Virtually no patients infected with either the BA.1 or BA.2 sublineages experienced symptoms or disease

Academic journal article below

COVID-19 Disease Severity in Persons Infected With Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 Sublineages and Association With Vaccination Status

Adeel A. Butt et al.

Infection with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant is associated with less severe disease compared with the Delta variant.1-3 Two main Omicron sublineages—BA.1 and BA.2—have variable geographic distribution. In Qatar, BA.1 was initially predominant but was quickly replaced by BA.2 as the predominant sublineage. This study sought to determine and compare the severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection among persons infected with these sublineages.

Methods

The study was approved by the institutional review boards of the Hamad Medical Corporation, Weill Cornell Medicine−Qatar, and Qatar University. A waiver of informed consent was granted because of the retrospective nature of the data retrieval. This retrospective cohort study followed Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) reporting guideline.

Using the national COVID-19 database in Qatar, we identified all COVID-19 infections diagnosed between December 19, 2021, and February 6, 2022, in adults (≥18 years). We matched each patient with BA.1 infection with a patient with BA.2 infection, including by age, sex, nationality, comorbidities, and vaccination status. Additional analyses were conducted after excluding all persons with a prior documented infection and all vaccinated persons. The primary outcome was COVID-19 case severity, criticality, and fatality using the World Health Organization guidelines4,5 as assessed by trained medical personnel who reviewed the patients’ medical charts.

Based on national surveillance data, infections between December 19, 2021, and February 6, 2022, were classified as Omicron infections. The BA.1 sublineage infection was proxied as S-gene target failure (SGTF) using the TaqPath COVID-19 Combo Kit (Thermo-Fisher Scientific) while BA.2 sublineage was proxied as a non−SGTF.

Results

From 24 301 total cases of BA.1 and 125 687 of BA.2, we were able to form 20 812 matched pairs of patients (median age [IQR], 35.0 [28.0-44.0] years; 47.9% women; 85.5% with no comorbidities). Of this final sample, 18.7% of patients were unvaccinated and 8.8% had received a booster dose in each group. Severe, critical, or fatal outcomes were recorded in 33 (0.2%) of patients with BA.1 and 36 (0.2%) of those with BA.2 (P = .25; Table 1). All patients with BA.1 and 35 of 36 (97.2%) with BA.2 were among those who had not received a booster dose (Table 1). In conditional logistic regression analyses accounting for exact matching, vaccination with 2 vaccine doses more than 3 months prior to infection (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.22; 95% CI, 0.13-0.36) or with a booster dose (aOR, 0.02; 95% CI, 0.00-0.14) were associated with a significantly lower risk of any composite severe, critical, or fatal outcomes. Prior natural infection was not associated with a lower risk of these outcomes (aOR, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.04-2.14; Table 2); stratification by the sublineage yielded similar results.

We repeated the analyses after excluding those with prior documented SARS-CoV-2 infection and those who were vaccinated. The results mirrored our primary analyses, with a lower risk among the vaccinated, particularly among patients who had received a booster dose.

Discussion

The findings of this study provide reassurances at multiple levels. First, 99.8% to 99.9% of patients infected with either the BA.1 or BA.2 sublineages experienced no symptoms or mild disease. Second, there was no difference in the severity of illness between BA.1 and BA.2 sublineages infections. Among individuals who had received a booster vaccine dose, only 1 person experienced any severe, critical, or fatal outcome.

This study’s data set was derived from the Qatar National COVID-19 database with complete polymerase chain reaction testing and vaccination records. Outcomes were obtained from individual medical charts by trained independent reviewers. However, BA.1 and BA.2 sublineage ascertainment was based on proxy criteria—presence or absence of SGTF using the TaqPath Kit.6 Some Omicron infections may have been misclassified as Delta infections, but this is unlikely because Delta incidence was low during the study.

In conclusion, SARS-CoV-2 infection with the Omicron variant sublineages BA.1 and BA.2 was rarely associated with severe, critical, or fatal disease. There is no discernable difference in severity of BA.1 vs BA.2 infections. Risk of severity is further mitigated by vaccination, particularly the receipt of a booster dose.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2795326

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Fauci, a flawed figurehead

So farewell, Anthony Fauci, the unfortunate face of America’s pandemic response. Well, not so unfortunate – the doctor is stepping down as head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases this December, riding off into the sunset with a reported $350,000 per year golden parachute, the largest pension in US federal history.

Fauci has developed something of a reputation for baffling the public – whether it be for contradictory advice on the efficacy of masks or herd immunity or vaccines. Even his resignation announcement was confusing:

I will be leaving these positions in December of this year to pursue the next chapter of my career… While I am moving on from my current positions, I am not retiring.

Fauci will be 82 in December. America’s gerontocracy just refuses to budge. In fairness, Fauciwasa pretty good doctor in his prime. Republicans tried to attack him over his handling of Aids, but his record on that public health crisis stacks up pretty well.

During the Covid pandemic, however, Fauci made the mistake a lot of experts made: he equated himself with the entire concept of science as a way of giving his pronouncements an aura of infallibility. ‘Irepresent science,’ he said, as a response to criticism after he repeatedly said his institute didn’t fund ‘gain of function’ virology research in Wuhan, when in fact it did.

Of course Fauci wasn’t the evil mastermind that so many deranged cynics say he was – even if he did dismiss the idea that Covid originated in a lab as a mad conspiracy theory when private emails suggested he may well have known otherwise. Maybe Fauci was just a lot like Donald Trump or Joe Biden: old, faltering, and heavily influenced by the people around him – someone who craved public approval above all. The boring truth about him probably isn’t that he is involved in any sinister conspiracy, it’s that he ignored evidence that didn’t help him and got swept along by a wider zeitgeist instead.

Much like Biden, Fauci perfectly represents that stubborn generation of Americans who have been running their country for decades. As their competence and faculties fade, their grip on power only tightens.He became head of NIAID at just 43, then held the role for almost 40 years.

Fauci appeared to enjoy being the main character of this pandemic rather too much. Commentators fawned over him when he looked so conspicuously uncomfortable next to Trump in those now infamous press conferences when the President rambled wildly about the virus.

Fauci fandom quickly reached cultish levels. The Mayor of Washington, DC said his birthday should renamed ‘Dr. Anthony S. Fauci Day’. He appeared on the cover of Time magazine twice. He also appeared on the cover of magazines such People, InStyle and others. But, like health experts almost everywhere else, Fauci simply pinballed from one official narrative to another. Often there was little to no change in the actual science, just a war-time sense that the public must be scared or reassured for their own good.

In February 2020, he warned that 20 per cent of Covid cases would require hospitalisation, a blunder (shared by many) that did more than anything to fuel the mass lockdowns of spring 2020. In March, Fauci criticised masks for the – accurate, it turns out – reason that face coverings don’t really do much other than make people ‘feel’ safer. He then said his real priority was saving masks for health workers. By summer, however, he had become a big masking fan. In May 2020, he said ‘I want to make it be a symbol for people to see that that’s the kind of thing you should be doing,’ By 2021, Fauci said that the bizarre practice of double masking was ‘common sense’.

At times, Fauci almost admitted that he was essentially making up health advice to manipulate the public into doing what he decided was best. For instance, when it came to herd immunity, Fauci said: ‘When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 per cent… Then, when newer surveys said 60 per cent or more would take it, I thought, “I can nudge this up a bit,” so I went to 80, 85.

But Fauci’s biggest blunder probably wasn’t anything specific he said about masks, or infection rates, or vaccines. It was his broader failure to speak scientific sense when he had the visibility and credibility to at least try. He could have pointed out that cyclical lockdowns for years on end were ineffective and unworkable, but he never really did. He could have called out the hypocritical idea that the Black Lives Matter protests or riots ought somehow to be exempt from social distancing regulations because they were politically fashionable. But he didn’t.

Angry right-wingers now babble about arresting Fauci or suggest that his retirement is an attempt to dodge Congressional testimony after the midterms. Democrats, meanwhile, write mad children’s books about him. His fans and his enemies give him too much credit. In the end, Fauci didn’t actually create mask guidelines or impose lockdowns. He wasn’t doing any substantial work on creating or testing a vaccine. He just became the mascot for a kind of Covid mania. And he loved every second.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/farewell-st-anthony-fauci

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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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Ron DeSantis will save conservatism

Trump again with DeSantis as veep would be an unstoppable force

There is an inevitability to Ron DeSantis’ rise to power that terrifies Democrat leaders. He is not an unstable political storm, loitering off the coast in fits of distant thunder and light. There are plenty of populist noise-makers whose swift media rise whittles to nothing within the year. They either lack the political fortitude to survive or are set upon by well-organised mobs of censorial algorithms and aggressive media outlets that see ‘clicks’ in the demise of White House hopefuls.

DeSantis is the tide, waiting for the political forces to align in his favour. Challenging Trump would be as damaging as William usurping the Queen and so, unlike the raucous of his ‘never-Trump’ peers, DeSantis busies himself with the State of Florida. His patience is marked by victories in an ongoing culture war against malign progressive thinking. He has proven, beyond question, that strength of character and an abandonment of ‘polite’ acquiescence is key to protecting the nation’s children from predatory ideologies.

While limp conservative parties in Europe, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia paint themselves green and pick up the cross of Marxist ‘struggle’, DeSantis rests on the premise that fighting for traditional values is right – presently, historically, and for the future.

