Dishonest comment from the Mayo clinic about kids and Covid

The medical community’s overreactions toward COVID with Children mostly play the major effects on them not due to the coronavirus itself.

Before the pandemic started, people have high respect for the US medical community, but since COVID-19 started they start to follow only orders that they were told and no longer looked at the facts and data. This made a lot of people lose respect and trust in the medical community.

I mean who could blame them?

A lot of doctors around the country are like this, they are pushing their clients to take the vaccine while telling them that not taking the COVID vaccine is like “riding a bike without a helmet”. Despite the fact of how dangerous COVID vaccines are. It’s no longer new to hear news reporting how people were dying from the vaccine and witnessing a lot of people losing their jobs just because they said No to these jabs. This is absolutely alarming.

And one of the most neglected members of society when it comes to the COVID-19 effects is the children. We already knew since the start of the pandemic that the disease was not killing children and those who were affected the most were the elderly and sickly with comorbidities. Still, nothing has changed.

Knowing that children are not dying from the disease made a lot of people ask why children were kept home from school or made them wear masks when in public?

In a statement, the Mayo Clinic responded to these obvious questions as they released information stating that “COVID is affecting kids”.

But their released argument only proved that they have the most significant negative impacts on children and not COVID itself. Yet they walk around this and don’t address it.

The clinic started the statement by pushing the vaccine on children:

One of the most common questions parents ask Dr. Ameenuddin is whether children really need to get vaccinated for COVID-19.

“What I’ve stressed to them is that we’ve actually gotten a lot of good information over the past couple of years (about COVID-19’s effects on children), especially the last year, that the vaccines are incredibly effective in preventing very severe side effects,” says Dr. Ameenuddin.

One particular rare and serious side effect of COVID-19 is multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C. Dr. Ameenuddin says among those who have gotten multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, almost all were unvaccinated.

“Vaccination, even if a child still gets sick, makes them much less likely to be sick enough to be hospitalized or die, which, unfortunately, has been happening.”

There is still other information that Mayo Clinic failed to share. Given the fact that a lot of medical communities are reported getting paid by Big Pharma for their COVID-related responses which Mayo Clinic didn’t include in their report.

The reasons that the clinic provided for giving children the vaccine were so bizarre. After reasoning out they then started to jump to the negative side effects that children are suffering from, but what they mentioned were all not COVID related but only connected to the medical community.

http://2020conservative.com/what-the-mayo-clinic-just-said-about-kids-and-covid-is-absolutely/

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Australian Covid-killing ‘fog’ guards Singapore Airport

Hi-tech hand sanitisers, nasal sprays, pills and even cannabis have all been spruiked as treatments to kill or ease symptoms of Covid-19. But could crushing the virus be as simple as using water?

Or more specifically, electrified water, with a sprinkling of salt, that can create a potent dis­infectant?

The nation’s peak science agency, the CSIRO, thinks so and has backed a South Australian company that has developed a Covid-killing “fog” that will be deployed at Singapore Airport in coming months.

The technology has received approval from Australia’s health regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, as well as undergone testing from the world’s two biggest airline manufacturers, Airbus and Boeing.

For the company, Ecas4, it is proof that life can really present bouquets. It originally developed the technology to extend the shelf life of fresh cut flowers.

The “fog” involves electrolysis of salt and water, creating a pH-neutral disinfectant solution known as Ecas4-Anolyte. This solution can be sprayed onto a surface or fogged in an enclosed space using a specialised machine, such as an aircraft cabin, to sanitise all the surfaces it comes into contact with.

Crucially, it has no harsh chemicals or side effects, meaning people can breathe it in (and out), helping stop the spread of Covid.

It is similar technology to the salt chlorinators commonly used in swimming pools, and Ecas4 director Tony Amorico cites this connection when highlighting its safety.

“Chlorine about 2000mg/litre becomes a dangerous, hazardous product. Below that it’s safe. We’re producing at levels two to 300 where we know we kill bacteria and Covid effectively, instantly,” Mr Amorico said.

After international borders reopened last month, Industry Minister Angus Taylor said Ecas4’s technology would help give people the confidence to return to the skies following two pandemic-plagued years.

“From incredible inventions such as rapid breath Covid tests, mRNA technology, to innovations such as this cleaning and sanitising solution from Ecas4 helping to get us back in the skies, this is the kind of groundbreaking innovation the Morrison government is supporting to grow our economy, create new jobs and help our nation reach the other side of the pandemic,” Mr Taylor told The Australian.

But like most fledgling companies with great ideas, committing precious funds for research and development can be risky and cost-prohibitive. And this is where the CSIRO comes in via its Innovation Connections scheme, part of the Australian government’s Entrepreneurs’ Program.

CSIRO introduced Ecas4 to the University of South Australia, which began investigating whether the solution could eliminate traces of Covid-19. The project was successful, and the solution subsequently received approvals from TGA and major aircraft manufacturers.

Other beneficiaries of the CSIRO’s innovation fund include plant-based meat start-up V2food, which formed a partnership with Jack Cowin’s Competitive Foods to launch the Rebel Whopper at Hungry Jacks.

For Ecas4, getting Singapore Airport on board was challenging, given international travel bans prevented them from installing the system in-person.

“Because the cost of transporting a solution to them was prohibitive, we built a purpose built machine to allow a batch production, which we can remotely connect to and we remotely see how much they’re producing,” Mr Amorico said.

“The best part of it is we can switch it off if I need to, as well for any reasons to stop them from producing if we want them to. And that’s how we ensure the quality of the product is produced on a regular basis because we can measure the conductivity of the solution and we can also measure the current and the voltage that we’re providing through that process.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/aussie-covidkilling-fog-guards-singapore-airport-as-csiro-backs-adelaide-startup-ecas4/news-story/15e9a74a3cf292b44903e9e9b6581379

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We actually live in a New World Order

Remember folks when Biden talks about the New World Order it’s just one of those lovable dementia moments, like finding grandad in his slippers wandering the streets at 3am.

It’s nothing to do with all that conspiracy theory nonsense about the New World Order.

When Klaus Schwab dresses up like the Klingon ambassador in an episode of Star Trek and talks about the desirability of depopulating the world, it’s just a lovable quirk and not at all worrying that this man heads one of the most powerful political institutions on the entire planet.

It’s nothing to do with all that conspiracy theory nonsense about the New World Order.

When the Bank of England does research on a fully digital currency including a system where the Bank and government decides whether to approve your every purchase or refuse to allow you to buy things they deem irresponsible purchases, remember it’s nothing to do with all the conspiracy theory nonsense about a New World Order in which you will own nothing and be happy.

Remember when the WEF produces expensive propaganda that says you will own nothing and be happy it’s nothing to do with you owning nothing and being miserable or those absurd conspiracy theories about a New World Order in which you own nothing.

When every western government is drafting and passing laws which prevent peaceful protests against New World Order measures and policies and which allow those governments to seize your assets and freeze your bank accounts and put you in jail for honking a horn remember it’s nothing to do with that ridiculous conspiracy theory about a New World Order in which all the old democratic norms have been swept away.

When every media outlet and every western government conspires to ignore and have you ignore claims that a Presidential candidate’s son has a laptop full of child sex images, proof of multi million dollar corruption including the candidate and foreign powers, and disturbing evidence of incestuous child abuse involving a 14 year old member of the candidate’s family, remember that this is perfectly normal for a free press and a fully functioning democracy and nothing to do with a New World Order in which leaders are selected rather than elected.

Remember when old ladies are run down by cavalry charges and people who did nothing but wander into a public building and support the wrong political candidate are imprisoned and tortured for over a year that is the sort of thing that happens all the time in the Free World and not in the least bit the kind of thing that happens in a New World Order where nobody in charge is accountable in the least for their actions no matter how criminal they are.

Remember when you are subjected to constant psy ops campaigns that have you one minute hating your neighbour for refusing a dangerous experimental treatment and the next minute cancelling dead Russian composers this is all perfectly rational and sensible and not at all the kind of thing that New World Order manipulative psychopaths would do to keep you constantly harassed, fearful and distracted whilst your fundamental rights and freedoms are gradually removed from you.

When anything at all no matter how devastating, scandalous and truthful can be labelled as misinformation and blocked from all social media, all news programming, all television stations, all radio stations, and every public method of communication there is so that debate of or investigation of crimes by those in authority is impossible remember to be proud that you are part of the Free World and not a repressive tyranny like Russia where the exact same thing happens but about different news items.

Remember when a senior Ukrainian politician says they are fighting for a New World Order it’s nothing to do with the New World Order of the absurd conspiracy theory, but an entirely different and wholesome New World Order which only means democracy and peace. Like the Old World Order.

https://libertarianism.uk/2022/03/23/nwo-move-on-nothing-to-see-here/

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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 Tells Doctors in 8 States to Stop Using COVID-19 Treatment

U.S. drug regulators have directed health care workers in eight states to stop using a COVID-19 treatment because it may not be effective against an Omicron coronavirus subvariant that’s rising in prevalence.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said sotrovimab, a monoclonal antibody used to treat COVID-19, can no longer be used in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Providers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands also have been told to stop using stotrovimab.

Regulators believe that the treatment, which was given emergency use authorization in May 2021, “is unlikely to be effective against the BA.2 subvariant,” the FDA said in a statement.

