Wednesday, September 07, 2022
Inflammatory mRNA Nanoparticles Inhibit and Alter Immune Response: Pre-Print Study
A recent preprint study has shed light on why adverse events have been observed following a COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccination.
The study, led by researchers from Thomas Jefferson University, found that the lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) used to transport mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines could “inhibit” and “alter” immune responses in mice.
LNPs are shells of lipids that envelope mRNA to prevent degradation and detection by our body’s immune system.
LNPs are not mRNA, simply an envelope to transport the mRNA cargo.
Both the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines use LNPs to deliver mRNA spike protein sequences into human cells. Once human cells received the mRNA sequences, the cells will then manufacture spike proteins, triggering an immune response.
It was originally intended that the LNPs discreetly deliver mRNA sequences into the cells to produce spike proteins, and in doing so, form immunity against the COVID-19 virus.
However, many studies in mice have since found that the LNPs, claimed to be non-toxic and safe, are actually highly inflammatory.
These nanoparticles are highly durable and can last for 20 to 30 days in the body. While they persist in the body, it is likely they will continue to activate the immune system, leading to immune exhaustion and non-responsiveness.
The Thomas Jefferson study also shared similar findings. The researchers investigated how LNPs affect the immune system by injecting mice with the same LNPs used in Pfizer’s vaccines, and some mice were even double-dosed.
Inflammation and immune responses in mice are not sure signs that the same will happen in humans. Nonetheless, mice have long been used to test for safety and efficacy in drugs for human use; signs of immune problems are an indication of possible health risks in humans.
The authors found that mice that received two doses had a reduced immune response on their second injection as compared to mice that only received one dose.
“The mRNA-LNP (nanoparticle) vaccine platform induces long-term unexpected immunological changes affecting both adaptive immune responses and heterologous protection against infections,” the authors wrote.
Pre-Exposure to mRNA Nanoparticles Reduce Innate Cell Numbers
Mice that were injected with two doses of LNPs had a reduced number of innate immune cells, the first-responder immune cells.
The authors wanted to find how the LNPs, the shell that wraps around mRNA, affected mice by injecting them with different variations LNPs.
The mice were split into three groups, all three groups received two injections, albeit with different contents.
For the first injection, most mice were given an injection of LNP. Half were given LNPs containing mRNA sequences and another half were given empty LNPs with no mRNA inside.
The remaining mice were given an injection of salted water. These mice are used as the baseline for comparison as salted water injections are not supposed to introduce any changes to the body.
Two weeks later, all three groups were given the same LNP injection containing mRNA sequences for an influenza protein (HA). The second injection allowed their cells to make HA proteins, which triggered an immune response. It was intended that this immune response would then make the mice immune against the influenza virus.
The three groups of mice and what they were vaccinated against. The first group was given saline for the first shot, the second group was given a mRNA lipid nanoparticle vaccination against a jellyfish protein, the third group was vaccinated with an empty mRNA LNP.
All three groups were given a vaccination of influenza HA protein sequenced in mRNA and packaged in mRNA LNPs. Modified figure of “Pre-exposure to mRNA-LNPs or LNPs significantly inhibits subsequent adaptive immune responses induced by the mRNA-LNP vaccine"
The researchers found that following the second injection, all mice had developed immune defense against the influenza virus.
The authors observed mice that were given two doses of LNPs were more resistant to an influenza infection as they lost less weight. Oddly enough, these same mice also had a lower immune response to the flu vaccine with fewer immune cells activated.
The authors speculated that their “resistance” is likely not from strengthened immunity, but a product from an alternative pathway triggered by LNPs. It is unknown if this “resistance” will apply to other infections and may only be applicable to influenza.
This is because the study found that mice that were more “resistant” to the flu were actually more susceptible to fungal infections.
The researchers infected mice with Candida albicans, the mice that received two doses lost more weight and had poorer control over the infection, indicating an alteration in the innate immune response.
Further investigations showed that these mice had a lower number of neutrophils, which are the most common first responder immune cells.
The job of neutrophils is to patrol the body and attack indiscriminately when encountering something foreign, therefore a reduced number of neutrophils put an individual at a greater risk of infection.
Since an uncontrolled fungal infection, particularly C. albicans, is often a sign of weakened innate or first responder immune response, the authors therefore suspected that reduced neutrophil numbers may have contributed to the fungal outbreak.
LNPs cause inflammation, and certain inflammatory pathways reduce the production of blood cells. The authors speculated that the two doses of LNPs some mice received may have caused greater inflammation leading to a decline in blood cell production and low neutrophil counts.
Though this is speculation and it is uncertain if the effects in mice would apply to humans, there have been reports in vaccinated individuals of the sudden onset of severe aplastic anemia, a condition where the body can no longer make enough blood cells, particularly red blood cells.
There have also been some reports of COVID-19 vaccinated individuals developing rare fungal diseases and others with worsening of pre-existing fungal diseases.
