CORONA Main Coronavirus thread

[Red Baron]

Local county officials ban contact sports forcing the San Francisco 49ers to play their "home" games in Arizona.

The Denver Broncos lose all four of their quarterbacks to covid protocols forcing them to play last Sunday with a wide receiver as their quarterback. That player hasn't played QB since high school. The Broncos scored only one field goal.

Fair Use Cited
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San Francisco 49ers will play "home" games in Arizona after COVID-19 rules ban team from playing at Levi's Stadium

BY CHRISTOPHER BRITO
NOVEMBER 30, 2020 / 3:19 PM / CBS NEWS

New local regulations taking effect will force the San Francisco 49ers to play their December home games in Arizona, the team announced Monday. The move comes as the NFL has grappled with several coronavirus-related issues over the last week, which included the postponed Thanksgiving Day game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens.

The 49ers said they've reached an agreement with the NFL and Arizona Cardinals allowing them to host games against the Buffalo Bills (December 7) and Washington Football Team (December 13) at State Farm Stadium, the Cardinals' home field.
"The Cardinals organization, State Farm Stadium and League officials have been supportive and accommodating as we work through the many logistical issues involved in relocating NFL games," the team said. Future team practice arrangements will be announced at a later time.

As COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to rise, health officials announced over the weekend that all contact sports were temporarily prohibited in Santa Clara County, where the 49ers' Levi's Stadium is located. Officials also mandated a 14-day quarantine for anyone traveling to the area from 150 miles away.

Head coach Kyle Shanahan called the decision "extremely disappointing" after learning the news prior to boarding a plane to Los Angeles on Saturday.

"Everyone has been so committed to this, so the biggest thing for me is just all of us leaving our families," Shanahan said following a thrilling 23-20 win over the Los Angeles Rams. "We're all humans just like everyone else, and it's a big deal to leave your family for the whole month of December."

San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan says the team was blindsided by new coronavirus regulations put in place by Santa Clara County officials that will force to find a temporary new home for practice and games.https://t.co/coFElz2tdD pic.twitter.com/y3lDE8BfYo
— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) November 30, 2020

"We need to find a place we can feel safe and stay because we're not going to be able to go to our homes anymore that are safe. So we're going to have to stay in a hotel or somewhere," he added.

• The team's running back Raheem Mostert, who hasn't been with his family all season, said it's been a struggle to not be with them.

"It's really tough, I miss them so much," he said. "It's a fight every day, you're fighting for your life."

"Personally it's been a struggle not having my little family with me...It's really tough, I miss them so much."@RMos_8Ball gets emotional talking about the sacrifices made during this season. pic.twitter.com/Zzvl0OaGky
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) November 30, 2020

The rules remain in effect until December 21 and home games against Buffalo and Washington can't be played at Levi's Stadium under the new regulations.

As the pandemic surges again in the U.S., the NFL is reeling from another major team outbreak and other COVID-19-related incidents.

The Ravens have more than a dozen players, including reigning league MVP Lamar Jackson, that have tested positive for the virus. The team outbreak forced the NFL to postpone their Thanksgiving game against the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers to Sunday, before moving it again to Tuesday.

The Denver Broncos resorted to use a player on their practice squad as quarterback after three players higher on the depth chart were designated as "high-risk" contacts to quarterback Jeff Driskel, who tested positive for coronavirus. The replacement, Kendall Hinton — a wide receiver in the pros and former high school quarterback – completed a single pass for 13 yards and two interceptions against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday in his first NFL game.

Following a Saints' maskless post-game celebration earlier this month, CBS Sports reported the team was fined $500,000 and docked a draft for violating COVID-19 protocols for a second time this season. They also fined the Patriots $350,000 when quarterback Cam Newton and others tested positive, according to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport.

San Francisco 49ers will play "home" games in Arizona after COVID-19 rules ban team from playing at Levi's Stadium - CBS News

 

[Red Baron]

Fair Use Cited
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LA County Supervisor dines at restaurant hours after voting to ban outdoor dining

By Bill Melugin
Published 23 hours ago
Updated 7 hours ago

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Just hours after Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl voted to ban outdoor dining at L.A. County’s 31,000 restaurants over COVID-19 safety concerns, she visited a restaurant in Santa Monica, where she dined outdoors, FOX 11 learned on Monday.

Just hours after Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl voted to ban outdoor dining at L.A. County’s 31,000 restaurants over COVID-19 safety concerns, she visited a restaurant in Santa Monica, where she dined outdoors.

FOX 11 received multiple tips that shortly after her vote on Tuesday, Kuehl was seen dining outside at Il Forno Trattoria in Santa Monica, an Italian restaurant near her house that she has previously described as one of her 'favorite' restaurants.

When FOX 11 investigative reporter Bill Melugin stopped by the restaurant to ask about Kuehl’s visit, managers told him they “didn’t want to get involved”, and they have no comment.

A spokesperson for Kuehl provided FOX 11 the following brief statement:

“She did dine al fresco at Il Forno on the very last day it was permissible. She loves Il Forno, has been saddened to see it, like so many restaurants, suffer from a decline in revenue. She ate there, taking appropriate precautions, and sadly will not dine there again until our Public Health Orders permit.”

During Tuesday’s L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting, Kuehl referred to outside dining as “a most dangerous situation” over what she described as a risk of tables of unmasked patrons potentially exposing their servers to the coronavirus.

“This is a serious health emergency and we must take it seriously,” Kuehl said.

“The servers are not protected from us, and they’re not protected from their other tables that they’re serving at that particular time, plus all the hours in which they’re working.”

Kuehl went on to vote in support of restricting outdoor dining in Los Angeles County, which passed by a 3-2 margin of the Board of Supervisors.

RELATED: LA County to suspend all in-person dining as COVID-19 cases surge

Kuehl’s visit to the restaurant came before the outdoor dining ban took effect Wednesday evening, but her decision is likely to draw criticism from those who have grown frustrated with elected officials taking a hypocritical approach to what they have preached, as Kuehl dined at the restaurant a mere hours after she said doing such a thing was unsafe and could contribute to the surge in COVID-19 cases.

L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn who strongly opposed the decision to ban outdoor dining reacted to our reporting tonight on FOX 11’s Special Report with Elex Michaelson.

"We have to remrnber that we who are in public office are held to a very high standard as we should be and one of the things I’m realizing with some of these new restrictions is if we can’t garner the trust of the public to be with us in this fight against the virus, then we’ve lost a big battle and I’m feeling that now nine months into this is we’re beginning to lose the trust of the public," Hahn said.

Michael Voltaggio is a local restaurant owner who is stunned by Kuehl’s decision.

“That sends a message that we’re getting direction from people that aren’t really believing in messages they’re making," he said.

Voltaggio tells FOX 11, "For me it’s just proof of the continuous hypocrisy and just the lack of leadership and education as to what’s happening right now in this sort of shoot from the hip mentality that’s not doing anybody any good.”
Josiah Citrin also owns multiple restaurants across L.A. County.

Citrin said, "I’m like wait a minute, restaurants are so dangerous, but you’re gonna go eat in a restaurant? I mean it just blows me away."

LA County Supervisor dines at restaurant hours after voting to ban outdoor dining (foxla.com)

 

[Red Baron]

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynb2kZ9AvZM
5:04 min
CDC issues urgent COVID-19 warning for anyone over 65 | WNT
•Dec 2, 2020


ABC News

The agency says elderly people should avoid maskless indoor public spaces. Bracing for a surge, the White House coronavirus task force also shared a message to anyone who traveled for Thanksgiving.

[65 and older and those with co-morbidities wear mask when go outside. Don't go to indoor public spaces unless everyone masked. Have medications and groceries delivered. People who came into contact with anyone not in immediate household over Thanksgiving should be quarantining.]

_______________________________

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7OeU6ofaho
21:13 (first 8 min on COVID)
NBC Nightly News Broadcast (Full) - December 2nd, 2020 | NBC Nightly News
•Dec 2, 2020


NBC News

White House coronavirus task force warns U.S. is in ‘very dangerous place,’ Boeing 737 max returns to flight, and DOT rules dogs are only service animals allowed on passenger planes.

 

[jward]

Doge
@IntelDoge
19m

Breaking: LA mayor Eric Garcetti has issued a stay-at-home order due to a rise in Coronavirus cases. (BNO)

 

[auxman]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1334359194447667201

View: https://twitter.com/kron4news/status/1334359194447667201

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czbpFPSOiZM
LIVE (Lousy audio)
Live: Pence joins roundtable discussion of efforts to combat COVID-19
•Started streaming 24 minutes ago

Fox News

Vice President Pence will participate in a roundtable highlighting the public-private partnership to combat the coronavirus, the vaccine distribution program, and Tennessee’s plan to operationalize vaccinations once approved.

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMitprT1OPQ
15:35 min
- The New Technology Behind COVID-19 RNA Vaccines and What This Means for Future Outbreaks
•Dec 3, 2020


Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

After a decade of work, COVID-19 vaccines are the first RNA vaccines to be put through the paces of clinical trials. But what sets RNA vaccine technology apart from more traditional methods and how might this new platform be used going forward? Hopkins immunologist Dr. Diane Griffin talks with Stephanie Desmon about RNA vaccines, what they are and why they’re different, complications that still need to be worked out, and how this groundbreaking new platform could help vaccinate us against future outbreaks.

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfjgC2APlpc
1:50:13 min
TWiV 688: We put COVID-19 papers through a sieve
•Dec 2, 2020

Vincent Racaniello
On this episode, UK grants EUA for Pfizer vaccine, advice for CDC on who to immunize first, news from Das Coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 protease regulates innate responses, and viral mRNAs are not an indication of viral replication.

 

[marsh]

Crazed Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti Says Cancel Christmas: "It's Time to Cancel Everything" (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told his constituents Wednesday night that it’s time to hunker down and “cancel everything” due to rising Covid cases.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

Crazed Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti Says Cancel Christmas: “It’s Time to Cancel Everything” (VIDEO)

By Cristina Laila
Published December 3, 2020 at 10:56am

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told his constituents Wednesday night that it’s time to hunker down and “cancel everything” due to rising Covid cases.