BA.2 is a subvariant of Omicron, a variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19.

According to genomic surveillance conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, BA.2 was responsible for 12.6 percent of COVID-19 cases in the United States in the week ending on March 5. But the agency projected an increase to 35 percent in the week ending on March 19, and the subvariant was pegged as circulating widely in the northeast.

Based on the estimates, BA.2 is responsible for the majority of the cases in the states where the administration of sotrovimab is now limited.

The FDA had indicated in February that it would limit the treatment.

Several studies have indicated that sotrovimab doesn’t perform well against BA.2, including one published in Nature Medicine.

But GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology, the makers of the drug, have said that testing suggested that the treatment retained neutralizing activity against BA.2.

The companies said on March 25 that they were aware of the FDA’s move and are preparing to send a data package to the agency and other regulatory authorities that show a higher dose of sotrovimab works against BA.2.

COVID-19 treatments that do appear to be effective against BA.2 include Pfizer’s pill, paxlovid; the antiviral from Gilead Sciences known as remdesivir; and the recently authorized bebtelovimab, a monoclonal made by Eli Lilly, according to the FDA.

“We will continue to monitor BA.2 in all U.S. regions and may revise the authorization further to ensure that patients with COVID-19 have effective treatments available. Health care providers should also monitor the frequency of BA.2 in their region as they choose appropriate treatment options for patients,” the agency said.

The FDA previously cut off authorization for REGEN-COV, a monoclonal from Regeneron, and a separate treatment from Eli Lilly because laboratory testing suggested that they didn’t hold up well against Omicron.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/fda-tells-doctors-in-8-states-to-stop-using-covid-19-treatment_4364197.html

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What can people who have health problems linked to the COVID-19 vaccine do to help themselves?

The food recommendations below are fairly "alternative" but may be worth a try

If you believe your COVID-19 vaccination may be responsible for certain conditions that developed afterward, you could be right, and you may need to take measures to recover.

As information and data surrounding the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines have become increasingly available, scientists and doctors continue to express concerns regarding the negative health effects being documented around the world, including in Germany, Israel, Scotland.

In May of 2021, Drs. Stephanie Seneff and Greg Nigh published a comprehensive overview of the potential problems associated with the COVID-19 vaccines.

“In this review, we first describe the technology underlying these vaccines in detail. We then review both components of and the intended biological response to these vaccines, including production of the spike protein itself, and their potential relationship to a wide range of both acute and long-term induced pathologies, such as blood disorders, neurodegenerative diseases and autoimmune diseases.”

A study published in CELL on Jan. 24, 2022, demonstrated that people who have received COVID-19 vaccines produce higher levels of the spike protein for longer periods of time than those who were unvaccinated and were infected with the natural virus. The researchers also found that synthetic vaccine mRNA persisted in the lymph nodes of the vaccinated for 60 days, the entire length of the study.

Another study published in Frontiers in Immunology found that the S1 segment of spike protein from natural infection with SARS-CoV-2 can persist in the body for 15 months. The spike protein is known to be toxic to the human body. This raises concerns over the potential for cumulative toxicity of the spike protein with vaccine booster doses.

These findings raise significant questions regarding how long the synthetic mRNA and spike protein actually persist in the bodies of the vaccinated. A recent interview with Drs. Robert Malone, Peter McCullough, and Steve Kebe provides a more detailed discussion of the significance of these findings.

On March 1, 2022, a pre-print paper published on medRxiv demonstrated that the synthetic mRNA from the Moderna injection didn’t degrade as rapidly as the company claimed it would. After incubating both mouse and human cell lines with the Moderna vaccine, spike protein began to be produced in approximately 6 hours and continued for 12 to 14 days.

In testimony before the Tennessee State legislature, Dr. Ryan Cole said, “These vaccines do not prevent acquisition of the disease … do not prevent transmission of the disease, do not prevent illness from the disease, and do not prevent death from the disease.”

In a recent podcast, McCullough claimed that the COVID-19 vaccines are not sufficiently safe or effective, and “the mass vaccination program worldwide has failed. In fact, [it] has made things worse.”

A U.S. insurance executive noted that during the second half of 2021, there was an excess mortality rate of 40 percent for employed people aged 18 to 64. Hundreds of professional and amateur athletes have collapsed, with many dying on playing fields, often on live TV. After an analysis of CDC data, former BlackRock executive Edward Dowd recently showed that more millennials aged 25 to 44 (61,000) died in the second half of 2021 than the total number of U.S. soldiers (58,000) who died during the whole of the Vietnam war.

Peer-reviewed medical papers have documented that the COVID-19 injections damage the innate immune system T-cells and Natural Killer cells and suppress our own tumor suppressor genes, which interferes with the body’s natural ability to stop cancer growth. Additionally, a paper in Current Issues in Molecular Biology published Feb. 22, 2022, showed that the Pfizer synthetic mRNA was inserted into the DNA of human liver cells in just six hours.

Among the serious side effects of the COVID-19 shots being reported are the following: myocarditis or inflammation of the heart muscle; blood clots throughout the body that can lead to stroke, heart attack, pulmonary emboli, or amputation; vasculitis or inflammation of the lining of the blood vessels; autoimmune diseases, recrudescence of previously controlled infections such as herpes, shingles, and tuberculosis; increase in rapid spread of cancers that had been in remission as well as the development of new cancers; multisystem inflammatory syndrome; and immune system dysfunction comparable to that seen in AIDS.

Despite all this overwhelming and frightening information, there is hope for those who received these injections either voluntarily or under duress. There are ways to rebuild your immune system, fight the emergence of latent infections, reduce the risk of cancer, manage the likelihood of blood clots, and help your body clear any circulating spike proteins.

This Is What I Tell My Patients:

Diet is most important. We literally are what we eat. The body’s only fuel to heal, replace, grow, and renew is the food you eat. You must drink plenty of fresh, clean water. Your diet should consist of organic whole foods, 100 percent grass-fed meat, free-range poultry, wild-caught fish, plenty of green leafy vegetables, nuts, healthy fats such as coconut oil, organic olive oil, grass-fed lard and butter, limited grains, minimal fruit sugars, and a complete avoidance of GMO, pre-processed, or highly refined foods, especially those high in added sugars.

Many respond well to a gluten-free diet, as gluten itself is inflammatory, and many glutinous foods contain high levels of residual agricultural products such as glyphosate. It’s also advisable for some to eliminate dairy from the diet for the same reasons.

Avoid processed vegetable oils and trans fats. Sugar is damaging to the body in many ways and should be avoided altogether, especially sugary drinks and sodas, except for that found in nutrient-packed fruits such as berries. Caffeine intake should be restricted to roughly 100 mg daily and aspartame-containing dietary beverages or foods should be strictly avoided.

It’s also important to avoid all kinds of environmental toxicities, including cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, toxic household cleaners, and non-organic personal care products and makeup.

Immune system support starts with a good organic multivitamin with trace minerals. Support T cells and NK cells with adequate vitamin D3 with K2, zinc with an ionophore such as quercetin to take zinc intracellularly where it’s needed, and vitamin C. Herbs that help support immune system function include andrographis, ashwagandha, cat’s claw, echinacea, Japanese knotweed, garlic, ginseng, morinda or noni, and turmeric. Herbs that help regulate an overactive or dysfunctional immune function include astragalus, berberine (from Coptis chinensis), curcumin, milk thistle, and scutellaria or Chinese skullcap.

Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, artemisinin (from Artemisia annua), isatis (Isatis tinctoria), morinda (Morinda citrifolia), neem (Melia azadirachta), oregano oil, olive leaf extract, star anise (Illicium verum) as well as the amino acid L-lysine can protect against new and recrudescent viral infections.

Reduce the risk of blood clotting and help break up circulating spike proteins by taking omega 3 fatty acids, fibrinolytic enzymes (lumbrokinase and nattokinase), proteolytic enzymes (serrapeptase), lipases, bromelain, and vitamin E, as well as herbs that support the cardiovascular system such as Chrysanthemum morifolium flower petals, danshen (Salvia miltiorrhiza), and scutellaria. Low doses of aspirin may also be needed.

Antioxidant support can include alpha-lipoic acid, beta-carotene, coenzyme Q 10, EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate, the most abundant catechin in tea, which is also a zinc ionophore), glutathione, lycopene, lutein, manganese, NAC (n-acetyl cysteine), quercetin, selenium, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and zeaxanthin. Herbs that have strong anti-oxidant qualities include olive leaf and scutellaria. Spices such as cinnamon, clove, garlic, ginger, oregano, parsley, rosemary, and thyme are also anti-oxidants.

Cancer-fighting foods include berries, carrots, citrus fruits, cruciferous vegetables (bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, garden cress), the garlic family of vegetables (chive, garlic, leeks, onions, shallots), green tea, and tomatoes. Herbs that help protect against cancer include artemisinin, blackberry leaves, Chrysanthemum morifolium flower petals, danshen, morinda, and scutellaria.

Inflammation in the body will be significantly reduced by following all of the above recommendations. Additionally, extracts of shea nut, turmeric, green tea, black tea, broccoli, stinging nettle leaf, black cumin seed, and grape seed; herbs such as andrographis, holy basil, manjistha (Rubia cordifolia), and scutellaria; and antioxidants such as pterostilbene and resveratrol can all help reduce inflammation.

