CORONA Main Coronavirus thread

[marsh]

Something Truly Remarkable is Unfolding in France, And It's Starting to Feel a Little "King Louis-ish" - Revolver News

There’s something happening in France right now with Macron and lockdown protests, and it’s starting to feel a little bit like Louis XVI.

www.revolver.news

Something Truly Remarkable is Unfolding in France, And It’s Starting to Feel a Little “King Louis-ish”
August 1, 2021 (1d ago)

There’s something remarkable happening in France right now, and it’s starting to feel a little “Louis XVI-ish.”

If you’re not familiar with the French Revolution (May 5, 1789 – November 9, 1799), it was an incredible period of sweeping political and societal change in France.

And while there were many different circumstances and reasons which sparked the revolution, it really boiled down to three main crisis points: social, political, and economic. And one of the most formidable groups spearheading the push for reform were the peasants — or as we’d call them today, the “working class.”

French peasants were furious over rapid population growth, harvest failures, physiocratic calls for modernization of agriculture — basically “agricultural economists” seeking to revamp farming – -as well as the rising cost of dues paid out to the Lords who owned the land.

These issues were the driving force behind the peasants’ desire to demolish feudalism in France.

In short, the monarchy had gotten far too big for its britches, and the working class said, “enough,” and grabbed their pitchforks and took to the streets… and the rest is history.

There was far more to it than that, but you get the picture.

And as it always does, history repeats its self… and once again, the French working class is back in the streets, with symbolic pitch-forks in hand, protesting a government that’s gotten far too big for its britches.

This time around, the French working class is furious over President Emmanuel Macron’s tyrannical Covid vaccine push.

Macron is basically telling people, you either take the jab or you lose any shot at a normal life.

Threats like that didn’t sit well with the hard-working people of France, and they came out to protest — hundreds of thousands of people.

However, what’s happening in France goes even deeper than vaccines — many of the people who are protesting are also experiencing mounting poverty, and a country that’s been overrun with refugees — this is true especially in cities like Marseilles, whose citizens have a natural inherent distrust of authority and government — they’re like the “Rebel South” in the US.

When you put the entire picture together, you can start to see those “Louis XVI” vibes I mentioned earlier, right?

The images coming out of France are stunning and for those of us in the United States, who feel we’re just a hop, skip, and a jump away from this happening in our country, it’s inspiring to see brave citizens stand up and fight back against tyranny.

Take a look:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1421542598884446223

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1421542598884446223
.18 min

← Front page / Exclusive
Something Truly Remarkable is Unfolding in France, And It’s Starting to Feel a Little “King Louis-ish”
August 1, 2021 (1d ago)



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There’s something remarkable happening in France right now, and it’s starting to feel a little “Louis XVI-ish.”
If you’re not familiar with the French Revolution (May 5, 1789 – November 9, 1799), it was an incredible period of sweeping political and societal change in France.
And while there were many different circumstances and reasons which sparked the revolution, it really boiled down to three main crisis points: social, political, and economic. And one of the most formidable groups spearheading the push for reform were the peasants — or as we’d call them today, the “working class.”
French peasants were furious over rapid population growth, harvest failures, physiocratic calls for modernization of agriculture — basically “agricultural economists” seeking to revamp farming – -as well as the rising cost of dues paid out to the Lords who owned the land.
These issues were the driving force behind the peasants’ desire to demolish feudalism in France.
In short, the monarchy had gotten far too big for its britches, and the working class said, “enough,” and grabbed their pitchforks and took to the streets… and the rest is history.
There was far more to it than that, but you get the picture.
And as it always does, history repeats its self… and once again, the French working class is back in the streets, with symbolic pitch-forks in hand, protesting a government that’s gotten far too big for its britches.
This time around, the French working class is furious over President Emmanuel Macron’s tyrannical Covid vaccine push.
Macron is basically telling people, you either take the jab or you lose any shot at a normal life.
Threats like that didn’t sit well with the hard-working people of France, and they came out to protest — hundreds of thousands of people.
However, what’s happening in France goes even deeper than vaccines — many of the people who are protesting are also experiencing mounting poverty, and a country that’s been overrun with refugees — this is true especially in cities like Marseilles, whose citizens have a natural inherent distrust of authority and government — they’re like the “Rebel South” in the US.
When you put the entire picture together, you can start to see those “Louis XVI” vibes I mentioned earlier, right?
The images coming out of France are stunning and for those of us in the United States, who feel we’re just a hop, skip, and a jump away from this happening in our country, it’s inspiring to see brave citizens stand up and fight back against tyranny.
Take a look:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1421542598884446223

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1421542598884446223
.18 min

Nurses and doctors faced off against cops:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1421536230492278788

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1421536230492278788
.43min

Citizens again swarmed at the Place de la Bastille:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1421492507742031873

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1421492507742031873
.24 min

Bombs in the streets:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1421505285324161033

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1421505285324161033
.16 min

It’s quite a sight to see.

And it makes you wonder, as Emmanuel Macron gazes out his palace window, looking down upon the hordes of angry peasants below if he doesn’t feel a slight kinship to King Louis the 16th — another privileged man who couldn’t understand the plight of his people, and who ended up paying for it with his life.

 

[mzkitty]

While the *fully vaccinated* continue to get ill and spread it around.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1422556611969798154

View: https://twitter.com/PIX11News/status/1422556611969798154

 

[marsh]

NIH Director Francis Collins: "It May Sound Weird" But Parents Should Wear Masks at Home in Front of Their Unvaccinated Kids (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila

Meanwhile on CNN… NIH Director Francis Collins on Tuesday said parents should wear masks at home in front of their unvaccinated children.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

NIH Director Francis Collins: “It May Sound Weird” But Parents Should Wear Masks at Home in Front of Their Unvaccinated Kids (VIDEO)

By Cristina Laila
Published August 3, 2021 at 12:40pm

Meanwhile on CNN…

NIH Director Francis Collins on Tuesday said parents should wear masks at home in front of their unvaccinated children.

Collins conceded that it “may sound weird” that people should wear masks in their homes, but he advised it anyway.

“Parents of unvaccinated kids should be thoughtful about this and the recommendation is to wear masks [at home] as well,” Collins said. “I know that’s uncomfortable. I know it seems weird but it is the best way to protect your kids.”

This kind of lunacy wasn’t even advised before Covid vaccines were available.
Children have virtually zero risk of dying of Covid-19.

VIDEO:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1422576584607899655

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1422576584607899655
1:00 min

 

[marsh]

Scientific Journal Paper Suggests Making It A 'Federal Hate Crime' To Criticize Fauci. » The National Pulse+

A scientific journal article authored by Professor Peter Hotez, a frequent guest on corporate media networks, called to “extend federal hate-crime protections” for scientists facing criticism from alleged “far-right extremists,” including National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases...

thenationalpulse.com

Scientific Journal Paper Suggests Making It A ‘Federal Hate Crime’ To Criticize Fauci.

• AUGUST 3, 2021
• NATALIE WINTERS

A scientific journal article authored by Professor Peter Hotez, a frequent guest on mainstream media networks, called to “extend federal hate-crime protections” for scientists facing criticism from alleged “far-right extremists,” including National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci.

Dr. Hotez, who himself has been funded by Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1993, offered the robust defense of scientists including Fauci and EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak in a recent paper: “Mounting Antiscience Aggression In The United States.”

“There is a troubling new expansion of antiscience aggression in the United States. It’s arising from far-right extremism,” the paper, published in the peer-reviewed Public Library of Science (PLOS) Biology journal, begins.

“A band of ultraconservative members of the US Congress and other public officials with far-right leanings are waging organized and seemingly well-coordinated attacks against prominent US biological scientists. In parallel, conservative news outlets repeatedly and purposefully promote disinformation designed to portray key American scientists as enemies,” it reiterates.

GRAPHIC INCLUDED IN HOTEZ’S PAPER.

He links the alleged assault of scientists to a broader attempt of supporters of the “America First” movement to bring about a “modern day authoritarian regime”:

Prior to 2021, a program of antiscience disinformation that dismissed the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic was aggressively pursued by a White House committed to policies of “America First”. The America First element of the far right focuses on nativism, anti-immigration, and a foreign policy built around strong military build-up and deterrence, and confrontation with China. A darker view links it to voter suppression, and loyalty tests to the former President that question the veracity of the 2020 Presidential election. Harvard University political scientist, Steven Levitsky (the co-author of How Democracies Die), point out how these elements converge to form a modern day authoritarian regime, seeking to concentrate power among a selected few while limiting the reach of opposition groups.

Hotez even draws comparisons to the intentions of the Trump administration and its “America First” allies to those of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Marxists and Leninists:

Historically, such regimes viewed scientists as enemies of the state. In his 1941 essay, Science in the Totalitarian State, Waldemar Kaempffert, outlines details using the examples of Nazism under Hitler, Fascism under Mussolini, and Marxism and Leninism [10]. For example, under Stalin, the study of genetics and relativity physics were treated as dangerous western theories, and potentially in conflict with official social philosophies of state. Today, there remain examples of authoritarian regimes that hold similar views.

In response, Hotez calls for a public statement in defense of Fauci and other COVID-19 scientists from “President of the United States together with science leaders at the federal agencies,” and even floats that “another possibility is to extend federal hate-crime protections.”

The July 28th paper also highlights the actions of individuals including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who introduced the “Fire Fauci” act, and other House Republicans tracing COVID-19’s origins to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“Despite evidence pointing to spillover from a viral infection in bats to additional mammals and ultimately humans accounting for previous coronavirus epidemics, the hearings took on a sinister tone, pointing fingers at virologists both in the US and China,” the paper posits while citing a study on COVID-19’s origins authored by a self-described “consultant” for the Chinese Communist Party. Hotez also defends EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak – whose failure to disclose his conflicts with the Wuhan Institute of Virology led to his recusal from the Lancet COVID-19 commission – for “harassment” and “stalking” by the “far-right media.”

Read:


Scribd doc on website

 

[Zagdid]

Did Dr. Hotez cheat his way through civics class?

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Mandates Will Be Necessary To Convince 93 Million Americans To Accept The Vaccine

TUESDAY, AUG 03, 2021 - 03:18 PM

Update (1500ET): Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci inadvertently hinted at why moving the goalposts on herd immunity is important to the Biden Administration's strategy for mandating vaccines. Because now once the FDA grants final approval for the jabs (already a foregone conclusion), it will give businesses and colleges the green light to start mandating vaccinations for workers and patrons alike.

Now that 70% of adults have been vaccinated, the government is only going to continue ramping up its campaign. "I'd settle for 70% or 80%, but I'd love to see 90%," Dr. Fauci said.

In terms of how it might inspire more people to get vaccinated, Dr. Fauci insisted that FDA approval would be a "game-changer" for the vaccine (Despite survey data showing more than half of those who haven't been vaccinated are firmly skeptical of vaccines).

Despite what the administration has said about giving people the freedom of choice on vaccines, Dr. Fauci revealed that the Biden Administration is depending on vaccine mandates to coerce 100% of Americans to accept the vaccine.

The only way to get to this level is via local mandates, Dr. Fauci pointed out. And that's exactly what people should expect.

"... to get to the 93 million unvaccinated people, we are going to need local mandates".

In other words: First you get the mandates, then you get the jump in vaccinations. We're already seeing the trend in states like Florida that are seeing the most new cases.

"I think you're going to see more people get vaccinated and you're also going to see enterprises feeling much more confident in local mandates for the vaccines... you're going to see more universities...places of businesses, once they get the cover of the mandate...you'll start seeing more vaccines.


 "Because if you get the majority of the people vaccinated, we wouldn't be having this conversation now."

Dr. Fauci also criticized governors who have given orders making it illegal to requiring masking or vaccinations. "If everybody got vaccinated we wouldn't be arguing about masks...the need for masks would be reduced dramatically," Dr. Fauci said.

If that's true, then why to the vaccinated people need to wear masks?

Watch the full interview below. The relevant comments begin about 15 minutes in.

View: https://youtu.be/AuO_OfjlPUI
55:20 min

* * *
As a growing number of companies carry out the government's bidding by either demanding staff get vaccinated, demanding that customers mask up (even those who have been vaccinated) or both - Chipotle is the latest to order workers to wear masks and "encourage" customers to wear masks while Microsoft joined the growing number of tech firms requiring employees to get vaccinated - an organization of infectious disease experts are attempting to move the goalposts for herd immunity.

Bloomberg reports that delta's spread has pushed the estimate for herd immunity "well over 80% and potentially approaching 90%" according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America, which announced the change during a briefing on Tuesday.