Though serious fungal disease does not automatically mean a weak immune system, nonetheless, serious fungal infections “are most common among people with weak immune systems,” writes the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Antigen Numbers Reduced in Mice with High Nanoparticle Exposure
Within the immune system, there are the first responder (innate immune cells) and the second responders (adaptive immune cells).
The first responders mount an immediate attack upon encountering something foreign. However, their attacks are nonspecific and often cannot fully clear infections.
Therefore the adaptive immune cells, also known as T and B cells serve as our second responders.
They are activated around a week into the infection and clear infections by mounting potent and specific attacks.
To activate adaptive immune cells, T and B cells must be presented with information on the pathogen. In the case of Sars-Cov-2, it can be a section of the spike protein.
APCs (antigen presenting cells), a type of first responding cell bring pieces of the virus, bacteria, or infectious particle to the adaptive T or B cells. This will activate the T or B cell, triggering an adaptive immune response.
The image below shows a dendritic cell (APC), activating a T cell by presenting it with an antigen, a toxic or foreign substance.
However, the authors found that mice that were given two doses of mRNA LNPs had reduced antigen presentation compared to mice that were only given one dose of LNPs.
This implies that fewer adaptive immune cells were made to activate against the influenza proteins.
mRNA Nanoparticles Reduce T and B cell Responses
The authors found the mice that received two injections of LNP had lower T and B cell responses to the flu mRNA vaccine than mice that were only given one dose.
As the final line of immune response, T and B cells are critical in our immune system’s ability to clear out infections.
However, in mice given two doses of LNP, less of their T and B cells were activated.
The double-dosed groups also had lower concentrations of antibodies (B cells make antibodies) against the influenza protein.
The reduced adaptive immune response was systemic, persisting across all organs and regions. Yet this reduction was even greater at the site of injection, especially if the mice were given injections at the same place for both shots, according to the authors.
On the other hand, the group that was only given one injection of LNP had higher T and B cell responses with more antibodies produced.
The authors found that exposure to LNP reduced T progenitor cells. Since T progenitor cells mature into activated T cells, less progenitors mean reduced T cell numbers and response.
The authors found if the T progenitor cells were removed before vaccination and then returned after vaccination, the active T cell numbers would not be reduced. This suggests that the LNP directly reduce the number of T progenitor cells, and in doing so, reduces the T cell response.
“Pre-exposure to mRNA-LNP inhibits T cell responses,” the authors wrote.
This reduced immunity should not be permanent, the authors speculated.
They noted that B cell responses mostly recovered if an interval of 8 weeks was introduced between the first and second doses.
Nevertheless, the authors did not verify the time period needed for a complete recovery, nor did they verify if the B cell response ever recovered in the mice.
However, injecting mice with adjuvants such as aluminum salts or AddaVax removed the suppressive effects the LNP injections had on mice immune cells.
“Inhibition of the adaptive immune responses by pre-exposure to mRNA-LNPs is long-lasting but it is likely to wane with time.”
Immunity Changes from LNPs Can Be Inherited
As aforementioned, mice that were injected with two doses of LNPs were more resistant against an influenza infection than mice that were only given one dose of LNPs.
This was demonstrated through the mice’s superior maintenance of weight during infection, though it is uncertain if the resistance was from an immune response or some other pathway triggered by the LNPs.
Oddly enough, this increased defensiveness could be passed to their offspring. The inheritance of resistance against influenza is stronger if both parents were immunized, and less so when only a single parent, particularly if only the male parent is immunized.
However, the study did not address if the offspring also inherit immune weakness, such as a decline in immunity against C. albicans, a trait also observed in mice that were given two LNPs doses.
Implication of the Study and Pressing Questions
The findings from the mice study suggest that T and B cell functions are reduced temporarily in mice and raises the question if the same occurs in humans.
The adaptive immune response is critical to clearing infections, and preventing chronic conditions such as cancer. The study suggests that after two vaccinations with the mRNA LNPs, there are a few weeks of vulnerability in mice, putting them at a greater risk of infections and cancer.
Similar reports are also observed in humans, though there is yet to be any study establishing a conclusive link.
However, an increased rate of disease being reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) after COVID-19 vaccination suggests reduced immunity in people following vaccination.
There have been many reports of cancers emerging following COVID-19 vaccinations.
In the VAERS database, 284 cases of breast cancer were reported after COVID-19 vaccination, while just 350 cases have been reported in the entire history of VAERS.
There were 269 cases of leukemia reported after COVID-19 vaccination as compared to 432 cases in the entire history of VAERS.
Additionally, there have also been concerning reports of new onset and recurrent shingles following COVID-19 vaccinations. VAERS data shows that 7,559 cases of shingles have been reported following COVID-19 vaccination.
Over the entire history of VAERS, 28,180 cases of shingles have been reported following any vaccination, meaning that around a quarter of shingles cases occurred after COVID-19 vaccination.