He rejects, outright, the notion of handing children over to the medical profession to be sliced and set on a permanent course of medical intervention. He refuses to follow Democrat Governors in allowing the State and education system to assume authority over the mental health of other people’s children – or to use children as an infant cheer squad to ‘affirm’ the feelings of activist adults who treat the school system as their personal therapy session.

Florida’s don’t say ‘gay’ bill – now law – caused all manner of uproar. In reality, all it did was reset the education system to the same state of normality that we grew up with where teachers were not allowed to indoctrinate children, either subtly or directly, into the adult ideas of gender and sexual orientation at primary grade levels.

Why would a responsible adult teacher wish to do this when there was never any need to?

A cursory look at the teacher Tik Tok culture reveals that in many cases, it is more about how the teacher ‘feels’ when their class parrots activist terms rather than the future mental health of those children.

Children under the care of activists frequently end up wrongly confused during an age where it is not uncommon for them to believe they are animals and superheroes. Imagination without maturity makes children naturally delusional – which is perfectly healthy so long as they are surrounded by responsible adults who allow ‘play’ within the boundaries of reason. They must and will grow out of the belief that they are ‘literally Batman’.

The Guardian writes:

"It [the Bill] was designed to do one thing and one thing only: terrorise LGBTQ+ people. Like Texas’s abortion bounty law, the don’t say gay bill gives parents the power to levy lawsuits against teachers or schools they believe contravene the deliberately broad law. The threat of being hit with a costly lawsuit means that it’s likely underfunded school districts will err on the side of caution and ask teachers to avoid saying or doing anything that could be possibly be construed as queer. Indeed, lawyers have already told teachers in Orange county public schools that they should be careful not to wear rainbows; avoid mentioning same-sex spouses or displaying any pictures of them; and ensure they remove safe-space stickers from their classroom doors".

To which parents in Florida would argue that their children have been wrongly terrorised by the previous inappropriate behaviour of teachers who felt it necessary to bring their personal lives and activism into the classroom where it wasn’t wanted, needed, or appropriate.

Under such attacks from the press, an Australian conservative party would have folded immediately, fooled by the emotive language, and been swiftly herded into reverse until they were not only agreeing with progressive demands but promising to ‘go further’.

No matter how much the activist class complain, it is Ron DeSantis who receives standing ovations and the support of fed-up parents. His Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Bill cleverly acronymed to Stop WOKE has infuriated Marxists because it prevents them from telling children they are ‘victims’ or ‘oppressors’ based on their skin colour, or inherently ‘sexist’ because they are boys.

It outlaws teachers suggesting that people are:

‘Inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; that people are privileged or oppressed based on race, gender, or national origin; or that a person “bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” over actions committed in the past by members of the same race, gender, or national origin. The law defines such training as discrimination.’

Well, it’s about bloody time someone cut out the racist, sexist, Marxist garbage that indulges in the horrific folly of ‘original sin’ and sets in motion a perpetual tribal culture of struggle based on things that never happened to today’s people. In other words, the Marxists are furious that they cannot instil their personal grudges in the minds of innocent children and use them as child soldiers for the ‘revolution’ against capitalism that they desperately want despite showing no desire to go and live in one of the many communist countries on offer.

Instead of complaining about the law, the Left should have sat themselves down and asked why the hell they wanted to corrupt the minds of kids and destroy the peace of innocence to sate their old-fashioned collectivist politics that destroyed Europe last century.

Oh, the irony that the World Socialist Web Site calls this return to common sense ‘fascism’ when the shadow of fascism is exactly what the Left propose. Racial power movements like Black Lives Matter that practice racial supremacy under the raised fist of Marxism and have no place in any school, let alone a civilised society.

Bewilderingly, the courts are fighting to uphold racial discrimination by insisting that workplaces should be allowed to teach about ‘white male privilege’. Hopefully, they lose and racism is thrown out for good.

DeSantis has shown conservatives around the world that while their voter base may be too timid to oppose the fists, censorship, and bullying of progressive social warriors – they do not agree with what has happened to society. When they are given a choice to follow a true leader who has the courage to challenge the destruction of Western Civilisation, conservative voters line up, ready to vote.

Eventually, DeSantis will appear as an unstoppable red wave.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/08/ron-desantis-will-save-conservatism/

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Are Conservatives Dumber Than Liberals?

This article goes back a few years but is still very relevant

It depends on how you define "conservative." The research shows classical liberals/libertarians are smartest of all.

Conservatives exhibit less cognitive ability than liberals do. Or that's what it says in the social science literature, anyway. A 2010 study using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, for example, found that the IQs of young adults who described themselves as "very liberal" averaged 106.42, whereas the mean of those who identified as "very conservative" was 94.82. Similarly, when a 2009 study correlated cognitive capacity with political beliefs among 1,254 community college students and 1,600 foreign students seeking entry to U.S. universities, it found that conservatism is "related to low performance on cognitive ability tests." In 2012, a paper reported that people endorse more conservative views when drunk or under cognitive pressure; it concluded that "political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought."

So have social scientists really proved that conservatives are dumber than liberals? It depends crucially on how you define "conservative."

For an inkling of what some social scientists think conservatives believe, parse a 2008 study by the University of Nevada at Reno sociologist Markus Kemmelmeier. To probe the political and social beliefs of nearly 7,000 undergraduates at an elite university, Kemmelmeier devised a set of six questions asking whether abortion, same-sex marriage, and gay sex should be legal, whether handguns and racist/sexist speech on campus should be banned, and whether higher taxes should be imposed on the wealthy. The first three were supposed to measure the students' views of "conservative gender roles," and the second set was supposed to gauge their "anti-regulation" beliefs. Kemmelmeier clearly thought that "liberals" would tend to be OK with legal abortion, same-sex marriage, and gay sex, and would opt to ban handguns and offensive speech and to tax the rich. Conservatives would supposedly hold the opposite views.

Savvy readers may recognize a problem with using these questions to sort people into just two ideological categories. And sure enough, Kemmelmeier got some results that puzzled him. He found that students who held more traditional views on gender and sex roles averaged lower on their verbal SAT and Achievement Test scores. "Surprisingly," he continued, this was not true of students with anti-regulation attitudes. With them, "all else being equal, more conservative respondents scored higher than more liberal respondents." Kemmelmeier ruefully notes that "this result was not anticipated" and "diametrically contradicts" the hypothesis that conservatism is linked to lower cognitive ability. Kemmelmeier is so evidently lost in the intellectual fog of contemporary progressivism that he does not realize that his questionnaire is impeccably designed to identify classical liberals, a.k.a. libertarians, who endorse liberty in both the social and economic realms.

So how smart are libertarians compared to liberals and conservatives? In a May 2014 study in the journal Intelligence, the Oxford sociologist Noah Carl attempts to answer to that question. Because research has "consistently shown that intelligence is positively correlated with socially liberal beliefs and negatively correlated with religious beliefs," Carl suggests that in the American political context, social scientists would expect Republicans to be less intelligent than Democrats. Instead, Republicans have slightly higher verbal intelligence scores (2–5 IQ points) than Democrats. How could that be?

Carl begins by pointing out that there is data suggesting that a segment of the American population holding classical liberal beliefs tends to vote Republican. Classical liberals, Carl notes, believe that an individual should be free to make his own lifestyle choices and to enjoy the profits derived from voluntary transactions with others. He proposes that intelligence actually correlates with classically liberal beliefs.

To test this hypothesis, Carl uses data on political attitudes and intelligence derived from the General Social Survey, which has been administered to representative samples of American adults every couple of years since 1972. Using GSS data, respondents are classified on a continuum ranging from strong Republican through independent to strong Democrat. Carl then creates a measure of socially liberal beliefs based on respondents' attitudes toward homosexuality, marijuana consumption, abortion, and free speech for communists, racists, and advocates for military dictatorship. He similarly probes liberal economic views, with an assessment of attitudes toward government provision of jobs, industry subsidies, income redistribution, price controls, labor unions, and military spending. Verbal Intelligence is evaluated using the GSS WORDSUM test results.

Comparing strong Republicans with strong Democrats, Carl finds that Republicans have a 5.48 IQ point advantage over Democrats. Broadening party affiliation to include moderate to merely leaning respondents still results in a Republican advantage of 3.47 IQ points and 2.47 IQ points respectively. Carl reconciles his findings with the social science literature that reports that liberals are more intelligent than conservatives by proposing that Americans with classically liberal beliefs are even smarter. Carl further reports that those who endorse both social conservatism and economic statism also have lower verbal IQ scores.

"Overall, my findings suggest that higher intelligence among classically liberal Republicans compensates for lower intelligence among socially conservative Republicans," concludes Carl. If the dumb, I mean socially conservative, Republicans keep disrespecting us classical liberals, we'll take our IQ points and go home.

As gratifying as Carl's research findings are, it is still a deep puzzle to me why it apparently takes high intelligence to understand that the government should stay out of both the bedroom and the boardroom.

https://reason.com/2014/06/13/are-conservatives-dumber-than-liberals/

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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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Lawsuits Coming for Entities That Don’t Change COVID Mandates After CDC Update: Lawyer

Entities with COVID-19 vaccine mandates that don’t pay heed to the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance will face lawsuits, a civil liberties lawyer says.

