Vaccinated people are still highly likely to give covid to others

A new Lancet study about the transmission of Covid-19 among the vaccinated vs. unvaccinated is raising questions for some about vaccine mandates.

The study on “Community transmission and viral load kinetics” of the Delta variant in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated in the UK found the former were just as likely as the latter to spread Covid-19 among those in their household.

The vaccinated also had a similar viral load as the unvaccinated.

“Although vaccines remain highly effective at preventing severe disease and deaths from COVID-19, our findings suggest that vaccination is not sufficient to prevent transmission of the delta variant in household settings with prolonged exposures,” noted the paper, which studied 621 symptomatic participants over a year.

Significantly, the research found the vaccine was much more effective at reducing transmission of the alpha variant in a household, rather than the delta variant.

For some, the findings raise serious questions about vaccine mandates and lockdown efforts that governments around the world have pursued in an effort to contain the pandemic.

The researchers also noted booster shots and increasing the rate of vaccination among younger populations will help but the focus ought to remain on those most vulnerable.

“Increasing population immunity via booster programmes and vaccination of teenagers will help to increase the currently limited effect of vaccination on transmission, but our analysis suggests that direct protection of individuals at risk of severe outcomes, via vaccination and non-pharmacological interventions, will remain central to containing the burden of disease caused by the delta variant,” the researchers wrote.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/11/01/lancet-study-n2598344

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Greece Covid cases: Country records highest daily infections to date

After opening its borders during the summer tourism season, Greece has just recorded the highest daily increase of Covid-19 cases, since the start of the pandemic.

The European country reported 5400 cases on Monday, which pushes its daily average to 3900 new infections a day.

The country also recorded 52 deaths from Covid-19, which takes their pandemic death toll to 15,990 out of 747,595 cases.

Despite ballooning cases and rising deaths, a nationwide lockdown seems unlikely, reports local Athens-based newspaper, Kathimerini.

Development Minister Adonis Georgiadis said the government wasn’t looking at imposing a lockdown in winter, with the country shifting its Covid-recovery plan to focus on increasing vaccinations.

“We are now dealing with the pandemic of the unvaccinated,” he told local TV channel, Skai TV. “Our national right to lock people up has disappeared.”

Currently, 60.5 per cent of Greece’s population is fully-inoculated, with figures lagging behind the European average of 75 per cent.

Just four weeks ago Greece’s Health Miniser Thanos Plevris announced the removal of all indoor Covid-19 restrictions for fully vaccinated people. This meant business-as-usual activity was able to resume in restaurants, cafes, bars and nightclubs, with customers allowed to stand while drinking, play music and dance.

“A key prerequisite to regain our freedom is the increase in vaccination. We want to send the message that where the risk is lower, freedoms will reach the norm,” said Mr Plevris.

In order to encourage citizens to get the jab, unvaccinated public and private employees have been forced to pay for weekly tests in order to gain entry into their place of work and sports stadiums, museums, archaeological sites, cinemas and restaurants. The government has also mandated vaccines for healthcare workers.

The sudden uptick in cases is a dire sign for Greece’s already struggling economy. Just four years after the country emerged from a six-year depression between 2010 to 2016, Greece was plunged into another recession in 2020.

Writing for Vox EU, Professor of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business and the former Greek Minister of Economy and Finance, George Alogoskoufis expects it will take years for Greece’s economy to recover.

“Greece appears to have experienced a very deep recession in 2020 and even under optimistic assumptions, a full recovery will take some time beyond 2021,” he wrote.

“In addition, the recession and the cost of the measures to mitigate it have already led to a further sharp rise of Greece’s already exorbitantly high public debt.”

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/greece-covid-cases-country-records-highest-daily-infections-to-date/news-story/a4d3bef80fc0f2c0a899bd8b95814d4f

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CDC Says Young Kids Can Receive COVID Vaccine

A whole new frontier has opened up in the battle over COVID-19 vaccines, and it’s one that is going to invoke a great deal of emotion and anger. That’s thanks to the latest recommendations from the CDC, which were released on Tuesday.

Vaccine advisors for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) voted Tuesday that children ages 5-11 should get COVID-19 vaccines.

The vote comes after a special federal advisory committee met to debate the issue. A final say on the matter is expected from CDC Director Dro. Rochelle Walensky.

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized emergency use for kid doses, which are about one-third of the dose given to adolescents and adults. The vaccine is already approved for emergency use in children 12-15 years old.

Tuesday’s move means that as many as 28 million more children could be eligible for vaccinations as soon as this week.

Of course, this also means that the federal government could hide behind CDC approval in mandating that all school-aged children be vaccinated to attend public school, which is the very issue that the anti-vax movement has been fighting for decades.

Despite what is sure to be a mighty pushback, the Biden administration is already full-steam ahead on the plan.

The Biden administration, awaiting a green light, has been assembling and shipping millions of COVID-19 shots for children.

“We are not waiting on the operations and logistics,” White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients said Tuesday, assuring that the administration is “in great shape on supply.”

We can only imagine what school board meetings would begin to look like should vaccine mandates for children be considered.

https://flagandcross.com/jabs-for-juveniles-cdc-says-young-kids-can-receive-covid-vaccine/

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Professor of Medicine on Suing School Over Vaccine Mandate

Dr. Aaron Kheriaty reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic like many other medical experts. He worked long hours as the United States tried to grapple with the new disease. He had too many conversations with family members whose loved ones were dying from it.

But as time wore on, he started noticing a pattern in public health decisions that seemed to diverge from traditional medical ethics, including an insistence that people at little risk from COVID-19 get a vaccine.

Kheriaty is now on suspension from the University of California, Irvine, (UCI) and challenging the school’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in court.

“I had to stand up and try to do something about it,” the professor of psychiatry and director of the UCI Health’s Medical Ethics Program said on The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders.”

Kheriaty contracted COVID-19 in mid-2020. His infection was confirmed by two different tests from two independent labs. His five children and wife also contracted the disease. They all recovered, with none requiring hospital care.

“It was, for me, actually a very liberating experience afterward, because I didn’t have to worry about the illness anymore. I knew the science on natural immunity,” Kheriaty said.

Natural immunity refers to when people contract COVID-19 and recover. Dozens of studies have documented that these individuals enjoy strong immunity against CCP virus re-infection. Some of the studies suggest the immunity is superior to that provided by COVID-19 vaccines, particularly the Johnson & Johnson one.

“I knew that at that point, I was among the safest people to be around, I didn’t have to worry about transmitting the infection to my patients,” Kheriaty said.

He continued taking precautions, wearing personal protective equipment like masks as required at the hospital. But he was confident he didn’t pose a risk to others, which served as a relief.

That relief turned into disbelief when, around a year later, the University of California system, which includes UCI, imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The mandate (pdf) included a natural immunity opt-out, but only temporarily. People who recovered from COVID-19 were told they would only be exempt from the mandate for up to 90 days after their diagnosis.

University officials cited the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which alleges that the antibody tests it has authorized “are not validated to evaluate specific immunity or protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

“For this reason, individuals who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or had an antibody test are not permanently exempt from vaccination,” officials said.

The mandate violated rights outlined in the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, including equal protection and substantive due process, Kheriaty’s lawsuit asserts.

“Plaintiff is naturally immune to SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, plaintiff is at least as equally situated as those who are fully vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine, yet defendants deny plaintiff equal treatment and seek to burden Plaintiff with an unnecessary violation of bodily integrity to which plaintiff does not consent in order to be allowed to continue to work at UCI,” it states.

The situation creates two classes, vaccinated and unvaccinated, when a more reasonable division would be those who are immune and those who are not, Kheriaty believes.

“What kind of discriminatory policies do we have in place that are excluding someone like me from the workplace when I’m 99.8 percent protected against reinfection whereas someone who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, by the company’s own data that they submitted to the FDA, is 67 percent protective against COVID infection?” he said.

Most mandates across the country don’t have alternatives for people who had COVID-19 and recovered.

Kheriaty proposes putting the burden of proof on people who want to opt out.

“Just have them go get the testing on their own time. You don’t have to administer the T-cell test or the antibody test. You don’t have to go dig up their old medical record establishing that they’ve already had COVID,” he said.

“Just ask them to bring that in and sign off on that as a kind of immunity passport.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/i-had-to-stand-up-and-try-to-do-something-professor-of-medicine-on-suing-school-over-vaccine-mandate_4074750.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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Unvaccinated people are up to 32 times more likely to die if they catch Covid than the double-jabbed, ONS report finds

This is all very well if you believe official British statistics. It is now well known that Covid deaths have been heavily overstated in Britain. A man can die in a mororbike crash and still be counted as a Covid death if he has a cold or some such at the time. The statistics below sound to me like propaganda -- like the percentage of the vote that dictators get in an election

Unvaccinated people are up to 32 times more likely to die if they catch Covid than the double-vaccinated, official figures suggested today.

