Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine creates TWICE as many antibodies as Pfizer's, study finds

Those who receive Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine produce twice the protective antibodies of those who receive the Pfizer vaccine, a new study suggests.

Researchers from East Limburg Hospital in Belgium compared antibody levels produced by both vaccines among about 1,600 hospital workers, finding that Moderna recipients produced 3,600 antibody units per milliliter while Pfizer recipients produced only 1,400.

While the findings may suggest that Moderna is more effective against Covid, scientists are still working to understand how antibodies contribute to protection - as Pfizer and Moderna have both proven very successful in preventing infections.

More research is needed to compare the vaccines and study how long immunity lasts, as the U.S. prepares to roll out booster shots in September.

The Covid vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have both proven to be very effective at protecting people against the virus. Both vaccines demonstrated over 90 percent efficacy in clinical trials.

Since the vaccines' roll out in the U.S., they've protected millions from severe Covid symptoms, hospitalization and death from the virus.

Out of over 170 million Americans fully vaccinated, just 11,000 have contracted a breakthrough infection leading to hospitalization or death. That's about 0.006 percent.

As the Indian 'Delta' variant drives case surges across the U.S., however, some scientists and leaders are concerned that these vaccines become less effective as time passes after vaccination. These concerns have led the federal government to announce a plan for booster shots starting in late September.

The study addresses vaccine efficacy concerns by examining the immune system's response to vaccination.

This study - published Monday in JAMA - is unique in that it's the first to directly compare antibody response resulting from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Antibodies are proteins in the body's immune system that recognize - and neutralize - foreign invaders, such as viruses and bacteria.

Scientists measure antibody levels by taking patients' blood samples, then introducing a specific foreign invader - such as the coronavirus spike protein - into the sample.

If a patient's immune system is prepared to respond to the invader, antibodies will multiply and trigger other immune system actions.

The Belgian researchers measured Covid antibody levels among about 1,600 healthcare workers at their healthcare facility.

All the healthcare workers had received two doses of an mRNA vaccine - about 700 received the Moderna vaccine and just under 1,000 received the Pfizer vaccine.

The researchers tested these workers' antibody levels before they were vaccinated and six to ten weeks after their second doses.

Those workers who received the Moderna vaccine had much higher antibody responses to the coronavirus spike protein than those who received Pfizer, the researchers found.

Moderna recipients had an average antibody titer of 3,800 units per milliliter, while Pfizer recipients had an average titer of 1,400 units per milliliter.

Antibody levels among the Moderna patients were 2.7 times higher.

The researchers suggested that this big difference may be a result of a longer wait time between doses for the Moderna vaccine (four weeks as opposed to three weeks for Pfizer), as well as a higher concentration of Covid mRNA in Moderna's vaccine.

While these results appear to suggest that Moderna recipients are better protected against Covid than those who got Pfizer's jabs, outside researchers have cautioned that antibody levels do not exactly correspond with protection.

'I would urge caution in making the conclusion that because Moderna demonstrated a slightly higher peak on average that its efficacy will be slower to wane,' David Benkeser, a biostatistician at Emory University, told Bloomberg. 'Such a conclusion requires a host of assumptions that have not yet been evaluated,' he said.

The researchers themselves acknowledge that more study is needed to determine the relationship between antibody levels and Covid protection - along with how long protection lasts.

Scientists also continue to evaluate the vaccines' ability to protect against Delta and other concerning variants.

'Still, it's possible that higher initial antibody levels might correlate with longer duration of protection against mild breakthrough infections,' Deborah Steensels, a microbiologist at East Limburg Hospital and lead author on the study, told Bloomberg.

'Also, if higher antibody levels are confirmed to be important, then the Moderna vaccine might be better for immunocompromised people who don't respond well to vaccines, she said.

This study follows other recent research that has suggested Moderna's vaccine may be more durable - and better at protecting recipients against breakthrough cases - than Pfizer's.

In addition to comparing the vaccines against each other, the researchers also compared antibody levels between those patients who did and did not have a prior COVID-19 infection.

A small number of healthcare workers in the study had previously faced Covid infection, including 22 percent of the Moderna group and 13 percent of the Pfizer group.

The researchers found that these previously infected workers had much higher antibody levels - about 9,500 units per milliliter, compared to 1,600 units per milliliter for those who weren't infected.

That's a six-fold difference. This finding suggests that, for people who both experience a Covid infection and get vaccinated, the infection may act as a natural booster shot - providing extra protection against future interactions with the coronavirus.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9944813/Modernas-COVID-19-vaccine-creates-TWICE-antibodies-Pfizers-study-finds.html

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Corporate Social Justice Programs Don't Work

According to a new report from The Washington Post, America's corporations have committed "at least" $49.5 billion to the cause of "racial justice" since the George Floyd murder last year riveted our national attention on race.

This amounts to a little over $1,100 for every Black man, woman and child in America.

Or, from another perspective, about $16,500 for every Black household earning $25,000 or less.

But we're not talking about corporate America, despite their deep concern for racial justice, just simply giving black Americans cash. As much as they undoubtedly care about these Black citizens, they would never trust them to just take the money and spend properly.

These corporate executives nationwide have concluded that they can justify taking a huge chunk of their shareholders' funds -- an amount equal to the entire economy of the state of Alaska -- and spend it in a way that will produce more racial justice.

It is reasonable to ask why they believe they can achieve this.

It goes against all experience we have had with government.

The federal government has been spending trillions since the war on poverty began in the 1960s -- $20 trillion, by some estimates -- and the incidence of poverty over these years has hardly budged.

Apparently, these corporate executives feel they have some insight that has eluded politicians all these years.

A large percentage of these funds is earmarked for loans and investments in housing and business loans.

According to the report, $28 billion flows from a pledge by JPMorgan Chase to move 40,000 families into home ownership over the next five years.

But, again, special loans and grants to encourage minority home ownership are nothing new.

Government has been doing this for years, causing more damage than good.

Most should recall that we had a major financial crisis in our country in which we saw a collapse in financial markets in 2008 that was the worst since the Great Depression.

According to research at the American Enterprise Institute, this collapse was driven by the bursting of a highly inflated bubble in housing prices, the result of widespread deterioration in lending standards driven by government affordable housing goals and mandates.

Black citizens, who these government programs were designed to help, were disproportionately hurt when housing prices collapsed as a result of the plethora of bad loans.

The great mystery is why the principles that made and make our country great are nowhere to be found in the various ideas and programs being promoted with this vast sum of funds.