“We don’t have a new lawsuit in the works yet. But if we see that colleges and universities and public employers are not responding to the new CDC guidance the way that they should be, then we would certainly tee up a new lawsuit,” Mark Chenoweth, president and general counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, told The Epoch Times.

The response to the updated guidance should be, at a minimum, a lifting of mandates for people who have recovered from COVID-19, he added.

Such people have a high level of protection against severe illness and death, according to a number of studies. Many studies indicate the protection is higher than that of the COVID-19 vaccines—including one study funded by the CDC.

The CDC issued updated guidance on Aug. 11, stating in part that risk for illness from COVID-19 “is considerably reduced by immunity derived from vaccination, previous infection, or both” and that “persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.”

The public health agency rolled back quarantine recommendations for people, regardless of vaccination status, citing the high amount of immunity in the U.S. population from vaccination, prior infection, or both.

Since virtually all entities that have imposed mandates have cited CDC guidance, the entities won’t be able to argue they aren’t aware of the updated guidance, according to Chenoweth.

That means any institution that doesn’t alter or rescind its mandate in light of the update “is ripe for a lawsuit,” he said.

“Because the thing that the judges have said so far is that it was rational for these employers to follow CDC guidance, but now the CDC guidance is different. And if they’re now going forward with these mandates for example, against people who have natural immunity in the teeth of the CDC guidance on that question, then I think it’s going to be much harder for them to win even a rational basis challenge to their policies.”

Suits

The New Civil Liberties Alliance has brought lawsuits against Michigan State University (MSU), the U.S. government, Fairfax County Public Schools, George Mason University, and Rhode Island officials over mandates that the legal group says are illegal.

They have focused on how entities aren’t granting exemptions to people with proof that they’ve recovered from COVID-19.

While one of the cases won the plaintiff an exemption from the mandate, judges have ruled against many others, often tracing the mandates to CDC guidance.

“Plaintiffs have the burden of negating every rational basis that supports the MSU vaccine mandate, and the Court finds that they have failed to do so,” U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in February as he dismissed the suit.

“CDC guidance is clear: ‘[V]accination remains the safest and primary strategy to prevent SARS-CoV2 infections,'” he added. “In achieving MSU’s stated legitimate goal of protecting its students and staff from COVID-19, it was plainly rational, in July 2021 when MSU established the policy, for MSU to rely on CDC guidance and require its students and staff to receive the COVID vaccination.”

The CDC has long maintained that vaccination is superior to natural immunity, and urged people with natural immunity to get vaccinated, even though many studies show that natural immunity provides better protection than vaccination and some suggest that people who recovered from COVID-19 are at higher risk of side effects if they do get a vaccine.

Moreover, some experts say getting vaccinated after recovery doesn’t make sense because the increase in protection is negligible, though others say the increase is worth the risk.

Could Have Changed in 2021

Chenoweth said the CDC should have updated its guidance in 2021. “I think it’s remarkable that it’s taken the CDC this long to come around to admitting the science on this topic. The science was there at least a year ago when we started litigating the issue of whether or not folks with natural immunity should be subjected to vaccine mandates,” he said.

A CDC spokeswoman told The Epoch Times in an email that the update was based on having more tools such as treatments than were available in 2020 and “the reality that nearly the entire U.S. adult population now has some level of immunity, either due to vaccination, past infection, or both.”

“We also have a better understanding of who is at higher risk for getting very sick with COVID-19 and ways we can help protect them from severe disease. With more tools to protect ourselves and our communities from severe illness from COVID-19—like vaccination, boosters, and treatments—we have increased protection and flexibility for the future. CDC’s commitment to addressing COVID-19 is strong and as a nation, we continue to respond to evolving challenges and identify best practices related to COVID-19,” she added.

The spokesperson didn’t respond when asked why the guidance wasn’t updated in 2021.

Chenoweth said courts would be made aware of the new guidance, including the appeals court weighing the appeal in the MSU case. In another case, for Dr. Stephen Skoly Jr., a surgeon in Rhode Island, the update will be incorporated into an amended complaint

https://www.theepochtimes.com/lawsuits-coming-for-entities-that-dont-change-covid-mandates-after-cdc-update-lawyer_4667572.html

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Approved versions of vaccines now Available for 1st Time in United States

A small number of Comirnaty and Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine doses have become available in the United States in recent weeks, according to court filings and U.S. health departments.

Vials of vaccines labeled Comirnaty started being available to members of the U.S. military in May and tens of thousands of the vials have since been ordered, according to military officials. Dozens of vials were spotted at a clinic in Alaska in June, according to a Coast Guard officer.

Several states, meanwhile, confirmed to The Epoch Times that providers are now able to order the vials.

Comirnaty is the approved version of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. Spikevax is the approved version of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. Approval means drug regulators granted a biologics license application (BLA). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2021 approved Comirnaty for adults 16 and older, and in January approved Spikevax for individuals 18 and up. Before that, the vaccines were available under emergency use authorization (EUA).

The differences matter due to federal law. A biologics license requires a higher threshold of evidence, and certain aspects of emergency clearance don’t apply to approved products.

Even after the approvals were issued, no approved versions were available in the United States, according to the vaccine makers and federal and state officials.

Military members, among others, have cited the unavailability of Comirnaty and Spikevax in legal actions against COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

One lawsuit, for instance, said that “the only currently available COVID-19 vaccines are authorized under EUA only, and therefore cannot be mandated.”

Thousands of Doses

U.S. regulators and health officials say the approved versions of the vaccines have the same formulations as the older versions, and that the versions are interchangeable. At the same time, the versions “are legally distinct with certain differences,” according to the letters of approval.

The FDA has declined to explain what that means, while a Pfizer spokesperson told The Epoch Times previously that it refers to the differences in manufacturing information included in the submissions for authorization and approval.

Military officials have defended the COVID-19 vaccine mandate despite Comirnaty and, later, Spikevax not being available by claiming that the older versions can be treated as if they’re the licensed versions, a claim challenged in legal cases.

They’re maintaining that position, but also asserting that objections to the mandate centered on the vaccines’ availability are no longer relevant.

“While it is the Defendants’ position that all EUA-authorized Pfizer-BioNTech doses for adults are interchangeable for the purposes of the mandate to vaccine, in order to address Plaintiffs’ assertions they were unable to obtain a Comirnaty or BLA-manufactured doses, I wanted to confirm in writing that any of the Plaintiffs still subject to the mandate may receive the Comirnaty-labeled vaccine,” Amy Elizabeth Powell, a government lawyer, said in an email in June to lawyers for service members challenging the mandate.

At the time, over 35,000 doses had been obtained by the military, with 3,300 available at specific bases.

The disclosures that Comirnaty has become available were made in the case Coker et al v. Austin et al.

States have also recently been able to start ordering vials of Comirnaty and Spikevax for the first time.

The Delaware Department of Health has ordered 300 doses of Comirnaty, but has not administered any due to lack of demand, a spokesperson for the department told The Epoch Times in an email.

South Carolina received over 38,000 doses of Comirnaty and nearly 53,000 doses of Spikevax, and has enabled health care providers to order them from the state, a spokesperson for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control told The Epoch Times in an email.

Providers in Arizona can also order the doses from the Arizona Department of Health Services, a spokesperson for the agency told The Epoch Times in an email, and some providers have already ordered some.

“There is supply to meet the demand. Because these vaccines are identical to the EUA-branded presentations, and because there are still large stocks available in the state, very few Spikevax/Comirnaty doses have been ordered,” the spokesperson said.

States order vaccines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which makes them available for no cost.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/comirnaty-spikevax-become-available-for-first-time-in-the-united-states_4677575.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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Effects of lockdown could be causing more deaths than Covid

The effects of lockdown could be causing more deaths than Covid as nearly 10,000 more deaths than the five-year average are recorded, ONS data has found.

Released on Tuesday, the Office for National Statistics' figures for excess deaths in the UK has revealed that about 1,000 more people than usual are dying each week from illnesses and conditions other than Covid.

This makes the rate for excess deaths 14.4 per cent higher than the five-year average, meaning 1,350 more people have died than usual in the week ending 5 August.

Covid-related deaths made up for 469 of them, but the remaining 881 have 'not been explained'. Since the start of June, nearly 10,000 more deaths unrelated to Covid have been recorded than the five-year average, making up around 1,089 per week.

This figure is over three times the number of people who died from Covid, 2,811, over the same period.

ONS analysis takes into consideration the ageing population changes, yet still found a 'substantial ongoing excess'.

The Telegraph has reported that the Department of Health may have ordered an investigation into the concerning numbers as there is potential for them to be linked to the delays in medical treatment as a result of the ongoing strain on the NHS.

Lockdowns pushed back treatment for conditions including cancer, diabetes and heart disease, with the British Heart Foundation telling the publication it was 'deeply concerned' by the findings.

The Stroke Association said it had been anticipating the rise in deaths for some time.

Noting a 'disturbing' number of mental health conditions, undetected cancers and cardiac problems, chief executive of private GP service Doctorcall Dr Charles Levinson said: 'Hundreds and hundreds of people dying every week, what's going on?

'Delays in seeking and receiving healthcare are no doubt the driving force, in my view. Daily Covid statistics demanded the nation's attention, yet these terrifying figures barely get a look in. A full and urgent government investigation is required immediately,' he told the Telegraph.

Only last week England-wide statistics showed that emergency care standards in hospitals hit an all-time low, with over 20,000 patients facing a 12+ hour wait for medical treatment.