To be healthy, we must clean up our bodies by eating well, reducing incoming toxins, enhancing outgoing toxins, exercising regularly, sleeping well, spending time in nature, and reducing external stress.

It’s likely no coincidence that many of these habits define the daily lifestyles of people in “blue zones.” These are areas of the world where people live the longest and have an unusually high number of centenarians.

These people also share another common feature—they belong to a spiritual community. In other words, they practice a faith.

This is important for several reasons. It reduces stress, teaches self-restraint, and provides companionship. But perhaps even more importantly, these traditions impart morality and belief in the divine.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/ask-a-doctor-health-problems-after-covid-jab_4333760.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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'Very few, if any' Americans require a FOURTH COVID-19 vaccine - even as Pfizer and Moderna push for more shots

America's two leading vaccine manufacturers, Pfizer and Moderna, are both hoping to push a fourth COVID-19 dose out the door sometime soon, but some experts doubt they are needed as cases continue to fall in the U.S. and the virus poses less of a threat to Americans.

Dr Anna Durbin is an international public health expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, has been a critic of Pfizer, Moderna and the White House's insistence to rollout COVID-19 booster shots before they are needed. This week, she told ABC that she does not believe many Americans will benefit from additional shots.

'There are very few, if any, people who, in my opinion require a fourth dose,' she said.

In August, when the White House was laying out plans to roll out the first batch COVID-19 booster shots, Durbin was also a critic, telling DailyMail.com that there was little science backing up the decision.

A very small number of Americans are already eligible for fourth COVID-19 shots. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises people who are immunocompromised to receive the additional shot now, despite the lack of authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Only around one in every 30 Americans is immunocompromised and is eligible for that fourth shot right now, though.

Pfizer and Moderna are hoping to get their fourth doses out to the rest of Americans as well. Earlier this week, Moderna submitted data to the FDA in a bid to have a fourth dose approved for all U.S. adults. This comes after Pfizer submitted data for a fourth shot for all Americans 65 and older.

The FDA is expected to grant authorization for both companies to add an additional shot to their Covid regimen.

'In general, it's too early to recommend a fourth dose, except for those who are immune compromised,' Dr Paul Goepfert, professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told ABC.

Americans' interest in receiving additional Covid shots has stagnated as well, with the nation's booster rollout reaching a low point this week.

Cases and deaths caused by the virus are continuing to fall as well, and the 'stealth' variant that took over much of Europe in recent months has failed to make much ground in the U.S. so far.

The U.S. is averaging 29,490 Covid cases every day as of Friday, a 10 percent drop over the last seven days according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The nation is averaging 892 daily deaths as well, a 25 percent fall over the past seven days.

The 'stealth' variant, which earned the moniker from its ability to avoid detection through some sequencing methods, is believed to be the most infectious version of Covid yet - but is just as mild as the BA.1 version of Omciron that took over the world last last year.

According to the most recent data revealed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week, BA.2 makes up 35 percent of active Covid cases in the U.S., with BA.1 still being dominant.

BA.2's share of Covid infections in America is growing, though, with the variant only accounting for 23 percent of cases in the week previous.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said this week that he expects the U.S. to suffer a BA.2-fueled surge sometime soon, though, and that his company's vaccine will be needed to control it.

'Already several countries around the world have some of the 4th dose testing in people at high risk,' Bancel told CNBC's Squawk Box. 'There's a big wave of BA.2 variant in Europe right now, as many public health experts have said this should start in the U.S. very soon.'

A growing list of experts are saying the exact opposite, though.

'I would not be surprised at all, if we do see somewhat of an uptick,' Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert and someone who has frequently been among the more cautious voices during the pandemic, said at a Washington Post event this week.

'I don't really see, unless something changes dramatically, that there would be a major surge.'

Experts at Harvard University said that the BA.2 stealth variant, which is believed to be the reason for the recent uptick of cases, would have likely already started the beginning of a surge in America if it was going to do so anytime soon.

'There's really no indication of an increase in cases or deaths in the region that corresponds to this increase in BA.2 infections that we're seeing,' Bronwyn MacInnis, director of pathogen genomic surveillance at Harvard's Broad Institute, told the Harvard Gazette this week.

While it has failed to make a major impact yet on case numbers, data from overseas - referenced by Bancel - is cause for some concern.

Some countries that had experienced declining cases for months, like the UK, France and Denmark, suddenly saw infection rates start to surge last week. Cases seem to have stabilized in these nations and the growth has stopped for now, though.

Internationally, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that there were over 12 million Covid cases globally last week, a seven percent jump from the previous week.

Deaths dropped, though, down 23 percent to under 33,000 - another sign of the virus's falling mortality.

The increase in cases was entirely clustered in the Western Pacific region, where daily infections jumped 23 percent last week. In Europe, infections stabilized after slightly rising two percent last week.

A fourth dose may be inevitable anyway, even if case numbers remain low. Fauci, Bancel and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla have been among those saying an additional dose was on the way for months, with Bourla even saying annual jabs will be needed for the next decade to control the pandemic.

While the shots have been deemed safe and effective by health officials around the world, and have likely saved millions of lives over the past year, Pfizer and Moderna's goals in the vaccine rollout are not exactly humanitarian.

The companies have each made billions off of the sales of vaccines to the U.S. and other nations around the world.

Pfizer, its partner BioNTech, and Moderna estimate a combined $50 billion in COVID-19 vaccine sales this year, and those figures will soar even higher if fourth doses are approved.

Just before Moderna made its submission, Pfizer submitted an application to the FDA to get a fourth Covid jab approved for Americans 65 and older.

Both companies also are hoping to roll out jabs to young children in the near future. Currently, the Moderna shot is only available to adults in the U.S., with Pfizer's available to those five and older.

On Wednesday, Moderna announced that it had successfully completed Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials for its COVID-19 shot in children aged six months old to 17.

The shots, which are a quarter of the size of those given to adults, proved to be around 40 percent effective at preventing infection from the Omicron variant - similar to protection levels it provides adults.

Pfizer has run into some issues in getting its vaccine out to the youngest age groups. The company had to shift its Covid vaccine regimen for the youngest children up to three doses from two, as the smaller, three microgram doses, were almost entirely ineffective in children three and four years old.

The New York City-based firm also submitted data to regulators for its Covid jab in children under the age of five, though the approval process was paused earlier this year.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10652091/Very-Americans-require-FOURTH-COVID-19-vaccine-Pfizer-Moderna-push-it.html

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‘They didn’t die from Covid, but because of Covid’: the inseparable couple torn apart by the pandemic

Of all the thousands of moments that made up her parents’s lives, it’s their final laboured breaths that their daughter Alexa Every struggles to forget.

Both of Every’s parents died in institutions during the pandemic – Kathleen on Mother’s Day 2020 after a short and distressing stint in an aged care facility, and John in hospital a year later, on Christmas Eve.

Her family wasn’t alone in this unnatural grieving process. Thousands went through what Every calls “Covid-adjacent deaths” – the experience of losing a loved one not from Covid, but wrapped up in the pandemic and its associated pains.

“They didn’t die directly from Covid, but I believe they both died because of Covid,” Every says.

“Kathleen was only five months into living in a nursing home and was still adjusting,” she says. “Once they went into lockdown and we couldn’t visit her, she went into a terrible spiral of terror and confusion and died five weeks later.

“I’m sure a huge part of her very fast decline was fear and confusion because she couldn’t see her family.”

Kathleen was living with early-stage dementia when she entered aged care at the end of 2019, three months before the pandemic. Her 88-year-old husband would visit and eat lunch with her most days.

Then the facility locked down, and her lifeline – her family – was suddenly cut off from her.

“She got really agitated and angry … she was always saying ‘When are you coming?’ to my dad. She always depended on him, to be without him would have been absolutely terrifying … then she just declined before our eyes.”

Within a fortnight, the change was drastic. Eventually, Kathleen was admitted to hospital and died 10 days later.

“She couldn’t live without Dad, she didn’t know how, and died in real fear,” Every says. “I think it broke her heart.”

In the months after Kathleen passed, John had a few small bouts of time in hospital for physical ailments. In early December, he was booked into a busy Melbourne ward for what was expected to be a routine few days.

Three weeks later, on 23 December, the hospital administered final routine blood tests and asked to keep him for 24 hours to track the results. John pushed the doctor to be sent home. But he would never make it there.

“He was really a sharp and competent advocate for himself: he said three weeks is enough – it’s starting to get me down,” Every says.

“I rang the doctor and said same the thing but … they were so busy. It was terrible to see how overworked the nurses were, they were so tired.”

At 3am on Christmas Eve, Every received a call to say her dad had fallen out of bed. She still has no idea what happened (John was perfectly sound of mind) but the injuries he suffered were “catastrophic” – he was conscious but in severe pain.

Every immediately jumped in the car, but Covid protocols were strict and it was late at night. She spent crucial time running around the hospital trying to find an entry point.

“We’d been texting each other a few hours before [the accident]. He still had life to live … and this was an extremely unpleasant way to die … they both died in pain in different ways.”

When she finally arrived, John had just lost consciousness. She had missed him “by a whisker”.

“It’s nobody’s fault, the system was under so much pressure,” Every says.

“So many people have had that experience. But I would’ve liked him to have seen me. It just wasn’t the way to have finished.”