An Office for National Statistics (ONS) report found the mortality rate for deaths involving Covid in England among unjabbed adults was 849.7 per 100,000. For comparison, the rate stood at just 26.2 for fully vaccinated people and 105.3 for adults who had only had their first dose.

Death figures were for between January 2 to September 24 this year, which includes the brunt of the second wave when millions of adults weren't yet eligible for vaccines.

People were counted as being single- or double-vaccinated from 21 days after each dose because of the length of time taken for immunity to kick in and protect against the virus.

Experts today heralded the results as clear evidence that everyone should get the vaccine. But some warned that the figures may have 'overstated' the power of jabs.

In the report mortality rates were age-standardised, to account for the fact different age groups were vaccinated at separate times.

Older people who are most likely to die if they catch the virus were prioritised in the roll out, with the over-80s invited to get their first dose in December. But those in their early 20s had to wait until June to be called.

There was also a gap of 12 weeks between the first and second dose towards the beginning of the drive to ensure the maximum number of people could be jabbed in the shortest time possible. But in June this was cut to eight weeks.

A report by the UK Health Security Agency — which replaced the now-defunct Public Health England — published on Friday found being jabbed slashed the risk of someone infected with AY.4.2 developing symptoms by 81 per cent.

For comparison, two doses are thought to block around 83 per cent of all people falling ill with the ancestor strain.

The UKHSA said the preliminary results do 'not suggest a significant reduction in vaccine effectiveness for AY.4.2 compared to Delta' and admitted the slight drop may be down to chance.

Almost 24,000 cases of the strain have now been spotted in Britain. But the true count could be 10 times higher because laboratories are only sequencing a fraction of all confirmed samples.

Separate surveillance data shows the variant has now been found in all but a dozen parts of England and makes up one in ten new cases — with its proportion having doubled in the space of a month.

Despite statistics showing it's still outcompeting its ancestor, some experts are now questioning how much more transmissible than Delta the subtype really is. Scientists initially estimated the strain was around 10 to 15 per cent more infectious.

Figures show while cases of the mutant strain are continuing to increase, its curve is flattening off. It is increasing slower than its predecessor did at this point after it was first sequenced.

The ONS used figures from the Public Health Data Asset database, which contains people in England linked to the census in 2011 and GP records in 2019, to establish who had received the vaccine. It covers just under 80 per cent of the country's population.

The report also included data on deaths from all causes — such as heart disease and cancer, not just Covid.

It showed the un-vaccinated were still three times more likely to have died between January to December (2,187 per 100,000) than those who got two doses of the vaccine (783.6).

Commenting on the data John Roberts, from the Covid actuaries response group, said on Twitter: 'The difference in total mortality between the two groups (1,403.5) is more than the difference in Covid deaths (823.5).

'That's almost certainly due to the fact the demographic profile of the unvaccinated experiences higher mortality normally.

'We know that uptake has been lower in ethnic minority groups and more deprived areas, so in fact I would have been surprised if we didn't see this difference. So the 32 times might overstate the vaccine effect, but it is still going to be considerable.'

Chris Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at the Institute for Economic Affairs, warned the statistics may have 'gilded the lily' slightly because of the time period used.

He tweeted: 'This is a dodgy statistic when very few people were fully vaccinated until March. The evidence is good without having to gild the lily like this.'

Almost 50million Britons — or 86.9 per cent of over-12s — have got at least one dose of the Covid vaccine, and 45.7million have received both doses.

The NHS started rolling out vaccines to over-80s, the vulnerable and health and social care workers in December.

It is now also offering them to 12 to 15-year-olds following a recommendation from No10's vaccine advisers back in September, although uptake has been sluggish.

And booster shots are being offered for the over-50s from six months after their second dose to top-up their immunity ahead of what is expected to be a very hard winter for the NHS.

The report builds on evidence that Covid vaccines slash the risk of hospitalisation and death among people who catch the virus, and its variants.

A report by the UK Health Security Agency — which replaced the now-defunct Public Health England — found last week that jabs work just as well against the more transmissible Delta offshoot as they do on its ancestor.

Scientists said the vaccines slashed the risk of someone infected with AY.4.2 of developing symptoms by 81 per cent.

For comparison, two doses are thought to block around 83 per cent of all people falling ill with the ancestor strain.

The UKHSA said the preliminary results do 'not suggest a significant reduction in vaccine effectiveness for AY.4.2 compared to Delta' and admitted the slight drop may be down to chance.

Almost 24,000 cases of the strain have now been spotted in Britain. But the true count could be 10 times higher because laboratories are only sequencing a fraction of all confirmed samples.

Separate surveillance data shows the variant has now been found in all but a dozen parts of England and makes up one in ten new cases — with its proportion having doubled in the space of a month.

Despite statistics showing it's still outcompeting its ancestor, some experts are now questioning how much more transmissible than Delta the subtype really is. Scientists initially estimated the strain was around 10 to 15 per cent more infectious.

Figures show while cases of the mutant strain are continuing to increase, its curve is flattening off. It is increasing slower than its predecessor did at this point after it was first sequenced.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10152287/Unvaccinated-people-32-times-likely-die-catch-Covid-ONS-report-finds.html

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Virus vaccine trials had even gender split

Clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines were largely gender balanced, although researchers have warned a failure to report on whether different side effects were experienced by men and women may limit future work in an emerging field.

A group of Australian researchers analysed more than 300 published papers on COVID-19 vaccines and found women and men were equally recruited and represented in randomised controlled trials. This is a departure from usual trends where male participants dominate medical research.

However, only a third of the randomised control trials reported efficacy data on a gender basis, and none reported whether any particular side effects of the vaccine were more common in men or women.

While historically medical trials would often exclusively use male participants, recent research has still been affected by an under-representation of women, said lead author Dr Amy Vassallo, from Sydney’s George Institute for Global Health.

Dr Vassallo said it was great to see researchers prioritise an equal gender split, but there was “a level of detail we’re missing out on”.

“We were all comforted when we knew getting AstraZeneca that we were expected to have a slightly worse reaction with the first dose, and Pfizer with the second dose, so after your vaccine if that happened it was normal and expected,” she said.

“But there were also possible sex and gender differences in responses to vaccines which we did not have knowledge about.”

While all available COVID-19 vaccines were found to be equally safe for men and women in trials, Dr Vassallo said better knowledge about side effects can be an effective tool in combating hesitancy.

Anecdotal reports of COVID-19 vaccine side effects in women, including menstrual changes, have since been investigated through survey data. A UK analysis published in September found the low prevalence of reports meant it was unlikely there was a link, although acknowledged the reporting method was not ideal

https://www.smh.com.au/national/virus-vaccine-trials-had-even-gender-split-20211101-p594xj.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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Booster vaccination reduces risk of COVID hospital stint by 93 per cent

Getting a Pfizer booster jab five months after a second dose reduces a person’s risk of hospitalisation with COVID by 93 per cent, according to research published in The Lancet.

The study from the Clalit Research Institute in Tel Aviv and Harvard University in the US is the first nationwide analysis of booster jab effectiveness and involved 1.5 million Israelis.

Half of these people got a booster, while the other half had not yet received one. Israel was a pioneer in the distribution of vaccines at the start of 2021, getting a jab in the arm of half of its population by the end of February. But by the time a fourth wave hit the nation in summer, there was some waning of vaccine-induced immunity.

Data from the study show that a person’s risk from COVID in the week after getting a booster is much lower than someone who is only double-jabbed.

“Vaccine effectiveness... was estimated to be 93 per cent for admission to hospital, 92 per cent for severe disease, and 81 per cent for Covid-related death,” the researchers write in their paper.

The protection from the fresh inoculation was found to be unaltered by the recipient’s age, overall health or age. But while a booster did drastically reduce the threat of COVID relative to someone who does not get their booster, the absolute risk from COVID is still tiny for the double-jabbed.

For example, of the three-quarters of a million people who did get a booster, there were just 44 COVID deaths among the double-jabbed, compared to seven for the booster group. Only 29 people who got a booster went on to be admitted to hospital due to COVID.

Prof Ran Balicer, senior author of the study, from Clalit, said: “These results show convincingly that the third dose of the vaccine is highly effective against severe Covid-related outcomes one week after the third dose.”

Speaking about booster jabs, Boris Johnson called for all Britons to get their booster “as soon as you’re offered it”.

“It’s a very important message. I think people don’t quite realise that the first two jabs do start to wane.

