British Health secretary’s alarm at ‘huge’ and growing problem of long Covid

Long COVID now has an official WHO clinical definition
Health secretary Sajid Javid has expressed alarm at the rising numbers of people suffering long Covid symptoms, telling a private meeting of health officials that the problem was “huge” and “getting bigger”.

The meeting was given an update on long Covid treatment, with NHS England bosses revealing 10 per cent of all clinic appointments were being taken up by NHS staff in a sign of the potential longer term impact of coronavirus and the risk it could undermine already depleted staffing levels.

NHS staff are most likely to be affected by long Covid, followed by staff in social care and teachers. As many as 125,000 NHS staff may be affected by persistent symptoms.

Public Health England has faced criticism over its guidance for NHS staff which suggested most should wear only basic surgical masks instead of higher grade masks to guard against airborne spread. Some NHS trusts have ignored the rules amid concern staff were being put at increased risk.

The meeting also heard that patients getting appointments at long Covid clinics were disproportionately white, with just under a fifth coming from the most deprived communities. This is despite infection levels overall being highest in these areas.

The latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week revealed more than 1.1 million people were now reporting lasting symptoms from a Covid-19 infection, with 405,000 suffering its effects for more than a year.

The ONS found 211,000 people had reported their ability to carry out daily activities was being significantly affected by the condition.

Concerns over the potential impact of long Covid is rising in Whitehall as some officials fear the impact on the NHS and the wider economy. Patient groups have reported long delays in being seen, with some criticising doctors for not believing their symptoms.

At a roundtable update at the end of September, Mr Javid heard details from statisticians at the ONS setting out the scale of the problem and the wider prevalence of cases.

There were also “hideous” stories from two long Covid patients who urged the health secretary to do more.

Sources who attended the meeting said the minister highlighted “the new challenge” posed by the condition and that experts were still having to learn about it and understand what exactly it is.

After being told the latest estimates of people suffering for more than a year, the secretary of state said: “That’s huge. The numbers are only getting bigger.”

He urged those on the call from the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS to listen to patient experiences as “we’re the ones that can do something”.

He described long Covid as a “hugely important topic” facing the government and said new health minister Maria Caulfield, a former nurse, would be leading the response.

Mr Javid told the meeting there was still a lack of consensus on what exactly long Covid was and how to measure it.

He also said the vaccination rollout to school children was an important step in protecting some youngsters as many would be unable to avoid being infected at some stage.

Cathy Hassell, director of clinical policy, quality and operations at NHS England, told the meeting the health service had achieved five of its 10 long Covid targets and now had every part of the country served by at least one dedicated clinic.

She said the number of appointments at clinics taken up by NHS staff was “disproportionately high” and work was going on to make sure affected NHS staff had access to specialist mental health hubs, occupational health service and rapid referral to the long Covid clinics.

The meeting was told that around 6,000 referrals were being made in each four-week period, with 4,000 specialist assessments and 5,000 follow-up appointments a month.

The meeting heard more action was needed to increase referrals as the numbers coming forward for help were much smaller than the levels of people reporting problems to the ONS. A new enhanced GP service has gone live this month which may help direct more patients to clinics.

Another concern was the demographics of those using the clinics. The meeting was told 63 per cent accessing the service were women, and 81 per cent were white. Only 17 per cent were from the most deprived areas.

This could mean ethnic minorities and people in the poorest areas, which were worst hit by the Covid pandemic, are not accessing help from the long Covid clinics.

The NHS has invested £125m in setting up clinics and providing better GP care for patients with lasting symptoms.

An NHS England spokesperson said: “The NHS is taking practical action to help patients suffering ongoing health issues as a result of coronavirus – bringing together experts and setting up 90 specialist clinics covering the whole country, as well as collecting and publishing data on the demographics of patients referred with long Covid to develop a greater understanding of this new condition.

“Anyone who is concerned about long-lasting symptoms following Covid-19 should continue to get in touch with their GP practice so they can get a referral or go online to the NHS ‘Your Covid Recovery’ website for further advice.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/sajid-javid-long-covid-nhs-b1934861.html

***********************************************

The January 6 Insurrection Hoax

it is absolutely critical to the Democrat Party narrative that the incident be made to seem as violent and crazed as possible.

Notwithstanding all the hysterical rhetoric surrounding the events of January 6, 2021, two critical things stand out. The first is that what happened was much more hoax than insurrection. In fact, in my judgment, it wasn’t an insurrection at all.

An “insurrection,” as the dictionary will tell you, is a violent uprising against a government or other established authority. Unlike the violent riots that swept the country in the summer of 2020 — riots that caused some $2 billion in property damage and claimed more than 20 lives — the January 6 protest at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. lasted a few hours, caused minimal damage, and the only person directly killed was an unarmed female Trump supporter who was shot by a Capitol Police officer. It was, as Tucker Carlson said shortly after the event, a political protest that “got out of hand.”

At the rally preceding the events in question, Donald Trump had suggested that people march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically” — these were his exact words — in order to make their voices heard. He did not incite a riot; he stirred up a crowd. Was that, given the circumstances, imprudent? Probably. Was it an effort to overthrow the government? Hardly.

I know this is not the narrative that we have all been instructed to parrot. Indeed, to listen to the establishment media and our political masters, the January 6 protest was a dire threat to the very fabric of our nation: the worst assault on “our democracy” since 9/11, since Pearl Harbor, and even — according to Joe Biden last April — since the Civil War!

Note that phrase “our democracy”: Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and various talking heads have repeated it ad nauseam. But you do not need an advanced degree in hermeneutics to understand that what they mean by “our democracy” is their oligarchy. Similarly, when Pelosi talks about “the people’s house,” she doesn’t mean a house that welcomes riff-raff like you and me.

I just alluded to Ashli Babbitt, the unarmed supporter of Donald Trump who was shot and killed on January 6. Her fate brings me to the second critical thing to understand about the January 6 insurrection hoax. Namely, that it was not a stand-alone event.

On the contrary, what happened that afternoon, and what happened afterwards, is only intelligible when seen as a chapter in the long-running effort to discredit and, ultimately, to dispose of Donald Trump — as well as what Hillary Clinton might call the “deplorable” populist sentiment that brought Trump to power.

In other words, to understand the January 6 insurrection hoax, you also have to understand that other long-running hoax, the Russia collusion hoax. The story of that hoax begins back in 2015, when the resources of the federal government were first mobilized to spy on the Trump campaign, to frame various people close to Trump, and eventually to launch a full-throated criminal investigation of the Trump administration.

Which brings me back to Ashli Babbitt, the long-serving Air Force veteran who was shot and killed by a nervous Capitol Police officer. Babbitt was a useful prop when the media was in overdrive describing the January 6 events as an “armed insurrection” in which wild Trump supporters, supposedly at Trump’s instigation, attacked the Capitol with the intention of overturning the 2020 election.

According to that narrative, five people, including Babbitt, died in the skirmish. Moreover, it was said, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was bludgeoned to death by a raging Trump supporter wielding a fire extinguisher. That gem of a story about the fire extinguisher, reported in our former paper of record, The New York Times, was instantly picked up by other media outlets and spread like a Chinese virus.

Of course, it is absolutely critical to the Democratic Party narrative that the January 6 incident be made to seem as violent and crazed as possible. Hence the comparisons to 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the Civil War. Only thus can pro-Trump Americans be excluded from “our democracy” by being branded as “domestic extremists” if not, indeed, “domestic terrorists.”

The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution accords American citizens the right to a speedy trial. But most of the political prisoners of January 6 — many of whom have been kept in solitary confinement — are still waiting to be brought to trial. And although the media was full of predictions that they would be found guilty of criminal sedition, none has.

Indeed, the prosecution’s cases seem to be falling apart. Most of the hundreds who have been arrested are being charged with trespassing. Another charge being leveled against them is “disrupting an official proceeding.” This is a felony charge designed not for ceremonial procedures like the January 6 certification of the vote, but rather for disrupting Congressional inquiries — for example, by shredding documents relevant to a Congressional investigation. It originated during the George W. Bush administration to deal with the Enron case.

The indisputable fact about January 6 is that although five people died at or near the Capitol on that day or soon thereafter, none of these deaths was brought about by the protesters. The shot fired by Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd that hit Ashli Babbitt in the neck and killed her was the only shot fired at the Capitol that day. No guns were recovered from the Capitol on January 6. Zero.