Why have so many in corporate America signed off on left-wing dogma that American principles -- principles of protection of life, of liberty, of property -- are the problem rather than the solution?

A healthy portion of American Blacks are doing very well because of these American principles.

Per the Census Bureau's recent annual report -- Income and Poverty in the United States, 2019 -- a larger percentage of Black households, 29.4%, were earning $75,000 or more than the percentage earning $25,000 or less, 28.7%.

Those left behind need liberation from government control of their lives. Less government-created ghettos from federal housing programs, more freedom from failing government schools and from broken government entitlement programs such as Social Security.

I started promoting the idea 25 years ago of releasing low-income earners from the Social Security payroll tax and allowing them to invest those funds in a personal retirement account. Back then, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 10,000. Today, it stands at 35,000.

The very naysayers I heard back then are the ones bleating today about unfairness and the wealth gap.

Rather than betraying the tradition of free enterprise capitalism that built corporate America, America's corporations should be promoting these values. This is the path to more prosperity, more justice, for all Americans.

https://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2021/09/01/corporate-social-justice-programs-dont-work-n2595104

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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Israel’s grand vaccine experiment as the world and UK watches on

The only person who kept calm in the packed health clinic in northern Jerusalem on Monday morning was a 19-year-old military medic. As dozens jostled in the narrow corridor leading to the vaccination booths, arguing over whose turn it was next, he surveyed the scene wryly before sitting back in his booth and preparing a syringe with 0.3 millilitres of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine which he then plunged into my shoulder.

“This is actually a lull,” he said. “You should have been here an hour ago when the real chaos began.” Perhaps for the soldier — seconded the previous week from his combat engineering battalion on desert manoeuvres — sitting all day in an air-conditioned clinic was an improvement. But no one else there shared his equanimity.

Israel is the first country to embark on a second nationwide vaccination campaign for Covid-19. This time, the jabbing takes place on two fronts. For those over 30, who received their first two jabs at least five months ago, there’s a third “booster” dose. There’s also a push to vaccinate as many secondary pupils (over-12s) as possible before the new school year begins next Wednesday.

But although more than a million and a half Israelis have already had a third jab, the atmosphere is very different from the first roll-out, when huge vaccination centres were opened in sports stadiums and city squares, and many people, overjoyed at the prospect of lockdown lifting, broke into song and started dancing. Now, Covid cases are spiralling again — with the daily rate more than doubling in the past two weeks. Hospitalisations are also rising. “I believe we are at war,” coronavirus commissioner Professor Salman Zarka told a parliamentary committee this month. Israel is pinning its hopes on the booster programme.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Back in March, Israel’s vaccination programme was the envy of the world. And vaccines, which proved effective against a third wave of Covid-19 fuelled mainly by the Kent variant, allowed the country to reopen. Joyous Israelis, with the “green pass” vaccine passport on their smartphones, packed out restaurants and bars, and vaccination centres were dismantled. In March, face mask requirements were removed. Then came the Delta variant. Now, Israel finds itself serving as a test case for the longer-term efficacy of a vaccine programme.

Public health experts are not surprised. They had warned that it was impossible to predict whether the new vaccine would give adequate protection against new variants — that the protection would wane over time, perhaps in a matter of months. And that while it would probably continue to give significant protection against serious illness from Covid-19, that didn’t mean those vaccinated couldn’t still become infected and pass the virus on to others.

And that’s exactly what happened in the spring. The first Israelis to get vaccinated in December (unlike in Britain, Israel worked according to the Pfizer protocol, delivering the two doses three weeks apart) were relatively mobile and well-to-do citizens over the age of 60. As the country emerged from lockdown, many flew abroad for holidays. With the vaccine beginning to weaken, some came home infected with the Delta variant. Next, they infected their children and grandchildren, and the highly contagious strain swept through schools in the weeks before the summer holiday.

It didn’t help that around that time, the government changed and ministers took their eyes off the ball. In the spring, then prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was basking in the success of the first roll-out, which he ascribed to his decision-making and influence with big pharma, claiming this enabled him to secure early shipments of the vaccine. Then, in May, he was distracted by the war in Gaza. Three weeks later he was out, replaced by Naftali Bennett, who sees himself as an expert on coronavirus — he ran for office partly on the basis of his manifesto, “How to Beat a Pandemic”. Bennett blithely predicted that “we can beat Covid-19 in five weeks”. That was over two months ago and Israel now has the second-highest level of new cases per capita in the world and the coronavirus wards that were closed in April have all reopened.

It isn’t all bad news, though. For a start, the vaccines are still working. After six months they are only 42 per cent effective against infection, but against serious illness they are still 80 per cent effective. Death rates are only half as high as they were in the previous waves and while less than 20 per cent of all Israeli adults have not been vaccinated, they account for half the cases in hospital. And now that the government has made the third dose available, it is already having an effect in boosting the resistance to infection of recipients.

The government decided on the boosters despite the World Health Organisation’s recommendation to wait until countries that have barely begun giving out first doses can get their vaccination campaigns under way. Israeli public health officials argue that since theirs is a small country, the booster doses do not impact on global supply, and that they are serving as a test-case for countries such as Britain which will give boosters in coming months. As the first country to administer booster jabs nationwide, Israel is embarking on a grand experiment. Bennett is adamant that the country will not enter a fourth lockdown, despite the rise in infections.

Vaccinations are so far keeping hospitals from being overwhelmed and experts are cautiously optimistic that the high uptake of third vaccines will keep it that way. For now, the school year is on track to begin next week. Face-masks are now mandatory again in all closed spaces and the target is for all secondary schools to be at least 70 per cent vaccinated before pupils return. The rest will be vaccinated at school within days of the start of term.

In primary schools, where under-12s cannot yet be vaccinated, there will be weekly testing. It’s a gamble, reopening schools while Israel is still at peak infection — experts calculate that one in every 100 Israelis is infected. And Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, a time of large family gatherings and communal prayers, begins on September 7.

However, Professor Doron Gazit, head of the Hebrew University’s Covid monitoring team, says: “We may actually have overestimated the danger of infection over the High Holidays. The chances of infection at family gatherings is counteracted by the reduced mobility as people travel less to work.”