“There is a waning effect on the first two, so people who are double vaccinated can experience a waning effect in their immunity. “How sad, how tragic it would be if people who had other complications other compromises in their health got seriously ill because they were overconfident about their level of immunity and didn’t get their booster when they needed it. “So please, please, please can everybody get their boosters.”

Israel will offer a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine to over 60s who received their second dose at least five months ago in order to fight the Delta variant.

A paper prepared by the Effectiveness Expert Panel shows that between three and six months, a double-vaccinated person who received the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab is still 85 per cent protected against hospitalisation compared to an unvaccinated individual. For death, the reduction in risk is 90 per cent.

Pfizer performed slightly better, with two doses giving 95 per cent protection against both death and hospitalisation.

“These results show convincingly that the third dose of the vaccine is highly effective against severe Covid-19-related outcomes in different age groups and population subgroups, one week after the third dose,” said Prof Ran Balicer, the senior author of the study.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/pfizer-booster-jab-reduces-risk-of-covid-hospital-stint-by-93-per-cent-20211031-p594pg.html

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Here's what we know about COVID-19 vaccines for kids

American families who are eagerly awaiting the ability to vaccinate their young children against COVID-19 may finally get their wish in the coming weeks.

On Friday, October 29, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer-BioNTech shots for kids ages 5 to 11. The move comes just days after an advisory committee reviewed the safety and effectiveness of the low-dose vaccine and voted unanimously in favor of it. If the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention follows suit in the coming days, the 28 million children in this age group will be able to join their older siblings and parents in getting the jab.

Documents sent to the FDA and released by Pfizer on October 22 provide results from their clinical trial with children in this age bracket. The data show that the vaccine offers strong protection for this age group, with a 90.7 percent efficacy rate in preventing symptomatic disease even against the Delta variant now in circulation.

The devastation COVID-19 has wreaked on adults has largely obscured how much children have suffered, says Ofer Levy, director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston’s Children Hospital, who is a member of the FDA committee that voted on the Pfizer vaccine. According to the CDC, nearly 2 million kids 5 to 11 have contracted COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and more than 150 have died.

Had COVID-19 struck as many children as it has without touching a single adult, it would still be a serious public health emergency, Levy says. The question now is how quickly parents will move to vaccinate their young children after shots become available.

When parents were asked last month in a Kaiser Family Foundation survey whether they want their 5 to 11 year old immunized against the coronavirus, 34 percent said they would do it right away. Thirty-two percent want to wait and see, and 7 percent said they will if it’s required, such as by school mandates. Twenty-four percent say they are completely opposed.

“It’s understandable that at this stage parents have a lot of questions,” says Kelly Moore, president and CEO of the nonprofit Immunization Action Coalition, of the group of parents planning to hang back. “People will always be cautious when it comes to their children, and we have not had safety and side effect information for this group before this point,” she says.

Similar dynamics occurred with adults, she notes, but “once people saw how it was working, many were eager to get vaccinated.”

Why kids need vaccines

Given the mass mortality among older adults, it’s easy to lose sight of how children in this younger age group have been impacted by the disease.

In addition to mild or moderate illnesses, more than 5,000 children have developed the serious, full-body reaction to the coronavirus known as Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), the vast majority under age 11. The syndrome can cause fever, vomiting, and diarrhea and may lead to heart dysfunction, kidney injury, and, in rare cases, death.

“When you compare COVID’s effects on children to influenza and other diseases that affect them, COVID is much more devastating,” Moore says.

Of course, children suffer even when others develop the disease. Some 140,000 children have lost a primary or secondary caregiver from COVID-19 to date. And the numerous school shut downs and curtailing of social activities have had such a profound psychological effect that the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups have declared children’s mental health to be in a national state of emergency.

What’s more, protecting children with the shots adds to the defenses for all members of their family, especially those younger than 5 who would still not yet be eligible, or any adults at risk of severe disease.

Moore has a friend whose husband is on immunosuppressing drugs to protect his kidney transplant. “Their 8-year-old daughter can’t even go into an ice-cream store because her father is vulnerable if she were to catch and transmit COVID,” she says.

A recent Swedish study confirmed the value of this ring of protection: Families where one member is immunized have up to a 61 percent lower risk that others in the home will get COVID-19, while three or four immunized members gives more than a 90 percent reduction.

Inoculating children in an effort to protect others already happens in the U.S., Levy says. “Some say it’s not ethical to vaccinate kids for a disease that doesn’t affect them as much,” he says, but children are currently immunized against rubella when the main risk is to pregnant mothers, he points out.

A smaller dose

Tens of thousands of adults were tested in Pfizer-BioNTech’s original clinical trials, and with 105,000 Americans over age 12 having completed the two-dose series, the FDA already has extensive information on the effectiveness of the shots. To test the vaccine for children 5 to 11, a different type of trial was conducted, largely focused on safety and dosage.

In the first phase of the trial, Pfizer gave a small group of children either the same 30 microgram dose used for those 12 and older, or they administered 20 or 10 microgram doses. This is a process known as a dose de-escalation trial, says Onyema Ogbuagu, an infectious diseases specialist at Yale Medicine and a principal investigator of the Pfizer trials.

“You want to find the dose that gives a strong immune response while trying to limit adverse events,” he says. The two-dose regimen of 10 micrograms each eventually won out. Pfizer is presenting the test results from some 2,268 participants to the FDA.

The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will comb through every bit of Pfizer’s data before deciding whether to recommend its authorization for 5 to 11s. Pfizer is also currently studying even smaller doses for children between 2 and 5 years old and for those between 6 months and less than 2 years. And more good news for parents of young children: Moderna announced on October 25 that its clinical trial in 6 to 11 year olds also produced a robust immune response.

Side effects seen in the Pfizer trial were similar to those for older children, including short-term injection site pain, fatigue, headache, and chills. There were no serious adverse events linked to the vaccine. “You can never say never in medicine, but we feel pretty confident that nothing untoward is expected when even more children get the vaccines,” Ogbuagu says.

Rare events that happen in 1-in-10,000 or 1-in-100,000 people will not emerge until that many children have been vaccinated. The rare cases of the heart inflammation known as myocarditis, which has primarily impacted male adolescents and young men after their mRNA vaccine series, is estimated to occur in roughly 1 in 26,000 males, and nearly all have since recovered.

Addressing parents’ concerns

When weighing any potential risks, parents must compare a vaccine with the disease it aims to protect their child against, Moore says. Even mild cases of COVID-19 can make children feel awful and keep them from attending school. Plus, an unknown number of children continue to suffer for months after their acute illness, a condition that’s come to be known as long COVID.

Among parents who worry, some are concerned about stimulating their child’s immune system with a vaccine, Ogbuagu says, but he counters that “the stimulation it gets when a person gets COVID is much more intense.”

Other resisters focus on the vaccine’s delivery system—the mRNA that instructs the body to create spike proteins for the immune system’s response. But vaccines routinely given to children for other diseases use many different technologies and most parents haven’t much cared, says Robert Jacobson, medical director of the Primary Care Immunization Program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

For example, he says, the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) jabs and the chicken pox shots use a weakened form of a live virus. The vaccine for diphtheria employs an altered form of the bacteria. And hepatitis B’s vaccine involves tricking yeast through recombinant technology to produce a protein they don’t naturally make.

What’s more, Ogbuagu says, RNA-based viruses like influenza or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) routinely infect kids, so it’s not as if their bodies haven’t seen the structure before. “If people knew the host of RNA viruses that enter their child’s cells all the time, they would worry less about the vaccine,” he says.

Pfizer-BioNTech’s shots are already proving valuable for children ages 12 to 17. Some 11 million Americans in this age group, or 57 percent of the total, have gotten at least one shot, while 47 percent are fully vaccinated, according to the AAP. The vaccines have been 93 percent effective in protecting kids this age from going to the hospital, the CDC announced last week.

If the CDC ultimately authorizes the vaccine for kids 5 to 11, Levy wants the shots to be mandated for school, as others currently are. In a recent medical journal editorial, he writes that decreasing virus circulation in children may be our best hope for controlling the spread of COVID-19.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/what-to-expect-with-covid-19-vaccines-for-kids-ages-5-to-11

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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Covid vaccines are JUST as effective against more transmissible Delta offshoot, early tests show

Covid vaccines appear to work just as well against the more transmissible Delta variant offshoot as they do on its ancestor, health chiefs claimed today.

A report by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which replaced the now-defunct Public Health England (PHE), showed jabs are around 81 per cent effective at stopping people infected with AY.4.2 getting symptoms.

For comparison, two doses are thought to block around 83 per cent of all people falling ill with the original strain.