The liberal commentator Glenn Greenwald further diminished the “armed insurrection” narrative in an important column last February titled “The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot.” The title says it all. Kevin Greeson, Greenwald notes, was killed not by the protesters but died of a heart attack outside the Capitol. Benjamin Philips, the founder of a pro-Trump website called Trumparoo, died of a stroke that day. Rosanne Boyland, another Trump supporter, was reported by The New York Times to have been inadvertently “killed in a crush of fellow rioters during their attempt to fight through a police line.” But later video shows that, far from that, the police pushed protesters on top of Boyland and would not allow other protesters to pull her out.

Four of the five who died, then, were pro-Trump protesters. And the fifth? Well, that was Officer Sicknick — also a Trump supporter, as it turned out — who, contrary to the false report gone viral of The New York Times, went home, told his family he felt fine, but died a day later from, as The Washington Post eventually and grudgingly reported, “natural causes.” No fire extinguishers were involved in his demise.

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/83300-the-january-6-insurrection-hoax-2021-10-08

****************************************

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)

*************************************

Do Immigrants Import Their Economic Destiny?

Large numbers of Hispanic immigrants will tend to make the USA into another failed Hispanic State

How do immigrants change the countries they move to? Immigration has become a big political issue in the U.S., the UK, Germany, and beyond, and experts and pundits alike have tried answering this question. At least among economists, almost all the debate has focused on the short run, and most of that has focused on lower-skilled immigrants. The overall answer is fairly clear: low-skilled immigrants don’t have a major effect on the rest of the economy one way or the other. That means that in the short run, the most important effect of low-skilled immigration is that it helps low-skilled migrants themselves.

But what happens in the very long run? As immigrants shape the culture of their new homelands, will they import more than just new ethnic cuisines? Will they also import attitudes and policies that wound the golden goose of first-world prosperity? Ultimately, will migrants make the countries they move to a lot like the countries they came from?

This is one of the great policy questions in our new age of mass migration, and it’s related to one of the great questions of social science: Why do some countries have relatively liberal, pro-market institutions while others are plagued by corruption, statism, and incompetence? Three lines of research point the way to a substantial answer:

The Deep Roots literature on how ancestry predicts modern economic development,

The Attitude Migration literature, which shows that migrants tend to bring a lot of their worldview with them when they move from one country to another,

The New Voters-New Policies literature, which shows that expanding the franchise to new voters really does change the nature of government.

Together, these three data-driven literatures suggest that if you want to predict how a nation’s economic rules and norms are likely to change over the next few decades, you’ll want to keep an eye on where that country’s recent immigrants hail from.

The Deep Roots of Prosperity

A glance at the map tells much of the tale: Today’s rich countries tend to be in East Asia, Northern and Western Europe, or are heavily populated by people who came from those two regions. The major exceptions are oil-rich countries. East Asia and Northwest Europe are precisely the areas of the world that made the biggest technological advances over the past few hundred years. These two regions experienced “civilization,” an ill-defined but unmistakable combination of urban living, elite prosperity, literary culture, and sophisticated technology. Civilization doesn’t mean kindness, it doesn’t mean respect for modern human rights: It means the frontier of human artistic and technological achievement. And over the extremely long run, a good predictor of your nation’s current economic behavior is your nation’s ancestors’ past behavior. Exceptions exist, but so does the rule.

Recently, a small group of economists have found more systematic evidence on how the past predicts the present. Overall, they find that where your nation’s citizens come from matters a lot. From “How deep are the roots of economic development?” published in the prestigious Journal of Economic Literature:

A growing body of new empirical work focuses on the measurement and estimation of the effects of historical variables on contemporary income by explicitly taking into account the ancestral composition of current populations. The evidence suggests that economic development is affected by traits that have been transmitted across generations over the very long run.

From “Was the Wealth of Nations determined in 1000 B.C.?” (coauthored by the legendary William Easterly):

[W]e are measuring the association of the place’s technology today with the technology in 1500 AD of the places from where the ancestors of the current population came from…[W]e strongly confirm…that history of peoples matters more than history of places.

And finally, from “Post-1500 Population Flows and the Economic Determinants of Economic Growth and Inequality,” published in Harvard’s Quarterly Journal of Economics:

The positive effect of ancestry-adjusted early development on current income is robust…The most likely explanation for this finding is that people whose ancestors were living in countries that developed earlier (in the sense of implementing agriculture or creating organized states) brought with them some advantage—such as human capital, knowledge, culture, or institutions—that raises the level of income today.

To sum up some of the key findings of this new empirical literature: There are three major long-run predictors of a nation’s current prosperity, which combine to make up a nation’s SAT score:

S: How long ago the nation’s ancestors lived under an organized state.

A: How long ago the nation’s ancestors began to use Neolithic agriculture techniques.

T: How much of the world’s available technology the nation’s ancestors were using in 1000 B.C., 0 B.C., or 1500 A.D.

When estimating each nation’s current SAT score, it’s important to adjust for migration: Indeed, all three of these papers do some version of that. For instance, without adjusting for migration, Australia has quite a low ancestral technology score: Aboriginal Australians used little of the world’s cutting edge technology in 1500 A.D. But since Australia is now overwhelmingly populated by the descendants of British migrants, Australia’s migration-adjusted technology score is currently quite high.

On average, nations with high migration-adjusted SAT scores are vastly richer than nations with lower SAT scores: Countries in the top 10% of migration-adjusted technology (T) in 1500 are typically at least 10 times richer than countries in the bottom 10%. If instead you mistakenly tried to predict a country’s income today based on who lived there in 1500, the relationship would only be about one-third that size. The migration adjustment matters crucially: Whether in the New World, across Southeast Asia, or in Southern Africa, one can do a better job predicting today’s prosperity when you keep track of who moved where. It looks like at least in the distant past, migrants shaped today’s prosperity.

Do migrants bring their institutions with them?

So migration from high-SAT countries bring the seeds of prosperity: But what exactly are they bringing? As the authors of the Quarterly Journal of Economics article speculated, did they bring along a tendency to establish good institutions—the rule of law, low corruption, and competent government?

Fortunately, an economist has already checked to see whether SAT-type scores drive good institutions. James T. Ang recently published a truly remarkable paper in the Journal of Development Economics, “Institutions and the Long-Run Impact of Early Development.” Ang ran a variety of statistical tests to see if ancestry-adjusted SAT-like scores had a strong relationship with good institutions. Overall, Ang’s findings are quite clear:

[N]ations that were more developed in the pre-modern era tend to have better institutions today.

He goes on to note:

[M]easures adjusted for the global migration effect perform significantly better than their unadjusted counterparts in explaining the variation in institutions across countries, thus highlighting the fact that migration has played a significant part in shaping current economic performance.

One wonders: If migration shaped institutions in the past, perhaps migration will shape institutions in the future. Or perhaps not: while violent European colonizers imposed their institutions and their culture on lands that had belonged to Native Americans, perhaps peaceful mass migration in the 21st century will leave today’s institutions and culture undisturbed. Perhaps, to coin a phrase, this time really is different.

Let’s consider the case of Chinese migration throughout Asia. By the standards of European colonization, Chinese migration post-1500 has been relatively (I emphasize relatively) peaceful. The non-Chinese residents of these countries tended to have lower ancestral SAT scores than Chinese residents, so we can ask: did Asian countries with a higher percentage of Chinese-descended migrants end up economically freer? Of course, since this is a question about migration from China, China itself should be left out of the analysis. The graph below tells the story. It compares Chinese ancestry data from the Putterman-Weil global migration matrix with the Fraser Economic Freedom of the World Index for Asian countries with substantial numbers of Chinese immigrants:

Overall, the relationship between a nation’s percent population of Chinese descent in 1980 and current economic freedom is strongly positive. Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, the countries with the largest percentage of post-1500 Chinese immigrants, are the freest. Hong Kong, which had only a few thousand Chinese residents before the British arrival, is now the economically freest country in the world. Malaysia (a third of whose residents are of Chinese descent) and Thailand (10 percent) are next, and Malaysia is clearly the freer of the two. The remaining countries, Laos and Myanmar, are substantially less economically free than Singapore. Of course, including China in this graph would weaken the relationship, but to repeat: we aren’t interested in ancestry per se, but in relatively peaceful migration.

Economists have long known that some of the strongest statistical predictors of long-run national prosperity have been “percent Confucian” and “percent Buddhist.” A famed paper coauthored by Xavier Sala-i-Martin demonstrated that conclusively. It’s time for scholars to investigate whether, for most countries, a pro-Confucian migration policy is a good option.

Migrating Attitudes

So, how do migrants change the governments in countries they move to? For a partial answer, we can look at the Attitude Migration literature. The simplest approach is to see if the descendants of, say, Italian migrants to America tend to have the same attitudes toward government as Italians living back in Italy. If they do have similar attitudes, then there really is such a thing as “Italian attitudes toward government,” portable and relatively durable around the globe.

