling SUVs or use energy-sucking appliances, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a climate impact. In fact, researchers have showed that pets play a significant role in the climate crisis,” according to a recent CNN column.

“But what do Barkley and Whiskers have to do with our warming planet? It’s the products we buy for them that need a closer look,” the outlet added.


The news outlet added that most of the carbon pawprint comes from their diet, which is extremely high in meat and so requires a lot of resources (including energy, land, and water) to create.

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I tried to find evidence of mrna rabies vaccines and it looks like they make them...but it seems like they are still using the inactivated virus injections.
Do you have any more info you can share?
So sorry for the loss of your precious furbaby.

Britain, get a load of this. Slime balls everywhere:



View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1602808918128091136

Yeah....

mzkitty said:

View attachment 383793

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Got a safe and effective vaccine for it yet? I would try IVM first. And D and friends.

Heliobas Disciple said:

Health Experts Urge Beijing To Accelerate Approval Of Enhanced Covid Jabs Amid 'Winter Wave' Of Deaths | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

(fair use applies)


Health Experts Urge Beijing To Accelerate Approval Of Enhanced Covid Jabs Amid 'Winter Wave' Of Deaths
by Tyler Durden
Monday, Dec 12, 2022 - 11:20 PM

China's government dramatically pivoted from its ultra-harsh 'zero Covid' policy in the last several weeks, which will likely cause a massive outbreak, as health experts urged Beijing to speed up the approval process of new vaccines to counter Covid-19 variants.

Sinovac and Sinopharm Covid jabs have been widely distributed among the majority of the Chinese population to fight the original Covid strain from Wuhan in 2020. But old vaccines might not be enough to fight variants.

​

"We can't rely on old vaccines which are currently being used nationwide going forward," a Beijing-based adviser to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention told Financial Times. ​

The health advisor, who spoke under cover of anonymity, said CDC facilities "are filled with Wuhan virus-based vaccines that aren't of much use."

Beijing has yet to approve the latest version of the jabs to target more infectious Covid variants, leaving the older generation vulnerable this cold season.

According to a new projection by Feng Zijian, a former deputy chief at the CDC, relaxed health restrictions could result in 80 to 90% of the Chinese population being injected with the virus.

​

"It's going to be inevitable for most of us to get infected once, regardless of how the Covid-fighting measures are adjusted," Feng said. ​

While China faces a 'winter wave' of deaths as the economy reopens, Beijing has yet to import foreign-made messenger RNA vaccines.

The CDC adviser said that China needed "locally made mRNA vaccines in our toolbox," which might not arrive until "next April." There are seven domestic companies in the late stage of clinical trials. The advisor added clinical trial results for the improved Sinovac and Sinopharm jabs will be announced in March, then "the government may issue an emergency use license."

Jin Dong-yan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, said the coming "tsunami" of infections means "China should have an accelerated mechanism for approval to change vaccines based on the circulating strains. There is no need for a full clinical trial."

Infections across the country are already moving higher.

Covid is rapidly spreading through Chinese households and offices after the country's pandemic rules were unexpectedly unwound last week, sparking confusion on the ground as ill-prepared hospitals struggle to deal with a surge in cases. -Bloomberg ​

​

Dong-yan warned that by the time new jabs are approved, Covid variants would be the dominant strain:

"The regulatory body needs to show some flexibility. Ba. 5 is already giving way to BQ. 1.1 in the US and XBB in Singapore. He added: "They will never catch up."​

​

So the question we have: Why did Beijing ease zero Covid policies when no preparations have been made to meet the coming winter 'tsunami' of infections?

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Is China trying to trim their population as well? The treatment is so simple.

FIFA open books of condolence for journalists Khalid al-Misslam, Roger Pearce and Grant Wahl - who all lost their lives while covering the 2022 World Cup - at every stadium in Qatar for media colleagues to pay their respects
By Oliver Salt For Mailonline
Published: 12:51 EST, 13 December 2022 | Updated: 12:51 EST, 13 December 2022

• Three World Cup journalists passed away while covering the event out in Qatar
• ITV Sport technical director Roger Pearce, 65, first lost his life on November 21
• US reporter Grant Wahl then died at the age of 49 after collapsing in a stadium
• His death sparked controversy, with his brother claiming foul play was involved
• Wahl had been previously denied entry to a game for wearing a 'pride' t-shirt
• But Eric Wahl later wrote on Twitter that he now believes there was no foul play
• One day later, the death of Qatari photo-journalist Al-Misslami was announced
• FIFA have opened books of condolence for journalists to pay tribute to the trio

FIFA have given World Cup media members the chance to pay their respects to three journalists who died while covering the tournament by opening books of condolence at every stadium in Qatar.

Khalid al-Misslam, Roger Pearce and Grant Wahl all lost their lives after heading to Qatar to cover the winter showpiece, which got underway at the end of November, and FIFA Director of Media Relations Bryan Swanson revealed on social media that books are available at each stadium's media centre for colleagues to write messages of condolence.

Along with a photo of three books dedicated to the late journalists, Swanson wrote: 'We are opening books of condolence in the FIFA media centres at all remaining stadiums following the tragic deaths of Khalid al-Misslam, Roger Pearce and Grant Wahl during this tournament. Thoughts remain with their families and friends during this difficult time.'

Pearce, ITV Sport's technical director, passed away at the age of 65 on November 21 and his death was announced by presenter Mark Pougatch prior to Wales and USA's opening group fixture.

'We have very sad news to bring you from here in Qatar,' said Pougatch. 'Our technical director, Roger Pearce, who was here for his eighth World Cup, sadly passed away.