That's a much higher bar than previous estimates of 60% to 70%. But the key here is Dr. Anthony Fauci and other policymakers will likely automatically treat the 90% number as a threshold for vaccination, not immunity - in other words, in their calculations, they exclude the millions of Americans who have been infected with COVID, but haven't consented to vaccination.

Yet, plenty of academics are already jumping on the bandwagon. Richard Franco, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told BBG that "t is becoming clear that this is a very dangerous, way more dangerous virus than the original one."

Earlier today, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio leaked plans to require gyms and restaurants to collect proof of vaccination via a vaccine passport app being utilized by the city. Unfortunately, these passports will disregard tests showing the presence of antibodies in the already infected. Some research has shown that antibodies produced by natural infection are at least as effective as certain vaccines.

The problem with the IDSA's new herd immunity target is that some academics say we've already reached the 80%+ immunity, and that COVID will never be able to threaten the American population like it did last spring, when immunity was virtually zero.

Just take a look at the latest chart of cases vs. deaths. The media has relentlessly touted the fact that cases have eclipsed levels from last summer...even as deaths have barely budged.



Dr. Marty Makary has repeatedly spoken out in editorials published by WSJ urging experts to "level with the public" about the "good news", and that Dr. Fauci needs to "put up or shut up" regarding his fearmongering.

Here's an excerpt from Dr. Makary's latest op-ed for WSJ, where he describes the real power of science and the power of natural immunity:

The news about the U.S. Covid pandemic is even better than you’ve heard.

Some 80% to 85% of American adults are immune to the virus: More than 64% have received at least one vaccine dose and, of those who haven’t, roughly half have natural immunity from prior infection. There’s ample scientific evidence that natural immunity is effective and durable, and public-health leaders should pay it heed.
...
Without accounting for natural immunity, we are far from Anthony Fauci’s stated target of 70% to 85% of the population becoming immune through full vaccination. But the effect of natural immunity is all around us. The plummeting case numbers in late April and May weren’t the result of vaccination alone, and they came amid a loosening of both restrictions and behavior.
...
Natural immunity is durable. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis reported last month that 11 months after a mild infection immune cells were still capable of producing protective antibodies. The authors concluded that prior Covid infection induces a “robust” and “long-lived humoral immune response,” leading some scientists to suggest that natural immunity is probably lifelong. Because infection began months earlier than vaccination, we have more follow-up data on the duration of natural immunity than on vaccinated immunity.
...
Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic published a study this week of 1,359 people previously infected with Covid who were unvaccinated. None of the subjects subsequently became infected, leading the researchers to conclude that “individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination."

What’s the harm of underestimating or disregarding the protection afforded by natural immunity? It almost certainly cost American lives by misallocating vaccine doses earlier this year, and is still doing so in countries where Covid is prevalent and shots are scarce. It continues to delay full reopening and prolongs the state of fear that has many people wearing masks even when there’s no mandate, or reason, to do so.

Dr. Fauci said last Aug. 13 that when you have fewer than 10 cases per 100,000, “you should be able to open up safely and clearly.” The U.S. reached that point in mid-May. It’s time to stop the fear mongering and level with the public about the incredible capabilities of both modern medical research and the human body’s immune system.

Furthermore, movement in the US outbreak's 'R' rate has lagged similar trends in the UK, and some public health experts, including Dr. Scott Gottlieb, expect the current wave in the US to wane by the end of next month.

But by then, the millions of Americans who refuse to get vaccinated might be thoroughly excluded from society.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Biden 'Knowingly Importing COVID-19 At Extreme Rates' As Unvaccinated Illegals Flood Into Country: TX Gov

TUESDAY, AUG 03, 2021 - 02:00 PM

Texas Governor Greg Abbott slammed the Biden administration on Friday, after the Department of Justice sued the state of Texas over an executive order which restricts the transport of infected illegal immigrants that Biden is releasing into the general population.



As we noted last week, the Biden administration was busted releasing Covid-positive illegal immigrants into a Texas border community, where they were placed into local hotels by a Catholic charity.



"The Biden Administration is knowingly admitting hundreds of thousands of unauthorized migrants, many of whom the federal government knows full well have COVID-19," Abbott said in response to the DOJ suit.

"While the Biden Administration is openly pondering looming shutdowns and mandates on U.S. citizens to control the spread of COVID-19, at the same time the Administration is knowingly worsening the problem by importing COVID-19 at extreme rates," he added.

The lawsuit, filed by US Attorney General Merrick Garland just one day after he threatened Abbott with legal action if he didn't rescind his "dangerous and unlawful" order, asks a federal judge to block Abbott's order. In it, Garland states: "In our constitutional system, a State has no right to regulate the federal government's operation," adding "this restriction on the transportation of noncitizens would severely disrupt federal immigration operations."

As Just The News notes:

The lawsuit was filed after bipartisan members of Congress called on Biden to halt the administration's open border policies, led by Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, whose district includes border communities. It also comes after the border city of Laredo sued the Biden administration in July, hoping to halt its policy of transferring into the city several hundred people a day who have illegally entered the U.S. through the Texas Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio sectors.

Abbott hit back, saying: "The Biden Administration has created a constitutional crisis between the federal government and the State of Texas," adding "This stems from the Biden Administration's refusal to enforce immigration laws and allow illegal immigrants with COVID-19 to enter our country. President Biden has a duty and a responsibility to protect and uphold our nation's sovereignty, yet he has long-since abdicated his authority to do so."

"As the Governor of Texas, I have a responsibility to protect the people of Texas — a responsibility that grows more urgent by the day while the Biden Administration sits on the sidelines. I have the authority, and duty, under the constitutions of the United States and of Texas to protect Texans and our nation.

I also have the authority under long-established emergency response laws to control the movement of people to better contain the spread of a disaster, such as those known to have COVID-19. My duty remains to the people of Texas, and I have no intention of abdicating that."

According to Abbott, the Biden administration needs to "stop admitting migrants who are not authorized by Congress to be admitted," which would "substantially reduce the importation of COVID-19 while also fulfilling the federal government's role to faithfully execute the laws of the United States."

"It is clear that the Biden Administration fundamentally misunderstands what is truly happening at the Texas-Mexico border," Abbott continued. "It would be of some solace if the federal government were conducting appropriate COVID-19 testing and other mitigation strategies, but to the contrary, we hear too many reports of the federal government recklessly failing to do so and instead admitting into the United States — and Texas — migrants from over 150 countries, many of whom are testing positive for COVID-19."

"In short, the Biden Administration is jeopardizing the health and safety of Texans on a daily basis by refusing to follow the law. And it's not just Texans; these irresponsible policies and actions by the Biden Administration are endangering the lives of many Americans as well as the unlawful immigrants themselves."

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Watch: White House COVID Response Coordinator Says It's "Time To Impose Vaccine Requirements"

TUESDAY, AUG 03, 2021 - 08:15 AM
Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

In a briefing Monday, the Biden Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients announced that “it’s time to impose some requirements” where COVID vaccines are concerned.



Zients referenced Biden’s comments from last week where the latter talked about giving people cash in exchange for being vaccinated, but added that this doesn’t go far enough.

“Last week the president called on states and local governments to use funding they have received, including from the American Rescue Plan, to give $100 to anyone who gets fully vaccinated,” Zientz said, adding “If financial incentives like these help us get more shots in arms, we should use them.”

“But in addition to incentives, it’s time to impose some requirements based on the realities of different risks unvaccinated individuals pose versus those who have been vaccinated,” Zients proclaimed.

He then went on to confirm that any federal worker or contractor who remains unvaccinated will be forced to wear a mask and get COVID tests twice a week.

“It’s simple, if you want to work with the federal government, get your workers vaccinated,” Zients decreed.

Watch:

View: https://youtu.be/ovkH0TKHRGA

34:20 min

As we reported last week, Biden himself indicated that he is seeking confirmation on whether the entire country can be mandated to get the vaccines.

While talking about the likes of Google and Facebook announcing vaccine mandates for their employees, Biden said “I would like to see them continue to move in that direction,” and added that “it’s still a question whether the Federal government can mandate the whole country.”

“I don’t know that yet,” Biden added, indicating it is something he is actively seeking to clarify.

Watch:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1420852671502815233

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1420852671502815233
.35 min

When asked for clarification on exactly what COVID rules could be implemented going forward, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that nothing is off the table.

While suggesting that total lockdown will not be brought back, Psaki responded that Biden “has said from the beginning that we are going to be guided by the science, guided by our public health experts, and we’re not going to take options off the table of what they may recommend.”

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1422283712910217222

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1422283712910217222
1:00 min

Again, basically Americans will be ordered to do whatever the “experts” say.

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IDMVg3fx-o
38:54 min

Biden Delivers Remarks on the Pandemic | Washington DC | USA |

Streamed live 98 minutes ago


JeffMAC

 

[Pinecone]

A mandate is only as good as the cooperation of the citizens. Just - NO!

 

[goosebeans]

Top Biden scientist admits — ‘Cloth masks do absolutely nothing’…
Posted by Kane on August 2, 2021 9:41 pm

View: https://youtu.be/bAdNz6BwU8c
1:25 min

Unless you’re wearing an N-95, you’re just playing dress up

^^^^^^^^^^^^

Dr. Ted Noel — Masks don’t work

View: https://youtu.be/CeBGxKcV2CQ
6:08 min

About damn time! I was telling my son yesterday, if, a couple of years ago, you'd told a nurse to wear a cloth, or paper mask to protect them from a virus they would have burst their sides laughing. And, no doubt would have proceeded to give you a lecture on the subject. We stocked up on N95s in February, last year. The day after I ordered ours, Amazon took them off the site and they became almost impossible to find. As soon as "The Science" started spouting the need for paper masks, "even a scarf will help protect you" it was sealed in stone, in my mind anyway, that they were selling us down the river! And yet everyone, even my 20 year veteran RN neighbors, who I thought would be ranting from the rooftops, were scared to death to go out and forget their paper masks. Like everything they'd learned just fell out of their heads. It's truly mind boggling the way people are so easily lead and manipulated.

 

[Marie]

Anybody have a subscription to Nytimes,

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1422703965599305729

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/HerbScribner/status/1422703965599305729

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine? You May Not Receive Unemployment Benefits

TUESDAY, AUG 03, 2021 - 05:45 PM
As companies across the country including Facebook, Walmart, Google, Uber and Disney begin to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations as a condition of employment, workers who are fired for refusing to do so might not receive unemployment benefits, according to WUSA.

Vaccination rates are slowly increasing, but a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found there are still millions of Americans who would only get vaccinated against COVID-19 if it was required. Some companies, like Disney, Google and Walmart, have decided to lend a hand in pushing up vaccination rates by requiring certain employees to show proof of vaccination.

Some who refuse may be looking forward to the support of unemployment benefits while they look for a new job that doesn't require vaccines. But, for many of them, that might not be an option. -WUSA

The reason? In most states, if a person is fired with cause for violating company policy - such as mandatory vaccinations - they are not entitled to unemployment benefits and payments.

"Even something as simple as a dress code that says you have to wear a tie, and that's the company's policy, and you say, 'I don't believe in wearing a tie, so I'm not going to do it.' That's insubordination," says John T. Harrington, Principal at The Employment Law Group. "It's misconduct, and it would likely disqualify you from receiving unemployment benefits."

Harrington said there are only two exemptions to a vaccination requirement - medical or religious. In both cases, however, exemptions are determined on a case-by-case basis with employers. Just because one employee is granted a religious exemption, it doesn't mean that will extend to anyone else.

"We have received numerous inquiries from clients and potential clients about how courts are likely to view these situations," said Harrington. "we've been advising them that if you have one of these two valid reasons to believe that you should be exempt from a vaccination requirement, you should assert them. But otherwise, companies are entitled to require that employees be vaccinated."

Just lie and risk getting caught?

If a company establishes a clear vaccination policy, including repercussions for breaking said policy, it's no different than if they had broken any other company rule in the eyes of the law. The person filing for unemployment, of course, could choose not to be honest about their termination and hope that the company doesn't rat them out to state unemployment agencies.

"In every claim for unemployment benefits, the employer has an opportunity to present the reasons for the separation. And an employer can choose not to respond," according to attorney Diane Seltzer. "So if an employee is not truthful or not completely transparent when they apply for benefits, and the employer chooses not to contest it, the employee might get the benefits based on what they're representing."

In Washington, D.C., the Office of Unemployment Compensation lists being fired for "gross misconduct" as a reason someone would be disqualified from receiving benefits. Maryland state code also lists "gross misconduct" as a disqualifying factor.

"Gross Misconduct is actually defined, at least in part, as an act which deliberately or willfully violates an employer's rule," Seltzer explains.