Of course Garcetti wasn’t talking to any of the Democrat elites in California who continue to dine in swanky restaurants as they tell the peasants to stay home.

“The next three months are going to be the most difficult in the public health history of this nation,” Garcetti said. “The latest data is nothing short of alarming. In the last month alone, our daily infections have tripled, our hospitalizations have more than tripled and are at a new peak.”

Garcetti scolded Americans for spending time with their families on Thanksgiving.

“These numbers don’t reflect the Thanksgiving effect of time spent together with families when many people were gathering and traveling in defiance of public health warnings,” he said.

Garcetti warned that if the people of Los Angeles don’t listen to his crazed demands, “We will run out of hospital beds here in Los Angeles by Christmas.”

He continued, “It’s time to hunker down. It’s time to cancel everything.”

WATCH:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1334343978251145216

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1334343978251145216
2:38 min

Recall, Garcetti went full Commie over the summer and authorized the city to shut off water and power to HOMES and businesses that are hosting large, unauthorized gatherings.

Neurotic megalomaniac Eric Garcetti is also terrified of dry sand on the beach and previously said that beaches will only be open for exercise and active recreation; people will not be allowed to touch dry sand.

Who still listens to this guy?

 

[marsh]

Michigan's COVID Shutdowns Are Legally the same as Martial Law | The Gateway Pundit | by Benjamin Wetmore

Restaurant owners have been urging defiance of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s shutdown orders.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

Michigan’s COVID Shutdowns Are Legally the same as Martial Law

By Ben Wetmore
Published December 3, 2020 at 2:40pm

Restaurant owners have been urging defiance of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s shutdown orders. Citizens in Michigan have been bristling under a “mask mandate” even though the Michigan Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down Whitmer’s orders.

These orders from the Governor are not laws, however, and they are based on the broadest interpretation possible of her powers under state law for emergencies. Eight months into that emergency, the Governor still claims immediacy requires her to ignore the legislature and the judiciary, in order to prevent the crisis she sees with the data only she has. Some are arguing that this situation is not a ‘shutdown’ or a ‘mandate’ or ‘orders’ but, rather, the imposition of Martial Law.

Unemployment spiked due to the shutdown but it recently declining, and people are once again leaving the Wolverine State in search of job opportunities and just the chance to dine in. One resident of Lansing who wished not to be named due to his employment situation, said that he cannot find any venues to date or meet up with anyone, since all dine-in options have been closed at the dictate of Governor Whitmer. “I drive several hours down to Toledo (Ohio) in order to have a beer and a burger and a dose of sanity, even though they have a 10pm curfew.”

The legislature has sued in order to overturn the Whitmer shutdown orders, and succeeded, only to have Whitmer initially ignore the court order, and then say that she was shifting her authority for it to the health code, a change in legal authority but not in application, with still no reprimand from the court.

The neverending pandemic, justified by data that is closely held and not revealed, suspending much of the open records act to prevent public review, the Executive Branch of the Michigan government has operated like an occupying military force and, some say, the more proper terminology to define what is happening is Martial Law in lieu of the current phrasing “Mandatory Shutdowns.”

The traditional definition of “Martial Law” involves the military as an occupying force and as the people in charge. Others suggest, though, that the occupying power is merely whatever one is suspending the lawful rights of citizens, and that in this case it can be the Governor who enacts martial law, or this version of martial law which has a more appealing name to the public.

The government has been notorious for the use of euphemisms to hide the application of its power. The term “collateral damage” is often used to verbally hide the reality of innocents being killed from a military action. The federal government has been especially adept at hiding its abuses with language.

The politicization of language often involves describing things in the most persuasive way possible, instead of accurately depicting the underlying issue. On the left, “Hate speech” is used as a cover for left-wing censorship. On the right, “Family values” is often used to describe a social conservative political agenda.

There are long-running debates about whether abortion policy should be described as pro-life/anti-abortion versus pro-choice/pro-abortion and many other similar positional framings.

The mainstream media, however, is perfectly content to only describe shutdowns as what the government calls them, and not describing what they are: the suspension of most fundamental rights of Americans. The shutdowns in Michigan have involved the suspension of the freedom of assembly, the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, the freedom of movement. These suspensions are being challenged in court, even by Churches and religious private schools unwilling to accept a masking requirement, but rarely reported on. And when covered, they are reported as an issue of health, not of rights, and of weighing rights against the numbers provided by the imposing occupying force.

Could the Governor suspend the courts if another decision did not go their way? All indications say yes. Could the Governor shoot dissidents in the streets for defying mandates? Nothing indicates she cannot. Whether she would is different than whether she could, given the assumption of total authority by one person who refuses to abide by, and instead works around, state Supreme Court decisions.

Notably Whitmer acted, prior to the COVID crisis, to work around and ignore the legislature, which she once served in, when crafting state budgets. When the Republican-led legislature passed a budget her first year that she did not like, she simply rewrote it the next day using powers she arguably lacked. The suspension of the legislature’s powers started before COVID, and were simply accelerated under the usable COVID crisis.

Some contend that this is just politics, and not reaching the level of “Martial Law.”

The Supreme Court in the Duncan decision from 1946 had this to say about the lack of definition, and specifically the lack of a military connection, for the term “Martial Law”:

If a power thus to obliterate the judicial system of Hawaii can be found at all in the Organic Act, it must be inferred from provision for placing the Territory under ‘martial law.’ But the term ‘martial law’ carries no precise meaning. The Constitution does not refer to ‘martial law’ at all and no Act of Congress has defined the term. It has been employed in various ways by different people and at different times. By some it has been identified as ‘military law’ limited to members of, and those connected with, the armed forces. Others have said that the term does not imply a system of established rules but denotes simply some kind of day to day expression of a General’s will dictated by what he considers the imperious necessity of the moment.

In March Whitmer said she was not calling for martial law. She said that clearly she was not doing so because she only wanted a two-week shutdown.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

'Immunity Cards' To Be Issued To All Americans; Enable CDC To Track COVID-19 Vaxx Status In Database

Thu, 12/03/2020 - 13:20

On Wednesday the Department of Defense released the first images of a COVID-19 vaccination record card as well as vaccination kits, according to CNN.

"Everyone will be issued a written card that they can put in their wallet that will tell them what they had and when their next dose is due," says Dr. Kelly Moore, associate director of the Immunization Action Coalition. "Let's do the simple, easy thing first. Everyone's going to get that."


What's more, vaccination clinics will also report to their state immunization registries which vaccine was given so that third parties can verify one's vaccination status regardless of what their card says (or if they've lost it).

Moore said many places are planning to ask patients to voluntarily provide a cell phone number, so they can get a text message telling them when and where their next dose is scheduled to be administered.

Every dose administered will be reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers. -CNN

The DoD also released information on vaccine kits, which include a card, needle, syringe, alcohol wipes and a mask. There are approximately 100 million such kits ready to go as soon as 'the' vaccine(s) is(are) chosen, according to Operation Warp Speed CEO, Gen. Gustave Perna.


The announcement comes less than two weeks after the UK government proposed "freedom passes" in order to reboot their economy - which would seemingly allow those willing to vaccinate a return to normal life. It also comes after signs of industries adapting to a future of immunity cards and vaccinations - with Ticketmaster and Quantas airlines both announcing they will require proof of vaccination before people can attend concerts or fly.

Meanwhile, the vaccination roadshow has begun. On Wednesday, former presidents Obama, Clinton and Bush publicly announced that they would take the vaccine, on camera.

"I may end up taking it on TV or having it filmed, just so that people know that I trust this science," Obama said in a Wednesday interview with Sirius XM radio - while Bush and Clinton made similar vows.

The next day, NIH Director Dr. Anthony Fauci ominously warned that it would create a "very serious situation" if people don't take the vaccine.



The frontrunning vaccine candidates come from two companies - Pfizer and Moderna - which are both awaiting emergency use authorizations in the United States. And FDA panel is expected to discuss the issue on December 10 and 17.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Newsom Places California Under 3-Week Stay At Home Order, CDC Chief Says COVID Worst Health Crisis In A Century: Live Updates

Thu, 12/03/2020 - 15:38
Summary:

• California faces new 3-week lockdown
• CDC chief says COVID worst health crisis in a century
• Arizona sees record deaths
• Italy sees record deaths
• More record numbers out of NY, NJ
• NYC mayor announces new institute devoted to pandemic response
• Dr. Fauci agrees to stay on
• LA imposes lockdown order
• US daily deaths 2nd highest
• US passes 200k cases/day
• Hospitalizations top 100k
• Global deaths top 1.5MM
• California reports countrywide record for new cases
• CDC director warns 450k deaths by Feb.
• Eli Lilly secures more vials
• Indonesia reports new record cases
• India reports 35.5k new cases
• China carrying out expectations of imported food
• Aussie pharma regulator will review Pfizer vax in January
• Tokyo sees 533 new infections
• Merkel extends partial lockdown

* * *
Update (1600ET): California Gov Gavin Newsom has announced that new stay-at-home orders that will last for 3 weeks will impact the state, with the measures broken down by five regions.

During today's press briefing, Newsome said 4 of 5 regions of the Golden State could hit their lockdown threshold in a day or two as it looks increasingly likely that Californians will be facing the most restrictive lockdown since the spring by Friday night.

View: https://youtu.be/S3TLa2-Q25k
1:23:00 min

The Bay Area, which is doing better than much of the state, might not hit the threshold until the end of the month.

Newsom also took a minute to plug vaccines, telling voters "help is on the way" as Pfizer cuts its delivery projections for 2020 by half.

Meanwhile, CDC Diretor Robert Redfield continued with his dire warnings by insisting that COVID-19 is the "worst public health crisis in a century" on Thursday.