The UKHSA said the preliminary results do 'not suggest a significant reduction in vaccine effectiveness for AY.4.2 compared to Delta' and admitted the slight drop may be down to chance.

Almost 24,000 cases of the strain have now been spotted in Britain. But the true count could be 10 times higher because laboratories are only sequencing a fraction of all confirmed samples.

Separate surveillance data shows the variant has now been found in all but a dozen parts of England and makes up one in ten new cases — with its proportion having doubled in the space of a month.

Despite statistics showing it's still outcompeting its ancestor, some experts are now questioning how much more transmissible than Delta the subtype really is. Scientists initially estimated the strain was around 10 to 15 per cent more infectious.

Figures show while cases of the mutant strain are continuing to increase, its curve is flattening off. It is increasing slower than its predecessor did at this point after it was first sequenced.

Where did AY.4.2 come from?

This sub-variant of Delta was first detected in the UK on June 26, according to UK-based tracking.

Scientists say it is likely that AY.4.2 evolved here because the UK has much higher case numbers than other countries.

But it is possible that the variant was imported from abroad and then started to spread in the country.

Why is it only in a few countries?

AY.4.2 has been spotted in more than 40 countries including the UK, Germany, Denmark and the US to date.

It may not have been spotted in other places due to a lack of Covid surveillance, which would lead to new sub-variant not being spotted.

But travel restrictions may also be behind the slow spread, which have made it less likely that the virus will be passed between countries.

How infectious is the sub-variant?

Experts estimate that AY.4.2 is around 10 per cent more infectious than the Delta variant.

They say this may lead to a marginally higher number of cases, but that it will not trigger a spike similar to that seen when Delta arrived in the UK.

Should I be concerned about AY.4.2?

Scientists say there is no reason to be too concerned about AY.4.2.

There is no evidence to suggest that vaccines are less effective against the sub-variant, or that it increases the risk of hospitalisation and death.

But laboratory tests are underway at labs in the UK and Denmark to assess this.

Professor Lawrence Young from Warwick University said: 'There is no reason to suggest vaccines won't be as effective.'

And Professor Anders Fomsgaard from Denmark's Covid surveillance centre said: 'We are not concerned by this. We see nothing in this point of time that indicates it is more contagious, resistant or pathogenic.'

The UKHSA suggested there was little reason to worry that the variant was more effective at evading vaccines than Delta.

The agency said: 'After adjustment for the potential confounding variables there was no evidence AY4.2 differed significantly compared to non-AY4.2 Delta cases, both symptomatic and asymptomatic, across the three vaccines in circulation.'

Analysis suggested all the vaccines currently deployed in Britain were equally effective against the variant.

It comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) this week admitted it was now keeping tabs on the variant.

Experts have started to raise questions over whether the new strain is in fact more transmissible, as had previously been suggested by the data.

Northumbria University scientists involved in variant surveillance say it is still 'unclear' if AY.4.2 is actually more transmissible because too little is known about its mutations.

They pointed to the 'founder effect' as an alternative explanation, when a strain spreads rapidly because it is the only one in a specific cluster of cases, like a school.

But Professor Francois Balloux, a geneticist and Covid commentator at University College London who was among the first to raise concerns about the variant last week, said the slower rise was 'still compatible' with a 10 per cent transmission advantage.

And Professor Jeffrey Barrett, head of Covid surveillance at the Sanger Institute, said the data was 'consistent with a small, but real, growth advantage vs other Delta'.

This sub-variant of Delta was first detected in the UK on June 26, according to UK-based tracking.

Scientists say it is likely AY.4.2 evolved here because the UK has much higher case numbers than other countries.

But it is possible that the variant was imported from abroad because other countries have worse variant surveillance than the UK.

It carries two key mutations, A222V and Y145H, which both slightly alter the shape of the spike protein which the virus uses to invade cells.

Scientists claim A222V was previously seen on another variant (B.1.177) first spotted in Spain before spreading to other countries.

But studies suggest it did not make the strain more transmissible, and that it was only spread by holidaymakers returning home.

There is more concern about the mutation Y145H, which slightly changes the shape of the site antibodies bind to making it harder for them to stop an infection from happening.

Scientists say this builds on mutations in Delta, and could make the subtype even more resistant to vaccines than its parent.

AY.4.2 has been recorded in about 40 countries to date, but the UK is the only one seeing a sustained outbreak of the subtype, other than Poland.

It did rise to around one in 50 Covid cases in Denmark in early September, but it has now fallen again to below one in 100. Experts in the country say they are not concerned about AY.4.2.

UK health officials labelled it a 'variant under investigation' last week. This category is reserved for variants which are spreading in the UK that may be more transmissible or better able to evade vaccines than other mutant strains, but is a step below 'variant of concern' which includes Delta and Alpha.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10144035/Covid-vaccines-JUST-effective-against-transmissible-Delta-offshoot-early-tests-show.html

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Shock result in country ravaged by Covid-19

The number of people testing positive for Covid in the UK has plummeted by almost a quarter in just a week. Another 39,842 people were newly-diagnosed with the deadly bug on Thursday, local time – a huge drop from the same time last week, when 52,009 people were told they had the virus.

Deaths, however, are up on last Thursday, when 115 fatalities were reported. A further 165 people were recorded to have lost their lives yesterday.

Last Thursday’s case rate was the highest reported in the country since July 17.

And the fall today may be connected to schools being closed for the half-term holiday.

Despite that, the figures suggest the UK is moving in the right direction – and may avoid horrifying predictions of 100,000 new infections every day.

It’s been suggested that the country would be at risk of Plan B restrictions if cases had continued to rise. But top scientists say we could avoid a return to social distancing and masks if all those suitable for the jab sign up.

And Prof Neil Ferguson – dubbed “Professor Lockdown” after his warnings on the UK’s potential death toll led to the first restrictions last March – said the virus could be in retreat already.

“Herd immunity is having an enormous effect right now on damping transmission due to the huge amount of vaccination and the large number of people who have been infected already,” he said. “We may reach a stage in the next few weeks where immunity stops transmission. If the epidemic peaks and then starts declining, we have by definition reached herd immunity.

“We will start getting data from the booster program in the coming few weeks and I suspect it will show the boosters are highly effective at protecting individuals.”

Prof Tim Spector, lead scientist of the ZOE Covid Symptom Study App — a UK Government-funded initiative that collects reports from users about their Covid symptoms — said he believed 100,000 new infections a day is still possible.

‘We’re reaching herd immunity’

According to new data, cases increased by 14 per cent week-on-week. “The ZOE data shows the UK could hit 100,000 new cases sooner than expected and with no sign of a Plan B or Plan C,” Prof Spector said.

“The ZOE figures are consistently higher than the official confirmed daily cases because we get results from various sources, including self-reported lateral flow tests that are under-reported officially.

“With the confirmation of our estimates from the ONS’s (Office for National Statistics) fortnightly survey, it’s clear the government figures are a big underestimate, and with the highest rates in Western Europe, there’s no room for complacency.

“With the UK government delaying any decision while hospitals fill up, it’s time to take matters into our own hands to address the worsening situation.”

The Government says it’s not currently considering a ‘plan B’, which would see working from home return and vaccine passports mandated.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/shock-result-in-country-ravaged-by-covid19/news-story/403cf51eb09fbd1b1ba3a69473dd64cf

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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‘Immunity wanes’: Study finds vaccinated people easily transmit Delta in households

London: The Delta coronavirus variant can transmit easily from vaccinated people to their household contacts, according to a British study, although contacts were less likely to get infected if they were vaccinated themselves.

The Imperial College London study illustrates how the highly transmissible Delta variant can spread even in a vaccinated population.

The researchers underlined that this did not weaken the argument for vaccination as the best way of reducing serious illness from COVID-19 and said booster shots were required.

They found infections in the vaccinated cleared more quickly, but the peak viral load remained similar to the unvaccinated.

“By carrying out repeated and frequent sampling from contacts of COVID-19 cases, we found that vaccinated people can contract and pass on infection within households, including to vaccinated household members,” Dr Anika Singanayagam, co-lead author of the study, said.

“Our findings provide important insights into... why the Delta variant is continuing to cause high COVID-19 case numbers around the world, even in countries with high vaccination rates.”

The study, which enrolled 621 participants, found that of 205 household contacts of people with Delta COVID-19 infection, 38 per cent of household contacts who were unvaccinated went on to test positive, compared to 25 per cent of vaccinated contacts.

Vaccinated contacts who tested positive for COVID-19 on average had received their shots longer ago than those who tested negative, which the authors said was evidence of waning immunity and supported the need for booster shots.

Imperial epidemiologist Neil Ferguson said that the transmissibility of Delta meant that it was unlikely Britain would reach “herd immunity” for long.