"You can be terminated if you violate a rule, especially if it's intentional or deliberate."

Willfully refusing a vaccination for COVID-19 after your employer mandates it would qualify as "gross misconduct," Seltzer said. -WUSA

Let the lawsuits begin...

 

[marsh]

Greg Abbott: Biden 'knowingly importing COVID-19 at extreme rates' via infected illegals

Texas governor warns of 'constitutional crisis' amid escalating conflict with U.S. AG Merrick Garland over feds' release of unauthorized, COVID-positive migrants into general population.

justthenews.com

Greg Abbott: Biden 'knowingly importing COVID-19 at extreme rates' via infected illegals

Texas governor warns of 'constitutional crisis' amid escalating conflict with U.S. AG Merrick Garland over feds' release of unauthorized, COVID-positive migrants into general population.

By Bethany Blankley
Updated: August 2, 2021 - 10:49pm

A legal battle and war of words between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the federal government over COVID-positive migrants being released into Texas communities escalated over the weekend.

The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of Texas Friday over an executive order Abbott issued restricting the transport of infected immigrants who entered the country illegally being released into the general population.

"The Biden Administration is knowingly admitting hundreds of thousands of unauthorized migrants, many of whom the federal government knows full well have COVID-19," Abbott said in response to the lawsuit.

"While the Biden Administration is openly pondering looming shutdowns and mandates on U.S. citizens to control the spread of COVID-19, at the same time the Administration is knowingly worsening the problem by importing COVID-19 at extreme rates," the governor said.

The lawsuit was filed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland a day after he sent a letter to Abbott threatening to take legal action if the Texas governor didn't rescind his "dangerous and unlawful" order.

"The Biden Administration has created a constitutional crisis between the federal government and the State of Texas," Abbott replied. "This stems from the Biden Administration's refusal to enforce immigration laws and allow illegal immigrants with COVID-19 to enter our country. President Biden has a duty and a responsibility to protect and uphold our nation's sovereignty, yet he has long-since abdicated his authority to do so.

"As the Governor of Texas, I have a responsibility to protect the people of Texas — a responsibility that grows more urgent by the day while the Biden Administration sits on the sidelines. I have the authority, and duty, under the constitutions of the United States and of Texas to protect Texans and our nation.

I also have the authority under long-established emergency response laws to control the movement of people to better contain the spread of a disaster, such as those known to have COVID-19. My duty remains to the people of Texas, and I have no intention of abdicating that."

The Biden administration should "stop admitting migrants who are not authorized by Congress to be admitted," Abbott said. "That would substantially reduce the importation of COVID-19 while also fulfilling the federal government's role to faithfully execute the laws of the United States."

Merrick is now asking a federal judge to block Abbott's order, arguing, "In our constitutional system, a State has no right to regulate the federal government's operations," adding "this restriction on the transportation of noncitizens would severely disrupt federal immigration operations."

"It is clear that the Biden Administration fundamentally misunderstands what is truly happening at the Texas-Mexico border," Abbott said in response. "It would be of some solace if the federal government were conducting appropriate COVID-19 testing and other mitigation strategies, but to the contrary, we hear too many reports of the federal government recklessly failing to do so and instead admitting into the United States — and Texas — migrants from over 150 countries, many of whom are testing positive for COVID-19.

"In short, the Biden Administration is jeopardizing the health and safety of Texans on a daily basis by refusing to follow the law. And it's not just Texans; these irresponsible policies and actions by the Biden Administration are endangering the lives of many Americans as well as the unlawful immigrants themselves."

The lawsuit was filed after bipartisan members of Congress called on Biden to halt the administration's open border policies, led by Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, whose district includes border communities. It also comes after the border city of Laredo sued the Biden administration in July, hoping to halt its policy of transferring into the city several hundred people a day who have illegally entered the U.S. through the Texas Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio sectors.

 

[summerthyme]

Anybody have a subscription to Nytimes,

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1422703965599305729

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/HerbScribner/status/1422703965599305729

View attachment 281169

Oh, the Pfizer vaxx? The one the CEO refuses to take himself? (He was just barred from entering Israel because he's unvaxxed!

Suuuurrrreeee it's safe! Trust us! Bwahagahaha!

Summerthyme

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Wild U.S. deer found with coronavirus antibodies

A new study detected coronavirus antibodies in 40 percent of deer tested this year. Here’s why that matters.

www.nationalgeographic.com

(fair use applies)

Wild U.S. deer found with coronavirus antibodies
A new study detected coronavirus antibodies in 40 percent of deer tested this year. Here’s why that matters.
Dina Fine Maron
Published August 2, 2021

White-tailed deer, a species found in every U.S. state except Alaska, appear to be contracting the coronavirus in the wild, according to the first study to search for evidence of an outbreak in wild deer.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) analyzed blood samples from more than 600 deer in Michigan, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania over the past decade, and they discovered that 40 percent of the 152 wild deer tested from January through March 2021 had antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Another three deer from January 2020 also had antibodies.

Their presence means that deer likely had encountered the virus and then fought it off. The animals didn’t appear sick, so they probably had asymptomatic infections, the agency says. Roughly 30 million white-tailed deer live in the U.S.

“The risk of animals spreading SARS-CoV-2 to people is considered low,” the USDA told National Geographic in a statement. Still, the results may suggest that “a secondary reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 has been established in wildlife in the U.S.” says Jüergen Richt, a veterinarian and director of the Center on Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at Kansas State University who was not involved in the USDA’s work. If the virus is circulating in other species, it could continue to evolve, perhaps in ways that make it more severe or transmissible, undermining efforts to slow the pandemic.

Earlier this year, researchers established that deer are susceptible to the virus when infected in the lab—and that they can pass the virus to each other. But scientists didn’t know until now if infections were occurring in nature. The only species with lab results indicating that they had contracted the virus in the wild had been mink, though cats, dogs, otters, lions, tigers, snow leopards, gorillas, and a cougar have all had outbreaks in captivity or in zoos. (Learn more about efforts to vaccinate some of these animals.)

The new USDA report was posted on a preprint website, which means it hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention didn’t respond to request for comment.
Human transmission

“At present there’s no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is having any detrimental effect on deer. And for humans, our infinitely greater problem is spread from other humans,” says Daniel Bausch, a Switzerland-based zoonotic diseases expert and the director of emerging threats and global health security at the nonprofit FIND, which works to develop tests for poverty-related diseases.

The USDA says the risk to people who hunt white-tailed deer is not high. Though researchers posit the virus may have originally jumped from animal to human at a wet market in China, where wild animals were slaughtered and sold for food, differences in food preparation procedures matter.

There’s “no evidence that you can get COVID-19 by eating [contaminated] food, including wild hunted game meat,” the USDA says. The department is not issuing new guidance, pointing instead to existing government recommendations on good hygiene when processing animals, which include properly cooking and storing meat, and cleaning and disinfecting all knives, surfaces, and equipment.

Exactly how deer may have been exposed to the virus remains uncertain, though researchers suspect they were infected by humans. “Multiple activities could bring deer into contact with people, including captive cervid operations, field research, conservation work, wildlife tourism, wildlife rehabilitation, supplemental feeding, and hunting,” the USDA researchers wrote. Other possibilities include that they contracted it through contaminated wastewater or from exposure to other infected species like mink.

Researchers also don’t know if the deer are passing the virus among themselves or to other species.
Widening the net

There’s a chance that the deer didn’t have SARS-CoV-2 at all, Bausch says; another explanation is that the USDA’s tests detected antibodies for other coronaviruses, a phenomenon known as cross-reactivity.

The USDA says that’s unlikely. Researchers used a commercially available SARS-CoV-2 antibody screening test that has been highly accurate with other species. The USDA also helped rule out the chances of cross-reactivity by testing a subset of the samples using a second type of antibody test even more specific to SARS-CoV-2. That second test’s results mirrored the earlier findings, suggesting that the tests were truly picking up SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, the USDA told National Geographic in a statement.

Pre-pandemic blood samples from deer also shore up the results: If the tests were just detecting antibodies for other coronaviruses, antibody levels in deer likely would be similar in samples taken both before and during the pandemic. Yet when the researchers tested 239 samples collected before January 2020 from a slightly wider pool that also included deer from New Jersey, they had only one positive test—from 2019. (The USDA says that the single outlier was almost certainly a false positive since it had a very low level of antibodies. Richt says that the USDA’s false-positive conclusion sounds reasonable.)

Bausch says that performing the two types of tests gives him greater confidence in the results. Still, it’s always possible that cross-reactivity is an issue. “There are many coronaviruses that circulate in animals and likely many that we’ve yet to discover,” he says. The most definitive ways to rule out cross-reactivity, he says, would be to isolate a virus on cell culture—perhaps by testing respiratory secretions from deer—but that would require finding a deer when it had an active coronavirus infection.

Exposure to the virus seemed to vary widely by location, the researchers found. Of the four states, Michigan had the largest percentage of deer with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies—67 percent. That was followed by Pennsylvania with 44 percent, New York with 31 percent, and Illinois with 7 percent of samples showing antibodies. The deer with coronavirus antibodies were also concentrated in specific counties, the USDA writes, “with nearly half of the 32 counties sampled showing no evidence” of coronavirus exposure, the study says.

“These results emphasize the need for continued and expanded wildlife surveillance to determine the significance of SARS-CoV-2 in free-ranging deer,” the USDA says. Now, the researchers wrote, it’s also important to look for the virus in predators and scavengers that may eat deer.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Anybody have a subscription to Nytimes,

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1422703965599305729

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/HerbScribner/status/1422703965599305729

View attachment 281169

It found this article on line and I think it's the one you're referring to.

F.D.A. Aims to Give Final Approval to Pfizer Vaccine by Early Next Month (Published 2021)

The Food and Drug Administration’s move is expected to kick off more vaccination mandates for hospital workers, college students and federal troops.

www.nytimes.com

(fair use applies)

F.D.A. Aims to Give Final Approval to Pfizer Vaccine by Early Next Month
The Food and Drug Administration’s move is expected to kick off more vaccination mandates for hospital workers, college students and federal troops.
By Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland
Aug. 3, 2021 Updated 7:50 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — With a new surge of Covid-19 infections ripping through much of the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has accelerated its timetable to fully approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine, aiming to complete the process by the start of next month, people involved in the effort said.

President Biden said last week that he expected a fully approved vaccine in early fall. But the F.D.A.’s unofficial deadline is Labor Day or sooner, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. The agency said in a statement that its leaders recognized that approval might inspire more public confidence and had “taken an all-hands-on-deck approach” to the work.

Giving final approval to the Pfizer vaccine — rather than relying on the emergency authorization granted late last year by the F.D.A. — could help increase inoculation rates at a moment when the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus is sharply driving up the number of new cases.

A number of universities and hospitals, the Defense Department and at least one major city, San Francisco, are expected to mandate inoculation once a vaccine is fully approved. Final approval could also help mute misinformation about the safety of vaccines and clarify legal issues about mandates.

Federal regulators have been under growing public pressure to fully approve Pfizer’s vaccine ever since the company filed its application on May 7. “I just have not sensed a sense of urgency from the F.D.A. on full approval,” Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said in an interview on Tuesday. “And I find it baffling, given where we are as a country in terms of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.”

Although 192 million Americans — 58 percent of the total population and 70 percent of the nation’s adults — have received at least one vaccine shot, many remain vulnerable to the ultracontagious, dominant Delta variant. The country is averaging nearly 86,000 new infections a day, an increase of 142 percent in just two weeks, according to a New York Times database.

Recent polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been tracking public attitudes during the pandemic, have found that three of every 10 unvaccinated people said that they would be more likely to get a shot with a fully approved vaccine. But the pollsters warned that many respondents did not understand the regulatory process and might have been looking for a “proxy” justification not to get a shot.

Moderna, the second most widely used vaccine in the United States, filed for final approval of its vaccine on June 1. But the company is still submitting data and has not said when it will finish. Johnson & Johnson, the third vaccine authorized for emergency use, has not yet applied but plans to do so later this year.

Full approval of the Pfizer vaccine will kick off a patchwork of vaccination mandates across the country. Like most other employees of federal agencies, civilians working for the Defense Department must be vaccinated or face regular testing. But the military has held off on ordering shots for 1.3 million active-duty service members until the F.D.A. acts.

The City of San Francisco has said its roughly 44,500 employees must be fully vaccinated within 10 weeks of F.D.A. approval. The State University of New York, with roughly 400,000 students, is on a parallel track.

A number of health care systems have issued similar mandates to employees, including Beaumont Health, the largest health provider in Michigan, with 33,000 employees, and Mass General Brigham in Massachusetts, with about 80,000 workers.