* * *
Update (1440ET): Like the rest of the country, NYC is firmly in the grips of the worst wave of the pandemic since May, as its 7-day averages for new cases and the positivity rate reach their highest levels since then. Meanwhile, New Jersey reported a record number of new cases, while Arizona reported a spike in deaths.

Earlier today, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city would partner with private companies to create an institute devoted to predicting and responding to future pandemics. His announcement came as new reported cases reached a weekly average of 1,962 and the citywide infection rate hit 5.19%.

Another 174 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms, nearly 4x the daily average from the fall.

Across the Hudson, New Jersey reported 4,913 new cases, the most since the state’s first case was disclosed on March 4. The positivity rate was 13.68%, the highest since May.

Arizona reported another 82 deaths on Thursday, the highest daily number since Aug. 26, when the state recorded 104. The state’s toll rose to 6,821. It also reported 5,442 new cases, bringing the total to 346,421.

In Europe, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte just announced new restrictions on cruises and ski lifts, two businesses that reportedly had a big impact on the Italian outbreak earlier this year. The news comes as Italy reported a record 993 virus deaths, which was even larger than the daily readings its saw during the worst of its springtime outbreak.

* * *
Update (1000ET): It's official: As expected, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been asked to stay on when Joe Biden and his team take the reins next year.


The good doctor will hold a virtual meeting with Biden's "landing team" later today.

* * *
As the world surpasses 1.5MM confirmed deaths (according to Reuters data) due to the coronavirus, with many more probably left uncounted (though, to be sure, there has been plenty of disagreement about what constitutes a 'COVID death'), the US has just reported record, or near record, numbers for new daily cases and deaths, while hospitalizations have topped 100k - yet another record high.

More than 200k new cases were reported across the US last night with New York, the Rust Belt and California driving the trend. The US also reported more than 2,700 deaths, the second-highest daily tally yet, according to the COVID-19 Tracking Project.



California reported more than 20k new cases overnight, the highest daily tally of any US state. Texas also reported more than 16k new cases, a new record for the Lone Star State.



While the one-day number for deaths is the highest since May 7th, Wednesday also marked the first time deaths in the US have surpassed 5k in a 2-day period.



As far as deaths are concerned, the Rust Belt is being particularly hard hit, and experts expect the daily death tolls to continue to climb: in Pennsylvania, the tally of deaths in the first two weeks of December is likely to total 1,315, up 333 from the previous 14 days. That would be the biggest acceleration in the US, according to the Reich Lab’s COVID-19 Forecast Hub.

Ohio deaths are on track to climb by 294 to 958 for the same period, while Michigan’s tally increased by 282 to 1,373, as the US approaches the 300k deaths mark (as of Thursday morning, 264,522 Americans have succumbed to the virus since the pandemic began).


Source: Bloomberg

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti imposed the toughest new lockdown in the country late Wednesday night, barring all gatherings of more than one family, and barring any non-essential workers from reporting to work.

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield warned Wednesday evening that COVID-19 is on track to be the worst health crisis in the history of the US, with 450k deaths expected by February.

"The reality is, December and January and February are going to be rough times, and I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of our nation, largely because of the stress it’s going to put on our public health system," Dr. Robert Redfield said Wednesday at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation event.

Outside of the US, Iran just joined Poland, Colombia, Germany and a handful of other countries in seeing its confirmed COVID-19 cases finally top 1MM, with many more likely undiagnosed in the hard-hit home of the Islamic Revolution. The Iranian Health Ministry announced 13,922 new cases in the country of about 80MM, north of the seven-day average of 13,598. Deaths have fallen from a record high of 486 on Nov. 16 to 358 on Thursday. Some 49,348 people have so far died from the disease.

The US government paid Eli Lilly & Co. $812.5 million to secure an additional 650,000 vials of Covid-19 antibody treatment to be administered in December and January to non-hospitalized patients at the early stages of disease (Source: Bloomberg).

Australia’s New South Wales state recorded its first new case of the coronavirus in 25 days after a woman working at a quarantine hotel in Sydney tested positive (Source: Bloomberg).

Hospitalizations for Covid-19 in the U.S. increased by more than 1,000 a day at the end of November, data released Tuesday from the Department of Health and Human Services show. The number of inpatients jumped 9.6% to a record 96,668 on Dec. 1 from 88,167 on Nov. 23. California recorded a 38% surge over the eight-day period, with 8,171 coronavirus patients as of Tuesday (Source: Bloomberg).

Indonesia’s daily coronavirus cases cross the 8,000 mark for the first time to 8,369 new infections in the past 24 hours, up from 5,533 the day before. The country also reports 156 additional deaths. The totals have now reached 557,877 infections with 17,355 deaths (Source: Nikkei).

Finland's government says it has agreed a national strategy for COVID-19 vaccinations, planning to give them to everyone and to begin with vaccinating selected health care staff from January (Source: Nikkei).

Tokyo reports 533 new infections, up from 500 a day earlier. The number of patients in serious condition in the capital declined by five to 54 (Source: Nikkei).
India reports 35,551 new cases in the last 24 hours -- down from 36,604 the previous day and marking the 26th straight day of less than 50,000 infections -- bringing the country's total to 9.53 million. Fatalities jumped by 526 to 138,648 (Source: Nikkei).

China is carrying out sweeping inspections of food importers, supermarkets, e-commerce platforms and restaurants to prevent the spread of COVID-19 through imported products that must be kept constantly cold, the country's market regulator says (Source: Nikkei).

Australia's pharmaceutical regulator says it is on course to review Pfizer's vaccine by January, with the country sticking to a March timetable to start giving shots (Source: Nikkei).

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany will extend its partial lockdown by three more weeks as the country struggles to regain control of the coronavirus spread (Source: Bloomberg).

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Supreme Court Orders New Trial Over California Worship Restrictions In Light Of New York Ruling

Thu, 12/03/2020 - 11:20

The Supreme Court has sent a lawsuit over religious gatherings brought by a California church against Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and the state of California back to a lower court for a do-over, in light of the court's decision that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's restrictions on religious gatherings are unconstitutional.



The plaintiffs in the case, Harvest Rock Church, requested immediate court intervention while the state asks the Supreme Court to allow restrictions on religious gatherings to continue.

According to Just the News:

Newsom has banned indoor church services in high-risk areas – the majority of the state — yet other gatherings like sporting events, protests and Hollywood film productions are allowed to continue.

In moderate-risk California counties, churches can hold 25% of the normal capacity indoors.

* * *
"California is experiencing an unprecedented surge in COVID-19 cases, creating an even greater public health need for restrictions on prolonged communal gatherings in indoor places," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office said in a filing, which opposed Harvest Rock's request for the restrictions to be lifted.

According to Newsom, the "perils" of indoor gatherings - such as dining at the French Laundry - justify further restrictions.

"Scientific evidence demonstrates why those activities pose a particularly grave threat of virus transmission during the current pandemic," argued attorneys for Newsom and the state.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

LA Imposes Toughest Lockdown Yet To Avoid "Devastating Tipping Point" As COVID Hospitalizations Soar

Thu, 12/03/2020 - 09:55

Echoing the situation back in March when California was the first state to issue a 'stay at home' order, the Mayor of Los Angeles late last night ordered Angelenos to stay home, warning that the city is approaching a "devastating tipping point" as the US and the state of California see unprecedented numbers of new cases, deaths and hospitalizations.

Last night the state of California reported more than 20k new COVID infections, the highest daily tally of any state. LA County has been particularly hard hit.

"Our City is now close to a devastating tipping point, beyond which the number of hospitalized patients would start to overwhelm our hospital system, in turn risking needless suffering and death," Mayor Eric Garcetti said late on Wednesday. "We must minimize contact with others as much as possible," he added.



The order, which supersedes another order from June, is without a doubt the most restrictive in effect in the US right now: it prohibits public and private gatherings of people from more than one household, and requires all businesses in the city that require people to work on location must stop operations.

Walking, driving, travel on public transport, bikes, motorcycles and scooters are prohibited, except - of course - for all 'essential' activities.

There are several exemptions: faith-based outdoor services and programs for the homeless will continue. Supermarkets, grocery stores and health-care operations can also continue to operate. But gyms, retailers and pretty much every other in-person activity will now be legally prohibited in the City of Angels. The city’s safety protocols on social distancing follow those developed by Los Angeles County, Garcetti said. On the exercise front, activities such as golf, tennis and pickleball will still be permitted, according to the order.

Anyone over the age of 16 traveling into the city must complete an online form upon arrival acknowledging they’ve read, and understand, a California travel advisory.

Failure to fill out and submit the form is punishable by a fine of up to $500.

Read the full order below:
20201202 Mayor Public Order Targeted SAH Order_1 by Zerohedge on Scribd

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

5 Burning Questions About The New COVID Vaccine

Thu, 12/03/2020 - 03:30
Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

The United Kingdom government yesterday announced its approval of the first Covid19 vaccine for general use. 800,000 doses are slated to be released for general use by the end of the week, and has already signed a contract for 40 million more doses (to go along with over 300 million doses of as-yet-unreleased vaccines from other companies).



With the newest phase in the Covid19 roll-out set to begin, it’s time we addressed the five biggest questions about this vaccine, its effectiveness, its safety and whether or not we’ll be forced to use it.

1. DOES IT WORK?
Clearly, the company claims it does, and the UK government seems to believe them. The Guardian, in their coverage of the vaccine, claim it has a 95% efficacy rating, but does not provide a source for this or any kind of data at all.

Fortunately, better journalists and researchers are writing for the British Medical Journal, including this piece from Peter Doshi just last week.

To explain where this “95% effective” claim actually comes from:

The Pfizer vaccine trial included nearly 44,000 people. Half getting their vaccine, half getting a placebo. In total, from the 44,000 people, 170 were later recorded as having become ‘infected with Covid19’. 162 of them were in the placebo group, 8 of them in the vaccine group.

The vaccine is therefore credited with preventing 154 cases of Covid19…or 95%.
You don’t need to be a medical researcher or virologist to see how potentially flawed this reasoning is. The entire trial of 44,000 people is deemed a success based on the potentially multi-variant outcome from less than 4% of those involved.