Since public opinion surveys are common around the world, this is an easy topic to investigate. One study looks at attitudes toward income redistribution, finding that second-generation immigrants to the U.S. are more likely to favor income redistribution policies if they come from a country where the average citizen today also favors more redistribution. In this case, attitudes migrate, so heavy immigration from pro-redistribution cultures will tend to boost a nation’s number of pro-redistribution citizens decades later. More importantly, the same holds for trusting behavior: A study published in the American Economic Review, provocatively entitled “Inherited Trust and Growth,” finds that

…inherited trust of descendants of US-immigrants is significantly influenced by the country of origin…of their forbears…

So trusting attitudes migrate. And the link from trust to economic performance is well-accepted at this point: One famous paper, “Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff?” [Answer: Yes] is now routinely cited in economics textbooks. And why do low-trust societies generate worse economic performance? One reason is that low-trust individuals demand more government regulation. In “Regulation and Distrust” the authors report:

Using the World Values Survey, we show both in a cross-section of countries, and in a sample of individuals from around the world, that distrust fuels support for government control over the economy.

The authors suggest that this happens because in low-trust societies, people want someone checking up on untrustworthy businesses and individuals, and a strong government is one way to do just that. Together, this literature suggests that migration from low-trust societies will tend to hurt long-run economic performance, partly because low-trust individuals demand more government regulation.

One particular attitude has been well-studied in the migration literature: Strong family ties. This is often known as “amoral familism,” the view that you should help out your family, right or wrong. In comparative anthropology and sociology, it’s well known that cultures strong in amoral familism tend to be places where children live with their parents into adulthood, where corruption is common, and where identity is heavily shaped by one’s extended family. A remarkable handbook chapter by Alesina and Giuliano finds that:

…on average familistic values are associated with lower political participation and political action. They are also related to a lower level of trust, more emphasis on job security, less desire for innovation and more traditional attitudes toward working women.

It’s safe to predict that voters and politicians with these traits are unlikely to support much Schumpeterian creative destruction. And, unsurprisingly at this point, amoral familism itself tends to migrate:

…family values are quite stable over time and could be among the drivers of institutional differences and level of development across countries: family values inherited by children of immigrants whose forebears arrived in various European countries before 1940 [!] are related to a lower quality of institutions and lower level of development today.

At this point, it’s clear that attitudes migrate to a substantial degree, and at least in democracies, they’re likely to take those attitudes into the voting booth. There’s an old saying in the migration policy world, a line by Max Frisch: “We wanted workers, we got people instead.” It looks like that saying needs updating: “We wanted workers, we got voters instead.”

Attitude Convergence: A two-way street

Of course immigrants don’t just become voters: they sometimes become taste-makers, opinion-setters. As immigrants join the culture, they start to shape the culture. That means that immigrants and their descendants may shape political opinions the way they often shape people’s opinion about food: Migrants start eating some of the foods of the country they move to, but at the same time older residents start trying some foods from immigrant cultures. There’s a mutual exchange, and behavior meets somewhere in the middle. As students of migration repeatedly claim, acculturation is a two-way street: America is different because of Italian and Irish migration, and not just because of the food we eat.

To some extent, this point is obvious, but it has far-reaching implications. It means that one important way that immigrants and their descendants will shape a political system isn’t by directly bringing their own attitudes into the voting booth: It’s also by shaping the political attitudes of their fellow citizens. That’s what happens in a melting pot: We all become a little like each other. So if we really are shaped by our neighbors, then we have yet another good reason to choose our neighbors wisely.

This means that the Attitude Migration channel is perhaps only half the story, but it also means that the other part of the story will be harder to detect. If a nation of 100 million has, say, a million migrants from a particular country, it would be hard to pick out the effect of those migrants on “native” attitudes: the effect of the migrants would be diluted partly because they’re only 1% of the population, and partly because the change in “native” attitudes will occur slowly over the decades.

So while it’s important to know whether migrants assimilate completely or partially, it’s just as important to know how much do migrants change their fellow citizens. Past researchers have documented two quite separate findings:

Many migrant attitudes persist to their descendants
Migrants and their descendants seem to make their new homes quite a bit like their old homes.
The first point need not be the only cause of the second point. There’s a third point suggested by the common-sense claim that we’re all shaped at least a bit by the attitudes of those around us:

Migrants and their descendants tend to influence the attitudes of their new fellow citizens, so that all groups in society become at least a bit more like each other.
New Voters = New Policies

We’ve seen that in the extremely long run immigrants have dramatically changed the countries they’ve moved to; and in the medium run we’ve seen that immigrants and their children bring home-country attitudes along for the ride. But as I’ve already noted, some critics will argue that perhaps “this time is different”, and that even if immigrants import their cultural attitudes to their new homes, maybe they’ll leave those views just outside the voting booth. Perhaps, when it comes time to vote, migrants completely conform to their new home countries.

Here’s one way to check this “New Voters = No Change” theory: Look at times when large groups of individuals were suddenly given the vote, and then check to see if government policies changed within a few years. Even better, only look at large groups of individuals who had been living somewhat peacefully in the nation for decades. Here’s one such case: The women’s suffrage movement across Western civilization. This extension of the franchise has been heavily studied by economists: The best-known paper draws on the fact that different U.S. states extended the vote at different times to create a kind of natural experiment. It turns out that, contrary to the “New voters = No change” theory, giving the vote to women really did change government in a more progressive, expansionist direction:

Suffrage coincided with immediate increases in state government

expenditures and revenue and more liberal voting patterns
for federal representatives, and these effects continued growing

over time as more women took advantage of the franchise…On the basis

of these estimates, granting women the right to vote caused expenditures to rise immediately by 14 percent…by 21 percent after 25 years, and by 28 percent after 45 years.

Women did not quietly, meekly vote for whatever the men around them supported. They had their own minds, and those minds, when empowered by the vote, moved policy in a more progressive direction. And notice that the longer-run effect was twice the immediate effect: Expanding the franchise to a group that favored more government spending indeed increased government spending, but it took decades to see the full effect. In U.S. history, new voters have mattered.

And this is no one-off study: the policy impact of female suffrage has been studied extensively. To quote a study focused on Europe:

Using historical data from six Western European countries for the period 1869-1960, we provide evidence that social spending out of GDP increased by 0.6-1.2% in the short-run as a consequence of women’s suffrage, while the long-run effect is three to eight times larger.

Again, the long run effect matters more than the short run effect. New voters, new policies: NVNP.

Which brings us to one last test of the NVNP hypothesis: The increase in voting rights for when poll taxes were eliminated in the United States. Here again, evidence supports NVNP: the University of Chicago’s Journal of Political Economy reports that “eliminating poll taxes raised welfare spending by 11 to 20 percent” among other findings, so once again, new voters made important progressive policy change a reality.

How immigrants shape institutions

We now have the key pieces of the puzzle:

The Deep Roots literature which shows that in the long run, migration deeply shapes a nation’s level of pro-market institutions, and that a nation’s ancestry-adjusted SAT score (States, Agriculture, Technology) is a good predictor of prosperity.

The Attitude Migration literature, which shows that migrants bring a substantial portion of their attitudes toward markets, trust, and social safety nets with them from their home country.

The New Voters = New Policies literature, which shows that governments really do change when new voters show up, and that the changes start to show up in just a few years.
Government policies don’t radiate from subterranean mineral deposits: they are in large part the product of its voting citizens. And in the long run, new citizens lead to new policies.

Together, these three literatures provide a combination of big-picture and close-up evidence that if a country is choosing between high-SAT and low-SAT immigration policies, the high-SAT approach will yield big benefits in the long run. Individual countries will always be exceptions to the rule, so some countries taking the low-SAT immigration path will still look pretty good. But wise citizens don’t bet on being the exception: they bet on being the rule.

https://evonomics.com/do-immigrants-import-their-economic-destiny-garrett-jones/

****************************************

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)

*************************************

Finland joins Sweden and Denmark in pausing use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in young people over fears the shots are causing rare heart inflammation

Finland has become the latest Nordic nation to pause use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in young people due to fears that the shots are causing rare heart inflammation.

The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare said on Thursday that authorities won't give the vaccine to males under age 30, and they will be offered the Pfizer-BioNTech immunization instead.

The government agency said it found that young men and boys were at a slightly higher risk of developing myocarditis.

It comes after health officials in Sweden and Denmark made a similar decision earlier this week.