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/28/they-didnt-die-from-covid-but-because-of-covid-the-inseparable-couple-torn-apart-by-the-pandemic?fr=operanews

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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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Why more and more experts say lockdowns didn't prevent people dying of Covid - and call it a 'monumental mistake on a global scale

While there is no doubt that robust measures were necessary against a new and devastating virus, was lockdown truly the only route through those dark days of the pandemic, or the right one?

For the past few weeks, in a series of reports probing the science that has underpinned key pandemic decisions, The Mail on Sunday has investigated the accuracy of PCR tests and the chaotic way Covid-related deaths were recorded.

Today, in the final part, we talk to the growing number of experts who say that lockdowns had little benefit – a cure that was worse than the disease.

One of them is Professor Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, who has recently published a book, The Year The World Went Mad, about the UK's pandemic policy failures.

Speaking this week on The Mail on Sunday's Medical Minefield podcast, Prof Woolhouse said: 'I think that lockdown will be viewed by history as a monumental mistake on a global scale, for a number of reasons.

'The obvious one is the immense harm the lockdown, more than any other measure, did in terms of the economy, mental health and on the wellbeing of society.

'Clearly things needed to be done to bring waves of infection under control.

'But many analyses suggest that lockdown itself didn't have a huge impact on reducing the health burden. That was achieved in other ways.'

Analysing the effect of any single Covid measure is difficult, and researchers have managed it with varying degrees of success.

In the UK, 'lockdown' refers specifically to the stay-at-home order. But some studies also include school and border closures, business closures and curfews in their definition of lockdown.

And when all these measures are looked at together, they do indeed have an impact – reducing infection rates by up to 80 per cent.

One paper that did attempt to tease out the benefits of individual measures, published last month, found stay-at-home orders reduced global Covid deaths by just 2.9 per cent.

By comparison, business closures cut deaths by ten per cent and school closures by nearly five per cent.

The authors, economists linked to Johns Hopkins University in the US, have been accused of bias – one has repeatedly equated lockdown measures with fascism – and 'cherry-picking' papers to suit their hypothesis.

'If you start with a premise and select studies which are likely to back that premise, you don't come to an objective answer,' says epidemiologist and Government adviser Dr Raghib Ali, at the University of Cambridge.

But intriguingly, Dr Ali and others also admit the researchers have a point.

In a critique of the paper, Australian epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz describes it as an 'extremely poor quality study'.

But he also points out that, while the figures quoted are 'pretty meaningless, the general idea is not totally wild'.

He wrote: 'If we define lockdown as 'the marginal benefit of stay-at-home orders on top of many other restrictions' it's probably fair to argue that the benefit might be quite small.

'Indeed, that's been shown before, and is quite a reasonable position based on the evidence.'

Another study that backs this, published in Science in February last year, found 'stay at home' measures reduced Covid transmission by an average of 13 per cent on top of other measures such as closing schools and non-essential shops, and banning small gatherings.

The study, which looked at evidence from 41 countries around the world, concluded this was a 'small effect' and meant 'some countries could control the epidemic while avoiding stay-at-home orders'.

It also found something intriguing: lockdowns could, in a worst-case scenario, actually increase transmission of the virus by up to five per cent.

This may be an effect of allowing it to spread within households, experts say.

Prof Woolhouse has argued that, if the aim was partially to protect society's most vulnerable, lockdowns failed.

'We focused on this idea that if we stopped the virus transmitting among everybody, that this would somehow be sufficient to protect those who were at risk,' he says. 'And it wasn't.'

Prof Woolhouse also argues that for lockdown to have had an effect it would need to have been imposed earlier.

This is what worked in Australia and New Zealand, which pursued a 'zero Covid' strategy.

'We passed that point in the second half of February 2020,' he says.

'Lockdown as an intervention only makes sense in the context of zero Covid, and by the time it was imposed it was no longer the appropriate tool.

'There are ways we could have responded to the pandemic that would have avoided most of the lockdown, and saved more lives.

'But lockdown happened anyway because by that stage no one – including me – was prepared to risk waiting to find out if [restrictions introduced prior to our full lockdown on March 23] had worked.'

But that stay-at-home order was, for most, the hardest part of the pandemic. 'It made everything so much harder than it might have been,' he adds.

Countries that had earlier lockdowns, better testing capacity and were able to identify and isolate cases fared better during the initial wave of the pandemic.

In the UK, lockdown was seen – at a point of desperation – as the only option left remaining.

But Prof Woolhouse argues people had already become more cautious. Studies using anonymised mobile phone location tracking data show contacts between people plummeted in early March (although the biggest drop was March 24, the day after lockdown).

Dr Ali says: 'The purpose of lockdown is to reduce contacts, but if people are doing that anyway, the additional benefit [of making it a legal requirement to stay at home] is obviously somewhat reduced.

'Case numbers at the time weren't really available because there was no community testing, so we've had to work backwards from hospital admissions. From that, there's actually some evidence that Covid cases may have peaked before lockdown came in, or around that time.

'If we had known then what we know now, I don't think we would have needed to lock down.'

A recent inquiry by officials in Sweden into the handling of its pandemic – where there was no lockdown and the population was expected to voluntarily follow 'advice and recommendations' – found this reliance on people's behaviour was 'fundamentally correct'.

Lockdowns across Europe were also neither necessary nor defensible, the report added.

Would this have worked in the UK? The evidence shows the impact of interventions were less effective in the second wave precisely because people were already socialising less frequently and masks, hand sanitiser and safety screens were in use.

This led Dr Ali and others to advise Ministers not to impose lockdown a fourth time in December 2021, with the emergence of highly transmissible Omicron.

'In the second and third lockdowns, in November 2020 and again in January 2021, we have a better idea of when cases peaked and again it seems this happened just before lockdown came in,' Dr Ali says.

Mr Meyerowitz-Katz adds: 'A lot of people underestimated the impact of voluntary behaviour change on Covid-19 death rates.'

Prof Woolhouse believes that the second and third lockdown are 'very hard to defend'. 'We had the tools in place, the knowledge in place, the systems in place to do it a different way,' he says. 'And we didn't do that.' But again, it's easy to say in hindsight.

Dr Ali, who backed all three lockdowns, says: 'At the time of the second lockdown we hadn't started the vaccination programme, we had predictions that hospitals would be overwhelmed, particularly intensive care units, so for that reason alone I thought it was reasonable.

'The third was different – we had vaccines, so lockdown was about flattening the curve, postponing infections until people had their jabs.'

The UK is now facing a significant further wave of infections from a more transmissible variant of Omicron, but with a highly vaccinated population even the most cautious experts agree the benefits of another lockdown are unlikely to outweigh the harms.

Like many experts, Professor Stephen Griffin, virologist at the University of Leeds and a member of Independent Sage, believes there is 'no question whatsoever' that locking down first time round 'prevented hospitalisations and deaths'.

He says: 'In the absence of a vaccine – and we need to remember we didn't have anything to treat this virus back then other than oxygen – we needed to reduce cases.

'If we'd let it run, we'd have had an even more profoundly upsetting mortality rate than we've already seen.'

However, he adds: 'No one would realistically say lockdown should be a strategy any more. There are so many things we could do to get transmission down.'

Samir Bhatt, professor of statistics and public health at Imperial College London, agrees.

'Once you close the shops, suggest people stop going out to work in an office and stop people gathering, the incremental effects of each measure become less and less.

'But that doesn't mean lockdowns weren't necessary to drive the R rate below one.'

In the end, what we don't know is what scientists call 'the counterfactual' – in other words, what would have happened in the UK if we had not locked down.

Looking just at home nations, which are comparable because of broadly similar populations, Dr Ali says that 'despite England having less stringent restrictions we've had, if anything, a slightly lower death rate [than in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland]. It suggests there's no obvious relationship between restrictions, mandatory interventions and death rates.'

A study published in The Lancet came to a similar conclusion. Sweden, which took a relatively relaxed approach, recorded a similar rate of deaths to neighbouring Denmark and Finland – both of which imposed strict lockdowns – at about 90 per 100,000.

In comparison, the UK – which had tougher restrictions than all three – recorded 127 excess deaths per 100,000. Yet that is still well behind Spain, at 187, and Italy at 227 – both of which had particularly stringent lockdowns.

Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Singapore, which had strict border controls, quarantine and testing regimes, did not record any excess deaths.

In Hong Kong, where the zero Covid strategy failed spectacularly to keep Omicron out, the death rate at present is bewilderingly high.

And China, still attempting to keep Covid out, has just put vast swathes of the country under lockdown.

As Dr Ali puts it: 'Some people say lockdowns were beneficial, others that they were really terrible.

'The reality actually is much closer to the idea that it didn't make much difference either way.'

For those who made painful sacrifices, that won't be an easy truth to swallow.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10655171/Englands-lockdown-did-NOT-prevent-people-dying-Covid-say-growing-number-experts.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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Trying to Solve a Covid Mystery: Africa’s Low Death Rates

This is not much of a mystery. Africa has long been plagued by health challenges -- viruses, bacteria and parasites. Most Africans, for instance, are full of worms. You have to be very robusts and have a very good immune system to survive and function there. The less robust have long ago been "weeded out" of the gene pool. So Covid infections are easily resisted

The coronavirus was expected to devastate the continent, but higher-income and better-prepared countries appear to have fared far worse.