The details of the trial are hard to come by, so we have yet to find out how these 170 people were even diagnosed with “Covid19”. Was it a clinical diagnosis based on symptoms? Or PCR test? Either method would raise serious questions about accuracy.

In short, the answer to “Does it work?” is “we have no idea.”

2. IS IT SAFE?
Potentially more important than the question of efficacy is the question of safety.

No one, not even the vaccines most ardent defenders, is denying that this vaccine process has been rushed – vaccines typically take years and years to produce, whereas this one has been hurried on to the market in less than nine months. Some of them have skipped important stages in testing altogether.

Even supposing the short term trials have not shown any side effects, there has simply been no time to do long-term outcome studies. The potential for complications, months or years down the line, certainly exists.

Further, the vaccine is based on new technology – an mRNA vaccine, which injects viral genetic material to generate an immune response. The technology has been in development for years, but this would be the first mRNA vaccine actually put to use.

So, again, the short answer to “is it safe?” is “we don’t know”.

However, the vaccine pushers and manufacturers clearly have doubts about its safety, since they have gone out of their way guarantee they have total legal indemnity from prosecution or civil suits should something go wrong. Not a confidence booster that.

Ask yourself: if Ford or BMW were releasing a new type of car based on “cutting edge technology”, but before you buy one you have to sign a waiver saying you can’t sue the car manufacturers in the event you explode in a fiery ball of death…would you drive that car?

3. WHAT’S IN IT?
This is a simple one.
We don’t know, they won’t say.
At least not in anything but the vaguest terms.

4. WHO WILL GET IT?
First on the docket are the elderly and NHS workers. We don’t know who will be excluded. Immunocompromised people were excluded from the efficacy study, so presumably, they’ll also be excluded from taking the vaccine. If not, that’s a potential disaster waiting to happen (although they have legal protection, so I guess that doesn’t matter).

The British military are already busily setting up “mass vaccination centres”. So eventually, of course, almost everyone will be expected to get injected if they want to partake of society in any way at all. Which leads us onto question five…

5. WILL IT BECOME MANDATORY?
The question of “mandatory vaccines” has been buzzing around since the earliest stages of the pandemic narrative. The final result will obviously vary country-to-country, but it’s certainly a possibility here in the UK.

A few months ago a group of scholars submitted written evidence to the UK Parliament that mandatory vaccinations would be defensible on a human rights basis, and that there was already legal precedent for this action in UK legislation (specifically, treating mental health patients who may be a danger to themselves).

In the end, and this is purely my speculation, I doubt the vaccine will ever be literally legally mandatory. Parliament will reject the “expert advice” suggesting Covid19 vaccines be forced on people.

This will accomplish two goals at once: a) It will give the government a veneer of “libertarianism”, a thin facade to cover it’s tyrannical nature. And b) It will allow a potential “third wave” of Covid19 to be blamed on “vaccine hesitancy”.

Though it will probably never be literally mandatory, they will certainly make it much easier to function should you get the vaccine.

There’s been much talk of “immunity passports”, meaning digital documents showing your vaccination status which make you exempt from lockdown and social distancing rules.

In the future it’s not hard to see these documents (either physical or digital) being vital to the ability work, socialise, travel, get loans, apply for state benefits or even receive medical treatment.

So, even if not forced to partake of the vaccine, you will likely be bribed, blackmailed or coerced into doing so eventually.
* * *
To sum up – we don’t know exactly what’s in the vaccine, it might not work, it may not be safe, and we’re probably all going to end up being forced to use it.

 

[mzkitty]

Covid Hell:





Video:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1334644614138093570

View: https://twitter.com/CBSEveningNews/status/1334644614138093570

 

[marsh]

Nursing homes are still getting pummeled by the pandemic

Cases in nursing homes grew by more than 177% between mid-September and mid-November.

www.axios.com

Dec 2, 2020 -

Nursing homes are still getting pummeled by the pandemic


Caitlin Owens, author of Vitals

Data: AHCA/NCAL, The COVID Tracking Project; Chart: Naema Ahmed/Axios
The U.S. has gotten no better at keeping the coronavirus out of nursing homes.

Why it matters: The number of nursing home cases has consistently tracked closely with the number of cases in the broader community — and that's very bad news as overall cases continue to skyrocket.

By the numbers: There were more than 16,000 confirmed nursing home cases during the week of Nov. 15., according to a report by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living.

• Nearly half of new nursing home cases that week were in the Midwest.
• Cases nationally grew by more than 177% between mid-September and mid-November, mirroring the steady rise in caseloads overall.
• Deaths are also rising, topping 2,000 that same week.

What they're saying: "Our worst fears have come true as COVID runs rampant among the general population, and long term care facilities are powerless to fully prevent it from entering due to its asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread," said Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living.

• "This level of COVID nationwide puts serious strain on our workforce, supplies, and testing capacity."

The bottom line: We're not going to control the pandemic in the general population, which means the virus will continue to find its way into nursing homes.

• The only bright spot on the horizon for nursing home residents is that a vaccine will soon be available, and they'll be among the first people to receive it.

 

[marsh]

CDC director warns the next few months could be 'the most difficult in the public health history of this nation'

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, said 450,000 Americans could die of Covid-19 before February.

www.cnbc.com

CDC director warns the next few months could be ‘the most difficult in the public health history of this nation’
PUBLISHED WED, DEC 2 20203:42 PM ESTUPDATED THU, DEC 3 202010:38 AM EST

Will Feuer@WILLFOIA
KEY POINTS

• The next few months of the Covid-19 pandemic will be among “the most difficult in the public health history of this nation,” Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, said.
• Redfield, speaking at an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that about 90% of hospitals in the country are in “hot zones and the red zones.”
• He added that 90% of long-term care facilities are in areas with high level of spread.

The next few months of the Covid-19 pandemic will be among “the most difficult in the public health history of this nation,” Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday.

Redfield, speaking at an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that about 90% of hospitals in the country are in “hot zones and the red zones.” He added that 90% of long-term care facilities are in areas with high level of spread.

“So we are at a very critical time right now about being able to maintain the resilience of our health-care system,” Redfield said. “The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult in the public health history of this nation, largely because of the stress that’s going to be put on our health-care system.”



Redfield added that deaths caused by Covid-19 are already rising. He said the country is now in the range of reporting between 1,500 and 2,500 deaths everyday.

The U.S. reported more than 1,500 deaths on Tuesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. And Covid-19 hospitalizations stand at an all-time high 98,600 across the country, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project, which is run by journalists at The Atlantic. Epidemiologists, emergency room physicians and public health specialists have warned for weeks that the latest surge of the virus could prove to be the deadliest yet.

“The mortality concerns are real,” Redfield said. “And I do think unfortunately, before we see February, we could be close to 450,000 Americans [who] have died from this virus.”

However, Redfield noted that the country has the tools it needs to reduce the severity of the outbreak. He advocated for the strategic closure of certain parts of society, such as indoor bars and restaurants. Redfield said he was “disappointed” when New York City briefly closed all of its public schools last month, adding that they do not appear to drive spread of the virus.

He also pointed to university and college campuses, where he said outbreaks have been largely avoided through the strategic deployment of surveillance testing combined with infection prevention measures like mask wearing.

“I used to think that the most difficult group that we were going to have to help contain this was basically college students,” Redfield said. “But what happened over the summer and the fall, is many of the colleges and universities really stepped up to developing comprehensive mitigation steps.”

One factor that makes this virus so dangerous, Redfield said, is that it spreads largely through people who don’t have symptoms, or spreads before patients develop symptoms. That makes it difficult to control what he called “the silent epidemic” without testing broadly throughout the population, including people without symptoms but who might have been exposed to the virus. The CDC is working on guidance for institutions and workplaces that will help them strategically deploy testing, he said.

Another bright spot, Redfield said, is that promising vaccines are on the way, but mitigation measures will still be necessary well into next year. He predicted that the country won’t be able to return to holding large gatherings until the fall of 2021.

There are many lessons to be learned from the pandemic, Redfield said, adding that “I wasn’t prepared to understand how little investment had been made in the core capabilities of public health.”

He said there has been inadequate investment in the public health labs around the country that process many diagnostic tests and in the digitization of public health records, which hindered the federal government’s response to the pandemic.

“There’s a huge lack of investment, which I hope this pandemic will change,” he said. Redfield estimated the health crisis has cost the U.S. at least $8 trillion.

“Probably one of our greatest casualties of the pandemic this year was the impact on the business community, and on just general health care, the impact on our children’s education.”

 

[marsh]

Would you be willing to get a Covid vaccine in exchange for a $1,500 stimulus check? How one bold proposal would work

Americans want more stimulus checks. The government wants them to get Covid-19 vaccinations. One former politician has a plan that aims to please both.

www.cnbc.com

Would you be willing to get a Covid vaccine in exchange for a $1,500 stimulus check? How one bold proposal would work

PUBLISHED THU, DEC 3 20202:17 PM ESTUPDATED THU, DEC 3 20202:30 PM EST
Lorie Konish@LORIEKONISH

KEY POINTS

• Americans are eager for more one-time stimulus checks, while the U.S. government is working to get Covid-19 vaccinations to the American public.
• Now, one proposal from former congressman John Delaney aims to help both sides by providing stimulus checks in exchange for getting vaccinated.
• The goal: to reach a 75% vaccination rate faster, which could save both lives and the U.S. economy.

A significant percentage of corporate chief financial officers are making 2021 spending and hiring plans around vaccine optimism, but the current case surge in the U.S. and Europe is making a dent in confidence.
Robyn Beck | AFP | Getty Images

Millions of Americans are still hoping for a second round of stimulus checks to help them cope with the financial fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government is preparing to distribute vaccinations to the American public in order to put an end to the public health crisis.

Now, one proposal aims to help both efforts by giving people $1,500 stimulus checks in exchange for getting immunized.

The idea comes from entrepreneur John Delaney, a former Democratic congressman for Maryland who also ran for president in 2020.