In Sweden, the Moderna jab will no longer be available to any one born after 1990, or those aged 30 and younger.

Denmark has restricted access to the vaccine to anyone under the age of 18.

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

All four countries based their decision on an unpublished study with Sweden's Public Health Agency saying that it signals 'an increased risk of side effects such as inflammation of the heart muscle or the pericardium' - the double-walled sac containing the heart and the roots of the main vessels.

It added: 'The risk of being affected is very small.'

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

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

The Swedish health agency said it would pause using the shot for people born in 1991 and later as data pointed to an increase of myocarditis and pericarditis among youths and young adults who had been vaccinated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10073273/Finland-joins-Sweden-Denmark-pausing-use-Moderna-COVID-19-vaccine-young-people.html

*****************************************

Fumento Misdiagnoses Remdesivir

Lawyer and author Michael Fumento recently argued in an AIER article that the FDA’s approval of the Covid-19 treatment remdesivir has failed patients and provides another example of the failure of the “Do something, anything” approach to combat the pandemic.

Referencing several critical studies and a condemning statement from the WHO, Mr. Fumento argues that remdesivir “doesn’t work.” However, since it remains the only fully approved Covid-19 treatment, and the FDA hesitates to retract drugs it already approved, remdesivir remains on the market. The agency’s wrongdoing in approving it also allows remdesivir’s producer Gilead to charge an alarmingly high price for treatment ($3,000 above production cost).

Frustrated but not surprised, Mr. Fumento concludes his article by stating, “At best, this can be a lesson to us all about pandemic drug approvals. But as noted we’ve had those lessons and they didn’t stick. Don’t expect this to have any impact, either.”

Having studied the FDA’s approval process for eight years and the history of remdesivir for the past two, I’m afraid I have to disagree with his assessment.

Mr. Fumento correctly notes that remdesivir previously struggled to receive FDA approval. But he neglects to mention why the drug remained off the market.

Beginning in 2014, remdesivir entered a clinical trial to help combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Reviewing data, an article published in Drugs and Context found that remdesivir, “performed well in pre-clinical studies.” However, Gilead later withdrew the drug for financial reasons, fearing it could not afford to continue with the FDA’s approval process (which often requires over $1 billion to complete) after underperforming in a small-sample efficacy test (which wouldn’t have counted in its approval application).

Remdesivir later entered clinical trials to help treat MERS during a 2016 outbreak in the Middle East. This time, the drug received financial and other support from the NIH and several medical schools. Here again, medical scientists noted the drug’s usefulness in “providing evidence to support new indications for this compound against human viruses of significant public health concern.” But the FDA’s burdensome approval process again prevented the promising experimental drug from advancing due to an inadequate number of patients in the clinical trials.

Far from being “a drug in search of a cure,” as Mr. Fumento suggests, medical literature suggests remdesivir was a promising treatment that helped patients during two previous epidemics. Its greatest challenge was regulatory, not clinical.

Mr. Fumento also fails to mention that there was a considerable demand to use remdesivir well before the FDA approved it. The first patient formally diagnosed with Covid-19 in the US received remdesivir. As cases spread, physicians and other medical establishments petitioned the FDA to grant patients access through the agency’s Compassionate Use program—giving dying patients a chance to try an experimental (unapproved) treatment to prolong their lives. Nearly two dozen US citizens tried remdesivir from January 25th—March 1st, 2020. Many more patients in 70 other countries were able to access remdesivir to treat Covid-19 despite many drug supply channels being shut down to prevent disease spread.

As patients recovered, the FDA issued its first Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the drug on May 1st, 2020, for severe cases of Covid-19. After nearly half a million doses of remdesivir reached patients, the FDA issued an EUA to treat milder cases of Covid-19. By late October, the agency fully approved remdesivir despite the drug never undergoing the full approval process.

Over the same time period, the FDA withdrew two EUAs for other drugs to treat Covid-19 (chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine), and several Covid-19 tests passed with EUA. If remdesivir is ineffective, why wasn’t it also withdrawn?

I have been critical of Mr. Fumento’s analysis of remdesivir. But I take the message of his article seriously. Policy changes enacted out of desperation to address a crisis can be wasteful, counterproductive, and harmful. His concerns are justified.

But remdesivir provides no such cautionary tale. Instead, it gives a story of the triumph of innovation during a difficult period. The lesson we should take away is not “Do something, anything,” it is to get government out of the way so we can find solutions.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13788

**************************************

Don’t freak out: Catching Covid after you are vaccinated improves immunity

For 20 months we’ve cowered behind masks, scrubbed ourselves with hand sanitiser and socially distanced to avoid Covid — now most people are vaccinated, experts are telling us we need to prepare to catch the virus.

It sounds counterintuitive but the argument is if you are vaccinated and catch Covid, you are unlikely to get seriously ill or go to hospital and getting the virus will further boost your immunity.

The new message comes as infections in the US and worldwide appear to have peaked and some scientists are noticing the virus has a wave pattern — two months of high infections followed by a decline then two months of high infections.

With lockdowns in three states due to ease in coming weeks Australian National University’s infectious diseases expert Professor Peter Collignon and University of Newcastle’s Professor Nathan Bartlett said fully vaccinated people needed to change their attitude to the virus.

Prepare yourself to be infected and don’t “freak out” if you do catch it when lockdowns end, they said.

“You might want to get it, you definitely want to get it. You definitely want to be vaccinated before you get it, because if you’re vaccinated your risk of death goes down,” said Prof. Collignon.

Prof. Bartlett said: “It’s immunity you want supported by the vaccine but then sort of topped up, by circulation and that’s really is what’s going to ultimately lead to make this turn this virus into basically an endemic, common cold causing virus, and that’s what you want it to be”.

The head of the Australian Society of Infectious diseases (ASID) Allen Cheng said he expected “everyone will probably be exposed, eventually.”

“We want to be vaccinated, so we have the best defences against it when it happens that we meet the virus,” he said.

A study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and another by one of Israel’s largest health providers found people who’d recovered from Covid and were later vaccinated had half the risk of reinfection compared with unvaccinated people who’d previously had Covid.

The Kaolinska Institute’s Charlotte Thalin told The Conversation combining natural infection with protection from a vaccine may work better because natural infection exposes our immune system to several viral proteins while vaccines introduce a single antigen: the spike protein.

But, like the other experts, she cautions you want to be vaccinated before getting infected because getting a natural infection first exposes you to the risks of death, blood clots and long Covid.

Many vaccinated people are likely to get infected because vaccines are less effective at preventing infection with the Delta variant.

Pfizer’s protection plunges from 93 per cent to 53 per cent after four months, a study published in The Lancet this week found.

However, the vaccines are still good at preventing 80-90 per cent of infected people from needing a hospital bed and are almost 100 per cent protective against death.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/dont-freak-out-catching-covid-after-you-are-vaccinated-improves-immunity/news-story/a65e560935dc5f4a271e9bcba226478e

****************************************

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)

*************************************

Pfizer immunity drops off fairly quickly

I mentioned this Kaiser Permanente study yesterday but yesterday's report did not detail the drop in immunity over time. Some reports have claimed much longer immunity from the British Astra-Zenica vaccine. That is the one I have had (with NO side effects)

Overall, vaccine effectiveness against all SARS-CoV-2 infections fell from 88% one month after receiving two doses of the vaccine to 47% six months post vaccine; however the effectiveness of the vaccine still reduced the severity of the virus further reducing the number of hospitalizations by 90%, the study showed.

Vaccine effectiveness against the Delta variant infections fell from 93% at one month after receiving the full dose to 53% four months post-vaccine, however still reduced the severity and need for hospitalization by 93%.

The findings, published Oct. 4 in The Lancet medical journal, are in line with initial reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Israel Ministry of Health showing declines in the Pfizer vaccine’s effectiveness against infection after about six months.

“Our study confirms that vaccines are a critical tool for controlling the pandemic and remain highly effective in preventing severe disease and hospitalization, including from the Delta and other variants of concern. Protection against infection does decline in the months following a second dose,” study lead author Dr. Sara Tartof, from the department of research & evaluation at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, said in a journal news release.

“While this study provides evidence that immunity wanes for all age groups that received the vaccine, the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has called for additional research to determine if booster shots should be made available to all age groups eligible for this vaccine,” she noted.

https://zerohourpatriots.com/new-study-of-pfizer-vaccine-yields-shocking-results/

*************************************************

Denmark, Sweden Halt Use of Moderna for Everyone Under 30

Public health officials in both Denmark and Sweden, countries which are routinely praised by the far left in America, have paused the use of Moderna’s vaccine for people under 30 years of age, citing an increased risk of heart problems associated with the COVID shot.