Ultimately, the success of “containing” the Delta variant with booster jabs, face-masks and increased testing, while avoiding lockdown, could influence other governments’ policies on reopening schools and celebrating Christmas. It’s all eyes on Israel.

https://au.yahoo.com/news/israel-grand-vaccine-experiment-world-141636848.html

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Johnson & Johnson booster shot increases antibodies to coronavirus nine-fold, company says

A booster dose of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine prompted a big spike in antibodies among clinical trial participants, when taken six to eight months after the first dose, the company announced on Wednesday (Aug.25).

Health officials have recommended that people vaccinated with the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines receive a booster dose about eight months after their second dose, due to waning immunity, Live Science previously reported. But they have not yet recommended a booster for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, citing the lack of data.

"We also anticipate booster shots will likely be needed for people who received the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine," the U.S. Department of Health and Human services said in a statement on Aug.18. They added that they expect more data on the Johnson & Johnson booster shots in the next few weeks, and that they will "keep the public informed with a timely plan for J&J booster shots as well."

More than 14 million people in the U.S. received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Today's data, taken from clinical trial participants, suggests that a booster may be beneficial.

A booster dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine generated a nine-fold increase in antibodies compared to the level seen 28 days after the initial dose, the company reported in a statement. The data is based on two small clinical trials conducted in the U.S. and in Europe, and the company submitted the results, which haven't yet been peer-reviewed, to the preprint database medRxiv.

"We have established that a single shot of our COVID-19 vaccine generates strong and robust immune responses that are durable and persistent through eight months," Dr. Mathai Mammen, the Global Head of Janssen Research & Development at Johnson & Johnson, said in the statement. "With these new data, we also see that a booster dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine further increases antibody responses among study participants who had previously received our vaccine."

Mammen added that they will discuss potential strategies for booster doses with public health officials.

But the study looked at antibody levels and not at real-world efficacy, so it's not clear if people who get the booster shot will be less likely to be infected or to develop severe disease than those who don't, according to CNN. Still, experts are reaching a consensus that antibody levels may be indicative of the amount of immune protection, according to CNN.

Experts told NPR that while the studies were small, and didn't look at real-world protection, the findings would likely support the idea of giving booster shots to those who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. "It is pointing toward the utility of a second dose. I think that's reasonable," Saad Omer, a vaccine researcher at Yale told NPR.

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IN BRIEF

Tone-deaf House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweets about Women’s Equality Day after Americans killed in Kabul (PJ Media)

In hopeless speech, President Biden refuses liability for Afghanistan crisis he created (The Federalist)

Biden admits to being instructed which reporters to call on (Daily Wire)

Dumb… CENTCOM commander says U.S. sharing intel with Taliban (Fox Business)

“This is insanity”: Baffled reporters torch Biden for sharing list of U.S. citizens and allies with Taliban (Fox News)

Tropical Storm Ida is strengthening and forecast to hit the Gulf Coast as a major hurricane (TWC)

Portland explodes again in violent battles between antifa and Proud Boys (The Hill)

Feds to close troubled NYC jail where Jeffrey Epstein killed himself/didn’t kill himself (AP)

Democrat Terry McAuliffe, candidate for Virginia governor, forgot to sign form making him a valid candidate, complaint says (Daily Wire)

Getting it right on the second try: Supreme Court strikes down eviction moratorium (National Review)

Nearly 90% of rental assistance funds not yet distributed (Fox Business)

Delta Air Lines will impose $200 surcharge on unvaccinated employees (Fox Business)

Policy: How might China exploit the Afghanistan debacle? (Daily Signal)

Policy: How to regulate Critical Race Theory in schools (Manhattan Institute)

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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AstraZeneca vaccine is the best at keeping people out of hospital with just 1.52 per cent admitted and 1 in 3,000 dying compared to 1.99 per cent for the Pfizer jab

Since I have just had an A-Z shot, I rather like this news

AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine is best at keeping people out of hospital and preventing deaths from the virus, a study has found.

Just 1.52 per cent of people who got two doses of the Oxford-made vaccine were admitted to wards after they caught the virus, researchers said. And only 0.03 per cent, or one in 3,000, died from the disease.

But among those who got the Pfizer vaccine 1.99 per cent were hospitalised and 0.15 per cent died after they were infected with the virus.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has formed the backbone of Britain's vaccine roll out, with 25million people having already received the jab. But it was recommended that under-40s should receive an alternative jab in May amid concern over vanishingly rare blood clots.

It comes after Health Secretary Sajid Javid ordered the NHS to prepare to vaccinate 12 to 15-year-olds yesterday, in the clearest sign yet that jabs could be offered to the age group.

The JCVI — which directs Britain's vaccine roll out — is yet to say whether the age group should get the vaccine, but a SAGE adviser said today that inoculating teenagers could slash their risk of getting long Covid.

There is mounting concern that the return of schools next week will spark a fresh wave of Covid infections, after Scotland saw its cases spiral to record highs when schools reopened last Monday.

Britain is currently recording more than 30,000 cases a day on average, compared to almost 2,000 a day at the end of August last year. Scotland yesterday registered almost 7,000 infections, the highest number since the pandemic began.

A separate study from Public Health England and Cambridge University has today suggested people infected with the Indian 'Delta' variant are twice as likely to be hospitalised as those who catch the Kent 'Alpha' variant.

Researchers in Bahrain and at the New York-based Columbia University carried out the study between December and July, which was published as a pre-print.

They monitored hospitalisations and deaths among people who caught the virus in Bahrain, an island nation in the Middle East, and divided them by vaccine type or those who did not get their jabs.

Scientists have always been honest and said that vaccines do not prevent every infection, but they drastically slash the risk of hospitalisation and death from the virus.

The study also included the Chinese Sinopharm and Russian Sputnik jabs, which were both worse at preventing hospitalisations than their European and American counterparts.

It was already known that the Covid strain first identified in India is up to 50 per cent more transmissible than the previous dominant Alpha variant, which emerged in Kent.

But the largest study to date comparing the two now shows those infected with the Delta strain are 2.26 times more likely to be admitted to hospital.

Delta is also 1.45 times more likely to see people entering A&E needing emergency treatment.

Scientists claimed this is more proof that the same traits which make the variant spread faster also increase levels of the virus in those it infects, which results in them becoming more severely ill.

The authors of the study, led by Public Health England and Cambridge University, said their results should be used by hospitals to plan – especially in areas where the Delta variant is on the rise.

Dr Anne Presanis, a senior statistician at the university, said: ‘Our analysis highlights that in the absence of vaccination, any Delta outbreaks will impose a greater burden on healthcare than an Alpha epidemic.