“That may happen in the next few weeks: if the epidemic’s current transmission peaks and then starts declining, we have by definition in some sense reached herd immunity, but it is not going to be a permanent thing,” he told reporters.

“Immunity wanes over time, it is imperfect, so you still get transmission happening, and that is why the booster programme is so important.”

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/immunity-wanes-study-finds-vaccinated-people-easily-transmit-delta-in-households-20211029-p5947d.html

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How much less likely are you to spread covid-19 if you're vaccinated?

People who are fully vaccinated against covid-19 are far less likely to infect others, despite the arrival of the delta variant, several studies show. The findings refute the idea, which has become common in some circles, that vaccines no longer do much to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“They absolutely do reduce transmission,” says Christopher Byron Brooke at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Vaccinated people do transmit the virus in some cases, but the data are super crystal-clear that the risk of transmission for a vaccinated individual is much, much lower than for an unvaccinated individual.”

A recent study found that vaccinated people infected with the delta variant are 63 per cent less likely to infect people who are unvaccinated.

This is only slightly lower than with the alpha variant, says Brechje de Gier at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, who led the study. Her team had previously found that vaccinated people infected with alpha were 73 per cent less likely to infect unvaccinated people.

What is important to realise, de Gier says, is that the full effect of vaccines on reducing transmission is even higher than 63 per cent, because most vaccinated people don’t become infected in the first place.

De Gier and her team used data from the Netherlands’ contact tracing system to work out the so-called secondary attack rate – the proportion of contacts infected by positive cases. They then worked out how much this was reduced by vaccination, adjusting for factors such as age.

De Gier says they cannot calculate the full reduction in transmission due to vaccination, because they don’t know exactly how much vaccination reduces the risk of infection. But even assuming vaccination only halves the risk of infection, this would still imply that vaccines reduce transmission by more than 80 per cent overall.

Others have worked out the full effect. Earlier this year, Ottavia Prunas at Yale University applied two different models to data from Israel, where the Pfizer vaccine was used. Her team’s conclusion was that the overall vaccine effectiveness against transmission was 89 per cent.

However, the data used only went up to 24 March, before delta became dominant. The team is now using more recent data to work out the impact of delta, says Prunas.

The idea that vaccines are no longer that effective against transmission may derive from news reports in July claiming that vaccinated people who become infected “can carry as much virus as others”. Even if this were true, however, vaccines would still greatly reduce transmission by reducing infections in the first place.

In fact, the study that sparked the news reports didn’t measure the number of viruses in someone directly but relied on so-called Ct scores, a measure of viral RNA. However, this RNA can derive from viruses destroyed by the immune system. “You can measure the RNA but it’s rendered useless,” says Timothy Peto at the University of Oxford.

Read more: How mRNA is transforming the way we treat illnesses from flu to cancer
There are now several lines of evidence that Ct scores aren’t a good measure of the amount of virus someone has. Firstly, the fact that infected vaccinated people are much less likely to infect others. Peto has done a similar study to de Gier using contact tracing data from England and gotten similar results.

Secondly, Peto’s team specifically showed that there is little connection between Ct scores and infectiousness. “It appeared people who were positive after vaccination had the same viral load as the unvaccinated. We thought they were just as infectious. But it turns out you are less infectious,” says Peto. “That’s quite important. People were over-pessimistic.”

Yet another line of evidence comes from a study by Brooke. His team took samples from 23 people every day after they first tested positive until the infection cleared and performed tests, including trying to infect cells in a dish with the samples.

With five out of the six fully vaccinated people, none of the samples were infectious, unlike most from unvaccinated people. The study shows that vaccinated people shed fewer viruses and also stop shedding sooner than unvaccinated people, says Brooke.

The one bit of bad news is that Peto’s study shows that the protection a vaccine provides against an infected person infecting others does wane over time, by around a quarter over the three months after a second vaccine dose. “This has made me a believer in boosters,” he says. “They ought to get on with it, given that we are in the middle of a major outbreak [in the UK].”

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2294250-how-much-less-likely-are-you-to-spread-covid-19-if-youre-vaccinated/

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China problems: Europe and US face magnesium supply crisis

China's state-run tabloid Global Times says it is "unrealistic" for China to meet the urgent demand for magnesium from Europe, where stocks of the raw material could run out next month.

The paper said the magnesium shortage was not a simple issue that could be resolved by increasing production from China. "Global supply chains face challenges of climate change targets, high inflation and logistics obstacles," it noted in an editorial on Monday.

"China's efforts to tackle these challenges at its own pace are responsible and should be respected.

"It is essential to establish an economic and trade consultation mechanism on the supply chain between China and the EU [European Union]."

The European market is almost entirely (95 per cent) dependent on China for the supply of magnesium, a key ingredient in aluminium, which is used to make cars and in building supplies, among other things. Magnesium is also used in iron and steel producing.

Last Friday, a dozen industry groups issued a joint statement to urge European leaders to work towards immediate actions with their Chinese counterparts to mitigate the critical shortage issue.

"Supply of magnesium originating from China has either been halted or reduced drastically since September 2021, resulting in an international supply crisis of unprecedented magnitude," they said.

"This issue, if not resolved, threatens thousands of businesses across Europe, their entire supply chains and the millions of jobs that rely on them."

The remaining magnesium stocks in Europe were trading at $US10,000-$US14,000 a tonne, up from around $US2,000 per tonne earlier this year, the industry groups said.

The European Commission has reportedly been holding talks with China to resolve the shortage.

"Europe has none of its own supply and relies on China for imports," analysts at investment bank Morgan Stanley noted.

"With limited vessel availability and shipping times of at least two months, Europe could see limited supply until May."

Although the US is less reliant on China for magnesium, its aluminium producers are facing a similar supply issue. The largest US aluminium billet maker, Matalco, has warned of an upcoming output reduction, while the largest US raw aluminium producer, Alcoa, has expressed concerns about magnesium scarcity, Bloomberg reported.

China produces around 87 per cent of the world's magnesium, but that has been affected by the country's recent power crisis.

The Chinese government has been trying to curb domestic power consumption and regulate soaring electricity prices. Many magnesium plants have been either shut down or halved their production capacities due to the power cuts. Chinese state media has reported that China's magnesium exports are likely to drop 10 per cent this year.

"Magnesium production is the latest victim of China's power crunch as well as the government's increasingly hardline approach to emission reduction," Peter Cai, a China analyst from the Lowy Institute, told the ABC.

"Authorities are shutting down [power] plants to meet their emission reduction target."

China is still one of the world's largest carbon emitters, but President Xi Jinping is aiming for the country's CO2 emissions to peak before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

A magnesium shortage could have widespread impacts across autos, aerospace, iron or steel, chemicals, beer and soft drinks, and consumer goods.

Morgan Stanley analysts noted that many lightweight alloys relied on magnesium. "Magnesium's light weight and strengthening properties make it essential for aluminium alloys (eg sheet used in autos, beverage cans)," they wrote.

"It is also used for die-casting auto parts, as a desulphurising agent in steel, to make ductile iron, in chemicals and more."

While the analysts noted that there had been some production recovery in October, utilisation was capped at 40 per cent of capacity and that still created a big challenge for the global market.

Car-makers are set to be particularly hard hit, as they still struggle with shortages of computer chips.

"Depressed auto production levels have been masking the extent of the impact of the existing shortages; it may not be possible for auto production to recover as forecasters such as IHS anticipate."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-27/magnesium-shortage-in-europe-and-us-china-slows-down-supply/100570048

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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What Really Happened in Wuhan



Award-winning journalist Sharri Markson spent more than a year investigating the potential leak of the virus from a top-secret laboratory in Wuhan.

Ms Markson uncovered evidence of a widespread cover-up and unpacks the new theory that “patient zero” worked in the Wuhan lab.

Sky News Australia anchor and Investigations Writer at The Australian, Sharri has been at the forefront of investigating the origins of COVID-19 since early in 2020 when the virus spread globally. Since that time, the precise genesis of COVID-19 has been hotly contested, with scientists, government officials, the World Health Organization, and the Chinese authorities releasing conflicting reports.

In a coup for Australian television, Sharri secures the first sit-down interview for an Australian broadcast media outlet with Donald Trump since he was elected president in 2016.

Sharri also speaks with a range of Chinese whistle-blowers, scientists, and high-ranking intelligence officials to bring us closer to discovering the truth of what happened in Wuhan.

These include John Ratcliffe, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence from 2020 to 2021, and former head of British intelligence service, Mi6, Sir Richard Dearlove.

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How did Florida end up with one of the best COVID-19 case and death rates in the US despite Gov Ron DeSantis refusing to implement mask or vaccine mandates?