The CDC has indicated that a new diagnosis or recurrence of shingles primarily occurs in people with compromised immune systems and is a sign of weakened immunity.
Though the study on mice suggests possible health implications in humans, it is unknown whether all the symptoms and effects seen in mice will occur in people.
Nevertheless, growing data of reported adverse health effects in humans following COVID-19 vaccination warrant further research. Examination of the overlaps between health implications for mice and humans is also needed.
“Considering the broad exposure of a large proportion of human populations to vaccines based on this novel (mRNA) technology, more studies are warranted to fully understand its overall immunological and physiological effects. Determining this platform’s short and long-term impact on human health would help optimize it to decrease its potentially harmful effects,” the authors concluded.
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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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Tuesday, September 06, 2022
The Mysteries of Long COVID-19
When the original strain of COVID-19 arrived in spring 2020, a pandemic soon swept the country.
By far most survived COVID-19. But hundreds of thousands did not. American deaths now number well over 1 million.
Amid the tragedy, there initially was some hope that the pernicious effects of the disease would all disappear upon recovery among the nearly 99% who survived the initial infection.
Vaccinations by late 2020 were promised to end the pandemic for good. But they did not. New mutant strains, while more infectious, were said to be less lethal, thus supposedly resulting in spreading natural immunity while causing fewer deaths from infection.
But that too was not quite so.
Instead, sometimes the original symptoms, sometimes frightening new ones, not only lingered after the acute phase, but were of increased morbidity.
Now two-and-a-half years after the onset of the pandemic, there may be more than 20 million Americans who are still suffering from what is currently known as “long COVID-19″—a less acute version but one ultimately as debilitating.
Some pessimistic analyses suggest well over 4 million once-active Americans are now disabled from this often-ignored pandemic and out of the workforce.
Perhaps 10%-30% of those originally infected with COVID-19 have some lingering symptoms six months to a year after the initial infection. And they are quite physically sick, desperate to get well, and certainly not crazy.
So far, no government Marshall plan exists to cure long COVID.
While we know the nature of the virus well by now, no one fathoms what causes long COVID’s overwhelming fatigue, flu-like symptoms, neuralgic impairment, cardiac and pulmonary damage, and an array of eerie problems from extended loss of taste and smell to vertigo, neuropathy, and “brain fog.”
“Post-viral fatigue” has long been known to doctors. Many who get the flu or other viruses like mononucleosis sometimes take weeks or even months to recover after the initial acute symptoms retire.
But no one knows why long COVID often seems to last far longer and with more disability.
Is its persistence due to one theory that SARS-CoV-2 is a uniquely insidious, engineered virus? Or do vaccines and antivirals only help to curb infection, while possibly encouraging more unpredictable mutations?
Who gets long COVID, and why and how is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”
Those who nearly die from acute COVID-19 can descend into long COVID. But then again, so can those with minimal or few initial acute symptoms.
The obese with comorbidities are prone to long COVID, but triathletes and marathon runners are, too.
The elderly, the mature, the middle-aged, adolescents, and children can all get long COVID. Those with down-regulated and impaired immune systems fight long COVID. But then again, so do those with up-regulated and prior robust immunity, as well as people with severe allergies.
Since early 2020, no one has deciphered the cause, although numerous Nobel Prizes await anyone who unlocks its mysteries.
Does a weakened but not vanquished SARS-CoV-2 virus hide out and linger, causing an unending immune response that sickens patients?
Or does COVID-19 so weaken some long-haulers to the degree that old viruses, long in remission, suddenly flare up again, sickening the host with an unending case of, say, mononucleosis?
Or is the problem autoimmunity?
Is there something unique to the nature of COVID-19 that damages the vital on and off buttons of the immune system, causing the body to become stuck in overdrive, as it needlessly sends out its own poisons against itself?
Without knowledge of what explains long COVID, it is hard for researchers to find a cure.
After all, is the answer to slow down the immune system to dampen the immune storm, or to enhance it to root out lingering viruses?
Do more vaccines help or worsen long COVID?
Is the solution some magical new drug, or discovering off-label uses of old, reliable medicines?
Can a good diet, moderate exercise, and patience finally wear out long COVID? Or is its course too unpredictable or near permanent and chronic?
Is long COVID a single phenomenon, or a cluster of maladies, each manifesting according to one’s own genetic makeup, particular history of past illness, and unique reaction to the initial infection?
If we have few answers, we do have an idea about the costs.
Long COVID may be one of many reasons why in a recession, labor paradoxically still remains scarce. Millions likely stay home in utter disbelief that they are still battling long COVID. Others isolate in deadly fear of getting either the acute or chronic form of the illness.
The social costs to America of this hidden pandemic in lost wages and productivity, family and work disruption, and expensive medical care are unknown.