Full approval typically requires the F.D.A. to review hundreds of thousands of pages of documents — roughly 10 times the data required to authorize a vaccine on an emergency basis. The agency can usually complete a priority review within six to eight months and was already working on an expedited timetable for the Pfizer vaccine. The F.D.A.’s decision to speed up was reported last week by Stat News.

In a guest essay in The Times last month, Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top vaccine regulator, wrote that undue haste “would undermine the F.D.A.’s statutory responsibilities, affect public trust in the agency and do little to help combat vaccine hesitancy.”

The regulators want to see real-world data on how the vaccine has been working since they authorized it for emergency use in December. That means verifying the company’s data on vaccine efficacy and immune responses, reviewing how efficacy or immunity might decline over time, examining new infections in participants in continuing clinical trials, reviewing adverse reactions to vaccinations and inspecting manufacturing plants.

At the same time, senior health officials at the F.D.A. and other agencies are grappling with whether at least some people who are already vaccinated need booster shots. Several officials are arguing that boosters will be widely needed before long, while others contend that the scientific basis for them remains far from settled.

Two people familiar with the deliberations, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that if booster shots are needed, the administration wants a single strategy for all three vaccines currently authorized for emergency use.

Different recommendations on boosters for different vaccines, they said, could confuse the public. Fully approving a vaccine and then authorizing a booster for it soon after might also offer conflicting messages about its effectiveness.

While research is continuing, senior administration officials increasingly believe that at the least, vulnerable populations like those with compromised immune systems and older people will need them, according to people familiar with their thinking. But when to administer them, which vaccine to use and who should get shots are all still being discussed.

In a study posted online last week, Pfizer and BioNTech scientists reported that the effectiveness of Pfizer’s vaccine against symptomatic disease fell from about 96 percent to about 84 percent four to six months after the second shot, but continued to offer robust protection against hospitalization and severe disease.

Administration officials said Moderna and Johnson & Johnson needed to present data as well and Moderna had been asked to do so quickly. Officials have said other studies will also influence their decision-making, including data that the government is collecting on the rate of breakthrough infections among tens of thousands of people, including health care workers.

Pfizer is expected to submit an application for a booster shot to the F.D.A. this month. While the F.D.A. could authorize such shots, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would need to recommend them after a meeting of its outside committee of experts.

A decision to fully approve Pfizer’s vaccine will give doctors more latitude to prescribe additional shots at least for certain Americans, including those with weakened immune systems. The C.D.C. had been exploring possible special programs for that group, but administration officials said it became clear that by the time any such initiative got underway, the Pfizer vaccine would already be fully approved and doctors could prescribe a third shot.

Roughly 3 percent of Americans — or about 10 million people, by some estimates — have compromised immune systems as a result of cancer, organ transplants or other medical conditions, according to the C.D.C. While studies indicate that the vaccines work well for some of them, others do not produce the immune response that would protect them from the virus.

Some people are trying to get booster shots from pharmacies or other providers on their own, without waiting for the federal government’s blessing. Officials in Contra Costa County, home to 1.1 million people in Northern California, were so eager to offer boosters that on July 23 they told vaccine providers to give extra shots to people who asked for them “without requiring further documentation or justification.”

Then, realizing that policy violated the F.D.A. rules on vaccines authorized for emergency use, the county reversed it this week.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

NYT article was bases on an article from STAT. Here's the original article, not as definite on the date as the NYT projects.

FDA, under pressure, plans ‘sprint’ to accelerate review of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for full approval

FDA, under pressure, plans ‘sprint’ to accelerate review of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for full approval.

www.statnews.com

Exclusive
FDA, under pressure, plans ‘sprint’ to accelerate review of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for full approval
By Nicholas Florko
July 30, 2021

WASHINGTON — Under heavy pressure, the Food and Drug Administration center that reviews vaccines is planning to deprioritize some of its existing work, like meetings with drug sponsors and plant inspections, in an effort to accelerate its review of Pfizer’s application for the formal approval of its Covid-19 vaccine, a senior agency official told STAT.

Pfizer’s vaccine is currently cleared under a so-called emergency use authorization, which allows the company to sell the vaccine for as long as Covid-19 is considered a public health emergency.

But with Covid-19 still raging, and its spread now fueled by the Delta variant, lawmakers and prominent health experts have urged the FDA to expedite full approval of Pfizer’s vaccine, saying it would be a powerful tool in convincing the unvaccinated to get their shots and in giving businesses and other entities a stronger legal foundation to impose vaccine mandates.

The process requires FDA staff to review millions of pages of complex data, conduct plant inspections, and negotiate with Pfizer over issues including the terms of the FDA’s approved label and the company’s postmarketing responsibilities. Now, the senior agency official said, the agency will initiate a “sprint.”

Under the FDA’s new plan, the director of FDA’s biologics center, Peter Marks, will largely oversee review of the Pfizer application, taking over for Marion Gruber, a 32-year veteran of the FDA who currently heads the office of vaccine research and review within the larger biologics center, according to a second FDA source. A third source familiar with the plan, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity, said Marks was heavily involved in the review, but did not comment on whether he was formally replacing Gruber in the agency’s chain of command.

The reprioritization of other work at the agency’s biologics center underscores the tremendous political pressure the agency is under to finish the Pfizer review as quickly as possible.

Eric Topol, the director and founder of Scripps Research Translational Institute, who has been among those critical of the agency’s perceived slowness in finishing the review, said he was “thrilled” about plans to expedite it. But he also said the FDA should have accelerated the process much earlier.

“We knew about Delta months ago ..and that’s when we should have pulled out all the stops,” he added.

Luciana Borio, a former FDA acting chief scientist, also said the sprint made sense but that it would likely mean other projects will have to be deprioritized.

“There should be no illusion that this comes at zero cost,” she said.

The FDA has publicly insisted that rushing the approval of the application could “undermine the FDA’s statutory responsibilities, affect public trust in the agency, and do little to help combat vaccine hesitancy.”

When asked about the sprint, FDA spokesperson Michael Felberbaum said in a statement: “We have taken an all-hands-on-deck approach, including identifying additional resources such as personnel and technological resources from across the agency and opportunities to reprioritize other activities, in order to complete our review to help combat this pandemic surge.”

The statement did not specifically mention the FDA putting off inspections or meetings with FDA sponsors.

It’s not clear how significantly the reprioritization of work will impact companies with other products before FDA’s biologics center, which reviews everything from vaccines and stem cells to gene therapies. The senior FDA official told STAT that the agency will strive not to miss promised milestones with other sponsors, but that some might hear from the agency that certain meetings and inspections will be pushed off by weeks or months. .

Janet Woodcock, the acting FDA commissioner, held a meeting with all FDA staff reviewing the Pfizer application on Monday, two sources confirmed to STAT.

Felberbaum, the agency spokesperson, said that Woodcock “has reiterated her appreciation for the diligence and integrity to this process and offered all agency resources to the team to make this happen.”

A typical review of an application like Pfizer’s takes 10 months. The agency granted Pfizer a “priority review” for its vaccine earlier this month, which signifies that staff will strive to finish the review of the application within six months. At the same time, he FDA has said it does not expect the process to take that long — a view echoed even by President Biden.

“My expectation … is that sometime, maybe in the beginning of the school year, at the end of August, beginning of September, October, they’ll get a final approval” Biden said last week when asked when the FDA would formally approve the Covid-19 vaccines, including the one developed by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech.

Jesse Goodman, who led the FDA’s biologics center from 2003 to 2009, said that the August-September time frame is “possible … if all goes smoothly.” He said the idea of a sprint is “reasonable,” so long the biologics center follows the normal chain of command for reviewing these applications.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

And then there's this:

Opinion | The F.D.A. on the Vaccine Reviews: ‘We Want to Assure the Public’ (Published 2021)

The agency says full vaccine approval rests on high-quality review. Also: Leaving Afghanistan; the trauma of loss; children's screen time; jobs and automation; cultured meat.

www.nytimes.com

(fair use applies)

The F.D.A. on the Vaccine Reviews: ‘We Want to Assure the Public’
July 9, 2021

To the Editor:

Re “Vaccines Need Full Approval,” by Dr. Eric J. Topol (Opinion guest essay, July 5):

We want to assure the public that the review of applications for full approval of Covid-19 vaccines is one of the highest priorities at the Food and Drug Administration. However, an extensive additional amount of manufacturing and clinical information has been collected since the emergency use authorizations and must be reviewed and evaluated by the agency as part of any applications submitted.

Any vaccine approval without completion of the high-quality review and evaluation that Americans expect the agency to perform would undermine the F.D.A.’s statutory responsibilities, affect public trust in the agency and do little to help combat vaccine hesitancy.

The F.D.A. is notable among the world’s regulatory agencies for its thorough scientific evaluation of submitted applications, which includes review and verification of data at the level of individual subjects enrolled in clinical trials. Our ability to fully approve the vaccines therefore depends on the submission of complete applications by the companies.

This approach helps to ensure that the F.D.A. has all the available data from clinical studies and provides the public with trust and confidence in the quality, safety and effectiveness of any vaccine that the agency approves.

As Dr. Topol correctly notes, all three Covid-19 vaccines currently authorized for emergency use in the United States have been thoroughly evaluated and have met, and continue to meet, the F.D.A.’s rigorous standards. If we truly want our lives to return to normal, the fastest way to do so is simple — get vaccinated right now.

Peter Marks
Silver Spring, Md.
The writer is director of the F.D.A.’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

GOP report says October 2019 Wuhan military games were ‘one of the earliest super spreader events’

House Foreign Affairs Republicans concluded the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019 was “one of the earliest super spreader events” during the pandemic, with their new report contending COVID-19 escaped from a Wuhan lab in late August or early September 2019 — with China covering it up…

www.washingtonexaminer.com

(fair use applies)

GOP report says October 2019 Wuhan military games were ‘one of the earliest super spreader events’
by Jerry Dunleavy
August 03, 2021 07:00 AM

House Foreign Affairs Republicans concluded the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019 was “one of the earliest super spreader events” during the pandemic, with their new report contending COVID-19 escaped from a Wuhan lab in late August or early September 2019 — with China covering it up for months.

"When they realized what happened, Chinese Communist Party officials and scientists at the WIV began frantically covering up the leak," said Republican Rep. Michael McCaul. "But their coverup was too late — the virus was already spreading throughout the megacity of Wuhan."

McCaul added: "Within a month, satellite images show a significant uptick in the number of people at hospitals around the WIV with symptoms similar to COVID-19. At the same time, athletes at the Military World Games became sick with symptoms similar to COVID-19. Some of them carried the virus back to their home countries — creating one of the earliest super spreader events in the world, and explaining how countries who participated in the games had reported cases as early as November 2019.”

The new report said its lab leak evidence included “athletes at the Military World Games held in Wuhan in October 2019 who became sick with symptoms similar to COVID-19 both while in Wuhan and also shortly after.”

The GOP report zeroed in on Wuhan, which was picked to host the 7th International Military Sports Council Military World Games in October 2019, during which “more than 9,000 military personnel from over 100 countries stayed in Wuhan in accommodations at an athletes village built specifically for the games.”

The Chinese state-run China Internet Information Center said in October 2019 there were athletes from 109 countries. China’s Organizing Committee of the 7th International Military Sports Council proclaimed that “the charm of sports will put Wuhan in global spotlight.”

The GOP report noted a since-deleted version of the competition’s website listed more than 30 venues for the games across Wuhan. One athlete from Luxembourg described Wuhan as a “ghost town” and recalled having his temperature taken upon arriving at the city’s airport, saying, “There were rumors that the government warned the inhabitants not to go out.” The report said, "Similar claims about COVID-19 like symptoms have been made by athletes from Germany, France, Italy, and Sweden.”

A military athlete from Canada said that on the return flight, dozens of athletes “were sick with symptoms ranging from coughs to diarrhea.” A German athlete said, “After a few days, some athletes from my team got ill … I got sick in the last two days … Either it was a very bad cold or COVID-19. I think it was COVID-19.”

An Italian athlete said all the athletes in his Wuhan apartment fell ill with “symptoms that looked like those of COVID-19.”

The GOP committee members put together a map visualizing the competition venues in black, the Wuhan lab in red, and the hospitals with early cases in blue, with green figures representing the competition venues for athletes who believe they contracted COVID-19 in Wuhan.

The Republicans noted that “four countries who sent delegations” to the Wuhan games “have now confirmed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 cases within their borders in November and December 2019” — Italy, Brazil, Sweden, and France — with some athletes complaining of COVID-like symptoms in Wuhan.