Just two months ago, Florida was experiencing the worst COVID-19 surge in the United States. The Sunshine State had the highest seven-day average of cases per day as well as the highest hospitalization rate in the country.

Despite these grim metrics, Governor Ron DeSantis did not issue new lockdowns, closures or stay-at-home orders, arguing that the spike was due to a seasonal pattern of the virus and urging residents to get vaccinated.

Now, with Halloween and Thanksgiving right around the corner, the Covid crisis looks really different in Florida. Inexplicably, cases and deaths have been going down despite DeSantis implementing no new mitigation measures.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show Florida is recording one of the best case and death rates in the country.

This is similar to what's been seen nationwide as Covid-related infections and fatalities in the U.S. drop to the lowest levels recorded since April 2021.

Additionally, the state is doing just as well as California, despite the West Coast State taking a very strict approach including implementing mask mandates, limiting gatherings and closings bars and indoor dining at restaurants.

Experts say Covid waves usually occur in a two-month cycle - with infections rising for two months before declining - and instead of trying to prevent the cycle from occurring, DeSantis just let it ride out.

The declining rates could change as Floridians head inside for the winter months, potentially causing cases to rise again, but, as of now, it seems like Florida's downward trends will only continue.

In mid-August, the COVID-19 crisis perhaps looked no more dire than in Florida. The state reached a record-high 26,000 Covid cases reported in one day or about 101 cases per 100,000 people. This is 44 percent higher than the previous peak of 18,000 cases per day recorded in January 2021, according to CDC data.

During this time, there were 17,200 COVID-19 hospitalizations - three-fold higher than the 5,700 seen just one month earlier. Additionally, Florida reported a record-high 227 deaths per day in mid-August or 1.77 per 100,000.

However, Governor DeSantis defended himself against critics and told Fox News in an interview on August 26 that the state was having 'great success' treating COVID-19 patients early with monoclonal antibodies.

He also slammed President Joe Biden for failing to end the pandemic. 'You know, he said he was going to end Covid. He hasn't done that,' DeSantis told host Jesse Watters. 'At the end of the day, he is trying to find a way to distract from the failures of his presidency.'

At the time, doctors and public health experts said that DeSantis's laissez-faire approach was a gamble, but it appears to have paid off.

CDC data show Florida is recording 64 cases per 100,000 people in a week or nine cases per 100,000 people per day as of Wednesday.

This means the The Sunshine State has the best case rate in the country behind California, Mississippi, Hawaii and Alabama, respectively.

Currently, California recording 28 cases per 100,000 people in a week or three cases per 100,000 people per day.

The same curve can be seen with Covid deaths. Florida is recording 0.2 deaths per 100,000 people in a week - making it the second best state in the nation. It is behind only California and New Mexico, which are recording 0.1 death per 100,000 people in a week.

Both of these metrics are despite DeSantis refusing to allow business and schools from implementing mask and vaccine mandates.

This is similar to what has been seen in the U.S. with the recent Delta variant-fueled surge.

On September 1, America was averaging 49.9 cases per 100,000. As of Wednesday, this has dropped to 21.2 cases per 100,000.

So does the governor deserve all the credit for Florida's improvement? Not necessarily.

These declines seem to follow a familiar two-month cycle since the pandemic began in early 2020 with cases and deaths increasing for about two months before declining, according to David Leonhardt of The New York Times.

Early explanations - such as the virus being seasonal like the flu or compliance of mask wearing and social distancing increasing and decreasing - have not held up.

However, more logical explanations include that as people have contracted COVID-19 over the last two months, the virus is (slowly) running out of people to infect.

'Since the pandemic began, Covid has often followed a regular - if mysterious - cycle. In one country after another, the number of new cases has often surged for roughly two months before starting to fall,' Leonhardt wrote.

'The Delta variant, despite its intense contagiousness, has followed this pattern.' This means a variant may only need eight weeks to spread throughout a community before it begins to recede.

During the summer 2020 surge in the U.S., cases began rising in early July before declining again in early September.

What's more, during the winter 2020-21 surge, Covid infections steeply increased in late November 2020 only to fall again in late January 2021.

It seems that what has occurred on a nationwide scale is what occurred on a much smaller scale in Florida.

The recent surge saw cases starting to rise in the Sunshine State in early July and declining in mid-September, following the two month-schedule.

And it's not the only state: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas, all of which saw cases surge during the recent fourth wave, have seen declines since early September.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10136983/How-did-Florida-end-one-best-COVID-19-case-death-rates-US.html

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CDC Director Suggests Re-Education Camps For Unvaccinated Now!

One would think that after close to two years of COVID being here that the irrational fear would begin to subside. However, that is not the case as power-grabbing leftists have found the proverbial magic bullet to convince millions of Americans to hand over the freedoms and rights for a false sense of security.

Instead of these government officials taking their gas off the pedal toward tyranny, they are doubling down and pushing for more.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is the one who dropped this bit of knowledge on the American people when she appeared on FOX News Sunday and spoke with Chris Wallace.

Walensky addressed vaccine hesitancy among law enforcement and government workers.

She then went on to BRAG, yes brag about coercing and threatening people’s livelihoods to feed their families for increased COVID-19 jab uptake.

Wallace then asked Walensky how she plans to convince millions of Americans who refuse to get the jab, roll up their sleeves and take it.

The CDC director then claimed that COVID-19 is responsible for more deaths amongst police than all other causes combined in the last 1.5 years, Walensky made a peculiar statement.

Education & counseling for those who refuse an experimental injection?

What exactly does Walensky mean by that? Perhaps re-education camps?

https://dailyheadlines.net/cdc-director-suggests-re-education-camps-for-unvaccinated-now/

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70 Percent of COVID-19 Deaths Both in Sweden and UK in September Were “Fully Vaccinated”

Government data revealed that in September, 70% of COVID-19 deaths both in Sweden and the UK were “fully vaccinated” individuals.

Swedish Public Health Agency reported that 70% of Covid 19 deaths involved “fully vaccinated” individuals between Sept. 1 and Sept. 24, according to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. The country recorded about 130 fatal Covid cases during that period.

Possible reasons for the uptick in vaccinated deaths include “that it has now been quite a while since the oldest ones were vaccinated, that the vaccine coverage has increased, that the restrictions have been eased, and that the Delta strain has taken over,” microbiology researcher Farshid Jalalvand told the paper.

Sweden’s death numbers crashed after health officials scaled back restrictions at the beginning of June, however, with virtually no COVID fatalities reported in the Scandinavian country throughout July and August. Deaths began to climb again by mid-September, by which time nearly 75 percent of Swedes older than 16 were “fully vaccinated.”

Despite Sweden’s mass vaccination campaign, the recent surge in infections has led to the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Swedish senior care residents since February.

UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA) released a COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report on October 7 that showed most COVID-19 deaths in UK were among the “fully vaccinated” individuals, as were most hospitalizations in September.

Between September 6 and October 3, 70 percent of deadly COVID cases occurred in the fully-jabbed, according to the UKHSA data, with 2,281 deaths in “fully vaccinated” people and just 611 in the unvaccinated within 28 days of a positive test. Partially vaccinated people accounted for 98 deaths.

The COVID-19 fatalities among “fully vaccinated” Brits represented a dramatic increase from August, The Exposé observed. Public Health England last month had reported 600 coronavirus deaths in the unvaccinated population between August 9 and September 5 and 1,659 in the doubly-vaccinated.

The latest UKSHA figures also showed that vaccinated patients dominated COVID-19 hospitalizations. 3,910 “fully vaccinated” people were admitted to the hospital for COVID between September 6 and October 3, compared with around 2,400 unvaccinated patients. The fully or partially vaccinated together accounted for roughly 64 percent of total COVID-related hospitalizations.

Other Western countries saw an increase in cases and deaths with “fully vaccinated” individuals including the United States. The Gateway Pundit previously reported Former CDC Director Robert Redfield claimed that more than 40 percent of people who have died from the coronavirus in the state of Maryland over the last 6-8 weeks were fully vaccinated.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/70-percent-covid-19-deaths-sweden-uk-september-fully-vaccinated/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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FDA advised to authorise Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for US children aged five to 11

An expert panel has voted overwhelmingly to recommend the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorise the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11, saying the benefits of inoculation outweigh the risks.

The vaccine, could be made available to those younger children in the US as early as next week. The FDA is not obliged to follow the advice of its outside experts, but usually does.

If the FDA authorises the shots for this age group, an advisory panel to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will meet next week to make a recommendation on the administration of the vaccine.

Pfizer and BioNTech, the companies behind the vaccine, have said the shot was 90.7 per cent effective against coronavirus in a clinical trial of children aged five to 11.