KAMAKWIE, Sierra Leone — There are no Covid fears here.
The district’s Covid-19 response center has registered just 11 cases since the start of the pandemic, and no deaths. At the regional hospital, the wards are packed — with malaria patients. The door to the Covid isolation ward is bolted shut and overgrown with weeds. People cram together for weddings, soccer matches, concerts, with no masks in sight.

Sierra Leone, a nation of eight million on the coast of Western Africa, feels like a land inexplicably spared as a plague passed overhead. What has happened — or hasn’t happened — here and in much of sub-Saharan Africa is a great mystery of the pandemic.

The low rate of coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths in West and Central Africa is the focus of a debate that has divided scientists on the continent and beyond. Have the sick or dead simply not been counted? If Covid has in fact done less damage here, why is that? If it has been just as vicious, how have we missed it?

The first iteration of the virus that raced around the world had comparatively minimal impact here. The Beta variant ravaged South Africa, as did Delta and Omicron, yet much of the rest of the continent did not record similar death tolls.

Into Year Three of the pandemic, new research shows there is no longer any question of whether Covid has spread widely in Africa. It has.

Studies that tested blood samples for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the official name for the virus that causes Covid, show that about two-thirds of the population in most sub-Saharan countries do indeed have those antibodies. Since only 14 percent of the population has received any kind of Covid vaccination, the antibodies are overwhelmingly from infection.

A new W.H.O.-led analysis, not yet peer-reviewed, synthesized surveys from across the continent and found that 65 percent of Africans had been infected by the third quarter of 2021, higher than the rate in many parts of the world. Just 4 percent of Africans had been vaccinated when these data were gathered.

So the virus is in Africa. Is it killing fewer people?
Some speculation has focused on the relative youth of Africans. Their median age is 19 years, compared with 43 in Europe and 38 in the United States. Nearly two-thirds of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is under 25, and only 3 percent is 65 or older. That means far fewer people, comparatively, have lived long enough to develop the health issues (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease and cancer) that can sharply increase the risk of severe disease and death from Covid. Young people infected by the coronavirus are often asymptomatic, which could account for the low number of reported cases.

Plenty of other hypotheses have been floated. High temperatures and the fact that much of life is spent outdoors could be preventing spread. Or the low population density in many areas, or limited public transportation infrastructure. Perhaps exposure to other pathogens, including coronaviruses and deadly infections such as Lassa fever and Ebola, has somehow offered protection.

Since Covid tore through South and Southeast Asia last year, it has become harder to accept these theories. After all, the population of India is young, too (with a median age of 28), and temperatures in the country are also relatively high. But researchers have found that the Delta variant caused millions of deaths in India, far more than the 400,000 officially reported. And rates of infection with malaria and other coronaviruses are high in places, including India, that have also seen high Covid fatality rates.

So are Covid deaths in Africa simply not counted?

Most global Covid trackers register no cases in Sierra Leone because testing for the virus here is effectively nonexistent. With no testing, there are no cases to report. A research project at Njala University in Sierra Leone has found that 78 percent of people have antibodies for this coronavirus. Yet Sierra Leone has reported only 125 Covid deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Most people die in their homes, not in hospitals, either because they can’t reach a medical facility or because their families take them home to die. Many deaths are never registered with civil authorities.

This pattern is common across sub-Saharan Africa. A recent survey by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa found that official registration systems captured only one in three deaths.

But many scientists tracking the pandemic on the ground disagree. It’s not possible that hundreds of thousands or even millions of Covid deaths could have gone unnoticed, they say.
“We have not seen massive burials in Africa. If that had happened, we’d have seen it,” said Dr. Thierno Baldé, who runs the W.H.O.’s Covid emergency response in Africa.

“A death in Africa never goes unrecorded, as much as we are poor at record-keeping,” said Dr. Abdhalah Ziraba, an epidemiologist at the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi, Kenya. “There is a funeral, an announcement: A burial is never done within a week because it is a big event. For someone sitting in New York hypothesizing that they were unrecorded — well, we may not have the accurate numbers, but the perception is palpable. In the media, in your social circle, you know if there are deaths.”

Dr. Demby, the Sierra Leone health minister, who is an epidemiologist by training, agreed. “We haven’t had overflowing hospitals. We haven’t,” he said. “There is no evidence that excess deaths are occurring.”

https://archive.ph/HTzhV

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Scientists identify antibodies that can neutralize omicron

An international team of scientists have identified antibodies that neutralize omicron and other SARS-CoV-2 variants. These antibodies target areas of the virus spike protein that remain essentially unchanged as the viruses mutate.

By identifying the targets of these "broadly neutralizing" antibodies on the spike protein, it might be possible to design vaccines and antibody treatments that will be effective against not only the omicron variant but other variants that may emerge in the future, said David Veesler, investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and associate professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. "This finding tells us that by focusing on antibodies that target these highly conserved sites on the spike protein, there is a way to overcome the virus' continual evolution," Veesler said.

Veesler led the research project with Davide Corti of Humabs Biomed SA, Vir Biotechnology, in Switzerland. The study's findings were published Dec. 23 in the journal Nature. The lead authors of the study were Elisabetta Cameroni and Christian Saliba (Humabs), John E. Bowen (UW Biochesmistry) and Laura Rosen (Vir).

The omicron variant has 37 mutations in the spike protein, which it uses to latch onto and invade cells. This is an unusually high number of mutations. It is thought that these changes explain in part why the variant has been able to spread so rapidly, to infect people who have been vaccinated and to reinfect those who have previously been infected.

"The main questions we were trying to answer were: how has this constellation of mutations in the spike protein of the omicron variant affected its ability to bind to cells and to evade the immune system's antibody responses," Veesler said.

[Veesler and his colleagues speculate that omicron's large number of mutations might have accumulated during a prolonged infection in someone with a weakened immune system or by the virus jumping from humans to an animal species and back again.]

To assess the effect of these mutations, the researchers engineered a disabled, nonreplicating virus, called a pseudovirus, to produce spike proteins on its surface, as coronaviruses do. They then created pseudoviruses that had spike proteins with the omicron mutations and those found on the earliest variants identified in the pandemic.

The researchers first looked to see how well the different versions of the spike protein were able to bind to protein on the surface of cells, that the virus uses to latch onto and enter the cell. This protein is called the angiotensin converting enzyme-2 (ACE2) receptor.

They found the omicron variant spike protein was able to bind 2.4 times better than spike protein found in the virus isolated at the very beginning of the pandemic. "That's not a huge increase," Veesler noted, "but in the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003, mutations in the spike protein that increased affinity were associated with higher transmissibility and infectivity." They also found that the omicron version was able to bind to mouse ACE2 receptors efficiently, suggesting omicron might be able to "ping-pong" between humans and other mammals.

The researchers then looked at how well antibodies against earlier isolates of the virus protected against the omicron variant. They did this by using antibodies from patients who had previously been infected with earlier versions of the virus, vaccinated against earlier strains of the virus, or had been infected and then vaccinated.

They found that antibodies from people who had been infected by earlier strains and from those who had received one of the six most-used vaccines currently available all had reduced ability to block infection.

Antibodies from people who had previously been infected and those who had received the Sputnik V or Sinopharm vaccines as well as a single dose of Johnson & Johnson had little or no ability to block—or "neutralize"—the omicron variant's entry into cells. Antibodies from people who had received two doses of the Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, and AstraZeneca vaccines retained some neutralizing activity, albeit reduced by 20- to 40-fold, much more than any other variants.

Antibodies from people who had been infected, recovered, and then had two doses of vaccine also had reduced activity, but the reduction was less, about fivefold, clearly demonstrating that vaccination after infection is useful.

Antibodies from people, in this case a group of renal dialysis patients, who had received a booster with a third dose of the mRNA vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech showed only a 4-fold reduction in neutralizing activity. "This shows that a third dose is really, really helpful against omicron," Veesler said.

All but one antibody treatments currently authorized or approved to be used with patients exposed to the virus, had no or had markedly reduced activity against omicron in the laboratory. The exception was an antibody called sotrovimab, which had a two- to three-fold reduction of neutralizing activity, the study finds.

But when they tested a larger panel of antibodies that have been generated against earlier versions of the virus, the researchers identified four classes of antibodies that retained their ability to neutralize omicron. Members of each of these classes target one of four specific areas of the spike protein present in not only SARS-CoV-2 variants but also a group of related coronaviruses, called sarbecoviruses. These sites on the protein may persist because they play an essential function that the protein would lose if they mutated. Such areas are called "conserved."

The finding that antibodies are able to neutralize via recognition of conserved areas in so many different variants of the virus suggests that designing vaccines and antibody treatments that target these regions could be effective against a broad spectrum of variants that emerge through mutation, Veesler said.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-12-scientists-antibodies-neutralize-omicron.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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Deltacron: What scientists know so far about this new hybrid coronavirus

In many countries, as restrictions lift and freedoms are restored, there's a general feeling that the pandemic is over. There is, however, still the significant concern that a dangerous new variant could emerge.

This happened when Omicron arrived, but we got lucky with that one. Omicron turned out to be more transmissible, but mercifully it hasn't caused an increase in severe disease in most countries where it is dominant.