“The faster we get 75 percent of this country vaccinated, the faster we end Covid and the sooner everything returns to normal,” Delaney said in an interview with CNBC.com.

Admittedly, the plan could face some hurdles.

Congress has worked for months to come to an agreement on the next coronavirus stimulus package. Republicans and Democrats are still at odds, even as 12 million people could lose unemployment benefits in a few weeks if nothing is done. More stimulus checks, once an area of bipartisan agreement, now seem to be off the table.

At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control met this week to decide who should be first in line to get vaccinated. Once the vaccines are approved, they will roll out to Americans free of charge. But some individuals may be afraid to take the newly developed treatments. One Gallup poll found that 58% of Americans said they would get a Covid-19 vaccine.

How Delaney’s plan would work

Public polling has found that whether or not to take the vaccine has become a political issue, which is discouraging, Delaney said.

“We have to create, in my judgment, an incentive for people to really accelerate their thinking about taking the vaccine,” Delaney said.

To be sure, those who are not comfortable receiving the vaccine would not be forced to do so.

“If you’re still afraid of the vaccine and don’t want to take it, that’s your right,” Delaney said. “You won’t participate in this program.

“But guess what?” he added. “You’re going to benefit anyhow, because we’ll get the country to herd immunity faster, which benefits you. So I think everyone wins.”

To execute the plan, the government could create a system where people would receive a number once they were vaccinated. Once they enter that along with their Social Security number, they would receive a check.

In the U.S., we already have measures to encourage people to get vaccines, such as requiring them in order for children to attend school.

“It’s not like we don’t pull levers to get people vaccinated,” Delaney said. “We do that now.”

Some other countries already reimburse people for vaccine compliance, Delaney noted. In Mexico, the government pays people to get their children immunized. In India, one program provides food and household goods once kids are vaccinated.

What it would cost

Sending Americans $1,500 in exchange for vaccinations would cost $380 billion, which Delaney admits is a lot of money.

In comparison, the first stimulus checks sent by the government this year so far total more than $270 billion.

The fact that Congress has so far neglected to approve second stimulus checks is “tragic,” Delaney said, and should have been given to Americans anyway.

The cost of the next stimulus package is a source of contention between the political parties on Capitol Hill. Democrats are currently advocating for $900 billion as a starting point, while Republican leadership has said it wants something around $500 billion.

Adding this new $380 billion might seem too expensive, as lawmakers try to squeeze in ample funding for unemployed workers, small businesses, state and local governments, schools and health-care organizations.

However, tying stimulus checks to vaccinations would actually be the most effective strategy to stop the virus, and thus curtail the need for other forms of aid, Delaney said.

“The faster we get 75% of this country vaccinated, the faster we end Covid and the sooner everything returns to normal, which means we don’t need any more programs,” Delaney said.

“So if you can only spend $400 billion, this is what you should spend it on.”

The stimulus checks do not necessarily have to be $1,500, Delaney said. Other proposals have called for payments ranging anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000.

Currently, there are no formal proposals on Capitol Hill to tie stimulus check eligibility to Covid-19 vaccinations. Delaney said he has fielded inquiries about the proposal from former colleagues on the progressive and moderate sides.

Why some experts have questions

Some experts are skeptical that such a plan could work.

“It’s an interesting idea,” said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former Senate staffer. “It’s a nudge factor.

“But that shouldn’t be an issue then that decides on a stimulus check, if we’re going to have stimulus checks out there,” Hoagland said.

In some ways, creating the incentive to get vaccinated makes sense, said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

But such an initiative could create unintended delays in delivering the money.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Philadelphia Priest Dies After Participating In Moderna COVID Vaccine Trial

Thu, 12/03/2020 - 18:00
As millions of elderly Americans prepare to take COVID-19 vaccines that, according to numerous reports, can elicit some pretty serious post-2nd dose side-effects for a day or so, LifeSiteNews has reported that a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic priest died at his PA home after participating in Moderna's vaccine trial.

The cause of death isn't yet known, and it's unclear whether his participation in the trial for the new mRNA vaccine is connected to the death.



Father John Fields was the Communications and Religious Education Director for the Archeparchy of Philadelphia, which is part of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. In the announcement of his death, the Archeparchy stated that Father Fields "has passed away in his home. The cause of death is yet to be determined". The priest was 70.

JFields recently participated in the trials of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine after receiving an email from the University of Pennsylvania at the end of August asking if he wished to "participate in the third and final phase" of the vaccine trial.

He was reportedly approached because of his age, since he was in the age bracket the study team "deemed the higher risk group for the COVID-19 virus." The first injection he received was on Aug. 31, with the second on Oct. 1.

Notably, the priest reported no serious symptoms after the second dose.

“I think of the researchers, who in only several months, as part of Operation Warp Speed, collectively used their knowledge and wisdom from Almighty God to achieve this medical milestone," he had said. "I may be able [to] contribute in some small way to the development of an effective vaccine that would help stop this worldwide COVID-19 pandemic and the fear."

Before jumping to conclusions, it's worth noting that another priest suggested that Father Fields might have had a heart attack. But some organizations have raised questions about the rate of "serious" injury in the high-risk group of Moderna trial volunteers, as was disclosed with the latest round of 'Phase 3' trial data.

Three of the 15 human guinea pigs in the high-dose cohort - 250MG - reportedly suffered a "serious adverse event" within 43 days of receiving Moderna's jab.

 

[rob0126]

With the tests being 95% inaccurate, how in the world do people know if they have it or not?

The cases are blowing up because it's winter time and people get the flu (because they get a flu shot or catch it from someone who did).



Im not discounting the ones who actually get covid.

The .gov is using the winter season to blow up the numbers, just like they were caught doing the first time.

 

[marsh]

I found out my ex has just tested positive for COVID. His wife is a NP, so I think it is likely a good diagnosis. That is the first case to touch my "family."

 

[marsh]

Supreme Court Strikes Down Gavin Newsom's Lockdown Ban on Church Worship Services - LifeNews.com

Churches in California received a major victory today when the Supreme Court struck down California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ban on indoor worship services. The unsigned decision follow quickly on the heels of a major ruling at Thanksgiving striking down a New York ordinance severely limiting church...

www.lifenews.com

Supreme Court Strikes Down Gavin Newsom’s Lockdown Ban on Church Worship Services
NATIONAL STEVEN ERTELT DEC 3, 2020 | 2:13PM WASHINGTON, DC


Churches in California received a major victory today when the Supreme Court struck down California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ban on indoor worship services. The unsigned decision follow quickly on the heels of a major ruling at Thanksgiving striking down a New York ordinance severely limiting church attendance to as low as 10 people.

The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a California church challenging Newsom’s order. The unsigned order had no dissents as the nation’s highest court tossed out an order from the federal district judge Central District of California, which had upheld Newsom’s restrictions.

The justices vacated the district judge’s ruling and sent the case back down to the lower court for further consideration in light of its ruling in Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, which struck down New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s restrictions.

U.S. Supreme Court granted cert and vacated the lower court orders involving the emergency petition of Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry. The Court stated in its order:

“The application for injunctive relief, presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court, is treated as a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment, and the petition is granted. The September 2 order of the United States District Court for the Central District of California is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit with instructions to remand to the District Court for further consideration in light of Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 592 U. S. ___ (2020).”

Tuesday, Liberty Counsel filed the final reply brief to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding its request for an injunction pending appeal in the churches’ federal lawsuit against California Governor Gavin Newsom’s unconstitutional worship ban and discriminatory treatment. The emergency petition also requested the extraordinary relief that the Court alternatively consider it as a petition for writ of cert before judgment.

Today, the Supreme Court granted the petition, vacated the lower court orders, and remanded the case for further consideration in light of its ruling last week that granted an injunction pending appeal for churches and synagogues in New York.

The restrictions against places of worship in California are more severe than those in New York. Governor Gavin Newsom’s orders ban ALL in-person worship for 99.1 percent of Californians.

Harvest Rock Church has multiple campuses in California, including in Pasadena, Los Angeles, Irvine and Corona. Harvest International Ministries (HIM) has 162 member churches throughout the state. Irreparable harm is being suffered every day as the churches remain subject to the unconstitutional restrictions, coupled with daily criminal threats, fines, and closure.

The Code Enforcement Division for the City of Pasadena and the Criminal Prosecutor have threatened criminal charges, fines, and closure for being open for worship against the governor’s orders and local health orders. The letters threaten up to one year in prison, daily criminal charges and $1,000 fines against the pastors, staff, and parishioners.

The discrimination has become more obvious and severe in Gov. Newsom’s new “Blueprint” issued on August 28, 2020, which established a system of four Tiers. The “Blueprint” discriminates against religious meetings in churches and places of worship in every Tier. The chart attached to the petition makes this discrimination very clear. For example, the consequence of the sea of purple in the “color-coded executive edict” is that indoor worship services are completely prohibited for 99.1 percent of Californians, including most of Harvest Rock and HIM churches. However, warehouses, big box centers, shopping malls, liquors stores, family entertainment and destination centers, gyms, fitness centers, and museums receive preferential treatment with either no capacity limits or no numerical limits.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court provides great relief for churches and places of worship. The handwriting is now on the wall. The final days of Governor Gavin Newsom’s ‘color-coded executive edicts’ banning worship are numbered and coming to an end. It is past time to end these unconstitutional restrictions on places of worship.”

 

[marsh]

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Christmas: 'Don't Travel; Don't Congregate Together'

Appearing Thursday on MSNBC, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Americans against traveling for the Christmas holiday due to the coronavirus pandemic.

www.breitbart.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Christmas: ‘Don’t Travel; Don’t Congregate Together’

457

GRAEME JENNINGS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
JOSHUA CAPLAN3 Dec 20203,472

Appearing Thursday on MSNBC, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Americans against traveling for the Christmas holiday due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A partial transcript is as follows:

ANDREA MITCHELL: Should people now cancel their travel plans for Christmas?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: I think they’re going to have to make individual decisions, but I think we need to, as a nation, seriously consider the things that we in the public health arena have been talking about, of minimizing travel to the extent possible. Sometimes it’s absolutely necessary, but to the extent possible, don’t travel; don’t congregate together. I know how difficult that is. We all have a strong degree of empathy knowing — and myself included — about wanting to be with your family, wanting to have a large Christmas dinner with family and friends over. Right now, that just should not be done. To the best of our capabilities we should avoid travel and avoid congregate settings.