People with mild Covid are likely to be infectious for an average of five days, a new study estimates.

Only one in five people in the study were infectious before symptoms started, it was suggested.

According to the research, two-thirds of cases were still infectious five days after symptoms began, with a quarter still infectious at seven days.

The study, led by Imperial College London and published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal, is the first to reveal how long infectiousness lasts after coronavirus infection in the community.

Detailed daily tests were conducted from when people were exposed to the virus to look at how much virus they were shedding throughout their infection.

The findings indicate that lateral flow tests do not reliably detect the start of infectiousness, but can be used to safely shorten self-isolation.

The researchers recommend people with Covid-19 isolate for five days after symptoms begin and do lateral flow tests from the sixth day.

If tests are negative two days in a row, it is safe to leave isolation, they say. However, if someone continues to test positive, they should isolate while testing positive but may leave isolation 10 days after their symptoms began.

Current NHS guidance suggests that people should try to stay at home and avoid contact with others for just five days.

Study author, Professor Ajit Lalvani, director of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Respiratory Infections at Imperial, said: 'Before this study we were missing half of the picture about infectiousness, because it's hard to know when people are first exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and when they first become infectious.

'By using special daily tests to measure infectious virus (not just PCR) and daily symptom records, we were able to define the window in which people are infectious.

'This is fundamental to controlling any pandemic and has not been previously defined for any respiratory infection in the community.'

He added: 'Combining our results with what we know about the dynamics of Omicron infections, we believe that the duration of infectiousness we've observed is broadly generalisable to current SARS-CoV-2 variants, though their infectious window may be a bit shorter.

'Our evidence can be used to inform infection control policies and self-isolation guidance to help reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2.'

The new study followed people who were exposed to someone with PCR-confirmed Covid in their home between September 2020 and March 2021 and May-October 2021, including some who were vaccinated and others who were not.

Samples from a total of 57 people were used, but the duration of infectiousness was only measured in 42 people. There were 38 people with a confirmed date of when their symptoms started and three were asymptomatic.

Professor Lalvani said: 'Self-isolation is not necessary by law, but people who want to isolate need clear guidance on what to do.

'The NHS currently advises that if you test positive for Covid-19 you should try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for five days, but our data suggest that under a crude five-day self-isolation period two-thirds of cases released into the community would still be infectious - though their level of infectiousness would have substantially reduced compared to earlier in the course of their infection.'

He continued: 'Our study finds that infectiousness usually begins soon after you develop Covid-19 symptoms.

'We recommend that anyone who has been exposed to the virus and has symptoms isolates for five days, then uses daily lateral flow tests to safely leave isolation when two consecutive daily tests are negative.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11125573/Effects-lockdown-causing-deaths-Covid.html

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Vaccine mandates no longer justified

For almost three years, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stubbornly refused to admit that infection with Sars-CoV-2 provides robust immunity which is broader and more enduring than vaccine-acquired immunity, even though this had been demonstrated in numerous studies.

It meant that people who had infection-acquired immunity – often healthcare workers – were still forced to get vaccinated or lose their jobs. Sometimes the consequences were disastrous. Bobby Bolin who had recovered from Covid was on a list for a double-lung transplant but was forced to be double vaccinated, and developed a pulmonary embolism and atrial fibrillation after his second Moderna shot which killed him.

On 11 August, with no explanation or apology, the CDC quietly made the long-overdue reversal and also belatedly recognised that vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission, saying that in its recommendations, it would no longer distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Combined these policy changes should spell the immediate end of vaccine mandates.

It was clear in 2020 that Covid is primarily a serious disease for the sick and the elderly. Data from NSW Health which, between 28 May and 30 July, was the first jurisdiction in Australia to provide some deaths by age, vaccination, and health status showed that only three people out of the 1,108 who died (0.3 per cent) over the nine week period were aged under 65 and healthy, and only 11 people who died (1 per cent) were aged under 65 and unvaccinated (all almost certainly seriously ill).

Hardly the pandemic of the unvaccinated that Gladys Berejiklian conjured up to scare the impressionable into getting vaccinated. As for being a burden and overwhelming the health system, only 11 out of 6,481 people hospitalised (0.17 per cent) and only eight of 591 people in ICU (1.3 per cent) were unvaccinated.

With such a tiny fraction of healthy, unvaccinated people of working age dying of Covid in Australia’s most populous state, during the worst three months of the pandemic, how is it possible that vaccine mandates are still in force in so many workplaces? Former Australian deputy chief health officer Dr Nick Coatsworth wrote in mid-July that there is ‘no longer a public health rationale for businesses terminating employees for failing to be vaccinated’. Yet some of the nation’s biggest employers –Coles, Woolworths, Qantas, Virgin Australia, Telstra, the Commonwealth Bank and SPC – are still forcing workers to get vaccinated or boosted.

In Ceduna, up to fifteen teachers at the Crossways Lutheran school are prepared to strike rather than get a booster or wear a mask all day and be tested daily. They want to know why they are being pressured to be triple-vaccinated when protection from boosters lasts only 20 weeks, you can still catch and transmit Covid, and vaccine injuries can be permanent or fatal. Who will compensate them or their families if they are injured or die, they ask.

It’s a good question. In Hobart, a police officer who was incapacitated with myocarditis after his Pfizer booster in November is fighting for compensation because the Department of Police, Fire and Emergency Management claims it isn’t liable even though it told staff they should get vaccinated, claimed the vaccines were safe, and made vaccination mandatory a month after the officer was injured.

With the CDC no longer distinguishing between vaccinated and unvaccinated, why are service members still being kicked out for not taking an ‘ineffective and dangerous experimental jab,’ tweeted Lt. Col. Dr Theresa Long this week, one of the top flight surgeons in the US Armed Forces. Dr Long is one of three military doctors who testified under oath that there was a massive increase in vaccine injuries in the Defence Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) in 2021 showing, for example, a 269 per cent increase in myocardial infarction and a 467 per cent increase in pulmonary embolisms.

If Dr Long’s conclusions are correct, they would explain why excess mortality is so high in Australia and other highly vaccinated countries. In the first four months of 2022, there was an increase in excess mortality of between 6,800 deaths (13 per cent) according to the AI and 8,500 deaths (17 per cent) , according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Either way it’s alarming. Excess deaths for the whole of 2021 were 3,400, yet just for the first third of 2022 excess deaths have increased by up to 150 per cent .

It’s going to get worse. More people died of Covid in July than at any point in the pandemic yet Covid deaths represent only somewhere between 43 per cent and 53 per cent of excess deaths in the first four months of 2022. What is causing the other deaths? Here’s a clue. Deaths from heart disease are up 11 per cent (1,400) and have been above the predicted baseline almost every week since March 2021, a week after the vaccine rollout started on 22 February. Deaths from other unspecified diseases are up by 11 per cent (1,390), continuing a trend observed since April 2021, a month after the vaccine rollout. There was also an increase of 10 per cent in coroner-referred deaths (+680) as well as increases of between five and 11 per cent in diabetes, dementia, and cerebrovascular disease.

A disturbing rise in excess mortality is occurring in many heavily vaccinated countries such as Portugal, experiencing its highest excess mortality in 100 years, Chile, and the US. Up to now doctors in Australia could not criticise any aspect of government management of the pandemic without putting their careers on the line. But in mid-July the left-leaning Victorian Branch of the Australian Medical Association called for a Royal Commission into the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and its muzzling of medical freedom of speech. This week the centre-right Australian Medical Professionals’ Society also called for medical free speech, consideration of scientific data in relation to vaccine mandates and legislative reform to protect the practitioner-patient relationship. With voices across the political spectrum calling for change perhaps an end to the tyranny of bureaucrats is at last in sight.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/tyranny-of-bureaucrats/ .

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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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Report: 44 Percent of Pregnant Women in Pfizer Trial Lost Their Babies; FDA and CDC Recommended Jabs For Expectant Mothers Anyway

By Debra Heine

More than 40 percent of pregnant women who participated in Pfizer’s mRNA COVID vaccine trial suffered miscarriages, according internal Pfizer documents, recently released under court order. Despite this, Pfizer, and the Biden administration insisted that the vaccines were safe for pregnant women. Out of 50 pregnant women, 22 of them lost their babies, according to an analysis of the documents.

In a January court ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas, ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to release around 12,000 documents immediately, and then 55,000 pages a month until all documents were released, totaling more than 300,000 pages.

The nonprofit group, Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, sued the FDA last September, after the agency denied its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to expedite the release of mRNA vaccine review documents. In a November 2021 joint status report, the FDA proposed releasing only 500 pages of the documents a month, which would have taken up to 75 years.

Trial documents released in April revealed that Pfizer had to hire 1,800 additional full-time employees in the first half of 2021 to deal with “the large increase” of adverse reactions to its COVID vaccine.

The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine was made available under the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) on Dec. 11, 2020. By February of 2021, the company was seeing so many safety signals, including in pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, it had to immediately hire 600 employees to process the data.

A batch of documents released in late July showed that 44 percent of women who were pregnant during the trial suffered miscarriages, feminist author and journalist Dr. Naomi Wolf revealed on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. Wolf has been spearheading research and analysis of the Pfizer documents through her website Daily Clout.

In the past, only 10 to 15 percent of known pregnancies ended in miscarriage.