‘Getting fully vaccinated is crucial for reducing an individual’s risk of symptomatic infection with Delta in the first place and, importantly, of reducing a Delta patient’s risk of severe illness and hospital admission.’

For those who got the Sinopharm vaccine 6.94 per cent were hospitalised, and 0.46 per cent died — which was the worst performance out of the four vaccines.

Among Sputnik recipients 2.24 per cent were hospitalised, but only 0.09 per cent died from the virus.

The results showed those who did not get the vaccine were most likely to be hospitalised or die if they caught the virus.

Among the un-vaccinated, 13.22 per cent who caught the virus were hospitalised and 1.32 per cent died.

The Bahraini researchers said in their study: 'All four vaccines decreased the risk of coronavirus infections, hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths when compared to unvaccinated individuals.'

Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at Reading University, told The Sun: 'This study shows people in the UK can be confident they’re getting the best vaccines available.

'AstraZeneca and Pfizer provide good protection.'

The Chinese Sinopharm vaccine has been the main jab used in Bahrain, which is home to almost 1.5million people.

More than 569,000 people have been inoculated with the jab.

For comparison, 245,000 residents got the Pfizer jab, 169,000 got AstraZeneca's vaccine and 73,000 received Sputnik.

Clinical trial results suggested the Pfizer vaccine was the most effective at preventing hospitalisations and deaths from Covid.

But experts have warned these figures may not be comparable when jabs are dished out in the real world, when other factors can influence their impact.

Out of 3,000 AstraZeneca recipients included in the study who caught Covid, only 45 were hospitalised (1.52 per cent) and just one died from the virus (0.03 per cent).

Out of 2,000 Pfizer recipients who caught the virus, 40 were hospitalised (1.99 per cent) and three died from the virus (0.15 per cent).

Out of 3,000 Sputnik recipients who caught the virus, 77 were hospitalised (2.24 per cent) and three died (0.09 per cent).

For the Sinopharm vaccine there were 24,000 cases, of whom 1,683 were hospitalised (6.94 per cent) and 112 died (0.46 per cent).

And among the un-vaccinated almost 65,000 caught the virus, of whom almost 9,000 were hospitalised (13.22 per cent) and 857 died (1.32 per cent).

More than 1.5million people have got the US-made Moderna vaccine in Britain, but this was not included in the study.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9935385/AstraZeneca-vaccine-best-keeping-people-hospital-just-1-52-cent-admitted.html

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Key Inflation Gauge Posts Fastest Annual Price Gain in 30 Years

This must happen with runaway government spending

The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, the so-called core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, vaulted in the 12 months through July to levels not seen in 30 years.

The Commerce Department said in a release Friday that core PCE rose 3.6 percent over the year in July, matching last month’s level, which was an increase from 3.5 percent in May and 3.1 percent in April.

The last time the core PCE inflation gauge saw a similar year-over-year vault was in July 1991, while the highest level the measure has hit is 10.2 percent in February 1975, when the economy was gripped in a troubling upwards wage-price spiral fueled by rising inflation expectations on the part of consumers.

The Fed looks to core PCE as a key inflation measure that informs its monetary policy, which has an inflation target of a longer-run average of 2 percent.

On a monthly basis, the core PCE gauge rose 0.3 percent between June and July, after rising 0.5 percent the prior month, suggesting inflationary pressures may have peaked.

It comes as Fed officials are meeting virtually for an annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday, with investors watching closely for signs of when and how the central bank may begin to roll back its extraordinary support measures for the economy. In response to the pandemic hit to the economy, the Fed last year dropped interest rates to near zero and set out on a massive asset purchasing program, buying around $80 billion in Treasury securities and $40 billion in mortgage securities per month.

In a speech Friday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell addressed inflationary pressures, acknowledging a “sharp run-up in inflation” driven by the rapid reopening of the economy while reiterating his oft-repeated view that price pressures would moderate once supply-side shortages and bottlenecks further abate.

Powell acknowledged the relatively high level of Friday’s core PCE print, noting it’s “well above our 2 percent longer-run objective” and that both businesses and consumers “widely report upward pressure on prices and wages.”

“Inflation at these levels is, of course, a cause for concern. But that concern is tempered by a number of factors that suggest that these elevated readings are likely to prove temporary,” he said, arguing that the current spike in inflation is largely driven by a relatively narrow group of goods and services that have been directly impacted by the pandemic and the reopening of the economy.

“We are also directly monitoring the prices of particular goods and services most affected by the pandemic and the reopening, and are beginning to see a moderation in some cases as shortages ease. Used car prices, for example, appear to have stabilized; indeed, some price indicators are beginning to fall,” Powell said.

Powell added that officials have not, so far, noted broad-based inflationary pressures but acknowledged that evidence of such pressures spreading more broadly through the economy would be concerning and would prompt a swift policy response.

The Fed chief also addressed wage pressures. In the 1970s, upward pressure on wages combined with growing consumer expectations of further price increases to push prices higher, prompting the Fed to raise interest rates. Powell said there is little evidence of this phenomenon today.

“If wage increases were to move materially and persistently above the levels of productivity gains and inflation, businesses would likely pass those increases on to customers, a process that could become the sort of ‘wage-price spiral’ seen at times in the past,” Powell said.

“Today we see little evidence of wage increases that might threaten excessive inflation. Broad-based measures of wages that adjust for compositional changes in the labor force, such as the employment cost index and the Atlanta Wage Growth Tracker, show wages moving up at a pace that appears consistent with our longer-term inflation objective,” he said.

Powell also noted disinflationary forces like technology and globalization, arguing that there is little evidence these have suddenly reversed or abated, arguing that “it seems more likely that they will continue to weigh on inflation as the pandemic passes into history.”

He said the baseline economic outlook is for the economy to continue progressing towards maximum employment, with inflation returning closer to the Fed’s goal of averaging 2 percent over time.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/key-inflation-gauge-posts-fastest-annual-price-gain-in-30-years-2_3968169.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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Could a Long-Used Cholesterol Drug Fight Severe COVID-19?

A drug that lowers cholesterol might help save hospitalized patients with COVID-19, a new, small Israeli study suggests.

Researchers at Hebrew University of Jerusalem noted that COVID causes a big buildup of cholesterol, which results in inflammation in cells.

In lab experiments, they found that the cholesterol-lowering drug fenofibrate (TriCor) effectively reduced damage to lung cells and stopped the SARS-CoV-2 virus from replicating. A study in 15 patients confirmed the lab results.