The race is on to find a variant-proof vaccine

In a state-of-the-art science lab, nestled into the genteel slopes of the NSW Southern Highlands, a group of genetically engineered mice have become frontline soldiers in the fight against COVID-19.

But this wasn't guaranteed. Variants crop up randomly, and new ones have the potential to be more dangerous than previous ones. Another has just arrived, and is currently going by the name deltacron. It is – as you can probably guess – a hybrid of Delta and Omicron, the two variants dominant most recently.

Deltacron's story begins in mid-February, when scientists at the Institut Pasteur in Paris uploaded a genetic sequence of the coronavirus that looked very different from previous sequences. The virus sample had come from an elderly man in northern France and looked odd. Most of its genetic sequence was the same as Delta's, which was dominant worldwide up until late last year, but the part of the sequence that encodes the virus's spike protein – a key part of its external structure, which it uses to get inside cells in the body – came from Omicron.

By March, three further hybrid genetic sequences had been reported, this time in the US. There are now over 60 logged across France, the Netherlands, Denmark, the US and the UK.

There may, however, be different deltacrons. Scientists at the Institut Pasteur have said the deltacron sequences reported in the UK and US have certain differences from those found in other countries. They've said that it might be necessary to add a number to these different forms of deltacron, to indicate which is which.

It's not unusual for viruses to mix and match parts of themselves if two different viruses infect one cell. This is called "recombination", as one virus combines parts of its genetic sequence with parts from another related virus as it assembles copies of itself. It appears to happen at random during viral replication.

What will our next COVID winter look like?

With influenza infections dropping to record lows during the social distancing phase of the pandemic, we are in uncharted waters as we approach winter with a new sub-variant in play.

However, when there's a transfer of power from one viral variant to another – with one variant becoming less common and another more so, meaning both are circulating in the population and there's a chance for them to simultaneously infect people – the chance of recombination happening increases. This will have been the situation as Omicron emerged to displace Delta as the most dominant form worldwide.

Recombination usually creates a new virus that isn't viable, as the mixing of different genes can interfere with the virus's ability to make the proteins it needs to survive. But sometimes one does survive, and that appears to be what's happened with deltacron.

Indeed, as the deltacron hybrids found in the US/UK appear to be different from those found in mainland Europe, it's possible that this has happened multiple times separately.

A chip off the old block?

At the moment it's hard to say in what ways deltacron will resemble its parents. Delta and Omicron are quite different viruses. They differ in how they infect cells and how they evade immunity. We still don't know enough about deltacron to be able to tell how different it's going to be to either.

Because it's been found in multiple nearby countries, it's likely that deltacron can spread. However, Omicron itself is continuing to spread widely in Europe, so it's still the variant we need to be watching carefully right now.

Time will tell if deltacron will displace Omicron, and whether deltacron will be any better at evading immunity and if it will cause more severe disease. There are currently too few deltacron cases to draw any conclusions on these issues. What we need are experiments to determine the properties of deltacron – scientists have started that process and have been able to infect cells with it, so hopefully we'll have answers in time.

In the meantime, we need to keep an eye on it. The fact that deltacron has probably spread across borders emphasises the need for ongoing genomic surveillance to keep tabs on how the virus is changing and moving. As the coronavirus is continuing to spread widely and infect large numbers of people, it's likely that more variants will emerge – including through recombination.

We can, though, be somewhat confident that prior infection with other variants, as well as vaccination, will offer protection from severe disease should deltacron begin to dominate. We know that vaccines, which are based on the original Wuhan strain of the virus, also protect against severe disease with the more recent variants. Time will tell whether Delta and Omicron have produced a wild child for us to worry about.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-23/hybrid-coronavirus-delta-omicron-deltacron-what-scientists-know/100931924

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A patch instead of an injection?

Australian biotech firm Vaxxas says it will conduct the world’s first human clinical trial of a Covid-19 vaccine patch after securing exclusive rights to a US developed vaccine candidate.

Vaxxas CEO David Hoey said an agreement with the University of Texas and the National Institute of Health gave it exclusive usage of the vaccine in patches, and meant that Vaxxas could now timetable phase one trials of the Covid patch in Adelaide later this year.

Mr Hoey said 50 to 100 people would take part in the trial. They would need to have already been vaccinated three times with an approved vaccine. He said an independent investigator would conduct the trial which was primarily about the safety of the vaccine.

“We’ll then go into a phase two study based on the outcome of phase one and then to a larger phase three study as well.”

Vaxxas argues that vaccine patches are not only less painful and less invasive than regular injections, they also enable vaccines to be dispensed more efficiently over time. The vaccine candidate being used was a relatively inexpensive non mRNA vaccine that survived at room temperature.

Mr Hoey said it could be mailed as Covid patches in the post, or distributed in the developing world. “It’s appropriate for every geography on the planet,” he said.

“As the Covid pandemic transitions to becoming some kind of endemic disease … we see this as a patch that doesn’t need to be refrigerated, is easy to administer, and is something that can have global appeal.

“It’s taking Australian technology, and putting it at the centre of addressing a real global problem and this is the first step.”

Mr Hoey said Vaxxas would look at the blood response to vaccination and see how much it increased the immune response to Covid-19.

He paid tribute to biologist Jason McLellan who with fellow researchers had invented “the next generation of the core piece” of current approved vaccines and the vaccine used in the patch was from the same stable.

McLellan, professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at The University of Texas, is also credited with leading a team that produced the first molecular structure of the virus’s spike protein in early 2020.

Mr Hoey said Vaxxas wanted to have its Covid patches available in the market in less than 36 months.

Meanwhile, work is continuing on building Vaxxas’s hi-tech laboratory at Northshore, Hamilton in Brisbane, where the company plans to employ 120 people. Vaxxas plans to produce up to 300 million patch doses each year at full capacity.

Mr Hoey said Vaxxas also had been working on a patch for influenza. It had conducted a study with more than 200 people published two years ago where influenza vaccine was stable at 40 degrees Celsius for 12 months. That again would enable easier distribution of patches at room temperature.

The flu patch was due to go into clinical trials in Australia next year.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/vaxxas-covid19-patch-set-for-human-trials/news-story/ba224d06889495327f0b72cc39a056c1

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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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Australia: The political response to Covid was much more harmful than the disease itself

Like most countries, Australia aped the Chinese Communist response to the problem: Heavy restrictions

Four out of five young Australians surveyed say they experienced mental health issues in the last two years.

One in four young Australians thought about suicide over the past two years and 15 per cent attempted self-harm, according to a poll of 16- to 24-year-olds.

Experts called for urgent action to tackle the nation’s deepening youth mental health crisis as the exclusive survey for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald revealed the magnitude of the pandemic’s toll on young people.

Eighty-two per cent of those surveyed said they had experienced mental health issues during COVID-19.

Young Australians have taken the biggest psychological hit – a separate poll found significantly fewer adults aged 25 and over (49 per cent) reported mental health issues.

Those aged 16 to 24 were most likely to report symptoms of anxiety (75 per cent) and depression (62 per cent), while 36 per cent identified eating disorder symptoms, binge-eating being the most common.

While youth mental health was a growing problem before COVID-19, the survey shows issues have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Forty-two per cent said their mental health issues had become worse and 11 per cent said they were caused by the impact of the pandemic.

The survey, conducted by research company Resolve Strategic, was based on questions to 1002 people aged between 16 and 24 from February 16 to 27. The findings have a margin of error of 3 per cent.

Molli Johns, a 19-year-old from the Melbourne suburb of Richmond, said she relapsed into her eating disorder during the pandemic and became depressed.

Ms Johns is one of several young people who shared their experience of mental illness for a new podcast about youth mental health, called Enough, being launched on Monday by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

“I lost all motivation,” said Ms Johns, who studied year 12 remotely in 2020. “I was getting up just to sit in front of my computer screen and what was the point?”

Professor Patrick McGorry, executive director of Orygen, the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, said mental ill-health in young people was at crisis point.

“We’ve been trying to wake people up for 20 years about youth mental health because it’s been deteriorating, worldwide, and especially in Australia all that time,” Professor McGorry said.

“The pandemic has definitely put the skids under young people.”

The Australian mental health system had been overwhelmed during the pandemic, Professor McGorry said, with GPs, headspace centres (which provide mental health services to 12 to 25-year-olds) and emergency departments inundated and the workforce dwindling and exhausted.

He called on the federal government to urgently invest in specialised early intervention back-up systems of care for the “missing middle” – those young people with severe mental health problems such as anorexia, early psychosis and personality disorders – that the 20 Medicare-subsidised psychology sessions could not fix.

“This is an urgent national priority,” he said.

While the Resolve poll found one in four respondents had suicidal thoughts, the latest Australian government figures show the number of people under 25 who died by suicide remained steady in the first year of the pandemic.

In 2020, 480 Australians under the age of 25 took their own lives, the same number as in 2019.

Resolve director Jim Reed said behind each statistic in the poll was a human story and the sheer scale of the issue was staggering.

“While we can only really be certain that a young person is experiencing a specific or serious problem with an expert diagnosis, surveys like this can capture a lot of people who have not attempted to get a formal diagnosis or for whom the symptoms are less severe,” he said.

A separate Resolve poll of 1414 people aged over 25, conducted a week earlier, found significantly less psychological distress among adults.

Forty-nine per cent of this cohort reported mental health issues during the pandemic compared with 82 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds, 13 per cent had thought about suicide (compared with 25 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds) and 3 per cent had attempted self-harm (compared with 15 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds).