“Pfizer took those deaths of babies—those spontaneous abortions and miscarriages—and recategorized them as recovered/resolved adverse effects,” Wolf told Bannon. “In other words, if you lost your baby, it was categorized by Pfizer as a resolved adverse event, like a headache that got better,” she added.

Wolf said adverse event cutoff report showing the miscarriages was March 13, 2021, and the FDA received the report on April 1, 2021.

Therefore, the FDA had this data nearly a year and a half ago, and instead raising an alarm, they, along with the CDC, went ahead and recommended the experimental injections for expectant mothers anyway.

“Over a year ago, the FDA received this report that out of 50 pregnant women, 22 of them lost their babies, and they did not say anything,” Wolf said, choking back tears. “Thus the FDA was aware of the horrifying rate of fetal death by the start of April 2021 and were silent.”

The CDC, as recently as last month, still recommended the experimental mRNA vaccines for pregnant and breastfeeding “people.”

“COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for all people 6 months and older. This includes people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant now, or might become pregnant in the future,” the CDC claims in a July 2022 post on its website. “CDC also recommends COVID-19 vaccines for infants 6 months and older who’s mother was vaccinated or had a COVID infection before or while pregnant.”

The FDA and CDC could conceivably claim they were unaware of high rate of miscarriages in the trial because Pfizer attempted to obscure the data.

“Pfizer notes the miscarriages as serious adverse events with moderate or severe toxicity ratings,” Wolf explained. “However, all of them were recategorized, by Pfizer, in the internal documents under the category of adverse events that were ‘recovered’ or ‘resolved.'”

Wolf noted that the Pfizer trial data correlates with the massive increase in miscarriages seen worldwide since the vaccine rollouts.

“If you extrapolate, globally, to all the pregnant women who are injected, it could explain what we’re seeing now of a baby die-off. 200 percent rise in neonatal deaths or spontaneous abortions and miscarriages in Scotland,” she said, adding, “86 babies died in Ontario when they usually have five or six [per quarter], and in Israel, a 34 percent rise of spontaneous abortions and miscarriages to vaccine.”

Back in January, three military doctors who had access to vaccination data in the DoD’s Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) disclosed that miscarriages and cancers among members of the US military had increased by about 300 percent in 2021 over the five year average.

These alarming safety signals were among several others brought to light by Thomas Renz, a member of America’s Frontline Doctors’ legal team, during a panel discussion convened by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in January.

The CDC, however, still maintains on its website that “evidence continues to build showing that: COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy is safe and effective.”

The agency also claimed “there is currently no evidence that any vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, cause fertility problems in women or men,” despite recent studies showing otherwise.

Dr. James Thorp, an physician MD board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as maternal-fetal medicine, said in a recent interview that he has seen a massive spike in fetal death and adverse pregnancy outcomes after the mass vaccination campaign began.

Dr. Thorp told Epoch Times he has practiced obstetrics for over 42 years and sees 6,000–7,000 high-risk OB patients a year.

The obstetrician declared that the use of the experimental COVID vaccines on expectant mothers “broke all the rules.”

“We have always been guided by that principle, that longstanding, six millennia principle—the golden rule of pregnancy—you never, ever use an investigational drug, a new substance, a new drug, a new vaccine—even if there’s a potential benefit,” he said. “You don’t ever use a new substance in pregnancy.”

Thorp said that in his practice, he’s seen a “significant increase” in problems, including “extraordinarily abnormal menstrual periods” before pregnancy.

“The vaccine I’m very concerned about and I do believe that in pregnancy, it’s contraindicated,” he said.

He said that his attempts to disclose these adverse events have been hampered by the imposition of gag orders on physicians and nurses that were imposed in September 2021.

In September of 2021, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG) put out a statement in support of the Federation of State Medical Boards’ (FSMB) contention that “providing misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine contradicts physicians’ ethical and professional responsibilities.” The ABOG said physicians disseminating “misinformation” would be subject to “disciplinary actions, including suspension or revocation of their medical license.”

The ACOG, like the CDC, recommends the experimental injections for “pregnant people.”

“The fact that ABOG would recommend this “vaccine” in pregnancy is an abomination and may well be the greatest disaster in the history of obstetrics,” Thorp wrote in an article in the Gazette of Medical Sciences (GMS), titled: Patient Betrayal: The Corruption of Healthcare, Informed Consent and the Physician-Patient Relationship.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/16/report-44-percent-of-pregnant-women-in-pfizer-trial-lost-their-babies-fda-and-cdc-recommended-jabs-for-expectant-mothers-anyway

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More than half of people infected with omicron may not know it

“Having most people with covid-19 being unaware of their infection status, especially while actively transmissible, makes it likely a major driver of the ongoing pandemic,” says Susan Cheng at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in California.

Cheng and her colleagues took blood samples from 2479 people who worked at or were registered at a medical centre in Los Angeles. At least two samples were taken per participant. The first was drawn before 15 December 2021, shortly before the area experienced a surge in covid-19 infections driven by the omicron variant.

Subsequent samples were taken between 15 December 2021 and 4 May 2022, during which time omicron became the dominant variant and several subvariants, such as BA.4 and BA.5, emerged.

Of the participants, 210 were found to have had covid-19 between the first time their blood was taken and subsequent samples, based on levels of coronavirus-specific antibodies in their blood.

To ensure this antibody response wasn’t induced via vaccination – 94 per cent of the 210 participants had received at least one vaccine dose – the researchers specifically looked at the participants’ IgG-N levels. IgG-N is an antibody to a structural protein on SARS-CoV-2 that becomes elevated when someone is naturally exposed to the coronavirus, but stays low post-vaccination.

At the time the participants’ blood was sampled for a second or subsequent time, more than half (56 per cent) of the 210 participants who had recently caught covid-19 – based on their IgG-N levels – were unaware they had been infected.

Of the participants who didn’t know they had omicron, one in 10 (10 per cent) said they had experienced mild symptoms but attributed them to other infections, such as the common cold.

Cheng says the findings highlight the importance of each individual working to reduce the likelihood of them transmitting the coronavirus, even if they think they aren’t infected.

“Being thoughtful with self-testing and taking precautions especially after being knowingly exposed to covid or developing even mild symptoms that one might assume are not likely due to covid… these are actions that everyone can be empowered to take on and can make a difference in curbing spread of the virus,” she says.

More work is needed to establish whether these findings apply beyond the single centre studied in Los Angeles.

“It would be helpful to see if other centres, especially in other parts of the world, with ideally larger numbers, could look at similar data and see if they might find similar or different results,” says Cheng.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2334227-more-than-half-of-people-infected-with-omicron-may-not-know-it/

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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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Why Did it Take So Long for the US to Get the Novavax Vaccine?

Even as Covid-19 infections and deaths decrease globally, the World Health Organization warns that “the pandemic is not over.” The Biden Administration seems to feel the same. Earlier this month, the federal government extended the Covid-19 public health emergency again.

Why the concern? As WHO Director Tedros Ghebreyesus stated, “A new and even more dangerous variant can emerge any time and vast numbers of people remain unprotected.” Covid’s BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants could be an example.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, BA. 5 currently composes 80 percent of new Covid-19 cases in the US. Although most research on these variants is preliminary, both the WHO and CDC consider BA. 5 a “variant of concern.” A fearful CNN article labeled BA. 5 the “worst variant.”

Whether these concerns are justified or not, Covid-19’s future variants pose a risk to public health as long as the disease is with us. As more variants emerge, they will likely become more infectious and able to evade past immunity developed from previous infections, vaccinations, or boosters. Although challenging, this means our best hope to minimize the harm of future outbreaks is to develop new treatments to tackle current variants.

Fortunately, a newly authorized Covid-19 vaccine provides hope.

Recently granted an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine effectively protects against severe Covid-19 infection. Unlike other available Covid-19 vaccines in the US, Novavax is protein-based (instead of mRNA developed). It can also be stored at higher temperatures, making it easier to transport to rural communities.

Most importantly, Novavax seems to provide better protection against BA. 5. As a BioRxiv article finds, two or three injections of the Novavax vaccine triggered strong immune responses to the omicron variant and all its subvariants. While receiving two or three injections of almost anything is unappealing, this is a considerable improvement from receiving nearly double the number of injections from mRNA-based boosters, which provide less protection.

While a welcomed addition to Covid-19 vaccines in the US, Novavax is hardly new. Other countries started using it in November 2021. By January 2022, Novavax was available in 170 countries. So why did it take so long for the US to authorize the Novavax vaccine?

Ironically, the answer boils down to a government partnership to quickly give us Covid-19 vaccines.

On May 15th, 2020, President Trump launched Operation Warp Speed. The project partnered private vaccine developers with federal agencies to bring a Covid-19 vaccine to the public in record time. Providing an expedited approval process, laboratories, and a “blank check” of funding seemed to work. By late October 2020, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the first Covid-19 vaccine for patient use. Two more Covid-19 vaccine authorizations followed in the next few months.

But the program’s quick approval of the first set of Covid-19 vaccines came at the expense of current developments. Because mRNA technologies provided the chance for quicker (but less likely to succeed) vaccine development, Operation Warp Speed only selected vaccines using this technology to receive the program’s benefits. Vaccines using older but more reliable technologies were not selected. Consequently, they could not utilize an expedited authorization process to reach patients. Sadly, Novavax’s vaccine is an example.