Both Nordic countries are commonly pointed to by so-called “democratic socialists” as models for good governance, social policies and medicine. Both countries also looked at the data and decided they would suspend Moderna’s vaccine, for now.

After reviewing research from Swedish and Nordic data sources, the Swedish Public Health Agency noted there was an increased risk for inflammatory conditions like myocarditis and pericarditis in young people who received the second Moderna shot.

“The Swedish Public Health Agency has decided to pause the use of Moderna’s vaccine Spikevax, for everyone born in 1991 and later, for precautionary reasons,” a translation of the health agency’s news release said. “The cause is signals of an increased risk of side effects such as inflammation of the heart muscle or heart sac. However, the risk of being affected is very small.”

Sweden’s health experts noted that heart inflammation issues “usually go away on their own,” but noted any symptoms “need to be assessed by a doctor.” “

“The conditions are most common among young men, in connection with, for example, viral infections such as covid-19. In 2019, approximately 300 people under the age of 30 were treated in hospital with myocarditis.

“Data point to an increased incidence also in connection with vaccination against covid-19, mainly in adolescents and young adults and mainly in boys and men. For the individual, the risk of being affected is very small, it is a very rare side effect,” the agency said.

“New preliminary [analyses] from Swedish and Nordic data sources indicate that the connection is especially clear when it comes to Moderna’s vaccine Spikevax, especially after the second dose. The increase in risk is seen within four weeks after the vaccination, mainly within the first two weeks.”

The Swedish Public Health Agency is recommending young people use the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine if they wish. The agency will reassess the situation regarding Moderna’s shot in December.

https://flagandcross.com/denmark-and-sweden-halt-use-of-moderna-covid-vaccine-for-everyone-under-30/

**********************************************

What Merck’s Experimental COVID Pill Can and Can’t Do

The drug, molnupiravir, is named after Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir. But its power depends on reaching the right people, in the right time frame.

Two years into the pandemic, we’ve gotten a lot better at tackling the coronavirus at the extremes of infection. We have preventives—including masks, distancing, ventilation, and our MVP vaccines—that can be deployed in advance of a viral encounter. We have regimens of last resort: drugs, such as dexamethasone, that do their best, lifesaving work in hospitals with trained health-care workers, in patients whose disease has already turned severe. But in the chasm that sits in between—the hazy period after infection and before severe illness—decent tools that can derail COVID’s progression have been sparse.

We now have a new candidate aiming to fill that crucial niche: the experimental antiviral molnupiravir, developed by Merck and Ridgeback, which comes in an easy-to-swallow pill. According to a company press release posted this past Friday, the drug can halve rates of hospitalization among people recently diagnosed with mild or moderate COVID-19. Molnupiravir hasn’t yet been given emergency clearance by the FDA, and won’t be available for at least a few months, but Merck and outside experts have said they expect a formal green light soon. With the Delta variant still ravaging the world’s unvaccinated, a pill such as this one could ease the burden on overtaxed health-care systems—which most other COVID treatments have struggled to do. “To have something to take by mouth the minute you’re diagnosed, that reduces your chances of getting severely sick … that’s kind of the dream,” Nahid Bhadelia, the founding director of Boston University’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research, told me.

But in that middling stretch of the COVID timeline, molnupiravir might be able to stake out only limited territory. The drug is meant to be taken within the first five or so days of illness, “the earlier, the better,” George Painter, a pharmacologist at Emory University and one of molnupiravir’s early developers, told me. That’s a punishingly tight window, especially in nations short on diagnostics to detect the virus—as well as access to health workers and infrastructure to prescribe and provide the drug. “Rolling out an oral medication is hugely important,” Erin McCreary, a clinical pharmacist and COVID-treatment expert at the University of Pittsburgh, told me. But a pill, she said, has to be “paired with access”—of which a drug itself is no guarantee.

Despite its experimental status, molnupiravir is a pretty familiar face to the antiviral-research community. In the pre-COVID era, the drug generated some buzz when scientists found that it could stamp out a menagerie of viruses, including influenza. Its modus operandi is pretty similar to that of remdesivir, the only COVID-19 drug with full FDA approval. Both mimic building blocks of SARS-CoV-2’s genetic code, allowing them to mess with the fastidious self-xeroxing process that the virus uses to generate copies of itself inside human cells.

The two antivirals are slightly different agents of chaos, though. To make more of itself, SARS-CoV-2 deploys a scribe-like enzyme called a polymerase to scan and duplicate its genome letter by letter. When the polymerase spots a stray remdesivir molecule, it stumbles, as if flustered by a bad typo. Molnupiravir is more insidious still. It’s such a good mime of the letters in the viral alphabet that the polymerase often overlooks the interloper, making genome copies riddled with mistakes. “An analogy might be gross misspellings,” Painter said. The drug’s sabotage is so extensive that experts call it an “error catastrophe”: Dangerous viral particles have essentially no shot of emerging out the other end.

Molnupiravir’s packaging might give it another leg up. Researchers have long known that a bad case of COVID-19 tends to unfurl in two stages—one dominated by the virus, and a second by the immune system’s overzealous reaction. The point of antivirals is to act early, and fast—to nip a growing virus population in the bud, before it can wreak havoc on our tissues, or trip too many of the body’s hypersensitive alarms. These drugs are largely useless once people have descended into the second phase. Remdesivir has to be delivered intravenously, over several days—usually in a hospital, after most patients are pretty sick. (This might explain why remdesivir studies in these settings have produced mixed or underwhelming results.) Molnupiravir, meanwhile, was designed as a pill so it could be “easily administered in the outpatient setting,” Daria Hazuda, Merck’s vice president of infectious disease and vaccine discovery, told me. The drug is easily shipped and stored, and can be taken pretty much anywhere.

Merck’s recent trial, which has yet to be documented in a peer-reviewed scientific study, used the drug in people who had at least one risk factor for developing severe COVID-19 and had just begun to feel ill. Only 7 percent of them ended up getting hospitalized, compared with 14 percent in a placebo group, and none of them died. “That’s hugely clinically significant,” Ilan Schwartz, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Alberta, who wasn’t involved in the drug’s development, told me. The pill also, so far, appears to be playing nice with human cells, dealing its deathly blows only to viruses—no serious side effects have been reported yet, though Merck’s final data are expected to provide more details upon publication. And there’s been little sign that SARS-CoV-2 can evolve to skirt molnupiravir’s effects, which should make the drug relatively variant-proof. The trial’s results were so promising that an independent panel of experts evaluating the data decided to halt the study early so the company could move forward with its product.

Realistically, molnupiravir might be better compared to monoclonal antibodies—the only treatments for COVID’s early-infection phase that have gotten emergency authorization from the FDA so far. Across trials, monoclonals have proved highly effective at stopping mild and moderate cases of COVID-19 from ballooning into serious ones; some formulations have even been okayed for use in people who have recently been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 but haven’t yet developed symptoms. But monoclonals have weaknesses, too: They still need to be infused or injected by professionals, viruses can adapt to resist them, and skyrocketing demand has seriously strained supply. Molnupiravir, if it pans out, could expand the therapeutic options for this stage of disease. In a best-case scenario, the people who take it would be able to stop themselves from getting seriously sick, while also shortening the length of time the virus lingers in their body—potentially making them less of an infectious threat. Treated people could end their disease earlier in the COVID timeline.

Molnupiravir’s name, however tough to pronounce, has a story behind it. The drug’s been packing such a punch in trials, Emory’s Painter said, that it inspired him and his collaborators to name it after Mjölnir, the mythical hammer of the Norse god (and Marvel Avenger) Thor. “All we wanted was something that carried the idea of potency,” he told me, referencing Arthur C. Clarke’s The Hammer of God, a novel about a human mission to deflect an asteroid on course to collide with Earth. “That it can stop something.”

The Mjölnir reference might work in another way too. Wielding a hammer effectively requires impeccable timing. A powerful tool still needs to hit its mark.

Treatments are, by definition, reactive; a drug, no matter how early it’s dosed, can’t undo an infection, or a prior transmission event. It can only contain the fallout. The 50 percent reduction in hospitalizations noted in Merck’s press release is stellar, but some participants “still did get hospitalized,” Bhadelia pointed out, and without public data, outside researchers can’t yet identify who benefited most, or least, from the pills. Drugs such as this one might not block other outcomes, including long COVID. And Merck has yet to test the pill in pregnant people and kids. Experts also pointed out the paucity of data on the drug’s performance in vaccinated people, most of whom remain at very low risk of severe disease but could still benefit from early treatment, especially if they’re in high-risk groups. Molnupiravir won’t ever replace tools that can exert their effects before the virus even shows up. “I’m really hoping people don’t look at this as a reason to not get a vaccine,” Elizabeth Campbell, an expert in COVID antivirals at the Rockefeller University, told me.