"They've shown that fenofibrate can potentially reduce the chance of a patient becoming hospitalized, it can decrease the amount of time they spend in hospital, decrease their need for oxygen, and it might even decrease the risk of dying, so I'm cautiously optimistic, but these are very small numbers of patients, so I am cautious," said Alan Richardson, a reader in pharmacology at Keele University in Staffordshire, U.K., who reviewed the findings.

He said the drug appears to work by affecting the metabolic changes that happen when the SARS-CoV-2 virus invades cells.

In his own research, Richardson found that TriCor could potentially stop the virus from getting inside the cells in the first place.

But he strongly emphasized that people should not take TriCor in hopes of preventing COVID-19 infection.

"I'd strongly advise people not to do it on their own without talking to a doctor," he said.

In this new trial, researchers gave TriCor to 15 patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19. All had pneumonia and required oxygen. They were given TriCor for 10 days.

Study leader Dr. Yaakov Nahmias said the results were "astounding."

"Progressive inflammation markers, [which] are the hallmark of deteriorative COVID-19, dropped within 48 hours of treatment," Nahmias said in a news release. "Moreover, 14 of the 15 severe patients didn't require oxygen support within a week of treatment, while historical records show that the vast majority [of] severe patients treated with the standard of care require lengthy respiratory support."

A biomedical engineer at Hebrew University, Nahmias is also a faculty member at Harvard University's Center for Engineering in Medicine in Boston.

"There are no silver bullets, but fenofibrate is far safer than other drugs proposed to date," he said, adding that the way it works makes it less likely to be effective only with specific coronavirus variants.

All 15 patients left the hospital in less than a week and had no side effects from the drug, according to the study. Few reported COVID side effects during four weeks of follow-up.

Although the results were promising, researchers said only larger trials can prove the drug's effectiveness as a COVID treatment.

Two phase 3 trials are underway in South America and the United States, according to the researchers.

Dr. Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, reacted with caution to the findings.

"This is just an observational study with 15 people, so it's way too early to be saying that this medicine should be used," he said, adding that he's not sure that in the long run TriCor will be the medication of choice for COVID patients.

"We've gotten magic bullets in the works in the lab," Siegel said. "We're going to have an antiviral for COVID-19, but I don't think it's going to be this."

He said further study is warranted, however.

"Maybe TriCor will have some impact, but we're getting much closer to true antiviral treatments that may be game-changers," he said.

Siegel emphasized that TriCor doesn't take the place of COVID-19 vaccines in fighting the virus.

"Nothing takes the place of a vaccine, nothing," he stressed.

The study was published online Aug. 23 on the preprint server Research Square, but the findings have not yet been peer-reviewed

https://www.msn.com/en-au/health/medical/could-a-long-used-cholesterol-drug-fight-severe-covid-19/ar-AANOcSo?ocid=chromentpnews

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Finally, the age of lockdowns is over

Delta has changed everything. Comment from Australia

The age of the lockdown is over. The only catch is we can’t quite celebrate yet because half the nation is in lockdown.

And there is perhaps no more fitting final act of the coronavirus saga than this tragi-comic theatre of the absurd.

After more than a year and a half of Orwellian doublespeak and Machiavellian powerplays, Australia has finally come to its senses. Unfortunately it has only done so in theory, not practice.

From the very beginning of the pandemic there were those of us who could clearly see that mass lockdowns were never going to be a long-term solution, let alone a humane one.

We pleaded the vital importance of children going to school and adults going to work and thus were naturally condemned as granny-killing capo-fascists.

It would be unbecoming to crow now that we were right but, well, we were right.

Victoria subjected its citizens to four months of lockdown across the bitter winter of 2020 in an effort to beat the bug. But the bug came back and the state went into lockdown again.

And again. And again.

Meanwhile NSW showed that with a well-managed and well-resourced contact tracing system you could beat Covid-19 without city or statewide lockdowns.

The Casula outbreak, the Northern Beaches outbreak, the Croydon outbreak, the Berala outbreak and countless other leaks from hotel quarantine were all contained and crushed.

This all changed with the Delta variant.

NSW officials clearly thought they could beat it as they had the others, first with just contact tracing, then with local lockdowns, then with a citywide “lockdown lite” and lastly with some of the harshest measures ever seen.

None of it has worked. As every health expert and Blind Freddy himself now knows, we will not be getting back to zero ever again.

The predictable Pavlovian response from the hardliners was that this was because we didn’t lock down fast or hard enough.

And sure enough when Delta went down south Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews locked down hard and fast. After a couple of weeks he announced they had reached zero overnight cases.

That very same day Melbourne went into lockdown again. For the sixth time.

On Wednesday it looked like Victoria might have again started to bend the curve, posting just 45 overnight cases. The next day that number almost doubled.

An exasperated Andrews finally admitted there were “not many more levers we can pull”.

In short, he has gone as hard and fast as possible and still the virus is circulating and still Melburnians are living under the yoke.

Maybe it was just bad luck but if so there’s an awful lot of that going around.

In Fortress New Zealand, the global poster girl for ultra-hard lockdowns, they shut down the country at one single case. On Thursday there were more than 60 new cases.

Sure, Delta might possibly be held at bay for a while in some sparser scenarios but unless these jurisdictions are planning on becoming hermit states it is difficult to see what their long-term strategy is.

It is also true that both the Victorian and New Zealand outbreaks were caused by people from NSW — sorry about that! — but NSW could equally argue that its outbreak came from somewhere else too.

Or indeed that Sydney’s big second wave scare came from Victoria. The problem with the finger of blame is that it always ends up pointing in a circular direction.

The important thing is that even the most reluctant and recalcitrant are now finally seeing the light: Hard and fast or soft and slow, lockdowns now belong in the same historical dustbin as eugenics and ether theory.

They were never truly necessary in Australia, as its most populous state proved time and again, and when it comes to the current outbreak they clearly don’t work.

The NZ and Victorian governments are now subtly suggesting what NSW has been shouting from the rooftops — that it is not possible to beat the Delta variant with such medieval measures.

It is also worth noting that as of Thursday NSW and Victoria had reached almost the exact same number of Covid cases – around 21,500.

In Victoria 820 people died, in NSW just 133.

That is the difference vaccination makes and that is why even with record high case numbers NSW is now lifting restrictions instead of tightening them.

Indeed, new Doherty Institute modelling confirms this will not increase the death toll but anyone who can count could see that with their own eyes.

Even one of the Andrews government’s key lockdown advisers, epidemiologist and former staunch eliminationist Tony Blakely, is now advocating a softening of the current lockdown.