 

[marsh]

Brits Told To Get A Vaccine If They Want Their freedoms Back - The People's Voice

Harsh restrictions will remain in place longer if Britons refuse to be vaccinated, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer warned.

newspunch.com

Brits Told To Get A Vaccine If They Want Their freedoms Back

“IF YOU WANT THAT DREAM TO COME TRUE AS QUICKLY AS IT CAN COME TRUE, THEN YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE VACCINE WHEN IT’S OFFERED TO YOU,” SAYS DEPUTY CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER

December 2, 2020 Niamh Harris News, UK 13 Comments

The UK’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer has told Britons they will need to get a coronavirus vaccine if they want their freedoms back.

Harsh restrictions will remain in place longer if Britons refuse to be vaccinated, Jonathan Van-Tam warned

The Independent reports: Van-Tam said the entire country was “fed up” with social distancing – but said “the dream” of ending it lay in the hands of ordinary people, weighing up whether to have a jab.

“If you want that dream to come true as quickly as it can come true, then you have to take the vaccine when it’s offered to you,” he told a press conference.

“Low uptake will almost certainly make restrictions last longer.”

The comments came as the first survey since the dramatic go-ahead for the Pfizer vaccine found that one in five Britons lacks confidence in it.

Professor Van-Tam said he believed the days of the government recommending social distancing and mask-wearing would end, as “we get back to a much more normal world”.

But he also warned: “I don’t think we are going to eradicate coronavirus ever – I think it is going to be with humankind forever.”

He suggested it might become “a seasonal problem”, like flu, but there would be no moment for a “massive party”, akin to the end of the Second World War.

“I think those kinds of habits that we learned, that clearly stop the spread of other respiratory diseases like flu, will perhaps persist for many years.”

Alongside him, Boris Johnson was again more bullish about the prospects for the vaccine, saying he was “sure and certain knowledge we will succeed”.

But he played down any hopes of an earlier easing of the tiered system of restrictions, which is expected to last until at least March.

“I suppose there will come a moment when, if you imagine the graph of immunised, vaccinated, inoculated people going up one way, there will come a moment when we’re able obviously to start to relax the non-pharmaceutical intervention.

“We hope will allow us to come down the tiering scales – but we’re not there yet and I’ve got to stress that.

“This is theoretical and we have got to wait and see how fast we can vaccinate people. It’s weeks, months of work to go before we’re in that situation.”

However, most care home residents will need to wait for their vaccine – despite being top of the priority list – because of difficulties in transporting the newly-approved Pfizer jab, the head of the NHS confirmed.

Simon Stevens the jab has to be stored at such low temperatures that it can only be moved a few times, while the packs of doses – with 975 doses per pack – cannot yet be split up.

 

[marsh]

Creepy: Immunization Action Coalition Calls for COVID ID Cards for Americans to Carry in their Wallet | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

Vaxxer Bill Gates When Democrats demanded that American voters should NOT have to show an ID card to vote it was the beginning of the end of a free and fair vote.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

Creepy: Immunization Action Coalition Calls for COVID ID Cards for Americans to Carry in their Wallet

By Jim Hoft
Published December 3, 2020 at 4:13pm

Vaxxer Bill Gates

When Democrats demanded that American voters should NOT have to show an ID card to vote it was the beginning of the end of a free and fair vote.

All countries demand an identification card to vote.

Not the US.
The cradle of modern day democracy.

Policies like that led to the all-out assault on our elections system this year where Democrats used any and all means necessary to steal the election for their feeble basement candidate.

They don’t care.
They think it’s their right.

But now the government is proposing vaccine cards to carry in your wallet.
That way you will know when it is time to get your next dose.

This is creepy as hell.

 

[marsh]

"I Don't Want to Scare Anybody" - Joe Biden Says 250,000 Americans will Die From Covid in the Next Few Weeks (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila

78-year-old Joe Biden made the absurd claim that 250,000 Americans will die from Covid-19 in the next few weeks.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

“I Don’t Want to Scare Anybody” – Joe Biden Says 250,000 Americans will Die From Covid in the Next Few Weeks (VIDEO)

By Cristina Laila
Published December 3, 2020 at 5:12pm

78-year-old Joe Biden made the absurd claim that 250,000 Americans will die from Covid-19 in the next few weeks.

Biden told Americans they “cannot be traveling for the holidays” and warned against gathering for Christmas.

“I don’t want to scare anybody here but understand the facts: we’re likely to lose another 250,000 people — DEAD — between now and January,” said Biden.
Biden’s claim is ten times higher than what is currently projected but of course no one fact-checked or disputed him.

Senile Biden previously said 200 million Americans died from Covid so he should sit this one out.

WATCH:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1334534759981215747

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1334534759981215747
1:49 min

 

[frazbo]

Anybody listen to the new Chris Martinson video about the success of Ivermectin? It's a wowser for use before, during and after and the success rate around the world. Pretty darn amazing. Even deals with "the Long Haulers", those that have "recovered" but still have fatigue, brain fog, muscle aches, etc.

I like the guy. We will be taking it in this house as a prophylactic along with the anti-virals we've been taking all along...just gotta go find the dosage by body weight and I'll be a happy camper...it's in my notes, somewhere...I'm old and my filing system sucks...lol.

 

[auxman]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1334870948277866496

View: https://twitter.com/Mike_Pence/status/1334870948277866496

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5-S49EqCJ8
27:37 min
Best Covid Treatment To Date By Far!
•Premiered 19 hours ago

Peak Prosperity

The data is 100% in agreement: All studies show a clinical benefit for use of Ivermectin. It works as a pre-exposure prophylaxis, post exposure prophylaxis, and when given to both early and late hospitalized patients.

As importantly, one study shows a profound improvement in the symptoms for the "long haul" Covid sufferers, for which no other treatments seem to have worked.

If you think you've been exposed, or have been exposed, or work in a high risk situation, or you have Covid symptoms, or you are a long haul suffere, the data is clear: take Ivermectin immediately.

The sooner the better. As is always true of an antiviral. Or antibiotic. That should be crystal clear to everyone except the designers of the tragic RECOVERY trial in the UK, and various W.H.O. study designers. They seem to be a bit dense on the topic for *cough$$$*cough some unknown reason$.

If your health provider won't provide Ivermectin, then go elsewhere. You have a quack, or a slow learner on your hands, not an up-to-date doc. Links: Ivermectin Meta Data https://ivmmeta.com/ Meta Review of Ivermectin (Pre-Print) – This is MEGA IMPORTANT! https://osf.io/wx3zn/ Ivermectin in Mexico https://www.sie7edechiapas.com/post/r... Ivermectin in Romania https://www.smartradio.ro/covid-19-iv...

[I stopped following Chris when he stopped doing COVID and went back to the global warming and sustainability agenda. I will re-follow at this time.]

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E908QA-zuic
14:56 min
214 - The Ongoing Process of Determining COVID-19 Vaccines Safety
•Dec 4, 2020

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

While clinical trials are a “gold standard” to indicate if a vaccine’s benefits outweigh its risks, safety monitoring doesn’t stop there. Dr. Daniel Salmon, director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Vaccine Safety, helped lead federal efforts to monitor the H1N1 vaccine’s safety once it became widely used in 2009. Dr. Salmon talks with Stephanie Desmon about what goes into monitoring a vaccine for safety, identifying coincidental vs. uncommon effects, and what the public needs to know to enhance trust in COVID-19 vaccines.

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6106EWtCRkw
1:44 min
No direct payments in bipartisan framework for $908 billion COVID-19 relief bill
•Premiered 5 hours ago


Just The News
The $908 billion "without the direct payments is where the 80%, 75% consensus was," according to the co-chair of the House Problem Solvers Caucus.

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9h-RumqvGU
11:42 min
Would you take the COVID vaccine for $1500?
•Dec 4, 2020

Glenn Beck

Former Congressman John Delaney recently proposed a new plan to convince Americans to take the COVID vaccine: a $1500 check. A recent Gallup poll shows at least 42 percent of Americans are hesitant to take the vaccine, so would an incentive help? Pat and Stu discuss how this 'bribe' could play out in the coming months...

 

[marsh]

Pelosi Admits She Sent Millions Into Poverty by Holding Up Covid Relief For Political Reasons - Says She is Now Willing to do Smaller Covid Deal with Biden (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila

Let them eat ice cream.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

Pelosi Admits She Sent Millions Into Poverty by Holding Up Covid Relief For Political Reasons – Says She is Now Willing to do Smaller Covid Deal with Biden (VIDEO)

By Cristina Laila
Published December 4, 2020 at 1:11pm

Let them eat ice cream.

House Speaker Nancy “Antoinette” Pelosi (D-CA) held up a Covid relief bill for several months and refused to budge over her desired liberal wish list in the “HEROES Act.”

Millions of people have lost their jobs and were forced to shut down their small businesses because of authoritarian government mandates.

The first round of stimulus money and PPP loans dried up yet the Democrats refused to work with President Trump in an effort to sabotage his reelection bid.

Pelosi admitted on Friday that she played politics with the Covid relief bill and now that she believes Joe Biden won the election (he hasn’t), she is willing to take a smaller deal.

WATCH:

Nancy Pelosi says she is willing to do a smaller covid-19 deal citing the “game changer” of Biden’s election and vaccine development:
“That’s OK now because we have a new president. A president who recognizes that we need to depend on science…” pic.twitter.com/Egk9kxWWJV
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) December 4, 2020

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Mayor Garcetti Bans Walking As Latest LA Lockdown Begins

Fri, 12/04/2020 - 14:36

As LA Mayor Eric Garcetti kicks off the most restrictive lockdown in the country in the City of Angels, it appears even walking and exercise are now banned as California takes a page out of Australia's COVID-19 playbook.