Also, Molnupiravir is going to be used by humans, not gods. Which means it’s going to be subject to some very human limitations. For the pill to work, people will need to realize they’re sick and confirm that with a test; they will need to seek care from a health-care provider and successfully nab a prescription; they will need to access the drug and have the means to obtain it. Then they will need to take the drug successfully, which, according to Merck, means swallowing four capsules twice a day for five days—a total of 40 pills.

Molnupiravir’s been billed as a cheaper alternative to remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies, which can carry price tags of up to about $3,000 and $2,000, respectively, for the drugs alone. But at a projected $700 per course of treatment, molnupiravir still “isn’t very affordable,” Bhadelia said, especially in lower-income countries, where vaccination rates have been low and drugs like these are desperately needed. Merck has pledged to set up tiered pricing that could cut the pill’s cost abroad, and has partnered with several other manufacturers in other parts of the world to speed the timeline of availability “in maybe 100-plus countries,” Hazuda, of Merck, told me.

Even if pills were free and abundant, their effects could still be constrained by a diagnostic bottleneck. Since the pandemic’s early days, access to timely, accurate testing has been woefully inadequate, an issue that’s been exacerbated by the structural barriers faced by communities of color, Utibe Essien, a health-equity researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, told me. If a result comes too late, or a test seems out of reach, then the sick person can easily miss that crucial early-infection window—a big loss, considering that molnupiravir has essentially “no effect on patients once they’re in hospitals,” Campbell told me. “If treatment is contingent on diagnosis, we need to make sure testing is more readily available,” Essien said, or risk widening equity gaps. In this arena, in particular, molnupiravir might stand to be a bit less like its namesake: accessible only to those deemed worthy enough to wield it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/10/mercks-experimental-covid-pill-cant-fix-everything/620320/

**************************************

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)

*************************************

Incredible Covid trend in Japan baffles experts as cases suddenly plummet

I think I have a fair idea of what is going on. Delta is highly infective but only for a minority of people. So once it has infected them it dies out

Despite our enjoyment of the Olympics from afar, there was a debate around whether or not the games should have gone ahead, given what was happening in Japan at the time.

The nation of 125 million had done reasonably well for a country of its size and population density before then, keeping Covid cases relatively under control and preventing deaths from the virus.

But then, almost in tandem with Australia, things started to head south in July with the introduction of the Delta strain.

It was terrible timing for Japan, with the Olympics about to bring athletes and dignitaries from all around the world into the country just as cases began to take off.

Many residents and health experts wanted the games to be called off.

Things were not looking good after athletes returned home either, as infections kept rising.

By the end of August, Japan — which has the world’s third largest economy — was clocking up more than 24,000 cases a day. Deaths began to climb too, with the seven-day average hovering around 50-60 for several weeks.

However, something truly remarkable has happened since then, and experts around the world can’t believe what they are seeing.

As other parts of Asia are seeing their cases rise, infections in Japan have plummeted to their lowest levels in nearly a year.

New daily cases in Tokyo dropped to just 87 on Monday, the city’s lowest tally since November 2 last year and a massive decline from the thousands of new cases each day seen just a matter of weeks ago.

Other cities around the nation are seeing the same trend, with the average number of daily new infections falling by more than 8000 in the past three weeks.

Experts scratching their heads

The huge decline in cases is obviously welcome news to everyday Japanese residents, but the reasons behind it are leaving experts around the world perplexed.

Professor Mark Woolhouse, epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, said the plunge was probably because the Delta variant appears to “move faster through populations”.

“Spikes for the Delta variant tend to be spikier. They go up faster, and they come down faster,” he told the UK’s inews.

Although the drop in cases itself is not a “particular surprise”, cases have come down “fast”, he said.

“We first saw that in the first wave of Delta which hit India and that had the same characteristic; it went up very fast, and it came down very fast,” he said.

He added that is because the Delta variant has a shorter “generation time”, meaning how long it takes one infected person to infect another.

He and government experts in Japan have put the drop in cases largely down to vaccinations and recent restrictions linked to the state of emergency.

Much of Japan has been under virus emergency measures for a large part of the year, with the restrictions finally lifting last week due to the decline in infections.

Other experts, like Kyoto University’s Hiroshi Nishiura, say the recent spike in cases has ended because of changes in the flow of people, with fewer travellers now holidaying and socialising in Japan.

Mr Nishiura believes infectivity, as measured by the effective reproduction number, is correlated with holiday breaks.

“During the holidays, we meet persons whom we seldom meet up with, and moreover, there is a substantial chance to eat together in a face-to-face environment,” Mr Nishiura, a top infectious disease modeller advising the government, told Reuters.

He said recent record cases in South Korea and Singapore may be connected to some mid-year holidays, and a convergence of Asian and Western holidays at the end of the year could lead to a “nightmare”.

Another school of thought is that the virus comes in vicious cycles, fuelled by one particular age demographic.

Jason Tetro, a Canada-based infectious disease expert and author of The Germ Code, said different age cohorts become “fuel” for the virus to spread, depending on vaccination rates and prior infections, at different times.

“Without elimination of the virus, we will continue to see spikes until 85 per cent of the population is immune to the dominant strain,” he told Reuters.
“This is the only way to get out of these vicious cycles.”

Another theory is that Covid-19 and its variants tend to move in two-month cycles, though Mr Tetro argued the cycles were “more a factor of human nature than mother nature”.

Fears as Japan heads into winter

Although cases have dropped significantly, there are fears of another wave as the nation heads into winter.

More than 60 per cent of the population is now fully vaccinated, but there are concerns that the healthcare system could easily become overwhelmed again, should a new wave emerge.

Japan’s vaccination rollout was initially slow compared to other G7 nations. Frontline health care workers were jabbed on February 17, but the rollout to older people did not start until late April.

However, Japan picked up quickly and now more than 158 million doses have been administered, with 63.5 per cent of people aged 12 and over double jabbed. That’s 57 per cent of the total population.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/incredible-covid-trend-in-japan-baffles-experts-as-cases-suddenly-plummet/news-story/1e7397de12a97fd43ed25b89716a8288

****************************************

Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines were 95% effective against infection and 91% against hospitalization among US veterans - with NO deaths, study finds

Data from early this year

COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing infections and hospitalizations among U.S. veterans, a new study finds.

Researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Food and Drug Administration looked at data from the first three months of the shots' availability.

They found that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines had an efficacy of 95 percent against infection and were 91 percent effective at preventing hospitalization.

There were also no deaths among fully vaccinated veterans.

The team says the findings shows how protective the vaccines were early on in the roll out and why it was so important to get veterans - who are a population at increased risk of severe Covid - immunized quickly.

Researchers gathered data from 6.6 million veterans between December 2020 to March 2021. They found that 1.3 million - almost one out of every five - received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine during that period.

Older veterans were more likely to have received the shots at this point than their younger counterparts, though researchers found little difference in vaccination rates across racial lines.

At the time, the Covid vaccines were not available to all Americans, but instead only to certain groups depending on what state someone live in.

Seniors were prioritized in basically every state - which is why older veterans had better vaccine coverage - but veterans with certain comorbidities or who were front line workers were eligible in some states as well.

More than 472,000 participants in the study had tested for COVID-19 at some point during the study period, with 15,000 positive cases being detected.

Of the positive cases, 41 were breakthrough cases detected in fully vaccinated people, 270 were in partially vaccinated veterans and 14,799 were among the unvaccinated.

Researchers, who published their findings in JAMA Network Open on Wednesday, found that only 22.8 out of every 100,000 participants who were at least partially vaccinated in the study contracted Covid.

The rate of infection is more than ten-fold for the unvaccinated, with 280 out of every 100,000 people contracting the virus.

When adjusting for other factors, such as age, race and geography, researchers found that the vaccine is 95 percent effective at preventing infection, and 91 percent effective at preventing hospitalization.

There were also no COVID-19 deaths among fully vaccinated participants in the study.

Partial vaccination - meaning receiving only one shot of a two-dose series - still provides protection as well with 64 percent vaccine effectiveness against infection.

One shot was also 48 percent effective at preventing hospitalization and 63 percent effective at preventing deaths, the researchers found.

While the results of the study do capture the initial effectiveness of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, the situation in America has changed since data was captured.