Likewise federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese has now endorsed the national pathway out of lockdowns. And NSW Labor’s Chris Minns has delivered from opposition what some of his counterparts have failed to deliver in government: Leadership.

With Labor MPs representing virtually all the Sydney Covid hotspots, Minns last week instructed every local member to ensure their communities were getting vaccinated.

And this week he threw his weight behind a strategy to get kids back to school next term, for which opposition support will be critical.

This is Labor at its best, putting people ahead of pointscoring.

Meanwhile the isolationist premiers of Queensland and WA are looking increasingly like the apocryphal last Japanese soldier on the island, fighting a solitary long lost war.

The final irony in all of this is that those who are locked down now will perhaps be the longest free, as vaccination rates surge in NSW and Victoria and stagnate in the separatist states.

Soon we will be reunited with the world while the wallflowers chew their nails in the corner.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/australia/finally-the-age-of-lockdowns-is-over/news-story/52f5063fae73ef21728e8fa021e1041a

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IN BRIEF

About 1,500 American citizens still in Afghanistan, secretary of state claims (NBC News)

White House cuts off audio of Joe Biden’s appalling response to question about Americans stranded in Afghanistan (Twitchy)

Two congressmen, a Democrat and a Republican, went to Kabul because they don’t trust Biden’s Afghanistan spin (PJ Media) |

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has ludicrously commended the president’s Saigon 2.0 malfeasance, slams the “freelance” trip (Fox News)

Pentagon orders COVID vaccinations for military personnel (Washington Times)

New York governor adds 12,000 deaths to publicized COVID tally (AP)

CDC: Schools with mask mandates didn’t see statistically significant different rates of COVID transmission from schools with optional policies (FEE)

YouTube oligarchs yank over one million COVID videos it deems “dangerous” (Daily Caller)

Man gets six years in prison for Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping role (Detroit News)

Former California Democrat majority leader endorses Larry Elder (Power Line)

Osama bin Laden warned in 2010 letter that Biden would “lead US into crisis” (NY Post)

Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt to speak out in interview (Daily Wire)

Apple promotes hookup apps to children (Free Beacon)

New Mexico governor’s car gets 13 MPG as she demands state average of 52 MPG (The Federalist)

A Washington state jail is offering free Ramen noodles to inmates who get the vaccine (Not the Bee)

Policy: The roads not taken in Afghanistan (Foreign Affairs)

Policy: The results of the labor-market experiment are in: Reducing unemployment benefits reduced unemployment (City Journal)

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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Lockdowns don’t just save lives, they cost lives too

Robert Bezimienny writes from Australia

As a practising doctor, it has become clear to me over the past 18 months that lockdowns not only inflict a financial cost – they also cost lives. The decision to impose a lockdown is not as simple as society making sacrifices to save lives. The decision is between losing lives to COVID-19 and losing lives to lockdowns.

The lives lost to COVID-19 are highly visible. In contrast, the lives lost to lockdowns have been and remain largely invisible.

Every life has equal moral value and our aim should be to reduce as many unnecessary deaths as possible, not just reduce deaths attributed to COVID-19.When I see a patient presenting with a disease that could have been diagnosed months, or even a year, earlier, I feel sad, angry and frustrated. The patient is not going to do as well. The difference can be as stark as that between a cure and the prospect of death.

During lockdown last year, patients avoided seeing GPs and specialists. Lockdowns made them fear stepping outside. They missed screening tests for breast cancer, for bowel cancer, for heart disease. Consequently, there will be an increased number of deaths from these conditions in the years to come.

While this avoidance will cost thousands of Australian lives, that toll feels less immediate than an unwell patient today. But lockdowns and the fear they provoke have done more than cost lives in future years – they are costing lives right now.

In the first lockdown, a patient with a lump was too scared to come in and see us at our practice. He will not do as well. The constant news stories had already made him fearful, but the lockdown had made him absolutely terrified. Once lockdown eased, he presented for a consultation, was examined and diagnosed with cancer – but the delay has affected his prognosis.

Another patient was referred to a specialist but deferred his appointment as he did not want to approach a hospital during lockdown. Once lockdown ended, he continued to defer his appointment as he waited for the world to return to normal. By the time he saw a specialist, a rare cancer had spread. This year he underwent palliative treatment. Sadly, he is now dead.

During lockdowns, patients have used the telephone and internet for consultations. This is much better than no consultation but it is not as good as seeing a patient in person. When a very old woman with multiple health problems called our practice with a cough, she was convinced that it was her bronchitis and she received two courses of antibiotics over the telephone. The cough persisted and despite great resistance she was persuaded to come in and allow a doctor to examine her. She did not have bronchitis, she had a much more serious condition: multiple blood clots throughout her lung – pulmonary emboli. She was hospitalised and pulled through.

A friend of mine is an emergency department specialist. During lockdowns he has seen people die from late presentations. He has seen more people die than he has ever seen before. Patients think it is dangerous to leave their own house, so those with chest pain stay at home and when they finally call an ambulance, a treatable heart attack has become fatal. Patients with strokes are too scared to go hospital and miss out on acute treatment that would have limited the damage to their brain. Patients with bacterial infections that would be simple to treat with prompt intravenous antibiotics wait at home and become septic and die.

The incidence of anxiety and depression has not just increased during lockdowns – it has exploded. In Australia, it has more than doubled. Depression can lead to suicide and every year 3000 Australians take their own lives. Many of them are young and their deaths are not visible.

If lockdowns are justified on the basis of potential lives saved, the actual lives lost to lockdowns must also be acknowledged.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/lockdowns-don-t-just-save-lives-they-cost-lives-too-20210825-p58lvu.html

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Johns Hopkins Doctor Easily Shreds the Narratives Behind Forcing Kids to Mask Up for COVID

Kids generally don't get Covid or spread it, despite the panic porn you see on CNN. And even with this Delta wave and the school year upon us, has the media noted why other nations have not mandated kids to wear masks in class? It does more harm than good. What's the science behind masking kids? There's virtually none. Yes, the "I am science" crowd led by Fauci the Clown has next to nothing devoted to this question.

Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins has been at the forefront of trying to get science-based advice to the public. He's one of the few medical guests that talks about naturally acquired immunity, noting that over 100 million Americans probably already had and recovered from the infection, which bodes well for herd immunity given the vaccination rates. Yet, on this question, he takes the forced mask-wearing for kids narrative to the woodshed by citing…the science (via WSJ):

Do masks reduce Covid transmission in children? Believe it or not, we could find only a single retrospective study on the question, and its results were inconclusive. Yet two weeks ago the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sternly decreed that 56 million U.S. children and adolescents, vaccinated or not, should cover their faces regardless of the prevalence of infection in their community. Authorities in many places took the cue to impose mandates in schools and elsewhere, on the theory that masks can’t do any harm.

That isn’t true. Some children are fine wearing a mask, but others struggle. Those who have myopia can have difficulty seeing because the mask fogs their glasses. (This has long been a problem for medical students in the operating room.) Masks can cause severe acne and other skin problems. The discomfort of a mask distracts some children from learning. By increasing airway resistance during exhalation, masks can lead to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. And masks can be vectors for pathogens if they become moist or are used for too long.

In March, Ireland’s Department of Health announced that it won’t require masks in schools because they “may exacerbate anxiety or breathing difficulties for some students.” Some children compensate for such difficulties by breathing through their mouths. Chronic and prolonged mouth breathing can alter facial development. It is well-documented that children who mouth-breathe because adenoids block their nasal airways can develop a mouth deformity and elongated face.

[…]

What about the risk of Covid, which mask mandates are intended to ameliorate? The CDC reports that for the week of July 31 the rate of hospitalization with Covid for children 5 to 17 was 0.5 per 100,000, which would amount to roughly 250 patients. The CDC acknowledges that not all of these children were in the hospital for Covid: Viral testing at admission is routine, even for patients who have no Covid symptoms. Children who do develop Covid symptoms are at minimal risk of “long Covid,” according to a Lancet study published Aug. 3: “Almost all children had symptom resolution by 8 weeks, providing reassurance about long-term outcomes.”

[…]

We have been encouraging Americans to wear masks since the beginning of the pandemic. But special attention should be paid to the many children who struggle with masks. Public-health officials claim to base their decisions and guidance on science, but there’s no science behind mask mandates for children. A new research study by one of us (Dr. Makary) and his Johns Hopkins colleagues found that of the $42 billion the National Institutes of Health spent on research last year, less than 2% went to Covid clinical research and not a single grant was dedicated to studying masks in children.

In the absence of data, mask mandates have ignited a culture war.

Well, who saw that coming, the cultural war aspects to all of this? Fauci and the CDC peddled nonsense on child masking for months. Then, when the CDC was caught colluding with teachers' unions to keep schools closed, the political element was further intensified. What's more, is that a lot of the doomsday scenarios in the spring never came true. Then, troves of Fauci's emails were revealed, with one noting that store-bought masks are ineffective at curbing the spread of COVID. Fauci also said at the outset that we shouldn't wear masks. Now, it's just cover your face. It doesn't matter what kind of mask; it could be a cloth.

So, what's the science behind that, chief? There is none. It's all about control. And now these medical fascist pigs are coming after the kids. We talk about endless wars. Fauci and bureaucrats want an endless pandemic.

"Any child who wants to wear a mask should be free to do so. But forcing them to make personal, health and developmental sacrifices for the sake of adults who refuse to get immunized is abusive," wrote Makary. "Before we order the masking of 56 million Americans who are too young to vote and don't have a lobby, let's see data showing the benefits and weigh them against the long-term harm."

That's pretty reasonable.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/08/25/johns-hopkins-doctor-shreds-the-narratives-behind-forcing-kids-to-mask-up-for-cov-n2594530

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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Vaccine Inventor Questions Mandatory Shot Push, Biden’s Covid-19 Strategy

By ROBERT W. MALONE, PETER K. NAVARRO

The Biden administration’s strategy to universally vaccinate in the middle of the pandemic is bad science and badly needs a reboot.

This strategy will likely prolong the most dangerous phase of the worst pandemic since 1918 and almost assuredly cause more harm than good—even as it undermines faith in the entire public health system.

Four flawed assumptions drive the Biden strategy. The first is that universal vaccination can eradicate the virus and secure economic recovery by achieving herd immunity throughout the country (and the world). However, the virus is now so deeply embedded in the world population that, unlike polio and smallpox, eradication is unachievable. SARS-CoV-2 and its myriad mutations will likely continually circulate, much like the common cold and influenza.

The second assumption is that the vaccines are (near) perfectly effective. However, our currently available vaccines are quite “leaky.” While good at preventing severe disease and death, they only reduce, not eliminate, the risk of infection, replication, and transmission. As a slide deck from the Centers for Disease Control has revealed, even 100% acceptance of the current leaky vaccines combined with strict mask compliance will not stop the highly contagious Delta variant from spreading.

The third assumption is that the vaccines are safe. Yet scientists, physicians, and public health officials now recognize risks that are rare but by no means trivial. Known side effects include serious cardiac and thrombotic conditions, menstrual cycle disruptions, Bell’s Palsy, Guillain Barre syndrome, and anaphylaxis.

Unknown side effects which virologists fear may emerge include existential reproductive risks, additional autoimmune conditions, and various forms of disease enhancement, i.e., the vaccines can make people more vulnerable to reinfection by SARS-CoV-2 or reactivation of latent viral infections and associated diseases such as shingles. With good reason, the FDA has yet to approve the vaccines now administered under Emergency Use Authorization.

The failure of the fourth “durability” assumption is the most alarming and perplexing. It now appears our current vaccines are likely to offer a mere 180-day window of protection—a decided lack of durability underscored by scientific evidence from Israel and confirmed by Pfizer, the Department of Health and Human Services, and other countries.

Here, we are already being warned of the need for universal “booster” shots at six-month intervals for the foreseeable future. The obvious broader point that militates for individual vaccine choice is that repeated vaccinations, each with a small risk, can add up to a big risk.

It’s an arms race with the virus.

The most important reason why a universal vaccination strategy is imprudent tracks to the collective risk associated with how the virus responds when replicating in vaccinated individuals. Here, basic virology and evolutionary genetics tell us the goal of any virus is to infect and replicate in as many people as possible. A virus can’t efficiently spread if, like with Ebola, it quickly kills its hosts.

The clear historical tendency for viruses crossing over from one species to another is to evolve in a way that makes them both more infectious and less pathogenic over time. However, a universal vaccination policy deployed in the middle of a pandemic can turn this normal Darwinian taming process into a dangerous vaccine arms race.

The essence of this arms race is this: The more people you vaccinate, the greater the number of vaccine-resistant mutations you are likely to get, the less durable the vaccines will become, ever more powerful vaccines will have to be developed, and individuals will be exposed to more and more risk.