'Roger was a highly respected figure in the sports broadcasting industry, for ITV he was instrumental in the logistical planning and coverage of the Rugby World Cup, Football World Cup and European Championships.

'He always had a smile on his face and left a smile on your face.'

Just under three weeks later a second World Cup media member was announced dead when Wahl, 49, fell back in his seat at the Lusail Stadium during extra time of Friday's quarter-final between Argentina and Netherlands.

The American reporter had been complaining of respiratory problems earlier in the week, while also being treated for a possible case of bronchitis, and after being rushed to hospital he was declared dead soon after.

However, Wahl's death initially sparked major controversy given he had previously been refused entry to Wales vs USA by stadium officials for wearing a rainbow 'pride' shirt to a game earlier in the tournament in violation of Qatar's anti-gay laws.

Most of the world learned of Wahl's passing through his brother Eric, who sensationally claimed that Grant was killed for wearing the rainbow t-shirt earlier in the tournament: 'I do not believe my brother just died, I believe he was killed.'

But State Department spokesman Ned Price said the US had no reason to believe Wahl's death was the result of foul play and instead praised Qatari authorities for fully cooperating with the embassy in arranging the repatriation.

'We have seen no indication of foul play or anything nefarious at this point,' Price told reporters in Washington.

A statement from FIFA president Gianni Infantino on Saturday morning said: 'It is with disbelief and immense sadness that I have been made aware of the passing of renowned sports journalist Grant Wahl.

'Only some days ago, Grant was recognized by FIFA and AIPS for his contribution to reporting on eight consecutive FIFA World Cups, and his career also included attendance at several FIFA Women's World Cups, as well as a host of other international sporting events. His love for football was immense and his reporting will be missed by all who follow the global game.'

On Tuesday, Eric wrote on Twitter that he no longer believes foul play was involved in his brother's death, saying: 'The family will release a statement as to cause of death soon'.

One day after Wahl's death, Qatari photo-journalist Al-Misslami became the third media member at the World Cup to pass away, with the country's English newspaper Gulf Times confirming the tragic news on Twitter.

The post read: 'Al Kass TV photojournalist Khalid al-Misslam passed away recently. Al- Misslam, a Qatari, died suddenly while covering the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. We believe in Allah's mercy and forgiveness for him, and send our deepest condolences to his family.'

The circumstances surrounding Al-Misslami's death remain unclear at this time.

THIS IS A REAL ARTICLE CITING A REAL STUDY -THIS IS NOT FROM THE ONION OR ANY OTHER SATIRE SITE!




People who skipped their COVID vaccine are at higher risk of traffic accidents, according to a new study
Erin Prater
December 13, 2022, 1:31 PM EST

If you passed on getting the COVID vaccine, you might be a lot more likely to get into a car crash.

Or at least those are the findings of a new study published this month in The American Journal of Medicine. During the summer of 2021, Canadian researchers examined the encrypted government-held records of more than 11 million adults, 16% of whom hadn’t received the COVID vaccine.

They found that the unvaccinated people were 72% more likely to be involved in a severe traffic crash—in which at least one person was transported to the hospital—than those who were vaccinated. That’s similar to the increased risk of car crashes for people with sleep apnea, though only about half that of people who abuse alcohol, researchers found.

The excess risk of car crash posed by unvaccinated drivers “exceeds the safety gains from modern automobile engineering advances and also imposes risks on other road users,” the authors wrote.

Of course, skipping a COVID vaccine does not mean that someone will get into a car crash. Instead, the authors theorize that people who resist public health recommendations might also “neglect basic road safety guidelines.”

Why would they ignore the rules of the road? Distrust of the government, a belief in freedom, misconceptions of daily risks, “faith in natural protection,” “antipathy toward regulation,” poverty, misinformation, a lack of resources, and personal beliefs are potential reasons proposed by the authors.

The findings are significant enough that primary care doctors should consider counseling unvaccinated patients on traffic safety—and insurance companies might base changes to insurance policies on vaccination data, the authors suggest.

First responders may also consider taking precautions to protect themselves from COVID when responding to traffic crashes, the authors added, as it’s more likely that a driver is unvaccinated than vaccinated.

“The findings suggest that unvaccinated adults need to be careful indoors with other people and outside with surrounding traffic,” the authors concluded.

This isn’t the first time that researchers have examined the link between behavior and vaccination status. Among young adults, a 2021 study published in the Journal of Bioeconomics found a correlation between self-reported risky driving and having skipped their flu vaccine. It examined the survey responses of more than 100,000 Canadians.

What are the chances of having a vaxevent, and drifting across the intersection, or giving the bank a new drive-thru window?

amarah said:

I tried to find evidence of mrna rabies vaccines and it looks like they make them...but it seems like they are still using the inactivated virus injections.
Do you have any more info you can share?
So sorry for the loss of your precious furbaby.

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There are many articles regarding this, just google them. Todd Callendar, he is an attorney, the one representing the military regarding the v ax. This man recently said ALL injectables including the flu shot and insulin now have hydrogel with Cesium-137 in them....the clot shot basically.


"What people probably don’t know is that they’re engineering nanobots in the food. The very same hydrogel, the very same lipid nanoparticles that Dr Charles Lieber was able to figure out how to atomically weld a transistor onto these things, turning them into autonomous bots at a molecular scale – that’s what they’re putting in there."

They have recently stated you will not be allowed to have pets, the pet vaccines will be and are being used to kill them now. Just noticed on my effbuk page people starting to post "rabies vax killed my kitty"