The Delta variant, a highly contagious strain of the virus that caused a massive surge of cases in the U.S. over the summer, had not yet reached the nation in March.

More recent data also shows that the vaccine's effectiveness at preventing infection does wane over time, meaning the earliest adopters of the shots - who would be among those vaccinated seven months ago - will not be as protected now as they were then.

In order to combat the waning effectiveness, booster shots have been made available to people over the age of 65 or with comorbidities that put them at serious risk from the virus.

Currently in the U.S., 65 percent of people have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 56 percent of residents are fully vaccinated.

Just over six million booster doses have been administered as well, according to official data.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10065147/Covid-vaccines-95-effective-against-infection-91-against-hospitalization-veterans.html

**************************************

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)

*************************************

Covid cases plunge after Norway abruptly gets rid of all restrictions

The autumnal drizzle is falling on Norway and the days are getting shorter but if you were able to take a walk along the streets of Oslo, you would feel as if you’re in an alternate reality to our lives at home.

There are no masks in sight, no talk of vaccine passports, no social distancing markers on the ground and people are meeting their family and friends for a meal, a movie or concert.

The only indication that the pandemic ever happened is that there are a couple of Covid testing facility cabins at public places where staff wear face masks.

Other than that, Norwegians have reclaimed their lives after the last of their Covid restrictions were confined to the dustbin last week.

There were rowdy celebrations over the weekend with dozens of disturbances and violent clashes including mass brawls in Norway’s big cities after streets, bars, restaurants and nightclubs were filled with people celebrating the end of restrictions that lasted for more than a year.

It came after the government there abruptly announced on Friday that most of the remaining coronavirus restrictions would be scrapped beginning on Saturday and that life in the nation of 5.3 million would return to normal.

The announcement by outgoing Prime Minister Erna Solberg took many Norwegians by surprise – and is perhaps one of the reasons there were such chaotic scenes in the capital, Oslo, and elsewhere in the country.

“It has been 561 days since we introduced the toughest measures in Norway in peacetime,” Ms Solberg said on Friday at a news conference. “Now the time has come to return to a normal daily life.”

But the best news of all is that Covid cases and deaths there are dropping at a rapid rate even though the rules have been eased — following a similarly positive trend in neighbouring Nordic nations that have also scrapped all Covid rules.

And, despite their dismal weather, the Scandinavian countries that have done away with their rules are performing far better in avoiding deaths than many other developed nations.

Any fears of a rise in cases since the reopening in Norway have been slapped back by the early indications in infection numbers.

Cases have plummeted 40 per cent in the short time that Norway has reopened and new daily cases have dropped by 50 per cent over the last two weeks.

And, unlike many other nations that are reopening, Norway will not order its citizens to show proof of vaccination or a negative test result to enter nightclubs, bars and restaurants.

Sixty-seven per cent of the population are fully vaccinated and a further 10 per cent have had a first dose, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.

Norway is one of three Nordic nations that has scrapped all Covid rules in the past few weeks – along with Sweden and Denmark.

Denmark lifted all of its restrictions two weeks prior to Norway’s announcement. The government there also no longer requires digital proof of vaccination to enter nightclubs, saying the virus is no longer “a socially critical disease”.

“This can only be done because we have come a long way with the vaccination rollout, have a strong epidemic control, and because the entire Danish population has made an enormous effort to get here,” Denmark’s Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said.

Around 75 per cent of the Danish population is fully vaccinated with at least 77 per cent having received at least one dose. The fully vaccinated include around 96 per cent of people who are over 50 years old, according to the Foundation for Economic Education.

Interestingly, cases have also dropped by 40 per cent since restrictions were lifted three weeks ago.

Meanwhile, Sweden – which had been criticised for not going hard on restrictions early on in the pandemic and has not prevented as many cases or deaths as Denmark and Norway – is performing better than most Western nations after dropping restrictions six days ago.

Sweden’s death rate from the virus of 1462 confirmed deaths per million is much higher than that of both Denmark and Norway, where deaths number 457 per million and 156 per million respectively, according to Our World in Data.

However, Sweden’s death rate is lower than several Western countries, including Spain, with 1847 deaths per million; Britain at 2005, the US at 2080, and Italy at 2167.

Daily Covid deaths are also low in all three Nordic nations that have scrapped restrictions.

According to Our World in Data, Sweden saw approximately nine confirmed deaths in the most recent seven-day rolling average, while Norway saw one death and Denmark three deaths. Adjusting for population, that’s 0.84, 0.26, and 0.47 deaths per million, respectively.

However, as jabs roll out worldwide, there is a positive trend emerging globally.

The weekly number of coronavirus deaths worldwide has fallen to levels unseen for almost a year at an average of 7606 each day, according to an AFP count based on official national figures.

By their count, coronavirus has killed at least 4,798,207 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019.

The US is the worst-affected country with 701,176 deaths, followed by Brazil with 597,948, India with 448,997, Mexico 278,801 and Russia 210,801.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Russia with 883 new deaths, followed by the US with 246 and Iran with 229.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/covid-cases-plunge-after-norway-abruptly-gets-rid-of-all-restrictions/news-story/d8c810f94ad5d6a5448dd03ac7d09ae0

**********************************************

AstraZeneca launches new drug to prevent COVID symptoms

COVID-19 vaccine maker AstraZeneca has applied for emergency approval in the US of a new coronavirus-fighting drug that could provide another therapeutic option.

The pharmaceuticals giant confirmed overnight it has lodged an application with the US Food and Drug Administration to approval its AZD7442, a “long-acting antibody” drug designed to prevent symptoms of the virus before an individual is exposed to COVID-19.

The drugmaker says the antibody cocktail, which is injected into the veins, could be used to protect people who have had a coronavirus vaccine but may not have mounted a strong immune response to the virus because they are immuno-compromised.

Early data from a phase 3 study of the product showed that the treatment reduced the risk of developing a symptomatic case of COVID-19 compared to a placebo.

If the product is approved in the US, it would be the first treatment of its kind to get the green light. The company said it was already open for talks about supply agreements around the world.

“Discussions regarding supply agreements for AZD7442 are ongoing with the US government as well as other governments around the world,” AstraZeneca said in a statement.

Australia has spent the past month upping its arsenal of COVID-19 therapeutics, including increasing its orders for GSK’s early intervention IV treatment and buying 300,000 doses of Merck Sharp & Dohme’s experimental antiviral pill Molnupiravir.

On Tuesday, the Australian regulator also granted a “provisional determination” to Pfizer for its COVID treatment, which paves the way for Pfizer to submit full data for consideration.

Pfizer launched a study of the drug in 2,660 patients last week. Its treatment is designed as a pill that is taken over five days at the first sign of infection or awareness of exposure to the virus, acting to block the activity of the enzyme the virus uses to replicate.

AstraZeneca’s vice-president of biopharmaceuticals R&D, Mene Pangalos, said products like AstraZeneca’s treatment will hopefully act as an additional option to protect against the virus, along with vaccines.

“Vulnerable populations such as the immuno-compromised often aren’t able to mount a protective response following vaccination and continue to be at risk of developing COVID-19,” Mr Pangalos said

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/astrazeneca-launches-new-drug-to-prevent-covid-symptoms-20211006-p58xlb.html

*****************************************

Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine’s Effectiveness Falls Below 50 Percent After 5 Months: Study

According to a new study published in The Lancet medical journal on Oct. 4.

The study (pdf), which was funded by Pfizer, aimed to evaluate the overall variant-specific effectiveness of the companies’ vaccine against CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus infections and COVID-19-related hospital admissions over time.

Researchers analyzed electronic health records of more than 3.4 million men and women who were members of the health care organization Kaiser Permanente Southern California between Dec. 14, 2020, and Aug. 8, and assessed the vaccine effectiveness up to six months after they were inoculated.

They found that the Pfizer vaccine was 88 percent effective in the first month after full vaccination, but dropped to 47 percent effectiveness after five months.

The vaccine was also found to be highly effective against the Delta variant, providing 93 percent effectiveness in the first month after full vaccination but declining to 53 percent after four months.

By comparison, effectiveness against other non-Delta variants was 97 percent after a month and declined to 67 percent after four to five months, according to the study.

Effectiveness against Delta-related hospital admission remained high at 93 percent for up to six months, the researchers said.

Researchers said that the reduction in effectiveness was likely because of waning immunity over the period of time since the individual was given the second shot as opposed to the Delta strain.

“Our results provide support for high effectiveness of BNT162b2 against hospital admissions up until around six months after being fully vaccinated, even in the face of widespread dissemination of the Delta variant,” the researchers wrote.