“Ironically, few young people tell us they’re worried about vaccines or COVID itself, and for them social restrictions have been the major force,” Mr Reed said. “The cure has been worse than the disease for this age group.”

Isaac Percy, 23, from Camden in outer Sydney, said his anxiety was exacerbated by COVID-19 uncertainty and fear.

“It was really hard to be pulled away from my support network of friends … and not being able to go do things I enjoy like seeing live music.”

Australian Psychological Society CEO Dr Zena Burgess said the survey findings were sobering and tallied with the experiences of the society’s members.

“Eating disorders got worse, anxiety got worse, depression got worse and generally, all the self-esteem issues of adolescence and young adulthood got worse,” she said.

One in three psychologists have been so busy they have had to close their books, according to an Australian Psychological Society survey of its members last month, compared with one in 100 before the pandemic.

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/urgent-national-priority-pandemic-s-staggering-mental-toll-on-young-australians-20220318-p5a5v0.html

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US surgeon general worried COVID views being 'shut out' after Biden admin sought to 'flag' disinformation

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said on "Fox News Sunday" that he worries about differing points of view regarding COVID-19 being "shut out" of the national dialogue.

Speaking to Fox News anchor Trace Gallagher, Murthy was asked to address pushback from those who claim the government's response to COVID-19 has been too political.

Referencing how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has altered its guidance despite urging people to "follow the science," Gallagher noted how "if there were dissenting views on the science, then you were called out, you were called names from a lot of media outlets" at the start of the pandemic.

"Well, listen, what we have to do in this is understand that number one, science evolves," Murthy replied. "We learn new data, and that should inform our response and that's true, you know, with illnesses across the board.

"But what's also really important, Trace, is that we have the ability to have respectful, thoughtful dialogue with one another. I worry about the temperature rise in our dialogue about people being shut out in terms of their points of view being heard. We need to be able to hear all voices, we need to be able to respect one another.

"We need to be able to recognize that we may have to shift our path from time to time based on new data. Doesn't mean that people were wrong before. It just means that we've got to learn as we go," he continued.

"Because conformity is the enemy of sciences as everybody is taught," Gallagher responded.

Last July, White House press secretary Jen Psaki revealed that the White House was working with Murthy's office to "flag" posts on Facebook that allegedly conveyed COVID-19 disinformation.

"Within the Surgeon General's Office, we're flagging posts for Facebook that spread disinformation," Psaki said at the time. "We're working with doctors and medical professionals to connect medical experts with people, who are popular with their audiences with accurate information and boost trusted content. So, we're helping get trusted content out there. We also created the COVID Community Corps to get factual information into the hands of local messengers."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-surgeon-general-covid-views-shut-out

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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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The World Is Suffering From Mass Delusional Psychosis

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

* According to psychiatrist and medical legal expert Dr. Mark McDonald, the true public health crisis is not COVID-19 itself; rather, it’s the fear of the infection, which has “morphed and evolved into a form of mass delusional psychosis”

* Many enter a state of hysteria when they see an unmasked person, even if they look perfectly healthy and clearly are not suffering from any kind of respiratory issue. This is a highly irrational state that has no basis in reality

* Delusion is defined as believing something that doesn’t conform with reality

*There are serious concerns about the lasting effects this widespread insanity will have on children as they grow up. One of the worst traumas children suffer as a result of all this fearmongering is the idea that they may kill their parents or grandparents simply by being around them

* Treating the children’s trauma in therapy is not going to be enough, as parents and other adults are the ones creating the trauma by their own exaggerated fear response. To heal a generation of traumatized children, we must first address the psychosis of the adult population

A number of mental health experts have expressed concern over the blatant fear and panic mongering during the COVID-19 pandemic, warning about potential — and let’s face it, likely — psychiatric effects. In a December 22, 2020, article in Evie Magazine, S.G. Cheah discusses what may in fact be the real problem at hand: mass insanity caused by “delusional fear of COVID-19.”

Cheah refers to lectures and articles by psychiatrist and medical legal expert Dr. Mark McDonald, who believes “the true public health crisis lies in the widespread fear which morphed and evolved into a form of mass delusional psychosis.”

“Even when the statistics point to the extremely low fatality rate among children and young adults (measuring 0.002% at age 10 and 0.01% at 25), the young and the healthy are still terrorized by the chokehold of irrational fear when faced with the coronavirus,” Cheah writes.

Infectious Hysteria

Cheah goes on to review a number of irrational behaviors that have become all too commonplace, such as parents being kicked off planes because their young children refuse to wear a mask during the flight, or people having hysterical meltdowns when they see a person not wearing a mask.

The science is quite clear about the risk posed by asymptomatic individuals, meaning anyone who feels perfectly healthy yet may have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 with a PCR test set to an excessively high cycle threshold. They pose an exceptionally low risk to others, if any risk at all. Science is even clearer on healthy individuals who test negative for SARS-CoV-2. You simply cannot spread a virus you do not have.

The bulk of published science also shows that masks do not prevent the spread of viral infections, and this is particularly true if you’re wearing cloth masks, surgical masks or masks with vents.

Despite all of that, many still enter a state of hysteria when they see an unmasked person, even if they look perfectly healthy and clearly are not suffering from any kind of respiratory issue. This is a highly irrational state that has no basis in reality.

Indeed, according to McDonald, these people are suffering from delusional psychosis, and there are a lot of them. He goes so far as to refer to the outside of his home or office as the “outdoor insane asylum,” where he must assume “that any person that I run into is insane” unless they prove otherwise. As explained by Cheah:

“Instead of facing reality, the delusional person would rather live in their world of make-believe. But in order to keep faking reality, they’ll have to make sure that everyone else around them also pretends to live in their imaginary world.

In simpler words, the delusional person rejects reality. And in this rejection of reality, others have to play along with how they view the world, otherwise, their world will not make sense to them. It’s why the delusional person will get angry when they face someone who doesn’t conform to their world view

It’s one of the reasons why you’re seeing so many people who’d happily approve the silencing of any medical experts whose views contradict the WHO or CDC guidelines. ‘Obey the rules!’ becomes more important than questioning if the rules were legitimate to begin with.”

In his interview with Jesse Lee Peterson, McDonald explains his diagnosis this way:

“There was never a medical crisis. There were always enough resources to deal with the people who were sick … Many resources were in fact turned away … The question then, for me, became, ‘What’s the real crisis? What are people really suffering from?’

It became clear to me, very quickly, within the first two or three weeks in March [2020], that it was fear. Since then … the fear … has morphed and evolved, not just into a ‘I’m worried, I’m scared so I need to stay home,’ but an actual belief that is against reality — because the definition of delusion is something you believe that doesn’t conform with reality.

They believe that they are going to die — no matter what age, no matter what state of health they’re in — if they don’t leave their house with a mask and gloves on every day and run from [other] human beings. That’s delusional psychosis. It’s false, it’s wrong, it’s not backed up by evidence. And many, many Americans are living that and believing that.”

While there’s no data to back this up, McDonald says it appears women tend to be more prone to delusional psychosis than men. Part of it, he suggests, may be because when women get scared, they tend to become more hyperprotective than men under the same circumstances, likely because women — speaking in pure generalizing terms, of course — tend to be more emotionally driven.

Mass Delusional Psychosis Traumatizes Children

McDonald is particularly concerned with the lasting effects this widespread insanity will have on children as they grow up. As a psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of children and adolescents, he should know. Since the lockdowns began in the first quarter of 2020, he’s seen a massive increase in patients, and their mental states are far worse than what he’s used to seeing in these age groups.

One of the worst traumas children suffer as a result of all this fearmongering is the idea that they may kill their parents or grandparents simply by being around them. As noted by Cheah, they’re also being taught to feel guilty about behaviors that would normally be completely, well, normal.

Just one example is hysterical adults calling a toddler who refuses to wear a mask a “brat,” when in fact resisting having a restrictive mask put across your face is perfectly normal at that age.

“It’s not normal for children to grow up thinking that everyone is a danger to everyone else,” Cheah says, and rightly so. It’s not normal at all, and hysterical adults are mindlessly inflicting severe emotional trauma on an entire generation.

As noted by McDonald in his interview with Peterson above, a primary cause of depression, especially among youngsters, is disconnection from others. We need face-to-face contact, we need physical contact as well as emotional intimacy. We need these things to feel safe around others and within our own selves. Digital interactions simply cannot replace these most basic human needs, and are inherently separating rather than connective.

McDonald cites recent CDC statistics showing there’s been a 400% increase in adolescent depression compared to one year ago, and in 25% of cases, they’ve contemplated suicide. These are unheard of statistics, he says. Never before have so many teenagers considered committing suicide.

“This is a mass-casualty event,” McDonald says, and parents — adults — are to blame, because they are the ones scaring them to the point they don’t feel life is worth living anymore.

This is also why just treating the children is not going to be effective enough. We have to address the psychosis of the adult population. “It’s up to us adults to fix this,” McDonald says, “because children are not going to be able to fix this themselves.”

Delusional People Ultimately Require Controlled Environments
We must also address the mass delusion for another reason, and that is because it’s driving us all, sane and insane alike, toward a society devoid of all previous freedoms and civil liberties, and the corrupt individuals in charge will not voluntarily relinquish power once we’ve given it to them.