Operation Warp Speed brought the US three Covid-19 vaccines (although I have argued before it may not have been necessary). But it was still a government program designed to pick winners and losers for a vital medical good.

In the case of Novavax, our government picked wrong—and it has been a costly mistake.

https://blog.independent.org/2022/08/12/take-so-long-novavax-vaccine/

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Health Care Company Denied Religious Exemptions for COVID Vax, Now It's Going to Have to Pay Workers Millions

In a landmark lawsuit regarding a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, about 500 health care workers will be receiving $10 million worth of payouts after challenging a hospital’s vaccine mandate.

Hundreds of workers at NorthShore University HealthSystem in Illinois filed a lawsuit in October 2021, claiming that the health care organization was not granting religious exemptions for the mandated vaccine, the Washington Examiner reported.

In July a settlement was reached, and 473 current and former health care employees will be compensated.

Liberty Counsel was the group to represent the original 13 plaintiffs.

Horatio Mihet, the vice president of legal affairs at Liberty Counsel, made a statement that this lawsuit and subsequent settlement should “serve as a strong warning to employers across the nation that they cannot refuse to accommodate those with sincere religious objections to forced vaccination mandates.”

There are gradations of payouts and compensation for the workers and plaintiffs depending on circumstances.

Worker who lost their job because of an inability to comply with the vaccine mandate will receive $25,000.

Any of the original 13 plaintiffs are also eligible for another $20,000, according to Liberty Counsel’s founder and chairman Mat Staver.

Other health care workers who got the vaccine, despite religious objections, can be eligible for about $3,000 in compensation.

Anyone who was fired because of a refusal to be vaccinated based on religious belief will also be considered eligible for reemployment, the Examiner reported.

Along with these payouts, the settlement also allowed another $2 million for attorneys fees.

“This classwide settlement providing compensation and the opportunity to return to work is the first of its kind in the nation involving COVID shot mandates. This settlement should be a wake-up call to every employer that did not accommodate or exempt employees who opposed the COVID shots for religious reasons,” Staver said in a statement released by Liberty Counsel.

“Let this case be a warning to employers that violated Title VII. It is especially significant and gratifying that this first classwide COVID settlement protects health care workers. Health care workers are heroes who daily give their lives to protect and treat their patients. They are needed now more than ever,” he added.

The judge who ruled in the case was John Kness, appointed by former President Donald Trump.

The Examiner reported that Kness sided with Liberty Counsel’s claims that the NorthShore University HealthSystem had violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by denying religious exemptions to its vaccine mandate.

This is the first major case settled concerning the health care industry and COVID vaccine mandates.

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/health-care-company-denied-religious-exemptions-for-covid-vax-now-its-going-to-have-to-pay-workers-millions

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Fertility matters. What’s going on with birth rates?

There is a significant drop in live birth rates occurring in some developed nations. Germany’s Federal Bureau of Statistics documented a reduction of over 12 per cent and similar falls have been reported in Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, Slovenia, and some US states. In other countries – the Netherlands, Belgium, and Portugal – this is not the case but given the temporal association with the Covid pandemic we should investigate the matter seriously.

Start with the basics. A reduction in population fertility may be due to fewer pregnancies, or increased pregnancy failures and both could be caused by viral infection, societal adaptation, or adverse effects of medical interventions.

Looking at viral infections, several micro-organisms can damage the unborn at different phases of intrauterine life. Rubella, for example, causes abortions, stillbirths, and malformations. So, a viral pandemic could reduce live birth rates. This is unlikely with Covid as intrauterine infection appears to be rare and a direct effect should already be evident. Still, here’s a research question:

Are Covid cases and hospital admissions associated with a reduction in live births six to eight months later?

Societal adaptation to the pandemic – more stress, less sex, less IVF, more terminations – could cause a decline in fertility. It’s happened before. After Chernobyl there were hundreds of thousands of additional terminations in Europe, but weren’t people more stressed in 2020 than in 2021? If so, it should have led to a drop in live births between late 2020 and mid 2021. So, here’s another research question:

Was there an increase in pregnancy terminations and/or fewer fertility treatment associated with a reduction in live births 6-9 months later?

The third possibility is that a fall in fertility could be an adverse effect of a medical intervention. There are precedents. Thalidomide was launched in 1956. At the time, it was known that medications might affect the unborn, but there was no mandatory testing for such effects. The principles of reproductive toxicology were only defined in 1959: depending on gestational age at exposure there might be a miscarriage or stillbirth, malformations, intrauterine growth retardation or functional disturbances only apparent in childhood or beyond.

Thalidomide resulted in about 10,000 cases of limb malformations. Once Widukind Lenz in Germany and William McBride in Sydney sounded the alarm in November 1961, the drug was no longer given to pregnant women. Thalidomide studies in animals form the basis of modern reproductive toxicology. Increasingly, agencies were tasked with regulating the clinical testing of new drugs. Since 1990 there have been international standards, but scandals still happen. Merck’s drug Vioxx caused up to 140,000 heart attacks prior to withdrawal.

Testing drugs on pregnant animals is mandatory and drug trials almost always exclude pregnant women to minimise risks. With most Covid vaccine trials, pregnant women were excluded. Pregnant women are now being encouraged to be immunised in what amounts to a real-life experiment. It led to a joke. One lab rat asks another, ‘Been immunised yet?’ ‘No,’ the rat replies, ‘They’re still testing it on humans.’ Make that pregnant humans.

Could immunisation impact live birth rates? Biodistribution studies of injected nanoparticles show that they do not remain in the deltoid muscle, accumulating in several sites, including the ovaries. This may influence ovarian function, and menstrual disturbances are a well-documented adverse effect. Sperm production may also be affected. Even if a pregnancy starts, the result may be implantation failure, a subclinical miscarriage or a clinically overt first trimester miscarriage. These normally occur in 12 to 15 per cent of confirmed pregnancies. Second-trimester miscarriages and stillbirths are much rarer. That doesn’t mean later immunisation is harmless but to date there is only anecdotal information. Toxic effects in the first trimester are most likely at four to eight weeks and could increase miscarriages and reduce live births seven to eight months later. This would be a temporary effect (as was the effect of Thalidomide). There is some evidence in publicly available data that this might be occuring following the mass vaccination of women of reproductive age in 2021-22, potentially affecting live birth rates from early 2022. So, here’s a research question:

Is there a temporal association between vaccination campaigns, first trimester miscarriages and live birth rates seven to eight months later?

There are other issues. Documented menstrual irregularities suggest a disturbance of ovarian or uterine function. A possible consequence would be an increase in premature menopause. Other consequences may take longer to manifest. Given that conditions such as myocarditis and blood clots are recognised adverse effects of some Covid vaccines, are there similar effects in the unborn? There is a precedent. It took over 30 years for the effects of stilbestrol – an estrogen treatment used in pregnancy – to become evident; it caused cancer in the offspring of patients.

Academic physicians don’t normally publish anonymously but regulators, health ministries and professional organisations refuse to ask, let alone try to answer, the questions posed here and wage smear campaigns against those who do. Papers published in reputable journals are at times indistinguishable from propaganda.

In the face of widespread systemic failure, the principles ‘My body, my choice’ and ‘First do no harm’ should put an immediate end to Covid vaccination of women of reproductive age. And then let’s hope the blind hysteria of postmodern media, politics and medicine has not caused the worst medical disaster in human history.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/fertility-matters/

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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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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State Power Doesn’t Settle Science

In his book Sway, Ori Brafman tells a story of sitting in an MBA class taught by Professor Roberto Fernandez. Fernandez showed the class a film of a 1950s open heart surgery to make a point about how people ignore information. The film showed the surgeon pouring a white powder over the patient’s heart; the powder was asbestos. “Unsurprisingly, the patients administered the asbestos started dying off,” but the hospital continued with its surgical protocol.

In the 1950s, vested interests resisted the bad news about asbestos. Yet, no one had the power to stop discovery by proclaiming “the science is settled.” No one claimed airing opposing views would kill people. So scientific discovery continued, and relatively safe open-heart surgery developed in a reasonably short time. Importantly, for people wanting an alternative to surgery, doctors such as Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn were free to develop radical dietary protocols as effective lifestyle alternatives.

Imagine an alternative history of medical science in which those who openly opposed the use of asbestos were subjected to penalties. Medical research would have been misdirected and hindered, progress would have been difficult, and hospitals might still be poisoning their patients.

Today, California is on the verge of enshrining bad medicine and blocking scientific progress. The California Assembly has passed AB 2098, which “would designate the dissemination or promotion of misinformation or disinformation [by physicians and surgeons] related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, or ‘COVID-19,’ as unprofessional conduct,” subjecting doctors to disciplinary action, including the loss of license. The bill defines misinformation as “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus.”

The bill doesn’t explain how “contemporary scientific consensus” will be achieved; the bill does point to the determination by the FDA and CDC of the “safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.”

Currently, the FDA is ignoring doctors who oppose COVID vaccines for children. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) claims, “If your child is 6 months or older, you can now help protect them from severe COVID illness by getting them a COVID vaccine.” Dr. Vinay Prasad, famous for his work in evidence-based medicine, says in response: “Just a lie. There are no randomized data, nor even a single observational study that has shown a reduction in severe disease in this age group. 6mo-4yo.” Many are unaware of mounting criticism of the FDA for its unscientific approval of the COVID vaccine for children.