But they are likely enormous, still growing—and mostly ignored.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/09/02/the-mysteries-of-long-covid/
***************************************************There Is a Much Larger Problem Than the Great Resignation. No One Wants to Talk About It
The United States likes to talk about problems. Well, ones we have solutions for, anyway. Others we tend to willfully ignore.
This time, though, we’ve really outdone ourselves in terms of mental gymnastics. We’ve been managing to relentlessly cover the “Great Resignation,” wage growth, and employment disruptions from the pandemic while ignoring a larger problem in that field. Our workforce is old. Not “a few years older than it likely should be” old, but dangerously old.
This speaks to certain generational trends (most of them having to do with my delightful cohorts here in Gen Y), but also to a looming catastrophe if we don’t course-correct sometime soon. So how did we get here? Why is it so significant? Let’s look.
The math
I hate to have to bring math into an article (in any form), but it’s necessary here. The median age in the United States is currently 38.1 years old — a number that reflects a consistent rise in recent years, but not too terrible. That number has been moving up about .15 per year as our largest generation, the oft-discussed boomers, age.
When looking at our workforce figures, we need to keep that figure in mind. The population under 16 (not working) and population over 65 (more likely to be retired) are roughly equivalent right now, which means our workforce age should hew pretty close to our overall median age. In other words, for every child not dragging the workforce age down, there should be a retiree not dragging the workforce age up.
In our professions, then, we would expect to see a median age of around 38. Naturally, that’s not the case, specifically when you get into some of the trades or other professions that aren’t necessarily glamourous. Still, these jobs are essential to our everyday lives. We should not ignore them.
So how far off are they? Well, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we’ve got some wide discrepancies. Looking at just a few:
· Real estate agents: 49.1 years old
· Automotive mechanics: 47.4 years old
· Facilities managers: 50.1 years old
· Bus/Shuttle drivers: 55.6 years old
· Housekeeping/Janitorial: 50.1 years old
· Home health aides: 47.2 years old
· Electrical trades: 46.8 years old
Yikes. There were plenty of professions even older than that, but I picked these for a reason — there’s little barrier to entry. You don’t need a $200,000 piece of paper, and they’re located across the country. You don’t need to live in a growing metropolitan area to have any of these jobs. In other words, based on ease of access, they should be younger. But they’re not.
The least productive generation
That brings us to a natural question: Why? Yes, the whole population is aging, but those professions are still 10+ years older than the median age in the country. Something is up. And it’s generational.
I don’t like to blame millennials universally as many others do. Make no mistake, I loathe my generation, but I think a lot of what they turned out to be was outside of their control. The first years of Gen Y were hit with the dot-com burst as they entered the workforce, the Great Recession in their later 20s, and now a global pandemic when they were finally getting everything together. Not ideal economic events for the entire first half of life.
But that’s not the problem. No, instead, Gen Y was the first generation to be universally told that they would need college to succeed. Even I got that speech frequently, and I was an underperforming (and often absent) student in a mediocre school. I can only imagine how heavy it was indoctrinated in other districts.
Well, even if it wasn’t implicitly stated, adolescents could get the gist of what was being said: No college means no college-required jobs, which means failure. The obvious conclusion is that non-college careers are failures.
This is simultaneously false, condescending, and ridiculous, but it’s also how a lot of this generation was brought up. I remember towards the end of high school, I was kicking around the idea of taking some certificate courses in construction management and exploring those trades a bit. My teachers and classmates looked at me like I just publicly threatened suicide. It was ridiculous. For the record, I’ve gone on to finance and supervise the funding and progress of large construction projects across the U.S.
So, what did we get? A generation that went to college in larger numbers than ever before, regardless of whether it appealed to them, made financial sense, or even made practical sense for the individual. If you were of the means or opportunity to go, you went. Period. A few like myself didn’t, but we were rare.
Now once you’ve blown $100,000 or more on your education, it’s only natural to feel that you shouldn’t have to work a “manual” job. I mean, what was all this for then, right? Especially since grade inflation made everyone a 3.2+ GPA student. So they swarmed the white-collar fields, drove salaries down, and realized that those jobs sucked too. Attached to your phone long after work was over, responding to whatever imaginary crisis needs resolution. What a deal. Meanwhile, the vital jobs went unattended.
Why it matters
Mechanics, electricians, stonemasons, general laborers: these are all trades that allow the world to keep on humming. We can’t rely on the older half of Gen X and the younger half of the boomers to build everything for everyone in perpetuity. Yet we seem content to.
Producing something and making a living wage for yourself or your family used to be an item of pride for many. Now, if our primary careers flame out, we instead look for a permanent side-hustle or join the “creator” economy.
There’s some value there for society, sure, but not everyone can just live the dream forever. This whole trend of “influencing” is a bit ridiculous too, but more a byproduct of how our society is today than anything else. Point is, at the peak of their professional careers, fewer millennials are in the real workforce than any other generation before them.