While children becoming seriously ill or dying from COVID-19 is relatively rare compared with adults, some develop complications, and infections in unvaccinated children have risen due to the highly transmissible Delta variant.

Amanda Cohn, a paediatric vaccine expert at the CDC and a voting member of the panel, said the question was "pretty clear". "We don't want children to be dying of COVID, even if it is far fewer children than adults, and we don't want them in the ICU," she said.

Pfizer and BioNTech are seeking clearance for a lower, 10-microgram dose of the vaccine in children, versus 30 micrograms for those aged 12 and older.

The advisers paid close attention to the rate of a heart inflammation, called myocarditis, that has been linked to both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, particularly in young men.

If the number of myocarditis cases in the younger age group was similar to that in 12 to 15-year-olds, the hospitalisations prevented for COVID-19 would outnumber those prevented for myocarditis in most scenarios analysed, FDA staff reviewers said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-27/fda-advisers-back-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-for-children/100571348

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Children Shouldn’t Get COVID-19 Vaccines, Harvard Professor Says

Children should not get vaccinated against the virus that causes COVID-19, according to Harvard University professor of medicine Martin Kulldorff.

“I don’t think children should be vaccinated for COVID. I’m a huge fan of vaccinating children for measles, for mumps, for polio, for rotavirus, and many other diseases, that’s critical. But COVID is not a huge threat to children,” he said on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program. The full episode can be watched on EpochTV.

“They can be infected, just like they can get the common cold, but they’re not a big threat. They don’t die from this, except in very rare circumstances. So if you want to talk about protecting children or keeping children safe, I think we can talk about traffic accidents, for example, which they are really at some risk.

“And there are other things that we should make sure [of] to keep children safe. But COVID is not a big risk factor for children.”

Vaccinating older people and people of all ages with compromised immune systems against the coronavirus has drawn support from most medical experts. But vaccinating healthy young people, particularly children, has triggered more opposition, in part because of how little risk COVID-19 poses to them.

Children are more likely to contract serious disease or die from the annual influenza, or the flu, than COVID-19, according to data and studies that Kulldorff has reviewed. Just 195 children under the age of 4 and 442 between 5 and 18 have died from COVID-19 in the United States as of Oct. 20, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children are 15 times less likely to be hospitalized with the disease than individuals who are 85 or older, and 570 times less likely to die, the agency says.

“One example is from Sweden, during the first wave in the spring of 2020, which affected Sweden quite strongly,” Kulldorff said. “But Sweden decided to keep daycare and schools open for all children ages 1 to 15. And there are 1.8 million such children who got through the first wave without vaccines, of course, without masks, without any sort of distancing in schools.

“If a child was sick, they were told to stay home. But that was basically it. And you know how many of those 1.8 million children died from COVID? Zero. Only a few hospitalizations. So this is not a risky disease for children.”

When weighing whether to vaccinate children, the risk of vaccine side effects must also be taken into account, Kulldorff said. The main risk to young people seen so far is heart inflammation, which has occurred post-vaccination at much higher than expected rates. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) added a warning label to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines over the summer about myocarditis and pericarditis, two types of heart inflammation.

“If you’re 78 years old, then it’s the no-brainer, in my view, because the benefits are so great that even if you have a small risk for some adverse reaction, the benefit far outweighs the risk,” Kulldorff said. “On the other hand, if you have already have immunity from having had COVID, then the benefits of the vaccines are much, much smaller. If you’re a child, even if you haven’t had COVID, the risk of serious disease or death is minuscule … So it’s not at all clear that the benefits outweigh the risks for children.”

Kulldorff was speaking ahead of an FDA advisory panel meeting. Members on Oct. 26 decided to advise drug regulators to authorize Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for use in children between 5 and 11. They said the benefits of vaccinating the age group, such as the predicted decrease in hospitalizations, outweighed the risks, including estimated incidence of myocarditis.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/children-shouldnt-get-covid-19-vaccines-kulldorff_4069255.html

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Moderna says COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective in children

Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for children ages 6 to 12 years, the company announced on Monday (Oct. 25).

The findings are part of a clinical trial on the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine in around 5,700 children between the ages of 6 months and 12 years; More than 4,700 children between the ages of 6 and 12 years participated in the study and were given two doses of the vaccine 28 days apart, but at half the dose (50 µg) given to adults (100 µg).

The researchers found that the vaccine at this dose was "well tolerated," and side effects were similar to what was seen in adolescents and adults, according to a statement. The majority of adverse events were mild or moderate; and the most common side effects were fatigue, headache, fever and injection site pain, the company said.

They also found that the vaccine prompted a "strong immune response" one month after the second dose; children in this age group had 1.5 times higher antibody levels than those observed in young adults, the company said.

Moderna previously submitted data to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to get authorization for use of its vaccine in people ages 12 to 17, but the agency hasn't yet responded to the request. The company now plans to also submit this new data to the FDA and other regulatory agencies around the world.

Meanwhile, the researchers will continue to monitor the participants for 12 months after their second dose to assess long-term protection and safety.

Currently, Moderna is approved for those who are 18 years or older, while Pfizer is approved for those 12 years and older. Pfizer has already submitted a request to the FDA to authorize its vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, Live Science previously reported.

https://www.livescience.com/moderna-says-vaccine-safe-and-effective-children

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Vaccine Mandate Threatens Major Trucking Disruption, Industry Insiders Say

American truckers don’t like taking orders. But the Biden administration has increased pressure on some of them to take the vaccine—willing or unwilling.

All through the pandemic, truckers endured hardships to keep America’s infrastructure running. They waited in line for hours in sight of bathrooms they weren’t allowed to use. On the road, some died alone of COVID-19.

Now, with supply chains disrupted, Americans need them more than ever. But faced with the prospect of mandated vaccination, many drivers are considering quitting.

“I’d fight it,” said veteran trucker Mike Widdins, referring to a vaccine mandate. “I think a lot of us will be quitting. Who likes to be forced to do stuff you don’t want to do?”

Widdins isn’t alone in his willingness to leave trucking if he’s required to vaccinate. Polls by trucking publications Commercial Carrier Journal and OverDrive indicate that up to 30 percent of truckers will seriously consider quitting if required to vaccinate. If they quit, the consequences for America may be massive. US Transport estimates that 70 percent of American freight goes by truck.

“It would hurt shipping big-time,” Widdins said.

President Joe Biden ordered his administration to mandate vaccines for private companies with over 100 employees. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was charged with developing the rule, and the Office of Budget and Management is currently reviewing it. The review process can take as long as 90 days.

Most of the trucking industry consists of companies with fewer than 100 employees, though a significant portion would fall under the over-100-employee umbrella.

Most truck companies have six trucks or fewer, according to the American Trucking Associations.

Some experts say the selective reach of the mandate makes it ineffective. Barbara Smithers, vice president of the Indiana Motor Truck Association, told The Epoch Times via email that it makes little sense to “cherry-pick” who to vaccinate based on company size.

“Truck drivers spend most of their work hours alone in the cab of a truck—literally one of the safest places possible during a pandemic—so why do they need to be regulated in this way?” she said. “Testing hundreds of thousands of truck drivers moving across the country every day is a virtual impossibility.”

For mandate-affected companies, Biden’s decision may drive away employees at a time when America needs them most. The American Trucking Associations estimates that America needs 80,000 more truckers to meet transportation needs.

Whether America runs short on trucks depends on the Biden administration’s orders and how truckers respond.

In the eyes of drivers, Biden’s mandate is the last step in a long line of restrictions that don’t consider their needs or wants.

For many drivers, a vaccine mandate may prove to be the final straw. Some drivers don’t trust the vaccine because of how new it is. Some distrust it for personal medical reasons. Others distrust it because they don’t trust the government.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/biden-plays-chicken-with-semitruck-drivers_4063261.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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CDC Director Reaffirms Forcing Vaccinated Children to Remain Masked, Dodges Question on Vaccine Mandates

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) made numerous Sunday show appearances this week, where she dodged questions on vaccine mandates and when children can stop having to wear masks in school.

While on NBC's "Meet the Press," Dr. Walensky was asked by host Andrea Mitchell about masking at school once children have been vaccinated:

ANDREA MITCHELL:

What is your advice to parents and to schools regarding lifting mask mandates in schools once children are vaccinated?

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY:

You know, our case numbers are coming down, and that is so encouraging. We still have 75,000 new cases a day of Covid, and we are still having death rates of about 1,200 to 1,500 deaths per day. As we roll out these vaccines for our children, and we are hopeful that we will be able to, it's also critically important that our kids are able to stay in school. We saw just a couple of weeks ago new science that demonstrated that schools that masked had three and a half times less likelihood of having outbreaks than schools that didn't. And so in my mind, the most important thing right now as we work to get our cases down, as we work to get our children vaccinated, is that we continue the masking to keep our kids in school.