“The virus was spread throughout central Wuhan, likely via the Wuhan Metro … In order to prevent national embarrassment, the decision was made to allow the 2019 Military World Games to continue. No spectators were allowed to attend the games, but international athletes and some of the 236,000 volunteers still become infected, spreading the virus in the city,” the GOP report contended. “Dozens of athletes fall ill with symptoms. Since COVID-19 can infect humans without causing symptoms, an untold number of athletes and volunteers become infected, but are asymptomatic and unaware they are infectious. The athletes return to their home countries in late October, carrying SARS-CoV-2 across the world.”

The GOP report said that “the PRC’s efforts to obfuscate the origins of COVID-19 were not limited to destroying samples and silencing doctors, but featured a sustained disinformation campaign as well.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian and others have pushed baseless claims about the U.S. military, including Maryland's Fort Detrick, for over a year.

Zhao shared an article in March 2020 from Global Research, known for spreading conspiracy theories, tweeting: “COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the U.S.” Zhao tweeted, “It might be U.S. army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.”

Zhao and others revived the claims earlier this year as the WHO-China COVID-19 report was made public.

Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in March 2020 China's claims were "completely absurd.” A State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner this April that “the United States condemns the PRC’s false, baseless, and unscientific claims.”

A Pentagon spokesperson said it was a “myth” that “U.S. service members visiting China were the source of the coronavirus outbreak.”

Zhao also tweeted in March 2020, “If #COVID19 began last September, & U.S. has been lack of testing ability, how many would have been infected? U.S. should find out when patient zero appeared.”

The GOP report emphasized, “If the CCP realized an investigation would show an uptick in visits of patients with symptoms similar to COVID-19 in September, October, and November of 2019, this would likely be the actions they would take to coverup the source of those illnesses.”

The GOP added: “To further drive this narrative, CCP-controlled media outlets accused Maatje Benassi, a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, as being ‘patient zero.’ Benassi competed at the Military World Games without becoming ill … Two weeks after Zhao tweeted that the U.S. army brought the virus to Wuhan, the Global Times amplified the narrative.”

Benassi said last year the baseless claims were "like waking up from a bad dream and going into a nightmare day after day.”

Trump CDC Director Robert Redfield said COVID-19 “most likely” originated at the Wuhan lab and that it spread in the Chinese city in September or October 2019.

The WHO-China joint report said the Chinese Epidemiology Group, which provided information on the Wuhan games, found “no appreciable signals of clusters of fever or severe respiratory disease requiring hospitalization were identified."

Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin wrote Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin a letter seeking answers in June, saying, “Aware that the cluster of illnesses associated with the World Military Games casts doubt upon the Chinese Communist Party’s official timeline, Chinese government officials such as Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian have sought to deflect blame onto the U.S.”

GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas pressed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for answers in June.

When Esper was asked about the Wuhan games in April 2020, he replied, “I’m not aware of what you’re talking about.”

Gen. Mark Milley also said, “Yeah, I’m not.”

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine? You May Not Receive Unemployment Benefits

TUESDAY, AUG 03, 2021 - 05:45 PM
As companies across the country including Facebook, Walmart, Google, Uber and Disney begin to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations as a condition of employment, workers who are fired for refusing to do so might not receive unemployment benefits, according to WUSA.





The reason? In most states, if a person is fired with cause for violating company policy - such as mandatory vaccinations - they are not entitled to unemployment benefits and payments.

"Even something as simple as a dress code that says you have to wear a tie, and that's the company's policy, and you say, 'I don't believe in wearing a tie, so I'm not going to do it.' That's insubordination," says John T. Harrington, Principal at The Employment Law Group. "It's misconduct, and it would likely disqualify you from receiving unemployment benefits."

Harrington said there are only two exemptions to a vaccination requirement - medical or religious. In both cases, however, exemptions are determined on a case-by-case basis with employers. Just because one employee is granted a religious exemption, it doesn't mean that will extend to anyone else.

"We have received numerous inquiries from clients and potential clients about how courts are likely to view these situations," said Harrington. "we've been advising them that if you have one of these two valid reasons to believe that you should be exempt from a vaccination requirement, you should assert them. But otherwise, companies are entitled to require that employees be vaccinated."

Just lie and risk getting caught?

If a company establishes a clear vaccination policy, including repercussions for breaking said policy, it's no different than if they had broken any other company rule in the eyes of the law. The person filing for unemployment, of course, could choose not to be honest about their termination and hope that the company doesn't rat them out to state unemployment agencies.

"In every claim for unemployment benefits, the employer has an opportunity to present the reasons for the separation. And an employer can choose not to respond," according to attorney Diane Seltzer. "So if an employee is not truthful or not completely transparent when they apply for benefits, and the employer chooses not to contest it, the employee might get the benefits based on what they're representing."

Let the lawsuits begin...

More on this: (article quoted in your article)

THIS IS JUST TWO LAWYERS' OPINION. I am going to post an opposite opinion below this post. That one was written before the vaxx became widely available and people were more freely able to comment about it without fear of being cancelled,etc.

VERIFY: Yes, if you are fired for not getting a required vaccine, you can be denied unemployment benefits

Major corporations like Disney and Walmart say they will require COVID-19 vaccines for some employees. In general, those fired for refusing can't get unemployment.

www.wusa9.com

(fair use applies)


VERIFY: Yes, if you are fired for not getting a required vaccine, you can be denied unemployment benefits
Major corporations like Disney and Walmart say they will require COVID-19 vaccines for some employees. In general, those fired for refusing can't get unemployment.
Mia Salenetri (WUSA9)
Published: 5:59 PM EDT August 2, 2021 | Updated: 5:59 PM EDT August 2, 2021


WASHINGTON — Individuals across the United States are working to navigate this newest phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which vaccines are readily available but the rapidly spreading Delta variant is ravaging communities.

Vaccination rates are slowly increasing, but a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found there are still millions of Americans who would only get vaccinated against COVID-19 if it was required. Some companies, like Disney, Google and Walmart, have decided to lend a hand in pushing up vaccination rates by requiring certain employees to show proof of vaccination.

Some who refuse may be looking forward to the support of unemployment benefits while they look for a new job that doesn't require vaccines. But, for many of them, that might not be an option.

THE QUESTION

If your employer requires proof of a COVID vaccine, and you refuse and are fired, can you be denied unemployment benefits?

THE SOURCES

Diane Seltzer, Principal, The Seltzer Law Firm
John T. Harrington, Principal, The Employment Law Group

THE ANSWER

Yes. In most areas of the United States, if you are fired for breaking a company policy, you are not eligible for unemployment benefits and payments.

WHAT WE FOUND

Unemployment payments are afforded to Americans who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. When a business closes or issues mass layoffs, the people who are let go are often eligible for weekly benefits.

However, someone fired for breaking a company policy, big or small, can be denied benefits, employment attorney John T. Harrington explains.

"Even something as simple as a dress code that says you have to wear a tie, and that's the company's policy, and you say, 'I don't believe in wearing a tie, so I'm not going to do it.' That's insubordination," Harrington said. "It's misconduct, and it would likely disqualify you from receiving unemployment benefits."

If a company's vaccination policy, and the repercussions for breaking that policy, are made clear to employees, the reason for disqualification is the same as if they had broken any other company rule. This is also dependent on whether the person filing for unemployment is honest about their termination and whether the company cares enough to verify it.

"In every claim for unemployment benefits, the employer has an opportunity to present the reasons for the separation. And an employer can choose not to respond," attorney Diane Seltzer said. "So if an employee is not truthful or not completely transparent when they apply for benefits, and the employer chooses not to contest it, the employee might get the benefits based on what they're representing."

Harrington said there are really only two ways to avoid a vaccination requirement: a medical or religious exemption. In both cases, he said exemptions are determined with employers on a case-by-case basis. One employee with a religious exemption in a company does not mean the rules change for anyone else.

"We have received numerous inquiries from clients and potential clients about how courts are likely to view these situations," Harrington says, "we've been advising them that if you have one of these two valid reasons to believe that you should be exempt from a vaccination requirement, you should assert them. But otherwise, companies are entitled to require that employees be vaccinated."

In Washington, D.C., the Office of Unemployment Compensation lists being fired for "gross misconduct" as a reason someone would be disqualified from receiving benefits. Maryland state code also lists "gross misconduct" as a disqualifying factor.

"Gross Misconduct is actually defined, at least in part, as an act which deliberately or willfully violates an employer's rule," Seltzer explains. "You can be terminated if you violate a rule, especially if it's intentional or deliberate."

Willfully refusing a vaccination for COVID-19 after your employer mandates it would qualify as "gross misconduct," Seltzer said.

In Virginia, you can be disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits if a Virginia Employment Commission deputy assigned to your application determines that you were "fired from your job for misconduct in connection with your work."

So we can Verify that in many states, you can be denied unemployment insurance benefits if you are fired for refusing a vaccine required by your employer.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

An opinion from a different lawyer.

Note though he says under the Emergency Use provision. A lot of the companies who are requiring vaccines are pushing the date into October because they think the approval will be in place by then. They may move the date if the approval doesn't come by their given date.

Federal law prohibits employers and others from requiring vaccination with a Covid-19 vaccine distributed under an EUA

As decision-makers at organizations decide on their Covid-19 vaccination policy, they should be careful to not let this passion lead the organization to run afoul of the law.

www.statnews.com

(fair use applies)

FIRST OPINION
Federal law prohibits employers and others from requiring vaccination with a Covid-19 vaccine distributed under an EUA
By Aaron Siri
Feb. 23, 2021

Ever since the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for two new vaccines, employers, schools, and other organizations are grappling with whether to require Covid-19 vaccination.

While organizations are certainly free to encourage their employees, students, and other members to be vaccinated, federal law provides that, at least until the vaccine is licensed, individuals must have the option to accept or decline to be vaccinated.

Knowing what an organization can or cannot do with respect to Covid-19 vaccines can help them keep their employees, students, and members safe and also save the them from costly and time-consuming litigation.

Much remains unknown about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine

Even though the FDA granted emergency use authorizations for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in December 2020, the clinical trials the FDA will rely upon to ultimately decide whether to license these vaccines are still underway and are designed to last for approximately two years to collect adequate data to establish if these vaccines are safe and effective enough for the FDA to license.

The abbreviated timelines for the emergency use applications and authorizations means there is much the FDA does not know about these products even as it authorizes them for emergency use, including their effectiveness against asymptomatic infection, death, and transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease.

Given the uncertainty about the two vaccines, their EUAs are explicit that each is “an investigational vaccine not licensed for any indication” and require that all “promotional material relating to the Covid-19 Vaccine clearly and conspicuously … state that this product has not been approved or licensed by the FDA, but has been authorized for emergency use by FDA”.

The same section of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that authorizes the FDA to grant emergency use authorization also requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to “ensure that individuals to whom the product is administered are informed … of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product.”

Likewise, the FDA’s guidance on emergency use authorization of medical products requires the FDA to “ensure that recipients are informed to the extent practicable given the applicable circumstances … That they have the option to accept or refuse the EUA product …”

In the same vein, when Dr. Amanda Cohn, the executive secretary of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, was asked if Covid-19 vaccination can be required, she responded that under an EUA, “vaccines are not allowed to be mandatory. So, early in this vaccination phase, individuals will have to be consented and they won’t be able to be mandatory.” Cohn later affirmed that this prohibition on requiring the vaccines applies to organizations, including hospitals.

The EUAs for both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require facts sheets to be given to vaccination providers and recipients. These fact sheets make clear that getting the vaccine is optional. For example, the one for recipients states that, “It is your choice to receive or not receive the Covid-19 Vaccine,” and if “you decide to not receive it, it will not change your standard of medical care.”

What this means in practice

When the FDA grants emergency use authorization for a vaccine, many questions about the product cannot be answered. Given the open questions, when Congress granted the authority to issue EUAs, it chose to require that every individual should be allowed to decide for himself or herself whether or not to receive an EUA product. The FDA and CDC apparently consider this fundamental requirement of choice important enough that even during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic they reinforced that policy decision when issuing their guidance related to the Covid-19 vaccines.

This means that an organization will likely be at odds with federal law if it requires its employees, students or other members to get a Covid-19 vaccine that is being distributed under emergency use authorization.

State law often prohibits retaliating against an employee for refusing to participate in a violation of federal law. Organizations that require Covid-19 vaccination in violation of federal law may face lawsuits under these state laws not only to block the policy but also for damages and attorneys’ fees. Such potentially costly lawsuits can be avoided by refraining from adopting policies that require vaccination or penalize members for choosing not to be vaccinated.