It may work very well for some individuals, but 1,000 spokes going in opposite directions doesn’t make a wheel. It makes a tangled mess of alloy on the floor. This is sometimes referred to as “the current labor market”.
Funny thing is, I think my generation’s dismal failure at participating in society is going to course-correct this disaster. Or, at least, I hope it will. A lot of my friends went to work in trades. They’re universally doing better than the white-collar college graduates I know. Higher incomes (due to excessive demand) and no debt. The pendulum may be swinging back. It needs to, particularly before the next wave of retirements leaves us in an even greater shortage of skilled labor that will be more difficult to claw out of.
There’s been a good bit of coverage on Gen Z and their increasing disillusionment with college — not seeing it as a good value, as it were. They’ve also been shown to be more financially savvy and involved than any other generation at their age. Considering their financial acumen, I’d be surprised if a few didn’t notice the average salary for an electrician is now higher than the average for a staff accountant.
Our current workforce needs an immediate infusion of young, skilled talent before we face such labor shortages that projects become impossible. Gen Z may be the answer. The ship has sailed on its predecessors.
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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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Monday, September 05, 2022
Australia: Top doctor Luke McLindon sacked, shunned for divisive Covid research
Gynaecologist and obstetrician Luke McLindon has proved to be a headache, even an embarrassment, to the bosses at Brisbane’s Mater Hospital.
In June, the leading health facility terminated his job as the head of fertility services for not having the Covid-19 vaccine – against Queensland Health’s mandate.
And now the controversial doctor has stirred up a storm over data he says makes a preliminary link between the Covid-19 vaccine and miscarriages.
His unfinished research – which is heavily disputed by the Mater and counter to multiple studies that have found the vaccine is safe for pregnant women – was leaked and promoted by anti-vaxxers online.
Dr McLindon wants his early research to be investigated further, but his personal stance against vaccine mandates is not helping his fight for serious consideration of his findings.
“I’ve been shunned and isolated and in a very difficult place both personally and professionally,” he told The Sunday Mail. “I am not an anti-vaxxer, I’m just against mandates, and as a GP I delivered the scheduled immunisations to patients for years.
“As an obstetrician my patients were mostly all vaccinated. “I have never encouraged anyone not to be vaccinated.”
Dr McLindon, a long-time clinical researcher in infertility and recurrent miscarriage, told peers in a closed meeting that he had discovered a rise in the number of early pregnancies lost to women following the Covid-19 vaccine.
“I told the group that the rates looked too high but needed further investigation and made it clear the findings must not be spread,” he said.
“I was horrified by what I saw online. “It was used as anti-vax fodder and my actual data was not yet complete. “Those numbers were very early and they were worst possible scenario. “They needed to be moderated and adjusted as more time passed.
“News travelled fast in the medical world in Queensland and I have been distanced and frozen out.”
The doctor said at 51 he will likely have to start life again in a different career.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists recommends all people trying to conceive to have the Covid vaccine. Several studies have found the vaccine to be safe for pregnant women.
As he fights for his reputation, Supreme Court documents show the doctor lost his position at the Mater as he failed to adhere to the vaccine mandate for medical professionals.
Dr McLindon is one of a group of Queensland doctors who launched a legal challenge to the chief health officer’s vaccine mandates for hospital and healthcare workers.
“That is my personal decision due to a heart condition,” he said.
A Mater spokesman confirmed that the doctor no longer practised at the Mater but would not clarify the reason. Dr McLindon said he too was not at liberty to comment on the reason for his termination.
But court documents show that Mater chief executive Dr Peter Steer terminated his employment on June 9 as he had not complied to the vaccine mandate and did not provide an exemption.
“I wish to have peers review my findings before formally releasing,” Dr McLindon said. “The aim is to find a reputable international journal who sees the importance of this work to add to the scientific literature in this space.
“I have an intimate knowledge of these women’s menstrual cycles, time of conception, bloods, ultrasounds, vaccination status and timings.”
Colleagues say the controversial gynaecologist is a respected doctor and a “decent human being”. “Research needs to start somewhere,” one doctor said. “As experts in a field we have an obligation to be intellectually honest. “This includes being absolutely sure of your data and allowing others in the field to crosscheck your findings.”
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Better COVID-19 vaccines are on the way. What do they do? And what technology might we see in the future?
By Paul Griffin
Regulators in Australia and the United States last week approved Omicron-specific boosters, following approval in the United Kingdom in mid-August.
In Australia, a Moderna Omicron booster has been provisionally approved for use in adults aged 18 and over. Supplies are expected to arrive in the coming weeks, however the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) is yet to advise the government on how the vaccine will be used.
So what's new about the Omicron booster? And what sorts of advances in vaccine technology might we see next?
Why do we need new vaccines?
The current COVID-19 vaccines will go down in history as one of the greatest achievements of medical science. Developed at record pace — without omitting any of the usual steps to ensure safety and efficacy — the vaccines significantly decreased the risk of severe disease and death.