A totalitarian society, McDonald believes, is the ultimate end of this societal psychosis unless we do something about it and realize that “we’re fine, we’re perfectly safe.” Indeed, we’re in no more danger now than we were pre-COVID. We must not allow our freedoms to be taken from us due to delusional fears. As noted by Cheah in her article:

“It’s not unthinkable that the final outcome would be total societal control on every aspect of your life. Consider this — the endpoint of a mentally ill person is for them to be put under a controlled environment (institutionalized like an asylum) where all freedoms are restricted. And it’s looking more and more like that’s the endpoint of where this mass psychosis is heading.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-world-is-suffering-from-mass-delusional-psychosis_4350211.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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UK: People will riot if another full lockdown is enforced, top doctor warns - but admits some additional restrictions may be needed if hospitalisations and deaths continue to rise

Ministers risk sparking riots if they try to impose another lockdown, according to a leading doctor.

Professor Roger Kirby, president of the Royal Society of Medicine, said the public would not tolerate being deprived of their liberty on such a scale again.

However, he conceded that some additional restrictions may be needed if hospitalisations and deaths rise significantly due to the current surge, warning: ‘We are not out of the pandemic yet and must not risk becoming complacent.’

In an interview to mark two years since the first lockdown began on March 23, 2020, Prof Kirby said he thought the UK had acquitted itself well during the crisis.

But he added: ‘Locking down people again, I don’t think people would tolerate it again. There would be riots like there were in Belgium if they tried to do that.’

Doctors are concerned about a new wave triggered by social mixing and the rise of a more transmissible variant of Omicron called BA.2.

Case rates among the elderly are at the highest level recorded during the pandemic, with one in 29 people over 70 in England infected.

Hospitalisation rates are also rising, with about 1,900 Covid admissions per day across the UK – 50 per cent higher than a month ago –although roughly half are incidental where a patient has been admitted for another condition.

To blunt any spike, health bosses will start rolling out the spring booster vaccination campaign this week.

It will offer five million people, including all over-75s and those over 12 whose immune systems are weakened, the chance to receive a fourth dose. The first 600,000 invitations will go out in the coming days.

Addressing the Tory Spring conference in Blackpool yesterday, Boris Johnson urged people to take up the offer.

The Royal Society of Medicine will hold its 100th free webinar about Covid on March 31.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10631269/People-riot-lockdown-enforced-doctor-warns.html

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A Flu Bug’s Worst Enemy, It Chews Them Up and Spits Them Out

This is not well referenced so I am not sure how authoritative it is

Bump your levels of this to above 10% and you’ll make your body virtually flu-proof – causing these cells to basically chew up and spit out any infected cells it is in contact with. Here are 9 simple ways to ramp up your levels.

Story at-a-glance

Natural killer (NK) cells are a specific type of white blood cell. They’re an important component of your cell-mediated (innate) immune system and are involved in both viral diseases and cancer

NK cells are cytotoxic; they induce apoptosis (programmed cell death), which destroys the virus along with the infected cell
NK cells — which are not antigen-specific — contain the infection while your adaptive, humoral immune response generates T cells containing antigen-specific cytotoxins to clear the infection

KLRD1 is a receptor gene found on the surface of NK cells, and the level of KLRD1 found in a person’s blood prior to exposure to the influenza virus can predict whether that individual would contract the flu with 86% accuracy

People whose immune cells consisted of 10 to 13% NK cells remained disease free after exposure to the flu virus, whereas those below 10% became ill

Natural killer (NK) cells, a specific type of white blood cell, are an important component of your innate immune system. Your immune system consists of two different branches — cell-mediated immunity (innate) and humoral immunity (adaptive). When you contract a viral disease, the pathogen enters your body and infects your cells.

The subsequent disease process involves your cell-mediated immune response, which activates your NK cells, along with chemicals that attract them to the site of infection, where the white blood cells basically chew up and spit out the infected cells. This process clears the virus and rejuvenates the gel-like water inside your cells.

During recovery, your humoral immune system kicks in and starts generating antibodies against the virus to help prevent the same kind of disease process and symptoms from occurring again, should you be exposed to the same virus later on. As long as your cell-mediated immune system is activated first and the humoral immune system is activated second, you will have long-lasting immunity against that pathogen.

On a side note, naturally acquired herd immunity in a population comes into play when a very high percentage of individuals have gone through this sequence of cell-mediated and humoral immune response. This sequence is not followed during vaccination, which is why vaccine-induced “herd immunity” is a misnomer.

As explained in one 2008 paper on the functions of NK cells:

“NK cells are effector lymphocytes of the innate immune system that control several types of tumors and microbial infections by limiting their spread and subsequent tissue damage … NK cells are also regulatory cells engaged in reciprocal interactions with dendritic cells, macrophages, T cells and endothelial cells. NK cells can thus limit or exacerbate immune responses.

Although NK cells might appear to be redundant in several conditions of immune challenge in humans, NK cell manipulation seems to hold promise in efforts to improve hematopoietic and solid organ transplantation, promote antitumor immunotherapy and control inflammatory and autoimmune disorders.”

NK cells are cytotoxic, meaning they’re capable of killing cells. Tiny granules in the cytoplasm contain granzymes — special proteins such as perforin and proteases. Perforin, hinting at the functional basis of its name, perforates the cell membrane of the cell targeted for elimination, allowing the proteins and other chemicals to enter, thereby inducing apoptosis (programmed cell death) that destroys the virus along with the infected cell.

In this manner, NK cells — which are not antigen-specific — contain the infection while your adaptive, humoral immune response generates T cells containing antigen-specific cytotoxins to clear the infection. Put another way, the NK cells keep viral replication in check while the adaptive arm of your immune system “learns” the properties of the virus and creates antibodies to match.

Research confirms that when you are deficient in NK cells, you’re far more susceptible to viral infections, and likely tumor formation as well. NK cells also help regulate your immune system by producing cytokines, signaling molecules that stimulate and regulate other immune system cells.

Since NK cells have the ability to differentiate between normal, healthy cells and abnormal cells, such as those infected by a virus or that have turned cancerous, scientists are looking for ways to enhance NK cell function as a way to improve the effectiveness of cancer treatments. The good news is there are many ways to boost the number and function of your NK cells

https://www.theepochtimes.com/a-flu-bugs-worst-enemy-it-chews-them-up-and-spits-them-out_4336040.html

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New AstraZeneca drug that slashes Covid risk is approved

A drug that cuts the risk of developing Covid for the most vulnerable by 77 per cent after just two injections has been approved by the medicines regulator.

Evusheld, which is manufactured by AstraZeneca, has been approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) as a preventative treatment for the virus for those who are immunocompromised or unable to have a Covid vaccination.

Around 500,000 people in the UK are immunocompromised or suppressed, meaning they are less likely to mount a strong immune response to the vaccine.

One dose of Evusheld, which is given as two injections, has been found to reduce the risk of developing symptomatic Covid-19 by 77 per cent, according to clinical trials, and the protection lasts for at least six months.

It has been authorised for use before a patient is exposed to the risk of Covid in order to prevent disease, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis.

The drug is a combination of two long-acting antibodies which bind to the spike protein on the outside of the virus, preventing it from attaching to and entering human cells.

Dr June Raine, MHRA Chief Executive said after “careful review” of the data the drug has been approved “to help protect against the effects of Covid-19”.

She said: “While the Covid-19 vaccines continue to be the first-line defence against Covid-19, we know that some people may not respond adequately to these vaccines and for a small number of individuals Covid-19 vaccines may not be recommended for other reasons, such as a previous allergic reaction to one of the vaccine ingredients.

“For these people, Evusheld could provide effective protection against Covid-19.”

It is understood the UK currently does not have any doses of Evushelf on order, but the government’s Therapeutics Taskforce is actively engaging with AstraZeneca before making further decisions.

MHRA said there is not yet enough data to know if the drug is effective against Omicron and it will continue to work with the manufacturer to establish this.

In December Sir Mene Pangalos, head of research and development for AstraZeneca, suggested it would protect against the variant.

"Consistent data ... now provide confidence that Evusheld, a combination of two highly potent antibodies, retains neutralising activity against the omicron variant at a level that will continue to provide benefit to patients,” he said.

Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed, the chairman of the Commission on Human Medicines, said the commission was “satisfied” that the medicine meets the “expected standards” for approval.

He added: “The recommended dosage is 300mg of Evusheld, but a higher dose of 600mg may be more appropriate for some Covid-19 variants. All this is outlined in the summary of product characteristics.

“Pre-exposure prophylaxis with Evusheld is not a substitute for vaccination in individuals for whom Covid-19 vaccination is recommended.”

Gemma Peters, the chief executive of Blood Cancer UK, welcomed the approval of the drug but said the Government is still yet to set out plans for how it would be used in the UK.

"For some time, we have been urging the Government to set out its approach to using preventative treatments for people who have not responded well to the vaccines, and it is disappointing that it has not yet done so," she said.

"We hope the MHRA’s approval of Evusheld will prompt a sense of government urgency on this that has so far been lacking. Many people with blood cancer have now spent almost two years avoiding social interaction – the Government needs to do more to support them to be able to start getting back to normal."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/17/new-astrazeneca-drug-slashes-covid-risk-approved/

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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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