Organizations are free to encourage vaccinations through internal communications, through educational events, and through other measures to urge employees to be vaccinated. They can take these measures so long as: (1) they are not viewed as coercive, (2) the organization makes clear the decision regarding whether to receive the vaccine is voluntary, and (3) the measures comply with the requirements in the EUAs and the related regulations for these products.

People across the world have had their lives upended during the last year. The urgency to return to normalcy is felt deeply by many. As decision-makers at organizations decide on their Covid-19 vaccination policy, they should be careful to not let this passion lead the organization to run afoul of the law.

Aaron Siri is the managing partner at Siri & Glimstad LLP, a civil litigation firm with its principal office in New York City that has represented the Informed Consent Action Network, a group that campaigns against vaccine requirements. This article is not intended to provide legal advice but to offer broad and general information about the law.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Sen. Cramer introducing bill requiring states that mandate vaccine passports to also mandate voter ID

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., is introducing legislation requiring states that mandate vaccine passports, or cards showing proof of vaccination, to also mandate voter identification.

www.foxnews.com

(fair use applies)




Sen. Cramer introducing bill requiring states that mandate vaccine passports to also mandate voter ID
California, New York and Hawaii have helped create optional digital vaccine passports
By Audrey Conklin | Fox News
8/3/2021

First on Fox - Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., is introducing legislation requiring states that mandate vaccine passports, or cards showing proof of vaccination, to also mandate voter identification.

The proposed legislation comes after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday announced that the city would be requiring visitors and city residents to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination status, including by using one of two different apps, to go to indoor restaurants, gyms and entertainment venues, becoming the first U.S. city to do so.

"If states that take federal money for elections feel the need to make residents verify a piece of information as private as their vaccination status just to return to normalcy, then they should have no problem requiring people to prove they are who they say they are when they go to vote," Cramer said in a Tuesday statement.

He added that the new bill "would ensure those states are being consistent about their identification requirements and shine a light on those who hypocritically oppose Voter ID laws but support vaccine passports."

No governors have issued any kind of statewide vaccine proof requirement, and 20 states including North Dakota have outright banned the possibility of such a requirement. The Biden administration has repeatedly said it will not issue any kind of federal vaccine passport mandate.

California, New York and Hawaii, however, have helped create optional digital vaccine passports so that residents can show proof of vaccination status from their smartphones at establishments that choose to require them. Oregon is requiring retail stores, restaurants, grocery stores and other establishments to review customers' vaccination status cards that they receive after getting the shot in exchange for services, according to local reports.

Cramer’s bill, which he plans to introduce as both a standalone bill and as an amendment to Democrat's $3.5 trillion spending plan, aims to have "all States which require vaccine passports or other such documentation to also require voter identification at the voting polls" in elections starting in 2022. The senator is seeking cosponsors for the legislation.

Vaccine passports and voter identification requirements have been points of contention between Democrats and Republicans.

Many Republicans — and the American Civil Liberties Union — argue that the former is a violation of civil liberties and an overreach of government authority. Democrats argue that the latter may make it more difficult for some people to vote, with some calling the practice "racist," in response to a slew of GOP-led voting laws introduced or passed in states like Texas and Georgia that restrict things like early voting and mail-in ballots and require identification at the polls.

Cramer's office noted that these states receive millions of dollars each year in the form of federal grants through the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 every year to help fund states' election administration expenditures.

The senator's office also noted that California and New York do not have voter ID requirements except for those who are voting for the very first time. The vast majority of Americans (80%) support voter ID requirements, according to a Monmouth University poll published in June.

 

[Marie]

Wild U.S. deer found with coronavirus antibodies

A new study detected coronavirus antibodies in 40 percent of deer tested this year. Here’s why that matters.

www.nationalgeographic.com

(fair use applies)

Wild U.S. deer found with coronavirus antibodies
A new study detected coronavirus antibodies in 40 percent of deer tested this year. Here’s why that matters.
Dina Fine Maron
Published August 2, 2021

White-tailed deer, a species found in every U.S. state except Alaska, appear to be contracting the coronavirus in the wild, according to the first study to search for evidence of an outbreak in wild deer.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) analyzed blood samples from more than 600 deer in Michigan, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania over the past decade, and they discovered that 40 percent of the 152 wild deer tested from January through March 2021 had antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Another three deer from January 2020 also had antibodies.

Their presence means that deer likely had encountered the virus and then fought it off. The animals didn’t appear sick, so they probably had asymptomatic infections, the agency says. Roughly 30 million white-tailed deer live in the U.S.

“The risk of animals spreading SARS-CoV-2 to people is considered low,” the USDA told National Geographic in a statement. Still, the results may suggest that “a secondary reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 has been established in wildlife in the U.S.” says Jüergen Richt, a veterinarian and director of the Center on Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at Kansas State University who was not involved in the USDA’s work. If the virus is circulating in other species, it could continue to evolve, perhaps in ways that make it more severe or transmissible, undermining efforts to slow the pandemic.

Earlier this year, researchers established that deer are susceptible to the virus when infected in the lab—and that they can pass the virus to each other. But scientists didn’t know until now if infections were occurring in nature. The only species with lab results indicating that they had contracted the virus in the wild had been mink, though cats, dogs, otters, lions, tigers, snow leopards, gorillas, and a cougar have all had outbreaks in captivity or in zoos. (Learn more about efforts to vaccinate some of these animals.)

The new USDA report was posted on a preprint website, which means it hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention didn’t respond to request for comment.
Human transmission

“At present there’s no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is having any detrimental effect on deer. And for humans, our infinitely greater problem is spread from other humans,” says Daniel Bausch, a Switzerland-based zoonotic diseases expert and the director of emerging threats and global health security at the nonprofit FIND, which works to develop tests for poverty-related diseases.

The USDA says the risk to people who hunt white-tailed deer is not high. Though researchers posit the virus may have originally jumped from animal to human at a wet market in China, where wild animals were slaughtered and sold for food, differences in food preparation procedures matter.

There’s “no evidence that you can get COVID-19 by eating [contaminated] food, including wild hunted game meat,” the USDA says. The department is not issuing new guidance, pointing instead to existing government recommendations on good hygiene when processing animals, which include properly cooking and storing meat, and cleaning and disinfecting all knives, surfaces, and equipment.

Exactly how deer may have been exposed to the virus remains uncertain, though researchers suspect they were infected by humans. “Multiple activities could bring deer into contact with people, including captive cervid operations, field research, conservation work, wildlife tourism, wildlife rehabilitation, supplemental feeding, and hunting,” the USDA researchers wrote. Other possibilities include that they contracted it through contaminated wastewater or from exposure to other infected species like mink.

Researchers also don’t know if the deer are passing the virus among themselves or to other species.
Widening the net

There’s a chance that the deer didn’t have SARS-CoV-2 at all, Bausch says; another explanation is that the USDA’s tests detected antibodies for other coronaviruses, a phenomenon known as cross-reactivity.

The USDA says that’s unlikely. Researchers used a commercially available SARS-CoV-2 antibody screening test that has been highly accurate with other species. The USDA also helped rule out the chances of cross-reactivity by testing a subset of the samples using a second type of antibody test even more specific to SARS-CoV-2. That second test’s results mirrored the earlier findings, suggesting that the tests were truly picking up SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, the USDA told National Geographic in a statement.

Pre-pandemic blood samples from deer also shore up the results: If the tests were just detecting antibodies for other coronaviruses, antibody levels in deer likely would be similar in samples taken both before and during the pandemic. Yet when the researchers tested 239 samples collected before January 2020 from a slightly wider pool that also included deer from New Jersey, they had only one positive test—from 2019. (The USDA says that the single outlier was almost certainly a false positive since it had a very low level of antibodies. Richt says that the USDA’s false-positive conclusion sounds reasonable.)

Bausch says that performing the two types of tests gives him greater confidence in the results. Still, it’s always possible that cross-reactivity is an issue. “There are many coronaviruses that circulate in animals and likely many that we’ve yet to discover,” he says. The most definitive ways to rule out cross-reactivity, he says, would be to isolate a virus on cell culture—perhaps by testing respiratory secretions from deer—but that would require finding a deer when it had an active coronavirus infection.

Exposure to the virus seemed to vary widely by location, the researchers found. Of the four states, Michigan had the largest percentage of deer with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies—67 percent. That was followed by Pennsylvania with 44 percent, New York with 31 percent, and Illinois with 7 percent of samples showing antibodies. The deer with coronavirus antibodies were also concentrated in specific counties, the USDA writes, “with nearly half of the 32 counties sampled showing no evidence” of coronavirus exposure, the study says.

“These results emphasize the need for continued and expanded wildlife surveillance to determine the significance of SARS-CoV-2 in free-ranging deer,” the USDA says. Now, the researchers wrote, it’s also important to look for the virus in predators and scavengers that may eat deer.

Cool I'm immune! My venison was yummy, no death poke needed.

 

[Marie]

It found this article on line and I think it's the one you're referring to.

F.D.A. Aims to Give Final Approval to Pfizer Vaccine by Early Next Month (Published 2021)

The Food and Drug Administration’s move is expected to kick off more vaccination mandates for hospital workers, college students and federal troops.

www.nytimes.com

(fair use applies)

F.D.A. Aims to Give Final Approval to Pfizer Vaccine by Early Next Month
The Food and Drug Administration’s move is expected to kick off more vaccination mandates for hospital workers, college students and federal troops.
By Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland
Aug. 3, 2021 Updated 7:50 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — With a new surge of Covid-19 infections ripping through much of the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has accelerated its timetable to fully approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine, aiming to complete the process by the start of next month, people involved in the effort said.

President Biden said last week that he expected a fully approved vaccine in early fall. But the F.D.A.’s unofficial deadline is Labor Day or sooner, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. The agency said in a statement that its leaders recognized that approval might inspire more public confidence and had “taken an all-hands-on-deck approach” to the work.

Giving final approval to the Pfizer vaccine — rather than relying on the emergency authorization granted late last year by the F.D.A. — could help increase inoculation rates at a moment when the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus is sharply driving up the number of new cases.

A number of universities and hospitals, the Defense Department and at least one major city, San Francisco, are expected to mandate inoculation once a vaccine is fully approved. Final approval could also help mute misinformation about the safety of vaccines and clarify legal issues about mandates.

Federal regulators have been under growing public pressure to fully approve Pfizer’s vaccine ever since the company filed its application on May 7. “I just have not sensed a sense of urgency from the F.D.A. on full approval,” Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said in an interview on Tuesday. “And I find it baffling, given where we are as a country in terms of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.”

Although 192 million Americans — 58 percent of the total population and 70 percent of the nation’s adults — have received at least one vaccine shot, many remain vulnerable to the ultracontagious, dominant Delta variant. The country is averaging nearly 86,000 new infections a day, an increase of 142 percent in just two weeks, according to a New York Times database.

Recent polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been tracking public attitudes during the pandemic, have found that three of every 10 unvaccinated people said that they would be more likely to get a shot with a fully approved vaccine. But the pollsters warned that many respondents did not understand the regulatory process and might have been looking for a “proxy” justification not to get a shot.

Moderna, the second most widely used vaccine in the United States, filed for final approval of its vaccine on June 1. But the company is still submitting data and has not said when it will finish. Johnson & Johnson, the third vaccine authorized for emergency use, has not yet applied but plans to do so later this year.

Full approval of the Pfizer vaccine will kick off a patchwork of vaccination mandates across the country. Like most other employees of federal agencies, civilians working for the Defense Department must be vaccinated or face regular testing. But the military has held off on ordering shots for 1.3 million active-duty service members until the F.D.A. acts.

The City of San Francisco has said its roughly 44,500 employees must be fully vaccinated within 10 weeks of F.D.A. approval. The State University of New York, with roughly 400,000 students, is on a parallel track.

A number of health care systems have issued similar mandates to employees, including Beaumont Health, the largest health provider in Michigan, with 33,000 employees, and Mass General Brigham in Massachusetts, with about 80,000 workers.

Full approval typically requires the F.D.A. to review hundreds of thousands of pages of documents — roughly 10 times the data required to authorize a vaccine on an emergency basis. The agency can usually complete a priority review within six to eight months and was already working on an expedited timetable for the Pfizer vaccine. The F.D.A.’s decision to speed up was reported last week by Stat News.

In a guest essay in The Times last month, Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top vaccine regulator, wrote that undue haste “would undermine the F.D.A.’s statutory responsibilities, affect public trust in the agency and do little to help combat vaccine hesitancy.”