During comments earlier this week, the LA Mayor warned "it's time to cancel everything", including "unnecessary travel on foot" - also known as 'walking'.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1334343978251145216

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1334343978251145216
2:38 min

As we reported earlier this week, the order prohibits "all travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit," with limited exceptions.

"All travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit is prohibited, subject to the exceptions in Paragraph V."

Of course, there are a few exceptions: people who work in the health-care industry and news industry are allowed to travel, along with individuals going to grocery stores, gas stations and other locations deemed essential.

Garcetti also ordered all residents living in the city “to remain in their homes,” while barring all inter-household gatherings and requiring all non-essential businesses to either close, or have all their employees return to working from home.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Can Employers Fire Any Employees That Choose Not To Take The COVID Vaccine?

Fri, 12/04/2020 - 14:14
Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

A COVID vaccine is not even available yet, but the mainstream media is already full of stories about whether or not it is legal for employers to fire employees that refuse to take it. To me, this is not even a debate that we should be having. It would be fundamentally anti-American and morally reprehensible for any employer to fire someone for choosing not to get vaccinated. Unfortunately, the mainstream media does not see things that way, and they are interviewing lots of legal experts that are assuring employers that it is perfectly legal to fire people that don’t want to get vaccinated.


For example, the following comes from a CNBC article…

“In general, yes, employers are able to mandate the vaccine when it becomes available with, of course, a bunch of caveats,” says employment lawyer Lindsay Ryan, listing possible exemptions for those with specific medical conditions and those with sincerely held religious convictions.

If religious convictions really did protect employees, that would be great.

From my perspective, any employee that refuses to get vaccinated based on a sincerely held religious conviction should definitely be shielded from being fired under federal law.

Unfortunately, the CNBC article goes on to explain why federal law is probably not going to protect any person of faith from mandatory vaccination requirements…

Ryan emphasizes that state laws regulating what constitutes reasonable accommodations for religious groups vary significantly, but that “under federal law, employers don’t have to grant a religious accommodation if doing so would result in more than a de minimis cost to the operation of the business.”

“De minimis” is Latin for “of minimum importance” and is used in law to refer to a total so small that it is not even recognized. Given how significantly the pandemic has impacted businesses, Ryan says “this is a pretty low standard.” Meaning, many employers will likely have legal ground to require vaccination.

In other words, under federal law there is hardly any protection at all for workers that wish to refuse the COVID vaccine.

Other major news outlets have been publishing similar stories. This excerpt comes from a piece that was published by Reuters…

Gostin and five other health law experts said private companies in the United States have broad liberties to set health and safety standards, which would allow them to mandate vaccinations as a condition of employment with some exceptions.

It is almost as if there is a coordinated effort to make employers across the country aware that they can issue such mandates.

A little over a decade ago, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration ruled that employers could make vaccines mandatory during the swing flu pandemic, but of course that crisis faded rather rapidly and so very few employers actually went in that direction.

But now it appears that COVID-19 is going to be with us for quite a while, and some employers have already decided that they are going to make vaccination mandatory for all employees…

Just a few months into the coronavirus pandemic, Holly Smith had already made up her mind. She was not going to reopen her restaurant to diners until there was a vaccine. She just didn’t think it was safe. When she shared the decision with her staff, they asked: Would the vaccine be mandatory?
Yes, she said. It would be.
“I’m not going to open until I can indeed be sure that everyone on my staff is vaccinated,” says Smith, chef and owner of Cafe Juanita in Kirkland, Wash. “The immediate people on the team — you’ve got to take care of them. If you don’t take care of them, they cannot help you take care of business.”

If some of her employees do not want to take the vaccine, they will be hitting the bricks.

And as I have detailed repeatedly in recent weeks, it is not easy to find another job in this economy.

The good news is that most employers will likely be hesitant to mandate vaccines because of the potential of pushback from their employees.

According to a recent Gallup survey, 42 percent of all Americans do not plan to get a COVID-19 vaccine…

Americans’ willingness to be vaccinated against COVID-19 rebounded a bit in October, as seen in Gallup polling conducted before Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna made promising announcements about the likely effectiveness of their coronavirus vaccines. Fifty-eight percent of Americans in the latest poll say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine, up from a low of 50% in September.

It is estimated that there are 328 million people living in the United States right now, and 42 percent of 328 million is 137 million.

If those 137 million people stand up for their God-given rights, we almost certainly will not see widespread vaccine mandates.

But will they?
We shall see.

In the months ahead, there is going to be so much public pressure to get vaccinated, and the CDC plans to aggressively promote their vaccination campaign.

They even plan to distribute “buttons or stickers” so that people that have been injected can advertise that fact to others…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to offer health care providers a template they can use to print buttons or stickers that would advertise a person’s vaccination status. The idea is that the button would be handed out to patients after they receive their vaccination shots.

The effort is part of a “toolkit” that the CDC plans to provide healthcare systems to “educate and promote vaccination,” a CDC spokesperson told ABC News.

In addition, within the past few days Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden have all committed to being vaccinated publicly…

President-elect Joe Biden said he would publicly take a vaccine when it’s available to encourage the public to get vaccinated, joining three former presidents who recently pledged to do the same.

Biden said he’d “be happy” to join former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in getting the vaccine in public to prove it is safe.

That would seem to be quite a public relations coup for the pharmaceutical companies, but if any of them has any sort of an adverse reaction to the vaccine it will rapidly transform into a public relations nightmare.

Of course the truth is that nobody really knows what the long-term side effects of taking COVID vaccines will be for the population as a whole.

As I have discussed previously, this entirely new class of mRNA vaccines has never been tried before, and those that line up first to get a COVID vaccine will be the guinea pigs.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

About Those Vaccine ID Cards...

Fri, 12/04/2020 - 08:46
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

An idea that's simple as an abstraction - vaccine ID cards - turns out to be extremely difficult once real-world operational realities must be dealt with.

Authorities around the world have made it clear that they will do "whatever it takes" to vaccinate their citizenry with one of the first available vaccines.

Authoritarian states may mandate universal vaccinations while less authoritarian states will favor a "carrot and stick" approach of offering benefits to the vaccinated and exclusions from employment, education, travel and most of everyday life for those who refuse to be vaccinated.

To identify the vaccinated and unvaccinated, many nations are planning to issue ID cards or "vaccine passports." As an abstraction, this seems straightforward, but if we start digging into the actual operational requirements of this mass ID card issuance and distribution, a number of common-sense issues arise.

Vaccination cards will be issued to everyone getting Covid-19 vaccine, health officials say (CNN)

First and foremost, it's unknown how long the immunity offered by the vaccines will last. It's still early days, so there is conflicting evidence: some claim the vaccines will be longer-lasting than the natural immunity of those who caught the virus and recovered, while other evidence suggests the immunity might decay after six months. Despite claims that natural immunity is long-lasting, a non-trivial number of people who had Covid have been re-infected.
Nobody knows how long either natural or vaccine immunity will last because not enough time has elapsed to collect sufficient data.

Given these intrinsic unknowns, how long will the ID card be valid? It's easy to imagine variations in individual responses such that the vaccines' effectiveness decays more rapidly in 20% of the vaccinated. This variability would introduce tremendous unknowns that no ID card could reflect: is the holder of the card at Month 10 still immune or not?

If the duration of the vaccine's effectiveness is variable, then an ID card could be misleading. In other words, being vaccinated with a variable-duration vaccine tells us nothing about the individual's actual immunity down the road.

Given these unknowns, the vaccinated may need booster shots in the future, and the ID cards would have to be re-issued. The task of keeping track of hundreds of millions of vaccination records, identities and then issuing ID cards is a non-trivial task.

To thwart black-market fake-ID cards, the security measures will have to be equivalent to a driver's license or passport. Have you applied recently for either of these forms of ID? The process is painfully slow. The systems in place to process state drivers' licenses and U.S. passports are already strained, and which agency is prepared to verify the identity of 280 million adult citizens, confirm the validity of their vaccine and then issue ID cards--and then repeat this process in a year?

If the procedures for issuing vaccine ID cards are slapdash due to time constraints--for example, downloading a digital record from the vaccine distributor or a printed card--these will likely be vulnerable to being duplicated or spoofed. Fake vaccine distributors will pop up issuing bogus digital records, hackers might download and sell digital records from trusted sources, and so on.

Then there's the extra burdens being placed on the staff of airlines, cruise lines, etc. to scan these documents and deal with rejected cards. Who will have the legal authority to deal with claims that a rejected card is actually valid? How many smaller establishments simply won't have to staff to do more than glance at the card?

Do authorities have the means to issue hundreds of millions of absolutely secure vaccine ID cards and then monitor all the attempts to find loopholes and weaknesses in the process? If authorities think that strict penalties will limit this activity, they underestimate the difficulty in getting such penalties enforced by overloaded court systems.

In nations with strong traditions of civil liberties, there will be pushback against mandatory vaccinations with essentially untested vaccines and against national databases tying identity to vaccination cards--a situation ripe with potential for abuse.

Authorities don't seem to grasp that many of those hesitating to get vaccinated are not anti-vaxxers; they simply see the vaccine approval process as deeply flawed for common-sense reasons: for example, there is simply not enough data on safety, duration and real-world efficacy.

Authorities are counting on the "carrot" of air travel, cruises and concerts to persuade skeptics to get vaccinated despite their concerns. What authorities don't seem to realize is that a great many people value their health, privacy and agency far more than they crave air travel, cruises or concerts. They will gladly forego all these activities until more reliable data is collected, peer-reviewed and distributed for analysis.

The more draconian the measures designed to pressure people into getting the vaccines, the greater the reluctance of skeptics who see the draconian measures as additional evidence the vaccines are half-measures being forced on the populace as a means of imposing a false assurance that all is well and "normal" will return as soon as the skeptics cave in and get vaccinated.