Science tells us here that today’s vaccines, which use novel gene therapy technologies, generate powerful antigens that direct the immune system to attack specific components of the virus. Thus, when the virus infects a person with a “leaky” vaccination, the viral progeny will be selected to escape or resist the effects of the vaccine.

If the entire population has been trained via a universal vaccination strategy to have the same basic immune response, then once a viral escape mutant is selected, it will rapidly spread through the entire population—whether vaccinated or not.

A far more optimal strategy is to vaccinate only the most vulnerable. This will limit the amount of vaccine-resistant mutations and thereby slow, if not halt, the current vaccine arms race.

Fortunately, those most vulnerable represent a relatively small number; and these cohorts have already achieved high levels of vaccine acceptance. They include senior citizens, for whom the risk of serious disease or death increases exponentially with age, and those with significant comorbidities such as obesity, lung, and heart disease.

For much of the rest of the population, there’s nothing to fear but fear of the virus itself. This is particularly true if we have lawful outpatient access to a growing arsenal of scientifically proven prophylactics and therapeutics.

For example, there has been much controversy over ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Yet, with the emergence of a growing body of scientific evidence, we can be assured these two medicines are safe and effective in prophylaxis and early treatment when administered under a physician’s supervision. Numerous other useful treatments range from famotidine/celecoxib, fluvoxamine, and apixaban to various anti-inflammatory steroids, Vitamin D, and zinc.

The broader goal when administering these agents is to moderate symptoms and take death off the table, particularly for the unvaccinated. Unlike vaccines, these agents are generally not dependent on specific viral properties or mutations but instead mitigate or treat the inflammatory symptoms of the disease itself. (Pfizer is now actively marketing its own antiviral therapeutic—tacit admission Pfizer’s own vaccine is incapable of eradicating the virus.)

We are not “anti-vax.” One of us (Dr. Malone) invented the core mRNA technology being used by Pfizer and Moderna to produce their vaccines and has spent his entire professional career developing and advancing novel vaccine technologies, vaccines, and other medical countermeasures. The other (Dr. Navarro) played a key role at the Trump White House in jumpstarting Operation Warp Speed and ensuring timely delivery of the vaccines.

We are simply saying that just because you have a big vaccine hammer, it is not necessarily wise to use it for every nail. The American people deserve better than a universal vaccination strategy under the flag of bad science and enforced through authoritarian measures.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13729&omhide=true

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New Zealand is back in a lockdown time warp

by Jeff Jacoby

WHEN FORTUNE magazine recently published its annual ranking of the world's 50 greatest leaders, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern topped the list. The editors lavished praise on Ardern's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, hailing the way she "targeted not just suppression of the virus, but its complete elimination." Fortune deemed her strategy a success: Only 26 people had died of the disease in New Zealand, which imposed the first of several aggressive nationwide lockdowns 17 months ago and closed off the country's borders to all non-citizens and non-residents.

Ardern's leadership is no longer looking quite so brilliant. On Aug. 17, after a single COVID infection was reported in New Zealand, the prime minister again ordered the entire country to close. Under the so-called Level 4 restrictions, all Kiwis must stay at home except for food or medication, or to exercise alone. Bars, restaurants, gyms, theaters, swimming pools, museums, libraries, and playgrounds are all shuttered. So are schools and daycare facilities. Weddings and funerals are banned.

"Do not congregate. Don't talk to your neighbors. Please keep to your bubbles," Ardern told the nation. "The delta variant ... can be spread by people simply walking past one another, so keep those movements outside to a bare minimum." The latest lockdown is to remain in force at least through midnight Friday, but may be extended on the prime minister's say-so. Meanwhile, as of Monday, nearly 150 infections had been reported since the appearance of that single case last week.

"Here we are back in the world's strictest lockdown," journalist Andrea Vance wrote in Stuff, a top New Zealand news site. "The rest of the world is embracing its post-pandemic future while New Zealand enters a March 2020 time warp."

It turns out that a strategy to achieve "complete elimination" of the coronavirus is a strategy for failure. During last year's heated debates in the West over the wisdom of trying to control the pandemic by bringing economic life to a near-halt, lockdown supporters praised Ardern fulsomely for having so forcefully "squashed" the virus. New Zealand's ultra-low rate of infection and death was seen as proof that strict lockdowns were indeed the best way to defeat the disease.

But they weren't. Dozens of academic studies have concluded that lockdown decrees were largely futile in preventing the virus from spreading, and accomplished little that could not have been achieved through less restrictive means. The trajectory of the pandemic since early 2020 has made it clear that, as the New York Times put it in a recent headline, "Covid Isn't Going Away." So across the United States, even as the highly contagious Delta variant causes hospitalizations to surge, governors and mayors have not reverted to last year's approach of pulling the plug on the economy.

"Most of the country remains fully open," reported the Times, "and ... most officials have so far steered away from restricting or shuttering businesses." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that Americans with compromised immune systems, those who remain unvaccinated, and some others continue to wear masks, but has not called for shutting down businesses.

The key difference this time around, of course, is that most Americans, like residents of most advanced democracies, are vaccinated. Nearly 61 percent of the US population has been given at least one dose, and 51.5 percent has been fully vaccinated, according to Bloomberg's Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker. Across the European Union, the fully-vaccinated level is nearly 57 percent. In Israel, it's 60 percent. In Britain, 63 percent. In Canada, 65 percent.

The fulsome praise lavished on Prime Minister Ardern turned out to be premature.

But in New Zealand, barely 19 percent of the population — less than 1 in 5 — has been fully vaccinated. Just one-third of New Zealanders have gotten even a single dose. In no developed nation have vaccinations lagged so badly.

New Zealand is back in a "March 2020 time warp" because its focus for the past year and a half was not on getting the virus under control but on the chimera of eliminating it entirely. Bamboozled, perhaps, by all the flattery she was getting, Ardern persisted in what she called a "Stamp it Out" approach. More than once she declared that New Zealand had defeated COVID.

Only now, at long last, is the government making it a priority to get the vaccine into as many people as possible. Only now has it sunk in that the virus can't be wiped out for good — not even an island nation like New Zealand can wall itself off from the pandemic. The way out of the COVID nightmare is through vaccinations, not through nationwide closures and sealed borders. Americans and Europeans have put 2020 lockdowns behind them. It's time New Zealand followed suit.

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/25652/new-zealand-is-back-in-a-lockdown-time-warp

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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