But they're less effective at reducing infection. Frequent boosters have been required to protect against new sub-variants. This is because the spike protein, which the vaccines target, has changed. And over time, our protection has reduced due to waning immunity.
What are the Omicron-specific vaccines?
Most manufacturers of approved COVID-19 vaccines began making boosters targeting previous variants as far back as Alpha. But until Omicron, these variant-specific boosters offered no significant advantage over vaccines targeting the original, or Wuhan, strain.
The new Omicron boosters combine two different targets in the one vaccine, known as a bivalent vaccine. This provides broader cross-protection — against the currently circulating variants but possibly against future variants too.
The first of these boosters, manufactured by Moderna, targets the BA.1 Omicron sub-variant in addition to the original or Wuhan strain. It also provides some protection against BA.4 and BA.5. This is now approved in the UK, Australia and US.
The US has also approved the Pfizer bivalent booster, which targets the spike of BA.4/BA.5 as well as the original strain.
What vaccine technology might we see next?
Scientists are working to develop COVID-19 vaccines that:
offer longer lasting protection
protect against new variants and sub-variants
provide similar levels of protection from a single dose
don't require freezing or refrigeration, and that have an extended shelf life
deliver a strong response from lower doses of active ingredient.
More than 120 potential COVID-19 vaccines are in clinical trials. Here are some of the improvements they're working on.
More robust protection against new variants
Most vaccines approved so far target the entire spike protein. But many vaccines under development specifically target the part of the spike protein that binds to the corresponding receptor on our cells. This is less likely to change than other parts of the spike protein, delivering more robust protection against new variants.
Candidate vaccines using this approach include Icosavax and one from the Serum Institute of India.
Easier storage
DNA-based vaccines are similar to mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) but are more temperature-stable, making them easier to transport and store. One such vaccine, by manufacturer Zydus, has already received an emergency use authorisation in India and is injected into the skin. Another, by Inovio, is undergoing phase three trials.
Greater immune responses from lower doses
With current COVID-19 vaccines, the body is given instructions to make the spike protein, or the spike protein itself is delivered. The vaccines cannot replicate or reproduce themselves. Vaccines that can replicate have the potential to generate stronger immune responses or strong enough responses from lower doses.
Variant-proof vaccines
Finally, many vaccines under development have the ambitious target of protecting against all coronviruses or vaccines that are essentially variant-proof. While this has not so far been achieved for any similar family of viruses, there are many promising candidates.
Many rely on combining antigens from many different parts of the virus or even multiple coronaviruses. Others combine multiple receptor-binding domains (potentially allowing the vaccine to give a broader immune response against a range of variants) with other innovative technologies.
Different routes of administration
Current vaccines rely on administration via a needle and syringe. This is an issue for people with needle phobias, and presents challenges for the disposal of sharps. So many vaccines being developed are given via alternate routes.
One way to deliver vaccines is through the nose, known as intranasal vaccination. Rather than injecting, you breathe it in.
Giving the vaccine via the same route the virus gains entry has the potential to generate a response that's better able to stop the virus entering in the first place.
One of the main limitations of nasal vaccines is getting a strong enough immune response to be effective. However there are many promising candidates, including one I'm working on.
Vaccines given via the skin are also a promising area. In addition to the DNA vaccines injected into the skin, others are being developed using vaccine coated onto patches, essentially made of microscopic needles. This is easier to administer.
It may also have some advantages in terms of immune response and its ability to be stored at room temperature. One such vaccine that looks promising has been developed by a group originally from the University of Queensland.
Finally, oral vaccines you drink are also under development. While potentially the most convenient method of administration, it's also one that poses great challenges in terms of getting a strong enough response for the required effect.
While up to five vaccines in development are exploring this avenue of administration, including one I'm involved in, they are in relatively early phases of clinical trials.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-05/covid-omicron-vaccine-booster-target-omicron/101401478
****************************************************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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Sunday, September 04, 2022
Sabbaths
I am completely secular but I like to observe a Sabbath for my own well-being. Sabbaths seem to me to be another example of Biblical wisdom. I normally observe the Jewish Sabbath -- Saturday -- but that is mainly because it fits best with my social life. I normally see Anne over breakfast and Jenny over dinner on Saturdays. So it is a pleasant day to pursue other interests than blogging.
I realized that this weekend was down to be different, however so had my Sabbath today -- on the Christian Sabbath of Sunday. I knew in advance that Anne would be out of town this weekend but that I would be seeing Joe for a fathers' day breakfast on Sunday and Zoe that evening.
So I did a usual schedule of blogging yesterday on Saturday and took a break from blogging today on Sunday. I have a separate report on how my Sunday went here
Which Sabbath is the "right" one for a Christian is an interesting exegetical problem. On the whole however, Sunday sabbaths are well justified by the New Testament. In Acts 15 it is laid down that Jewish law is not binding on Christians and Paul on several occasion dismissed as unimportant the day you keep as special.