There's also the possibility that the virus could mutate in ways that moot the vaccines' effectiveness. While this is widely considered unlikely, it's not impossible, either. If a mutated virus arises that evades the vaccine, then what value will the vaccine ID card have?

An idea that's simple as an abstraction--vaccine ID cards--turns out to be extremely difficult once real-world operational realities must be dealt with.

The fact is the first vaccines have been rushed to approval with virtually none of the testing demanded of previous vaccines raises common-sense concerns which cannot be dissolved with force or carrots and sticks.


* * *

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

The Plot Against Small Businesses

Fri, 12/04/2020 - 18:20
Authored by Ash Staub via HumanEvents.,com,

If one were to consider the upward transfer of wealth and market share to Big Business since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one would think such economic changes were intended. After all, it’s no secret that the interests of politicians and the corporate elite align more often than not.



As we near a year of lockdowns and sheltering in place, the long-term effects of pandemic policy on the economy are becoming clearer. Almost every piece of legislation ostensibly designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus and protect workers has wreaked devastation on small businesses—while benefiting the largest corporations. Roughly 100,000 small businesses have permanently closed due to COVID-19, while big-box retailers, tech giants, and pharmaceutical manufacturers have seen record profits.

America’s small businesses currently face an attack on all fronts.

• First, there are the more visible policies (e.g., lockdowns, mask mandates, and social distancing requirements) that strongly discourage people from patronizing brick-and-mortar retailers and restaurants. These policies impact small businesses more than large chains and corporations. Small retailers, for example, may not have the space to effectively implement social distancing policies, and often lack an online infrastructure to support curbside pickups of retail goods.
  
  
• Second, the cost of complying with health and safety guidelines, and the corresponding fines if businesses don’t comply, have forced businesses to incur additional expenses while their revenue declines. According to the Small Business Administration, the cost of compliance disproportionately impacts small businesses, who lack the funds and infrastructure of large corporations to adapt to new regulation. Overhauling a business to accommodate remote work, for example, requires a flexibility and an investment of resources that many small businesses simply do not have. For dine-in restaurants, the vast majority of which are small businesses, switching to outdoor dining is often not even possible given the business’s location.
• Lastly, there are ever-evolving COVID-19 employment regulations that disproportionately expose small businesses to lawsuits and the subsequent legal expenses and damages that may result. The conspicuous absence of liability protection also disadvantages small businesses, as the largest corporations can spare the capital required to fight lawsuits and painlessly pay out any damages. For example, Publix, a large supermarket chain, has so far managed to avoid paying damages to the family of an employee who died of COVID-19 due to the fact that he wasn’t allowed to wear a mask at work.

Despite the fact that these policies are explicitly harmful to small businesses, they can be justified on the basis of “public health” and thereby shielded from criticism. Practically unlimited regulation (that always seems to benefit the corporate elite) can be defended, because such policies are said to be designed to ensure the health and safety of the public. Opposition to these onerous restrictions can therefore be conveniently characterized as “anti-science,” or worse, reckless and/or malicious endangerment of one’s community.

As a consequence, policies that explicitly disadvantage small businesses, such as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), can be passed under the guise of public health and worker protection without raising any alarm bells.

When considering the cumulative effects of pandemic policy, a clear pattern begins to emerge. Every substantial piece of COVID-19 legislation enacted at the federal level has harmed small businesses while benefiting large corporations. This indicates, at the very least, a willful indifference on the part of lawmakers to the plight of small businesses, but more likely, a conscious effort to disadvantage small businesses for the advantage of Big Business.



THE EFFECTS OF COVID-19 LEGISLATION
The FFCRA, passed in March of this year, requires businesses to provide two weeks of paid sick leave for quarantined employees and/or employees experiencing COVID-19 related symptoms. It also requires two weeks of paid sick leave at two-thirds the regular rate of pay for employees who need to care for quarantined individuals, such as elderly relatives or spouses. Furthermore, employers must also provide ten weeks of extended leave, also at two-thirds the regular rate of pay, for employees caring for their children due to school closures.
The FFCRA only applies to employers with fewer than 500 employees.

It sounds absurd, but it’s correct; the businesses most capable of providing these benefits are under no legal obligation to do so, while those most affected by the pandemic are expected to incur the FFCRA’s additional expenses. While the actual cost of paid leave is reimbursed through tax credits, there is no reimbursement for lost labor and productivity, and the subsequent disadvantage compared to large, FFCRA-exempt competitors. This is not to say that businesses should or should not provide these benefits—only to point out how the policy singles out and targets small businesses.

And as small businesses shut down in droves, it’s difficult to justify this competitive disadvantage. 58% of small business owners say they’re worried about closing, while 100,000 small businesses have already closed. The smallest businesses are the hardest hit: 48% of businesses with 1-4 employees claim to have been severely impacted by the new COVID-era regulations.

Furthermore, the financial burden of the FFCRA extends beyond the simple cost of compliance. As a result of the FFCRA, small businesses have been sued over violations of employment regulations at a substantially higher rate than big businesses. Despite employing 52% of the nation’s workforce, private employers with less than 500 employees (those forced to comply with the FFCRA) were the defendants in 65% of COVID-19 related employment lawsuits; employers with less than 50 employees were the defendants in 38% of lawsuits. That means the businesses least capable of contesting an employment lawsuit, much less incurring the financial burden of liability damages and legal fees, are the businesses most often sued.

Thus, the FFCRA has imposed financial obligations on small businesses while exempting big businesses. Small businesses are forced to pay the cost of complying with the FFCRA, while big businesses are not. Small businesses are at risk of FFCRA-related lawsuits; big businesses are not. The FFCRA clearly disadvantages small businesses, and expecting small businesses to incur the cost of the FFCRA while their revenue plummets, and their corporate competition profits, is a recipe for widespread small business bankruptcy.
And that is exactly what’s happening.

This is a feature, not a bug, and calls into question the true purpose of the FFCRA. There is no good-faith reason for big businesses to be exempt from the FFCRA that would also not apply to small businesses. Furthermore, if the FFCRA really was designed to protect workers, why only cover half the workforce? Why exempt the largest employers? Are Walmart employees privy to some germ-repelling magic elixir, thereby absolving Walmart of the same responsibilities demanded of small businesses? The fact of the matter is that the FFCRA is more interested in transferring the market share of small businesses to giant corporations than protecting workers.

Federal relief, or lack thereof, reinforces this claim. The CARES Act, the 2.2 trillion dollar federal stimulus bill passed in March, offers a lifeline to small businesses in the form of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a loan issued at a 1% interest rate. Yet the loan only covers roughly ten weeks of payroll expenses, and applications closed in early August. It is now early December, and further financial aid to small businesses has yet to be legislated. Moreover, while the CARES Act offers $349 billion in aid to small businesses, it provides upwards of $500 billion to large businesses, in effect rewarding the businesses already profiting off the pandemic, to the detriment of the small businesses suffering the most.

Relief in the form of liability protection is also not forthcoming. The HEALS Act, a stimulus bill which would include COVID-19 liability shields for all employers, has been tied up in the Senate since July, with much of its delay attributable to opposition to its liability protections. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is among the more vocal opponents of liability shields, arguing that businesses would be “off the hook” if an employee or customer were to contract COVID-19 at a business establishment, thereby permitting businesses to neglect health precautions. “Without any ability to hold an employer [liable],” Gillibrand argues, “then you’re putting a lot of workers and a lot of Americans across the country at grave risk.”

Even though big businesses are actively lobbying for and would benefit from liability shields, it’s clear that withholding liability protections disproportionately impacts small businesses while favoring corporations with the most capital and access to quality legal representation. A retail giant such as Target, which has unsurprisingly profited off the pandemic, can easily afford to pay out any liability damages. Moreover, Target has the resources to contest the claim in court. But a family-owned consignment store? A single lawsuit may well bankrupt the business. And as small businesses are the defendants in a significantly larger portion of COVID-19 related lawsuits, the absence of liability shields contributes to their demise.

Though the lack of liability protection legislation can partly be attributed to garden-variety legislative sclerosis and inefficiency, its absence disproportionately affects small businesses. The degree to which this is intentional is unclear. What is clear, however, is that Congress is well aware of the difficulties facing small businesses given the fact that small business stimulus legislation has been discussed since July, and that the lack of liability protection exacerbates these difficulties, but it has done nothing. This continued inaction as small business bankruptcies and lawsuits pile up is at the very least tantamount to indifference, and therefore tacit approval.

Unless our policymakers are woefully incompetent, the intent of policy cannot be divorced from its effect. And the effect of COVID-19 policy on small businesses has been devastating. Relief is nonexistent, as is the case with liability shields, or inadequate, in the case of the PPP. Public health and worker/customer protection legislation is explicitly harmful to America’s small businesses in the cases of the FFCRA, lockdowns, and onerous restrictions.

If one were extremely charitable, the lack of liability protections can be attributed to callous indifference, and the inadequacy of the PPP can be chalked up to sclerosis and bad policy. Lockdowns and health and safety obligations have public health justifications. But the FFCRA’s targeting of small businesses is indefensible. There is no reasonable explanation for the FFCRA to not apply to Big Business other than to disadvantage small businesses.

When considered together, these policies have demonstrably harmed small businesses while favoring big businesses. The systematic transfer of wealth and market space from small businesses to large corporations is entirely the result of government policy. Again, intent cannot be separated from effect, and the lack of persuasive arguments justifying the targeting of small businesses by policymakers can be explained in simple terms: pandemic policy was an intentional effort by policymakers to facilitate an upward transfer of wealth to Big Business at the expense of small business.

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs4KfmUbiqg
37:29 min
TWiV 689: COVID-19 clinical update #39 with Dr. Daniel Griffin
•Dec 5, 2020


Vincent Racaniello

Daniel Griffin provides his weekly clinical report on COVID-19, including analysis of vitamin D levels in patients, information on Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, distribution plans suggested by ACIP, and more. Show notes at https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-689/