The regulators want to see real-world data on how the vaccine has been working since they authorized it for emergency use in December. That means verifying the company’s data on vaccine efficacy and immune responses, reviewing how efficacy or immunity might decline over time, examining new infections in participants in continuing clinical trials, reviewing adverse reactions to vaccinations and inspecting manufacturing plants.

At the same time, senior health officials at the F.D.A. and other agencies are grappling with whether at least some people who are already vaccinated need booster shots. Several officials are arguing that boosters will be widely needed before long, while others contend that the scientific basis for them remains far from settled.

Two people familiar with the deliberations, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that if booster shots are needed, the administration wants a single strategy for all three vaccines currently authorized for emergency use.

Different recommendations on boosters for different vaccines, they said, could confuse the public. Fully approving a vaccine and then authorizing a booster for it soon after might also offer conflicting messages about its effectiveness.

While research is continuing, senior administration officials increasingly believe that at the least, vulnerable populations like those with compromised immune systems and older people will need them, according to people familiar with their thinking. But when to administer them, which vaccine to use and who should get shots are all still being discussed.

In a study posted online last week, Pfizer and BioNTech scientists reported that the effectiveness of Pfizer’s vaccine against symptomatic disease fell from about 96 percent to about 84 percent four to six months after the second shot, but continued to offer robust protection against hospitalization and severe disease.

Administration officials said Moderna and Johnson & Johnson needed to present data as well and Moderna had been asked to do so quickly. Officials have said other studies will also influence their decision-making, including data that the government is collecting on the rate of breakthrough infections among tens of thousands of people, including health care workers.

Pfizer is expected to submit an application for a booster shot to the F.D.A. this month. While the F.D.A. could authorize such shots, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would need to recommend them after a meeting of its outside committee of experts.

A decision to fully approve Pfizer’s vaccine will give doctors more latitude to prescribe additional shots at least for certain Americans, including those with weakened immune systems. The C.D.C. had been exploring possible special programs for that group, but administration officials said it became clear that by the time any such initiative got underway, the Pfizer vaccine would already be fully approved and doctors could prescribe a third shot.

Roughly 3 percent of Americans — or about 10 million people, by some estimates — have compromised immune systems as a result of cancer, organ transplants or other medical conditions, according to the C.D.C. While studies indicate that the vaccines work well for some of them, others do not produce the immune response that would protect them from the virus.

Some people are trying to get booster shots from pharmacies or other providers on their own, without waiting for the federal government’s blessing. Officials in Contra Costa County, home to 1.1 million people in Northern California, were so eager to offer boosters that on July 23 they told vaccine providers to give extra shots to people who asked for them “without requiring further documentation or justification.”

Then, realizing that policy violated the F.D.A. rules on vaccines authorized for emergency use, the county reversed it this week.

Thank you looks like fall will be go time for the bastards in charge

 

[Publius]

I'm beginning to get the idea that only 20% of the population has foolishly gotten the deadly kill shot.
Also right now someone has gotten the minority leftists to start a petition to have government arrest or force people to get the shot against their will.

 

[goosebeans]

GOP report says October 2019 Wuhan military games were ‘one of the earliest super spreader events’

House Foreign Affairs Republicans concluded the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019 was “one of the earliest super spreader events” during the pandemic, with their new report contending COVID-19 escaped from a Wuhan lab in late August or early September 2019 — with China covering it up…

www.washingtonexaminer.com

(fair use applies)

GOP report says October 2019 Wuhan military games were ‘one of the earliest super spreader events’
by Jerry Dunleavy
August 03, 2021 07:00 AM

House Foreign Affairs Republicans concluded the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019 was “one of the earliest super spreader events” during the pandemic, with their new report contending COVID-19 escaped from a Wuhan lab in late August or early September 2019 — with China covering it up for months.

"When they realized what happened, Chinese Communist Party officials and scientists at the WIV began frantically covering up the leak," said Republican Rep. Michael McCaul. "But their coverup was too late — the virus was already spreading throughout the megacity of Wuhan."

McCaul added: "Within a month, satellite images show a significant uptick in the number of people at hospitals around the WIV with symptoms similar to COVID-19. At the same time, athletes at the Military World Games became sick with symptoms similar to COVID-19. Some of them carried the virus back to their home countries — creating one of the earliest super spreader events in the world, and explaining how countries who participated in the games had reported cases as early as November 2019.”

The new report said its lab leak evidence included “athletes at the Military World Games held in Wuhan in October 2019 who became sick with symptoms similar to COVID-19 both while in Wuhan and also shortly after.”

The GOP report zeroed in on Wuhan, which was picked to host the 7th International Military Sports Council Military World Games in October 2019, during which “more than 9,000 military personnel from over 100 countries stayed in Wuhan in accommodations at an athletes village built specifically for the games.”

The Chinese state-run China Internet Information Center said in October 2019 there were athletes from 109 countries. China’s Organizing Committee of the 7th International Military Sports Council proclaimed that “the charm of sports will put Wuhan in global spotlight.”

The GOP report noted a since-deleted version of the competition’s website listed more than 30 venues for the games across Wuhan. One athlete from Luxembourg described Wuhan as a “ghost town” and recalled having his temperature taken upon arriving at the city’s airport, saying, “There were rumors that the government warned the inhabitants not to go out.” The report said, "Similar claims about COVID-19 like symptoms have been made by athletes from Germany, France, Italy, and Sweden.”

A military athlete from Canada said that on the return flight, dozens of athletes “were sick with symptoms ranging from coughs to diarrhea.” A German athlete said, “After a few days, some athletes from my team got ill … I got sick in the last two days … Either it was a very bad cold or COVID-19. I think it was COVID-19.”

An Italian athlete said all the athletes in his Wuhan apartment fell ill with “symptoms that looked like those of COVID-19.”

The GOP committee members put together a map visualizing the competition venues in black, the Wuhan lab in red, and the hospitals with early cases in blue, with green figures representing the competition venues for athletes who believe they contracted COVID-19 in Wuhan.

The Republicans noted that “four countries who sent delegations” to the Wuhan games “have now confirmed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 cases within their borders in November and December 2019” — Italy, Brazil, Sweden, and France — with some athletes complaining of COVID-like symptoms in Wuhan.

“The virus was spread throughout central Wuhan, likely via the Wuhan Metro … In order to prevent national embarrassment, the decision was made to allow the 2019 Military World Games to continue. No spectators were allowed to attend the games, but international athletes and some of the 236,000 volunteers still become infected, spreading the virus in the city,” the GOP report contended. “Dozens of athletes fall ill with symptoms. Since COVID-19 can infect humans without causing symptoms, an untold number of athletes and volunteers become infected, but are asymptomatic and unaware they are infectious. The athletes return to their home countries in late October, carrying SARS-CoV-2 across the world.”

The GOP report said that “the PRC’s efforts to obfuscate the origins of COVID-19 were not limited to destroying samples and silencing doctors, but featured a sustained disinformation campaign as well.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian and others have pushed baseless claims about the U.S. military, including Maryland's Fort Detrick, for over a year.

Zhao shared an article in March 2020 from Global Research, known for spreading conspiracy theories, tweeting: “COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the U.S.” Zhao tweeted, “It might be U.S. army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.”

Zhao and others revived the claims earlier this year as the WHO-China COVID-19 report was made public.

Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in March 2020 China's claims were "completely absurd.” A State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner this April that “the United States condemns the PRC’s false, baseless, and unscientific claims.”

A Pentagon spokesperson said it was a “myth” that “U.S. service members visiting China were the source of the coronavirus outbreak.”

Zhao also tweeted in March 2020, “If #COVID19 began last September, & U.S. has been lack of testing ability, how many would have been infected? U.S. should find out when patient zero appeared.”

The GOP report emphasized, “If the CCP realized an investigation would show an uptick in visits of patients with symptoms similar to COVID-19 in September, October, and November of 2019, this would likely be the actions they would take to coverup the source of those illnesses.”

The GOP added: “To further drive this narrative, CCP-controlled media outlets accused Maatje Benassi, a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, as being ‘patient zero.’ Benassi competed at the Military World Games without becoming ill … Two weeks after Zhao tweeted that the U.S. army brought the virus to Wuhan, the Global Times amplified the narrative.”

Benassi said last year the baseless claims were "like waking up from a bad dream and going into a nightmare day after day.”

Trump CDC Director Robert Redfield said COVID-19 “most likely” originated at the Wuhan lab and that it spread in the Chinese city in September or October 2019.

The WHO-China joint report said the Chinese Epidemiology Group, which provided information on the Wuhan games, found “no appreciable signals of clusters of fever or severe respiratory disease requiring hospitalization were identified."

Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin wrote Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin a letter seeking answers in June, saying, “Aware that the cluster of illnesses associated with the World Military Games casts doubt upon the Chinese Communist Party’s official timeline, Chinese government officials such as Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian have sought to deflect blame onto the U.S.”

GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas pressed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for answers in June.

When Esper was asked about the Wuhan games in April 2020, he replied, “I’m not aware of what you’re talking about.”

Gen. Mark Milley also said, “Yeah, I’m not.”

From the above :

McCaul added: "Within a month, satellite images show a significant uptick in the number of people at hospitals around the WIV with symptoms similar to COVID-19.

WTF!! So satellites are now capable of detecting the number of people in a hospital with symptoms of a particular disease?

Anyone else feel the need to reach for the duct tape to help hold their cranium together when reading some of the this tripe?

 

[BUBBAHOTEPT]

Anyone else feel the need to reach for the duct tape to help hold their cranium together when reading some of the this tripe?

Like someone stated on another post, just when you think it couldn’t get any stupider, someone says hold my beer….

 

[marsh]

Despite Deadly Results the FDA will Fast Track Pfizer COVID Vaccine Approval by Early Sept. -- Will Allow States and Businesses to Begin their Forced Vaccinations | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

According to the VAERS website there have been 8,182 deaths pinned to the Pfizer/Biontech coronavirus vaccination.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

Despite Deadly Results the FDA will Fast Track Pfizer COVID Vaccine Approval by Early Sept. — Will Allow States and Businesses to Begin their Forced Vaccinations

By Jim Hoft
Published August 4, 2021 at 9:56am

According to the VAERS website there have been 8,182 deaths pinned to the Pfizer/Biontech coronavirus vaccination.

The VAERS database contains information on unverified reports of adverse events (illnesses, health problems and/or symptoms) following immunization with US-licensed vaccines. The CDC government website links to VAERS platform.

The elites have yet to offer a credible explanation on how these thousands of reported deaths are illegitimate.

There have been over 400,000 adverse reactions reported to the COVID vaccine according to the VAERS website.

But this hasn’t stopped the Biden-Obama government from pushing the FDA to give full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

That way they can force Americans to get the vaccine to participate in public life.

VOA reported:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is aiming to give full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine by early September, according to The New York Times.

The two-dose vaccine, which Pfizer developed in collaboration with German-based BioNTech, was granted emergency use authorization by the FDA last November.

It is one of just three COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. stockpile, along with the two-shot vaccine from Moderna and the single-dose version developed by Johnson & Johnson.

The newspaper says the FDA is accelerating its normal timetable to grant full approval to the two-dose vaccine as the United States undergoes a new surge of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations caused primarily by the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19.

The recent surge of new infections is mainly among people who have not gotten vaccinated. The Times quotes recent polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care research group, which found that three of every 10 unvaccinated people in the U.S. said they more likely would take a fully approved vaccine.

The surge has prompted a growing number of public and private entities to issue mandatory vaccinations for all of its employees, including an order last week by U.S. President Joe Biden for all employees of the federal government.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

As far as FDA approval, please see my post above - 54,775 (link below). It is the only factual comment on the date of approval of the Pfizer vaccine, written by someone who is going to issue that approval. It's a letter to the editor to the NYT.

In my opinion, EVERYTHING ELSE ON THIS SUBJECT IS PART OF THE NOBLE LIE. That's when the gov't (and it's MSM agents) feel it's ok to lie to the public for the better good. It's a real thing, not something I'm making up for this post . Robert Malone, amongst others, speaks about it often.

For instance, again in my opinion only, telling people they could take off their masks after being vaxxed was a noble lie. They knew that the vaxxed could still catch and spread covid but they needed a carrot at the end of the stick to get more people to agree to vaxx up. Now that lie caught up with them. This noble lie is the fda is going to approve this in a few weeks anyway so go ahead and get vaxxed now so you can keep your job. But if you scroll up and read it - the FDA guy said he won't be rushed. And while a lot of others are quoted about a new 'sprint' effort by the FDA, none of those comments came from him. The last comment HE made was that he was going to do a thorough review. Of course, with pressure from the Biden WH that may have changed, but if it did, he didn't say so. There is no quote from him on the sprint in any article. That's what you need to concentrate on.