It remains however that Sunday was originally the big pagan holy day -- for sun worship -- so I would be most comfortable with Saturday as the sabbath if I were still a Christian. The relevant New Testament excerpts are reproduced below:
Acts 15
But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question ...
Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. 21 For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues....
For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.
Romans 14:1-23 KJV
Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
Colossians 2:16-17
Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.
Galatians 4
But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
Hebrews 4
There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God
(Note that, in the Greek, the word for Sabbath is anarthrous, meaning that it is not THE Sabbath that is being referred to but "A" sabbath)
JR
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Saturday, September 03, 2022
Amazing retreat by Biden
He must have changed speechwriters
President Joe Biden walked back his attacks on Donald Trump's MAGA supporters, saying on Friday he doesn't consider 'any Trump supporter a threat to the country.' 'I don't consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country,' the president said at the White House.
It was a contrast to his remarks on Thursday night when, in a primetime address on the threat to democracy, he said Trump and his supporters were a threat to the republic.
Republicans slammed Biden's speech as divisive while Trump said Biden was 'insane.'
Biden toned down his tough talk on Friday, defending supporters of the former president. In response to a question after an event on federal manufacturing grants, Biden said Trump supporters weren't voting for violence.
He said the 74 million people who voted for Trump weren't voting for an insurrection. 'When people voted for Donald Trump - and support him now - they weren't voting for attacking the capital. They weren't voting for overruling the election. They were going for a philosophy he put forward.'
He did condemn the Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol in the January 6th insurrection and those who attempted to overturn the 2020 election results. He insisted his speech was directed at those who attacked democracy.
'I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it's used, refuses to acknowledge an election has been won, insists upon changing the way in which the rules and we count votes, that is a threat to democracy. Democracy. And everything we stand for, everything we stand for, rests on the platform of democracy,' he said.
'So I am not talking about anything other than it is inappropriate. And it's not only happening here, but other parts of the world with failure to recognize and condemn violence whenever it's used for those purposes, failure to condemn the attempt to manipulate an electrical outcome, failure to acknowledge when elections were won or lost.'
In his speech on Thursday night, Biden gave a notably different message. He said Trump is a 'threat to the country' in remarks that contained his harshest rhetoric to date about his predecessor in the Oval Office and the MAGA movement.
'Equality and democracy are under assault. We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise,' Biden declared at the top of his remarks before Philadelphia's Independence Hall.
He called out Trump by name, slamming the former president for his false claim the 2020 election was stolen and berating those who support Trump.
Trump, meanwhile, gave a blistering response to Biden's remarks. The former president called Biden 'insane' and asked if he was 'suffering from late stage dementia' after the president claimed he was a 'threat to democracy'.
Trump took to his Truth Social account on Thursday night to slam the 'awkward and angry' speech outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia - and called on someone to explain to his successor what MAGA means, 'slowly but passionately'.
'Someone should explain to Joe Biden, slowly but passionately, that MAGA means, as powerfully as mere words can get, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!,' he wrote.
'If he doesn't want to Make America Great Again, which through words, action, and thought, he doesn't, then he certainly should not be representing the United States of America!
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California Lawmakers Pass Bill to Punish Dissenting Doctors for ‘Misinformation’
Legislation that would punish doctors who dissent from the California government’s messaging on COVID-19 has passed the state Legislature. Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Sept. 30 to either veto the bill or sign it into law.
The final amendments to Assembly Bill 2098 (AB 2098), introduced by Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), were passed by a 56-20 vote on Aug. 30 in the Assembly.
The bill would amend the state’s Business and Professions Code to give the Medical Board of California (MBC) the discretionary power to discipline physicians or surgeons who spread “misinformation or disinformation” related to COVID-19. The MBC currently has the power to punish doctors charged with unprofessional conduct under the Medical Practice Act for violations including gross negligence, incompetence, dishonesty, or corruption.
“Misinformation,” according to the Aug. 23 Senate Floor analysis, means “false or misleading information about the nature and risks of the virus; COVID-19 prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.”
In response, Sen. Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) told The Epoch Times, “Doctors should be neither controlled nor prohibited by government from giving relevant health information to their patients.”
“Californians deserve to make informed decisions about their health without their doctors being threatened with disciplinary actions over what some state board deems ‘misinformation,’” Melendez said in a text message on Aug. 31.
Dr. Michael Huang of Roseville, Calif., who is in jeopardy of losing his medical license for allegedly issuing invalid mask and vaccine medical exemptions to his patients—many of them firefighters and school-age children—told The Epoch Times the state government has overstepped its bounds.
“It’s horrible. We’re back into the days of the Inquisition when Galileo was found guilty for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun,” he said. “The state is acting well beyond what it’s designed to do.”