The claim that a state-proclaimed consensus settles science has resulted in many losing their jobs. In 2021, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty was fired from the University of California, Irvine. Kheriaty was a professor at their School of Medicine and director of their Medical Ethics Program. He was fired for being unvaccinated and for believing natural immunity was superior to the COVID vaccine.

Dr. Kheriaty delivered his testimony against the California bill that would ban the expression of opposing opinions: “Advances in science and medicine typically occur when doctors and scientists challenge conventional thinking or settled opinion. Fixating any current medical consensus as ‘unassailable’ by physicians will stifle medical and scientific progress.”

Kheriaty explained how repressing alternative views creates a false consensus driven by politics and crony interests. Government cures drive out real cures.

He added, “Good science is characterized by conjecture and refutation, lively deliberation, often fierce debate, and always openness to new data.” This is why, for example, surgeons no longer use asbestos during open-heart surgery.

When bad medicine is not backed by state power, its destructive force is limited. The worst scientists in the world can advance their ideas and yet cause little harm if others are free to reject those ideas and experiment with other pathways. As Kheriaty and others such as Karl Popper pointed out, errors are corrected by “conjecture and refutation.” Human beings can be vicious in defending their position, and when the vicious and incompetent deploy the power of government, errors are compounded with deadly consequences.

History is clear about the terrible consequences when state power decides science; millions of lives have been lost. Sam Kean reports on deadly science under Stalin. The science of genetics was dismissed as contrary to Marxist doctrine; Stalin preferred the theories of Trofim Lysenko.

Trofim Lysenko was a Soviet-era “biologist,” a crackpot, and one of the biggest mass-murderers in history. Kean relates, “Lysenko promoted the Marxist idea that the environment alone shapes plants and animals. Put them in the proper setting and expose them to the right stimuli, he declared, and you can remake them to an almost infinite degree.” Lysenko was sure he could grow orange trees in Siberia.

Kean describes Lysenko’s method: “Lysenko began to ‘educate’ Soviet crops to sprout at different times of the year by soaking them in freezing water, among other practices. He then claimed that future generations of crops would remember these environmental cues and, even without being treated themselves, would inherit the beneficial traits.”

Sounds insane? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in The Gulag Archipelago, Vol 1, gives an example of Lysenko at work:

In 1934 Pskov agronomists sowed flax on the snow—exactly as Lysenko had ordered. The seeds swelled up, grew moldy, and died. The big fields lay empty for a year. Lysenko could not say that the snow was a kulak or that he himself was an ass. He accused the agronomists of being kulaks and of distorting his technology. And the agronomists went off to Siberia.

If Lysenko had been born in America, few people would have even heard his insane theories. But Lysenko had the power of Stalin behind him. Stalin was looking for an answer to famines caused by his collectivization policies. Kean writes:

In the late 1920s and early 1930s Joseph Stalin—with Lysenko’s backing—had instituted a catastrophic scheme to “modernize” Soviet agriculture, forcing millions of people to join collective, state-run farms. Widespread crop failure and famine resulted. Stalin refused to change course, however, and ordered Lysenko to remedy the disaster with methods based on his radical new ideas. Lysenko forced farmers to plant seeds very close together, for instance, since according to his “law of the life of species,” plants from the same “class” never compete with one another. He also forbade all use of fertilizers and pesticides.

In the novel Everything Flows, the great Soviet-era novelist Vasily Grossman sarcastically refers to Lysenko as “the famous agronomist” who resorted to “police methods.” Kean explains the consequences of these police methods:

Unable to silence Western critics, Lysenko still tried to eliminate all dissent within the Soviet Union. Scientists who refused to renounce genetics found themselves at the mercy of the secret police. The lucky ones simply got dismissed from their posts and were left destitute. Hundreds if not thousands of others were rounded up and dumped into prisons or psychiatric hospitals. Several got sentenced to death as enemies of the state or, fittingly, starved in their jail cells (most notably the botanist Nikolai Vavilov). Before the 1930s, the Soviet Union had arguably the best genetics community in the world. Lysenko gutted it, and by some accounts set Russian biology back a half-century.

You would be wrong if you think sanity was restored quickly after Stalin died. In her biography of Grossman, Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century, Alexandra Popoff writes, “In fact, many of the opportunists and denouncers who drove talented people out of the sciences and other spheres of life maintained their key position in the post-Stalinist era.”

You will miss the point if you think the horrors of Lysenkoism are merely due to the wrong people being in power. The horrors of science dictated by central planners are not, as Friedrich Hayek writes in The Road to Serfdom, “mere accidental by-products which have nothing to do with the essential character of a planned or totalitarian system.”

Better people in charge won’t prevent the worst. Hayek explains, “Once science has to serve, not truth, but the interests of a class, a community, or a state, the sole task of argument and discussion is to vindicate and to spread still further the beliefs by which the whole life of the community is directed.”

Dr. Prasad asks, “Why has this administration made so many [public health] errors?” Prasad says the “answer is simple. They have chosen to surround themselves with bad experts. People who subscribe to groupthink, and political tribalism.”

Fauci and Lysenko are similar in mindset. Both demonstrated intolerance to challenges to their ideas and eagerly deployed government coercion. The significant difference between these two is that Fauci operates in a system with more checks on his power.

Intellectual intolerance of challenging ideas is not a recent phenomenon. The Road to Serfdom was published in 1944, and already intellectuals espousing collectivist ideas were enabling the burning of ideas in “free” societies:

Perhaps the most alarming fact is that contempt for intellectual liberty is not a thing which arises only once the totalitarian system is established but one which can be found everywhere among intellectuals who have embraced a collectivist faith and who are acclaimed as intellectual leaders even in countries still under a liberal regime. Not only is even the worst oppression condoned if it is committed in the name of socialism, and the creation of a totalitarian system openly advocated by people who pretend to speak for the scientists of liberal countries; intolerance, too, is openly extolled.

“Truth,” Hayek explains, is redefined by the intolerant. No longer “something to be found,” truth “becomes something to be laid down by authority, something which has to be believed in the interest of the unity of the organized effort and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it.”

“Complete cynicism” crowds out “the spirit of independent inquiry and of the belief in the power of rational conviction.” Abandoned is the principle that “individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence (or the standing of those proclaiming it) warrants a belief.”

Like Lysenkoism, Faucism, CDC science, FDA science, and HHS science display the characteristics of totalitarianism that Hayek warns of. The odds are vanishingly small that any of today’s totalitarian “scientists” or those supporting AB 2098 have ever read The Road to Serfdom, but Hayek anticipated their playbook (numbers added):

“The whole apparatus for spreading knowledge— the schools and the press, radio and motion picture—will be used exclusively to spread those views which, whether true or false, will strengthen the belief in the rightness of the decisions taken by the authority; and all information that might cause doubt or hesitation will be withheld.

The probable effect on the people’s loyalty to the system becomes the only criterion for deciding whether a particular piece of information is to be published or suppressed.
Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people.

The basis of unfavorable comparisons with conditions elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions—all will be suppressed.”

During the pandemic, the United States has been going further down the road to serfdom. Here is the question that should haunt us all: Why are there so few doctors like Kheriaty and Prasad?

Recently, Johns Hopkins medical professor Marty Makary and Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg reported on “relentless” calls they receive from “doctors and scientists at the top levels of the NIH, FDA and CDC.” These professionals “are variously frustrated, exasperated and alarmed about the direction of the agencies to which they have devoted their careers.”

One senior FDA official said, “It’s like a horror movie I’m being forced to watch and I can’t close my eyes. People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.”

The official was referring to the authorization, without clinical evidence, of “Covid vaccines for infants and toddlers” and “booster shots for young children.”

No official would go on record, yet they are haunted by the impact of political decisions on vaccines, school closures, and masks, especially on children.

One official put it his way: “I can’t tell you how many people at the FDA have told me, ‘I don’t like any of this, but I just need to make it to my retirement.’”

When you are tempted to sit in judgment of the decisions made by others who acquiesce to totalitarian forces, consider this universal story told by David Whyte in his book The Heart Aroused:

A man I know finds himself in a meeting room at the very edge of speech; he is approaching his moment of reckoning, he is looking for support from his fellow executives around the table … the CEO is pacing up and down on the slate gray carpet. He has asked, in no uncertain terms, for their opinion of the plan he wants to put through. “I want to know what you all think about this,” he demands, “on a scale of one to ten.”

Whyte explains the CEO is testy and has made it plain by his behavior that he wants to hear “ten.” Whyte’s friend thinks the plan is terrible and has heard that other executives in the room think so too. As the CEO goes around the room, Whyte’s friend hears his fellow executives say “ten.” When it is his turn, “against everything he believes, (Whyte’s friend) hears a mouselike, faraway voice, his own, saying ‘ten’.”

Solzhenitsyn observed, “Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.” The courage to say “one” is cultivated through sustained practice. There are consequences, to yourself and others, of saying “ten.”

California, once again, is showing the way toward a dystopian medical-political dictatorship that will cost lives, block medical progress, and erode freedom.

https://www.aier.org/article/state-power-doesnt-settle-science/

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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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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The CDC Discovers Natural Immunity

And just like that, new guidelines treat vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.

Kids are already back to school in some areas of the country, and the rest are right around the corner. So it’s interesting that the CDC just released new guidelines for COVID that greatly affect schools. The teachers unions previously “helped” write those guidelines. We can only wonder what role they played in some drastic changes this time. The guidelines are more than interesting, however — in a way, they’re infuriating. More on that in a minute.