Of course I could be wrong.

HD

FROM HIS LETTER:

CORONA - Main Coronavirus thread

https://www.revolver.news/2021/08/france-king-louis-vaxx-moment/ Something Truly Remarkable is Unfolding in France, And It’s Starting to Feel a Little “King Louis-ish” August 1, 2021 (1d ago) There’s something remarkable happening in France right now, and it’s starting to feel a little...

www.timebomb2000.com

To the Editor:

Re “Vaccines Need Full Approval,” by Dr. Eric J. Topol (Opinion guest essay, July 5):

"We want to assure the public that the review of applications for full approval of Covid-19 vaccines is one of the highest priorities at the Food and Drug Administration. However, an extensive additional amount of manufacturing and clinical information has been collected since the emergency use authorizations and must be reviewed and evaluated by the agency as part of any applications submitted.

Any vaccine approval without completion of the high-quality review and evaluation that Americans expect the agency to perform would undermine the F.D.A.’s statutory responsibilities, affect public trust in the agency and do little to help combat vaccine hesitancy.
....
Peter Marks
Silver Spring, Md.
The writer is director of the F.D.A.’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. "



ETA:

That letter was in response to Eric Topol. Some clarification as to the parties in that NYT op-ed letter is found in the STAT article I posted in post 54,774 above.

From CORONA - Main Coronavirus thread


"Under the FDA’s new plan, the director of FDA’s biologics center, Peter Marks, will largely oversee review of the Pfizer application, taking over for Marion Gruber, a 32-year veteran of the FDA who currently heads the office of vaccine research and review within the larger biologics center, according to a second FDA source. A third source familiar with the plan, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity, said Marks was heavily involved in the review, but did not comment on whether he was formally replacing Gruber in the agency’s chain of command.

The reprioritization of other work at the agency’s biologics center underscores the tremendous political pressure the agency is under to finish the Pfizer review as quickly as possible.

Eric Topol, the director and founder of Scripps Research Translational Institute, who has been among those critical of the agency’s perceived slowness in finishing the review, said he was “thrilled” about plans to expedite it. But he also said the FDA should have accelerated the process much earlier."

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

'For $1/Day'... Double-Blind Ivermectin Study Reveals COVID Patients Recover More Quickly, Are Less Infectious

WEDNESDAY, AUG 04, 2021 - 11:50 AM
A double-blind Israeli study has concluded that Ivermectin, an inexpensive anti-parasitic widely used since 1981, reduces both the duration and infectiousness of Covid-19, according to the Jerusalem Post.



The study, conducted by Prof. Eli Schwartz, founder of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Disease at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, looked at some 89 eligible volunteers over the age of 18 who had tested positive for coronavirus, and were living in state-run Covid-19 hotels. After being divided into two groups, 50% received ivermectin, and 50% received a placebo. Each patient was given the drug for three days in a row, an hour before eating.

83% of participants were symptomatic at recruitment. 13.5% of patients had comorbidities of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, hypertension or cancer. The median age of the patients was 35, ranging from 20 to 71-years-old.

Results
Treatment was discontinued on the third day, and patients were monitored every two days thereafter. By day six, 72% of those treated with ivermectin tested negative for the virus, vs. 50% of those who received the placebo.

Meanwhile, just 13% of ivermectin patients were able to infect others after six days compared to 50% of the placebo group - nearly four times as many.

Hospitalizations
Three patients in the placebo group were admitted to hospitals for respiratory symptoms, while one ivermectin patient was hospitalized for shortness of breath the day the study began - only to be discharged a day later and "sent back to the hotel in good condition," according to the study.

"Our study shows first and foremost that ivermectin has antiviral activity," said Schwartz, adding "It also shows that there is almost a 100% chance that a person will be noninfectious in four to six days, which could lead to shortening isolation time for these people. This could have a huge economic and social impact."

The study, which appeared on the MedRxiv preprint server and has not yet been peer-reviewed. That said, Schwartz pointed out that similar studies - 'though not all of them conducted to the same double-blind and placebo standards as his' - also showed favorable results for the drug.


Scribd doc on website

Ivermectin is incredibly cheap due to its widespread use across the world to treat malaria, scabies, lice and other parasitic infections. In Bangladesh, the cost of ivermectin is around $0.60 to $1.80 for a five-day course, according to the report. In Israel, it costs up to $10 per day.

While Schwartz's study showed efficacy among those who had already tested positive, it didn't determine whether ivermectin is an effective prophylactic which could prevent one from contracting Covid-19, nor does it show whether it reduces chances of hospitalization - however Schwartz noted that other studies have shown such evidence.

For example, the study published earlier this year in the American Journal of Therapeutics highlighted that “a review by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance summarized findings from 27 studies on the effects of ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection, concluding that ivermectin ‘demonstrates a strong signal of therapeutic efficacy’ against COVID-19.”

“Another recent review found that ivermectin reduced deaths by 75%,” the report said. -Jerusalem Post

As the Post notes, Ivermectin has been actively opposed as a Covid treatment by the World Health Organization, the FDA, and pharmaceutical companies.

The “FDA has not approved ivermectin for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans,” it said.

“Ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses for some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea. Ivermectin is not an antiviral (a drug for treating viruses). Taking large doses of this drug is dangerous and can cause serious harm.”

Mere discussion of the drug has resulted in big-tech censoring or deplatforming thought leaders in collaboration with the Biden administration.

Meanwhile, Merck Co. - which manufactured the drug in the 1980s, has come out big against the use of ivermectin to treat Covid-19. In February, the company's website read: "Company scientists continue to carefully examine the findings of all available and emerging studies of Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 for evidence of efficacy and safety. It is important to note that, to date, our analysis has identified no scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies; no meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease, and a concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies."

As the Post points out - Merck has not launched a single study of its own on ivermectin.

"You would think Merck would be happy to hear that ivermectin might be helpful to corona patients and try to study it, but they are most loudly declaring the drug should not be used," said Schwartz.

"A billion people took it. They gave it to them. It’s a real shame."

In closing, the research team writes that "Developing new medications can take years; therefore, identifying existing drugs that can be re-purposed against COVID-19 [and] that already have an established safety profile through decades of use could play a critical role in suppressing or even ending the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic."

"Using re-purposed medications may be especially important because it could take months, possibly years, for much of the world’s population to get vaccinated, particularly among low- to middle-income populations."

 

[mzkitty]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1422978563070955522

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1422978563070955522

 

[Mprepared]

View attachment 281252

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1422978563070955522

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1422978563070955522

I wonder how many tee shirt machines are printing as fast as they can. LOL
‘I don't want to hear a blip from you about Covid’

 

[marsh]

NEW: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to Make Covid Vaccine Mandatory For All Active Duty Troops | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila

Lloyd Austin Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will make Covid vaccination mandatory for all active duty troops.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

NEW: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to Make Covid Vaccine Mandatory For All Active Duty Troops

By Cristina Laila
Published August 4, 2021 at 4:26pm

Lloyd Austin

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will make Covid vaccination mandatory for all active duty troops.

Last month Joe Biden announced he was asking the Defense Department to “look into how and when” it will add the Covid jab to the list of mandatory military vaccinations.

Initially the Pentagon said it would likely wait until the Covid vaccine was FDA approved before making the jab mandatory for the troops.

However, Lloyd Austin is expected to ask for a presidential waiver as soon as this week.

CNN reported:

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to seek authorization to make Covid-19 vaccines mandatory for all active duty troops as soon as this week, following President Joe Biden’s directive that the military examine how and when it could make that happen.

Austin’s “inclination is towards making the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory” for active duty troops, a defense official told CNN.

If the secretary makes that final recommendation, he could seek a presidential waiver to allow the vaccine to be administered to troops before full approval by the Food and Drug Administration. A Pentagon decision and recommendation on how to proceed could come this week, several officials say.

The Pentagon a couple weeks ago said 70% of service members have received their first dose of the Covid vaccine and 62% were fully vaccinated.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

"They Can't Arrest Us All" - Sen. Rand Paul Urges Americans To "Resist" Pelosi & The Petty Tyrants

WEDNESDAY, AUG 04, 2021 - 08:20 PM
Authored by Rand Paul, op-ed via Fox News,

Resist.


They can’t arrest us all. They can’t keep all your kids home from school. They can’t keep every government building closed – although I’ve got a long list of ones they should.

We don’t have to accept the mandates, lockdowns, and harmful policies of the petty tyrants and feckless bureaucrats. We can simply say no, not again.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi — you will not arrest or stop me or anyone on my staff from doing our jobs. We have all either had COVID, had the vaccine, or been offered the vaccine. We will make our own health choices. We will not show you a passport, we will not wear a mask, we will not be forced into random screening and testing so you can continue your drunk with power rein over the Capitol.

President Biden — we will not accept your agencies’ mandates or your reported moves toward a lockdown. No one should follow the CDC’s anti-science mask mandates. And if you want to shutdown federal agencies again — some of which aren’t even back to work fully — I will stop every bill coming through the Senate with an amendment to cut their funding if they don’t come to work.

No more.

Local bureaucrats and union bosses — we will not allow you to do more harm to our children again this year. Children are not at any more risk from COVID than they are for the seasonal flu. Every adult who works in schools has either had the vaccine or had their chance to. There is no reason for mask mandates, part time schools, or any lockdown measures.

Children are falling behind in school, and are being harmed physically and psychologically by the tactics you have used to keep them from the classroom last year. We won’t allow it again.

If a school system attempts to keep the children from full-time, in-person school, I will hold up every bill with two amendments. One to defund them, and another to allow parents the choice of where the money goes for their child’s education.

Do I sound fed up to you? That’s because I am.

I’m not a career politician. I’ve practiced medicine for 33 years. I graduated from Duke Medical School, worked in emergency rooms, studied immunology and virology, and ultimately chose to become a surgeon.

I have been telling everyone for a year now that Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public health officials were NOT following science, and I’ve been proven right time and time again.

But I’m not the only one who is fed up.

I can’t go anywhere these days — from work, to events, to airports and Ubers, restaurants and stores, without people coming up to me thanking me for standing up for them.

For standing up for actual science. For standing up for freedom. For standing against mandates, lockdowns, and bureaucratic power grabs.

I think the tide has turned, and more and more people are willing to stand up. I see stories from across the country of parents standing up to teacher unions and school boards.

I see members of Congress refusing to comply with Petty Tyrant Pelosi.

We are at a moment of truth and a crossroads. Will we allow these people to use fear and propaganda to do further harm to our society, economy, and children?

Or will we stand together and say, absolutely not. Not this time. I choose freedom.

 

[marsh]

Lambda variant of COVID 'shows vaccine resistance' - Insider Paper

According to Japanese researchers, the Lambda variant of the COVID-19 is more infectious and resistant to vaccines than the original version

insiderpaper.com

Lab experiments found Lambda variant of COVID ‘shows vaccine resistance’

August 2, 2021 2 days ago
Polina Tikhonova

Source: Pixabay

According to Japanese researchers, the Lambda variant of the COVID-19, which was first identified in Peru and is now spreading throughout South America, is more infectious and resistant to vaccines than the original version of the virus that emerged from Wuhan, China.

In Lab, researchers discovered that three mutations in Lambda’s spike protein, known as RSYLTPGD246-253N, 260 L452Q, and F490S, help it resist neutralisation by vaccine-induced antibodies. They discovered that two additional mutations, T76I and L452Q, contribute to Lambda’s high infectiousness.

According to Reuters, researchers warn in a paper published on bioRxiv on Wednesday ahead of peer review that because Lambda is classified as a “Variant of Interest” rather than a “Variant of Concern” by the World Health Organization, people may be unaware that it is a serious ongoing threat.

Although it is unclear whether this variant is more dangerous than the Delta strain that is currently threatening populations in many countries, senior researcher Kei Sato of the University of Tokyo believes that “Lambda can be a potential threat to human society.”

 

[mzkitty]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1423139843098521602

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1423139843098521602

 

[Jaybird]

I thank god every day because my boss is a redneck and doesn't want the jab. I've told him what I think about it and he said we will give it a year or two and see what happens. I'm good for now. This is pure bullshit. If you want it take it. If you don't it is your right to say no. I see CWII on the horizon...... And thank you Marsh and all that keep the info coming.

 

[mzkitty]

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqFySCWT_x8
1:48:59 min
TWiV 789: Does delta mean a change?

Aug 4, 2021


Vincent Racaniello

TWiV reviews a leaked CDC document on virulence and spread of the delta variant, and how anti-alphavirus antibodies that do not neutralize infection can nevertheless protect mice from disease. Show notes at https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-789/