Walensky and Mitchell had just been discussing how there will be an FDA advisory on Tuesday when it comes to vaccinating children ages 5-11 years old.

Such a non-answer is particularly troubling and disappointing because she had been given an opportunity to clarify her remarks from last Wednesday, but refused to take it. As Katie reported, Dr. Walenksy during a press briefing gave a disturbing directive that children will still need to wear masks at school.

"After we have authorization from FDA and recommendations from CDC, we will be working to scale up pediatric vaccination. That said, it will take some time. And as I just noted, as we head into these winter months, we know we cannot be complacent," the director said. "We are going to continue to recommend masks in all schools for all people in those schools, and we will look forward to scaling up pediatric vaccination during this period of time."

The following day, Katie also covered remarks from Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who said the data that children need to be masked is "very weak," saying that it is so weak "is a fact."

Gov. Ron DeSantis' (R-FL) executive order against schools issuing mask mandates is tied up in the courts, though a judge is set to decide soon. Schools are considering easing their mask mandates as cases drop, which they have been doing significantly in Florida.

The governor had issued his executive order in late July after consulting with experts in the field.

Mitchell also asked Walensky "did you move too soon on that? Was that a mistake?" with regards to telling people last May that they are safe if they're not wearing a mask and have been vaccinated. The direct provided another non-answer:

You know, that was at a time of the Alpha variant when vaccinated people if they were a breakthrough infection could not transmit the Alpha variant to someone else. This is really an opportunity to understand that we have to be humble with the science and to move with the science. As we have learned with this Delta variant, it's a different variant, it's a more transmissible variant, and it behaves differently in the context of breakthrough infection. So at the time, that's what the science told us we could do. We are in a very different moment with a very different variant.

It's not just Dr. Lapado who is concerned with masking children. As Emily DeCiccio reported for CNBC, Dr. Joseph Allen, who is an associate professor at Harvard University, during a Friday appearance on "The News with Shepard Smith" urged an easing of mask mandates for children.

As DeCiccio wrote:

“We have to be careful that, if we don’t set firm deadlines, it’s easy to see how we can sleepwalk into indefinite masking,” said Allen during a Friday evening interview on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.” “With the approval of vaccines, expected very shortly, for 5 to 11-year-olds, it makes sense that we should no longer have mask mandates in schools.”

Allen also highlighted that while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has set metrics for masking for adults, the agency has “inexplicably” failed to set metrics on when kids can take away masks.

The CDC did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Dr. Allen does believe the best way to protect children from the virus is by vaccinating them, as well as adults, and is in favor of vaccine mandates for teachers. "We should be mandating vaccines for all adults in schools," he said.

While on "Fox News Sunday," Dr. Walensky was asked by host Chris Wallace if she was "still full speed ahead on mandates for essential workers to get vaccinated." She refused to directly answer, though:

We have seen that these mandates are getting more and more people vaccinated. Here's what we know. The most disruptive thing that you can do to a workforce is to have a covert outbreak and not workforce. That was definitely not only send people home but send people to the hospital and some may pass. What we know from the police workforce is there have been more deaths from the coronavirus over the last year and a half than all other causes of death for that workforce combined. So we believe it is very important to get these people vaccinated. There is a plan, should these people not want to be vaccinated, towards education and counseling to get people the information they need so that they are feeling comfortable in getting vaccinated.

President Joe Biden last month signed an executive order mandating federal workers be vaccinated.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2021/10/24/cdc-director-wont-say-when-children-can-stop-wearing-masks-at-school-n2597941

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Here's Why You Should Resist Mask Mandates

Many Americans have been taught to believe that masks work—at least a little—and that wearing them comes at a minimal cost. Nearly the opposite is true.

The best scientific evidence invites a far less rosy assessment of masks’ effectiveness than is broadcast by public health officials. In its worldwide impact, the COVID-19 pandemic has been the worst in a century. As a threat to Americans’ health, however, it is closer to the 1968 Hong Kong flu or the 1957 Asian flu—neither of which noticeably altered Americans’ everyday lives—than to the 1918 Spanish flu.

In a head-to-head comparison, COVID-19 makes the Spanish flu look like the Black Death of medieval Europe. According to the best available figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and elsewhere, the typical American under the age of 40 in 1918 was more than 100 times as likely to die of the Spanish flu than the typical American under the age of 40 in 2020 was to die of COVID-19.

Whereas COVID-19 sadly shortened the lives of many older people already in poor health, the Spanish flu took people in the prime of life and left orphans in its wake.

The Spread of Public Health Officials

Americans’ reaction to COVID-19, however, has been radically different from their behavior in 1968, 1957, or even 1918. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, the Hoover Institution’s Niall Ferguson recalls that President Dwight Eisenhower asked Congress for $2.5 million in additional funding for the Public Health Service during the Asian flu. Overall, Congress has authorized about 2 million times that much for COVID-19.

In 1957, there were no widespread school closures, travel bans, or mask mandates. Ferguson quotes one person’s recollection of those days: “For those who grew up in the 1930s and 1940s, there was nothing unusual about finding yourself threatened by contagious disease. Mumps, measles, chickenpox, and German measles swept through entire schools and towns; I had all four…. We took the Asian flu in stride.”

One major difference between then and now is the increased role of public health officials. Long before their ascension, Socrates made clear in Plato’s Republic that he did not want doctors to rule. Philosophers or even poets would be better governors of society because they at least attempt to understand political and social life in its entirety and minister to the human soul.

Doctors, by contrast, tend to disregard the soul: it is the nature of their art to focus on the body in lieu of higher concerns. Moreover, Greek philosophers and poets alike celebrated courage in the face of death—Plato’s Socrates and Homer’s Achilles were undeterred from their noble missions by fear of the grave. But rule by public health officials, under which we increasingly live today, encourages excessive risk-aversion and almost transforms cowardice into a virtue.

Wear the Mask, Neanderthal

Surgical masks were designed to protect patients’ wounds from becoming infected by medical personnel, not to prevent the spread of viruses. When COVID-19 hit our shores, the CDC initially recommended that most Americans not wear masks.

On April 3, 2020, the CDC abruptly reversed this position. Surgeon General Jerome Adams explained that “new evidence” had revealed that “a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms” and “can transmit the virus to others before they show symptoms” (emphasis added).

As a rationale for wearing masks, this did not entirely make sense. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “potentially pre-symptomatic transmission…is a major driver of transmission for influenza.”

Yet the CDC does not (yet) recommend that seemingly healthy people wear masks during flu season. It seems likely that the CDC panicked in April and wanted to be seen as doing something. Plus, public health officials are naturally enthusiastic about public health interventions.

The day after the CDC endorsed nationwide mask-wearing, President Trump announced, “I won’t be doing it personally.” From that instant, the mask quickly became a symbol of civic virtue—a sort of Black Lives Matter flag that could be hung from one’s face. For many it conveyed a trio of virtues: I’m unselfish; I’m pro-science; I’m anti-Trump.

What it also conveyed, incidentally, was a rejection of longstanding Western norms, unhealthy risk-aversion, credulous willingness to embrace unsupported health claims and a pallid view of human interaction.

Masking the Science

The most reliable science on whether masks are effective in stopping the transmission of viruses comes from randomized control trials (RCTs), almost all of which were conducted before COVID-19 began.

Randomized control trials have found little to no evidence that masks work to prevent viral transmission—either from the wearer to others or vice versa. In fact, some significant evidence from RCTs indicates that masks increase transmission.

A 2020 study by Professor Henning Bundgaard and his team in Denmark is the only RCT that has tested the effectiveness of mask-wearing against COVID-19. It found that 1.8 percent of those participants in the group wearing masks, and 2.1percent of those in the unmasked control group, became infected with COVID-19 within a month. This difference was not statistically significant. The study must have had difficulty getting published since it appeared months after it was conducted.

In attempting to justify its mask guidance on its website, the CDC has relied almost entirely on observational studies while studiously disregarding RCTs.

Anyone who thinks the CDC is an impartial, politically neutral agency, dedicated solely to the pursuit of scientific truth, should perhaps consider the recent e-mail evidence that the teachers union and Joe Biden’s White House effectively rewrote sections of the agency’s return-to-school guidance.

Like so many unelected leaders, CDC officials consider themselves more accountable to “stakeholders” than to the American people. Legislatures have largely been AWOL during the coronavirus period, while public health officials and executive branch leaders have reveled in their newfound powers.

https://heartlanddailynews.com/2021/10/the-masking-of-america-commentary/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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