Many of us have largely ignored the CDC’s COVID guidelines for a long time already because they’ve been so thoroughly politicized and distant from believable science. The real protocol? Get sick, stay home. Wash your hands. Don’t cough on people. Wear a mask or get vaccinated if you choose to do so; don’t if you choose not to. Basic stuff in a free country.

Of course, there are many for whom extra caution is necessary due to various medical considerations and risks. From the beginning, COVID policy should have been geared toward protecting these people, not hammering everyone with a one-size-fits-all policy of shutdowns and mandates.

And then there are the true believers. Will that last group ease up now that the CDC has reduced a lot of restrictions? Don’t hold your breath.

The CDC dropped quarantine recommendations for exposure, as well as social distancing at six feet. Significantly for schools, the CDC ended recommendations known as “test to stay” — the practice that students exposed to COVID should keep testing negative in order to remain at school instead of quarantining.

But the change that really jumped out to us was that there’s no longer any distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated.

Read that again.

The novel vaccine was an exciting achievement and it brought hope of ending the pandemic. That did not, of course, actually happen. First, it wasn’t as effective at preventing infection or transmission as advertised. Second, the Left not only wholeheartedly leapt on the bandwagon but lectured, harassed, condemned, mandated, censored, and fired anyone who disagreed. It was an appalling descent into tyranny capped by Joe Biden’s mandates and firings.

Now the CDC tells us there’s no difference? Oops, we were wrong all along, the CDC now says. Where do the unvaccinated folks who lost their jobs go for recompense? Where do kids go to get those lost years of education? Where do all of us go to get back the money and sanity lost to economic devastation caused by shutdowns and government-induced inflation?

“We know that COVID-19 is here to stay,” said CDC epidemiologist Greta Massetti Thursday. The new guidelines she authored are possible because “high levels of population immunity due to vaccination and previous infection, and the many tools that we have available to protect people from severe illness and death, have put us in a different place” [emphasis added].

She ought to be censored on social media for such dangerous right-wing misinformation.

The Associated Press reports, “An estimated 95% of Americans 16 and older have acquired some level of immunity, either from being vaccinated or infected” [emphasis added].

And just like that, we’re all immune to COVID.

According to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, “While COVID continues to evolve, so has our understanding of the science.” He’s right, but man is this whole Leftmedia-labeled “strategic shift” convenient for Democrats just ahead of the 2022 midterms. A little humility would have gone a long way in 2020, but Democrats had a Bad Orange Man to defeat. It would have gone a long way in 2021 also, but Democrats had just taken the White House and they couldn’t let up when there was more power to seize.

Now that Joe Biden has survived a double case of COVID — which he caught despite having every available booster after promising “you’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations” — it appears that he finally kept his pledge to “shut down the virus.” After all, Democrats need voters to think they’ve achieved this progress, which means we can work toward normal again. Politics is as politics does.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/90525-the-cdc-discovers-natural-immunity-2022-08-12

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New CDC COVID-19 Guidance Is Agency ‘Admitting It Was Wrong’: Epidemiologist

The new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 guidance is the agency acknowledging it was wrong in the past to downplay natural immunity and promote unprecedented policies like asymptomatic testing, a California epidemiologist says.

The new guidance, released on Aug. 11, rescinds and alters a number of key recommendations, including treating unvaccinated and vaccinated people differently for many purposes, explicitly stating that people with previous infection have protection against severe illness, and removing six-foot social distancing advice.

“The CDC is admitting it was wrong here, although they won’t put it in those words,” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, told The Epoch Times.

“What they’ll say is that, well, ‘the population is more immunized now, has more natural immunity now, and now is the time—the science has changed.'”

But a large percentage of the U.S. population has had natural immunity, or protection from prior infection, Bhattacharya noted, while over 80 percent of the elderly population had protection from severe disease from COVID-19 vaccines, previous infection, or both, since 2021.

“This is two years too late, but it’s a good step,” Bhattacharya added.

CDC Statement

The CDC, which did not respond to a request for comment, portrayed the change as streamlining previous guidance, with the adjustments stemming from more people being vaccinated and more COVID-19 treatments available.

“We’re in a stronger place today as a nation, with more tools—like vaccination, boosters, and treatments—to protect ourselves, and our communities, from severe illness from COVID-19,” Greta Massetti, the CDC author of the new guidance, said in a statement. “We also have a better understanding of how to protect people from being exposed to the virus, like wearing high-quality masks, testing, and improved ventilation. This guidance acknowledges that the pandemic is not over, but also helps us move to a point where COVID-19 no longer severely disrupts our daily lives.”

Dr. Jerome Adams, the surgeon general during the Trump administration, echoed the line of thinking.

“The fact that @CDCgov is changing guidance shouldn’t be taken as proof that they were necessarily ‘wrong,’ on a particular issue. The virus has changed, our tools and immunity have changed, and our knowledge has changed. So too must our guidance. That’s how science works,” Adams wrote on Twitter.

Vaccination numbers have fallen off in recent months, with little change among adults and little update among children, even after the vaccines were authorized and recommended for kids as young as 6 months old.

No new treatments have been authorized since December 2021, and a number of the treatments have been shown as less effective against newer strains of the virus that causes COVID-19, as have the vaccines and, in some cases, natural immunity.

Nearly half of the 20 papers and briefs cited by the CDC in support of the adjusted guidance were published in 2020 or 2021, while a number of others were released in early 2022.

No Mandates Rescinded Yet

Among the most significant changes in the guidance: a rollback of recommendations for asymptomatic testing for individuals exposed to COVID-19, loosening guidance related to tracing contacts of COVID-19 cases, and ending quarantine recommendations for people exposed to a positive case.

Some rules are stricter for high-risk settings such as nursing homes.

Masking is also recommended for 10 days for people who were exposed to COVID-19, including when a person is at home around others.

Bhattacharya, who co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, a document that called for focused protection on the elderly and fewer restrictions on others, said that the guidance is closely aligned with the principles outlined in the declaration.

Based on the new guidance, the CDC should immediately rescind the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for foreign travelers entering The United States, a policy imposed in November 2021, the professor added.

The CDC’s webpage describing the mandate says that the agency “is reviewing this page to align with updated guidance.” The U.S. government has not adjusted or rescinded any of its vaccine mandates since the guidance was changed.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/new-cdc-covid-19-guidance-is-agency-admitting-it-was-wrong-epidemiologist_4662417.html

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Nurses Who Left the Health Care System to Focus on Early Treatment Describe ‘Brutal’ COVID-19 Treatment Protocols

Nurses who witnessed “brutal” hospital COVID-19 treatment protocols kill patients paint a bleak picture of what is taking place in state and federally funded health care systems.

“They’re horrific, and they’re all in lockstep,” Staci Kay, a nurse practitioner with the North Carolina Physicians for Freedom who left the hospital system to start her own early treatment private practice, told The Epoch Times. “They will not consider protocols outside of what’s given to them by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the NIH (National Institute of Health). And nobody is asking why.”

Fueled by cognitive dissonance amid an array of red flags, Kay said hospital staff is ignoring blatantly problematic treatments that performed poorly in clinical trials, such as remdesivir, and protocols such as keeping the patient isolated, just to adhere to the federal canon.

“I’ve seen people die with their family watching via iPad on Facetime,” Kay said. “It was brutal.”

As a former nurse in intensive care, Kay said she had seen her share of tragedy, but how she saw COVID patients being treated “had me waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with chest pains.”

“I hated my job,” Kay said. “I hated going to work. I was stressed in a way I’ve never been before in my entire life.”

Keeping families isolated was especially difficult, she said, because people couldn’t come to say goodbye to their loved ones.

‘We Can Do Better’

Kay was looking for other options when she found an inpatient protocol designed Dr. Paul Marik, founding member of Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, which purported to have a 94 percent success rate.

However, after Kay pitched it to the head of the pulmonary critical care department, she was dismissed, and the physician boasted that the hospital had a 66 percent survival rate at the time.

“I told him, ‘I feel like we can do better,’ but I was very quickly shut down,” Kay said. “I became very angry because I’m watching people die and I knew we could have been doing better.”

It was as if formerly smart people had become brainwashed, “and then just dumb,” Kay said, lacking the mental wherewithal to discern true from false.

This led Kay to begin treating patients in the outpatient setting to prevent their admission into the hospital system, which is now her full-time job after being fired for not submitting to what she described as illogical testing requirements for those who weren’t vaccinated.

At her telemedicine business, Kay said she’s seeing multiple cases of people suffering from COVID-19 vaccine injuries.

“I saw things on the inpatient side, too, that I suspected were vaccine injuries that went unacknowledged by our physicians,” Kay said. “I saw brain bleeds, seizures out of nowhere, cancer that just spread like wildfire, ischemic strokes, and I saw one person die horrifically from myocarditis.”

On the outpatient side, she said she’s seen conditions resulting from the COVID-19 vaccine such as brain fog, cognitive decline, joint pain, gastrointestinal dysfunctions, and neuropathy, which is numbness and tingling in hands, feet, and extremities.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mind-blowing-cognitive-dissonance-nurses-who-left-the-health-care-system-to-focus-on-early-treatment-describe-brutal-covid-19-treatment-protocols_4661799.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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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