“Reduction in vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infections over time is probably primarily due to waning immunity with time rather than the Delta variant escaping vaccine protection.”

“Our results reiterate in a real-world U.S. setting that vaccination with [the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine] remains an essential tool for preventing COVID-19, especially COVID-19-associated hospital admissions, caused by all current variants of concern,” they added.

The latest Pfizer-funded study comes one day after a separate BioRxiv study published on Oct. 4 that found that antibody levels generated by two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can undergo up to a 10-fold decrease seven months following the second vaccination.

The research, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, noted that the drop in antibody levels would compromise the body’s ability to defend itself against COVID-19 if an individual becomes infected.

The study focused on 56 healthy participants who had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The participants’ blood was tested once after receiving the second vaccination and once again after six months.

Researchers suggested administering a third booster shot as a measure to improve vaccine efficacy.

Both studies reiterate findings from Pfizer and BioNTech that were released in July showing that vaccine effectiveness dropped from 96 percent to 84 percent over six months.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the most widely used in the United States. More than 226 million doses have been administered as of Sept. 30, compared with 151 million Moderna shots and 15 million of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/effectiveness-of-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-falls-below-50-percent-after-5-months-study_4032448.html

**************************************

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)

*************************************

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine is more than 90% effective against hospitalization from all variants - including Delta - for first six months after receiving shots

Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine remains effective at preventing hospitalizations for at least six months, a new study suggests..

Researchers at Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC) gathered data from the company's health care network to discover how often fully vaccinated people were either testing positive for the virus or being hospitalized because of it.

They found the Pfizer vaccine was 90 percent effective at preventing hospitalizations for the first six months after becoming fully vaccinated.

Existing variants also seem to have little ability to bypass the vaccines, including the highly transmissible Delta variant, which is now responsible for nearly all cases in the U.S.

The vaccine's effectiveness at preventing infection does significantly wane over time, though, falling as low as 47 percent after five months.

Previous studies have had similar findings regarding the effectiveness of the Covid vaccines at preventing infection and hospitalization.

The results of the study show that a recent uptick in breakthrough cases may have less to do with any factors specific to the Delta variant, but instead have to do with the efficacy of the vaccines falling over time.

These breakthrough cases are less serious, though, with the vaccine still showing the ability to prevent hospitalizations and death.

'Our variant-specific analysis clearly shows that the [Pfizer] vaccine is effective against all current variants of concern, including Delta,' said Dr Luis Jodar, senior vice president of Pfizer Vaccines, in a statement.

'COVID-19 infections in people who have received two vaccine doses are most likely due to waning and not caused by Delta or other variants escaping vaccine protection.'

For the study, published in The Lancet, the team gathered data from 3.4 million members of the KPSC health network.

They analyzed health records to find how often people tested positive or required medical treatment due to the virus.

People whose data was included in the study were separated by age to find any potential differences in vaccine effectiveness over the six months following the second jab.

Researchers found little differences among age cohorts in both the ability to prevent hospitalizations or infection.

Among all age groups, the vaccine's effectiveness slowly declined over the months, eventually falling to around 50 percent.

Overall, the vaccine showed 73 percent effectiveness at preventing infection during the first six months after vaccination.

Effectiveness against hospitalization remained stable for all ages, showing little change over the first six months.

Other studies have made similar findings, including a Mayo Clinic study from August that found the Pfizer vaccine is only 42 percent effective at preventing infection in July, though still 75 percent effective at preventing hospitalization.

At the time, it was believed that the Delta variant was the cause for declining efficacy, though the KPSC findings state otherwise.

Another study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also found that efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine declined to around 50 percent over time.

The findings match what many health officials have said in recent weeks in conversations regarding Covid booster shots.

The White House, wanted to roll out boosters for all Americans starting on September 20, citing the waning efficacy of the vaccines as the reason for the third shots.

Some officials and experts disagreed, including 18 senior Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials who published a report opposing the boosters last month, instead cite the vaccine's effectiveness at preventing hospitalizations as a reason why the boosters are not needed.

The FDA declined to authorize the boosters for all Americans over the age of 18, instead only giving authorization for the Pfizer boosters to be used for Americans aged 65 or older or with a comorbidity that makes them vulnerable to the virus.

Eligible Americans quickly took advantage of the boosters availability, with nearly two million of the shots being administered last week, the White House reported.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10058817/Pfizers-COVID-19-vaccine-90-effective-against-hospitalization-six-months.html

***********************************************

Safe to receive Covid and flu jabs at the same time, study shows

Research also finds that co-administration has no negative impact on immune response generated by both vaccines

It is safe for people to receive a dose of the Covid and flu vaccine at the same time, new research shows, and nor is there any negative impact on the immune response as a result of co-administration.

Scientists behind the Combining Influenza and Covid-19 Vaccination (ComFluCov) study said their findings support government plans to roll out Covid booster jabs alongside flu shots, where it is deemed practical.

A trial led by a team at the University of Bristol showed that the reported side effects of co-administration were mainly mild to moderate, concluding that “concomitant vaccination raises no safety concerns and preserves the immune response to both vaccines”.

Dr Rajeka Lazarus, a consultant in infectious diseases and microbiology, and chief investigator for the ComFluCov study, said the research demonstrated that “it is possible to protect people from both Covid-19 and flu at the same appointment”.

She added: “This is a really positive step which could mean fewer appointments for those who require both vaccines, reducing the burden on those who have underlying health conditions and would usually be offered the influenza vaccine.

The results of the study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, have already been shared with the the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and the UK’s medicines regulator.

They were used to help shape preparations for the autumn and winter plan. Under this, more than 50 million Covid booster jabs are to be offered, while some 30 million flu shots will also be rolled out.

As part of the ComFluCov trial, two Covid and three flu vaccines were tested – six combinations in all.

Study participants were over the age of 18 and had already received one dose of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, and were awaiting their second dose.

A total of 679 volunteers took part in the study across 12 NHS sites in England and Wales.

One group received their second dose of the Covid vaccine and the flu vaccine at their first study visit, then a placebo at their second visit.

A second group received their second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine and a placebo at their first visit and then the flu vaccine at their second visit.

Participants also attended a third study visit to discuss any side effects and give a blood sample.

The most common side effects were pain around the injection site and fatigue.

Some combinations saw an increase in the number of people who reported at least one side effect when both Covid-19 and flu vaccine were given together, but the reactions were mostly mild or moderate, researchers found.

According to the study, the immune responses to both the flu and Covid-19 vaccine were preserved when given together, and 97 per cent of participants said they would be willing to have two vaccines at the same appointment in the future.

Professor Andrew Ustianowski, clinical lead for the Covid-19 vaccination programme at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), said: “This research has quickly provided important and reassuring results that could make vaccination more efficient for both patients and the NHS.”

The study was led by researchers at the Bristol Trials Centre at the University of Bristol and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust, and supported by the Clinical Research Network West of England.

Dr Peter English, a former chair of the BMA Public Health Medicine Committee, said “there is a long history of vaccinating people against more than one disease simultaneously”.

He added: “I cannot think of any examples where co-administration of vaccines is in any way unsafe.

“We would not expect any problems to arise from co-administration of flu and Covid-19 vaccines; but it is wise and precautionary to check for possible problems in clinical trials before authorising or recommending widespread co-administration. This study does just that.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/covid-flu-vaccine-doses-booster-latest-b1930112.html

******************************************

IN BRIEF

WaPo runs interference for Biden, gives him just 2 Pinocchios for the “zero dollars” whopper (Washington Post)

“We can get you out of office if you don’t support what you promised us”: Kyrsten Sinema pestered by immigration activists (Fox News

Dems tuck multibillion-dollar handout to illegal immigrants into reconciliation (Free Beacon)

Friendly fire: House Democrats blast Nancy Pelosi after spending bills holdup (New York Post)

Dr. Anthony Fauci isn’t sure that you can gather for Christmas, but he is sure that you must give up your individual rights (American Thinker)

CDC implements gun violence study after wrongly naming it a “public health threat” (PM)

No joke: Catch-and-release at border up more than 430,000% in August (Washington Times)

Havana Syndrome continues to baffle U.S. officials (Washington Times)

Woke infighting: Women’s March cancels “Handmaid’s Tale” imagery over its use by white women (PM)

Facebook whistleblower trashes the social media giant on “60 Minutes” ahead of her congressional testimony (New York Post)

Seven of the 10 states in worst financial condition are run by Democrats (Just the News)

Self-proclaimed shaman accused of starting California fire said she was trying to boil bear urine (Washington Examiner)

**************************************

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)

*************************************