The bill, Huang contends, will make it impossible to practice honest medicine.
Politicians shouldn’t meddle in medicine by “looking for fault and trying to punish physicians” for their medical opinions, because knowledge is always evolving, he said. “What we knew about COVID two years ago is completely different than what we know now.”
Huang has been under investigation by the medical board since at least December 2021 for “unprofessional conduct,” and the decision regarding the fate of his medical license is still pending.
The investigation followed an announcement issued by the medical board on Aug. 18, 2021 that physicians could be subject to disciplinary action for granting mask or other exemptions inappropriately.
If his license to practice medicine is suspended, Huang will likely leave the state, and may even stop practicing medicine altogether, because, he said, doctors everywhere are facing political pressure to comply.
“It’s not just in California,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Aug. 22 Assembly Floor analysis accused former President Donald Trump of advising people to inject themselves with disinfectant in its discussion on misinformation.
“If, for example, a physician were to advise patients to inject disinfectant as a way of treating COVID-19—as former President Trump once did, resulting in a sharp rise in reported incidents of misusing bleach and other cleaning products—disseminating that ‘misinformation’ would almost certainly be considered negligent care subject to discipline,” the analysis states.
However, the transcript of Trump’s comments at a press briefing on April 23, 2020, referenced by the California Assembly analysis, shows he did not say people should inject themselves with disinfectants to treat COVID-19. In fact, he was asking officials on the White House coronavirus task force whether they could be used in potential cures, according to PolitiFact.
Trump later clarified his comments after a reporter asked whether disinfectants could actually be injected into COVID-19 patients.
“It wouldn’t be through injections, almost a cleaning and sterilization of an area. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t work, but it certainly has a big effect if it’s on a stationary object,” Trump said at the time.
The analysis also targeted America’s Frontline Doctors founder Dr. Simone Gold.
“Dr. Gold has engaged in multiple campaigns to stoke public distrust in COVID-19 vaccines, characterizing them as ‘experimental’ despite numerous safety and efficacy trials successfully confirming their safety and efficacy. Dr. Gold spoke at a rally held in conjunction with the attempted insurrection on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021; she was arrested and subsequently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor relating to that event,” the analysis states.
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Biden Admin Regularly Coordinated With Facebook, Twitter To Censor Users, Records Show
Dozens of federal officials across multiple agencies within the Biden administration communicated extensively with social media companies to coordinate censorship of information, according to internal documents released by Republican Attorneys General Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Jeff Landry of Louisiana.
Officials within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent emails to employees at Facebook and Twitter to flag instances of alleged misinformation and provide talking points to counter allegedly false narratives spreading on the platforms. Government officials would occasionally initiate this activity, with one message from a CDC official requesting monthly meetings with Facebook to plan “debunking” strategies, and a White House official requesting the removal of a parody Anthony Fauci account.
One collection of emails shows Facebook staff collaborating closely with staff at the HHS to remove Facebook groups, with one message describing the collaboration as “critical.” Staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discussed setting up “regular chats” with Twitter, and Twitter invited White House staff to be briefed on their efforts relating to vaccine misinformation. (RELATED: Court Orders Biden White House To Cough Up Top Officials’ Communications With Big Tech)
“I know our teams met today to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward,” one email from Facebook staff to HHS staff states. “In our previous conversations I’ve appreciated the way you and your team have approached our engagement, and we have worked hard to meet the moment — we’ve dedicated enormous time and resources to fighting this pandemic and consider ourselves partners in fighting the same battle.”
Documents produced by the Department of Justice allegedly reveal a connection between 45 federal officials at the DHS and HHS and social media giants, with the social media companies disclosing connections to officials at the White House and U.S. Election Assistance Commision, among others, according to Schmitt’s press release. The administration has allegedly refused to disclose the connections of the highest-ranking members, citing executive privilege, according to the press release.
“The limited discovery produced so far provides a tantalizing snapshot into a massive, sprawling federal “Censorship Enterprise,” which includes dozens of federal officials across at least eleven federal agencies and components identified so far,” Schmitt and Landry write in a Wednesday petition for additional documents. “[These officials] communicate with social-media platforms about misinformation, disinformation, and the suppression of private speech on social media—all with the intent and effect of pressuring social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech that federal officials disfavor.”
The DHS this spring launched a short-lived initiative known as the Government Disinformation Board, which was supposed to study misinformation online and provide the DHS with tools to combat propaganda that posed a national security threat, according to The Washington Post. The program disbanded after just three weeks due to significant backlash, according to The Washington Post.
“We’re going to need another [Nina Jankowicz] down the road,” an anonymous DHS staffer to The Washington Post, referring to the board’s erstwhile executive director. “And anyone who takes that position is going to be vulnerable to a disinformation campaign or attack.”
https://dailycaller.com/2022/09/01/federal-govt-social-media-censor
****************************************************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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Friday, September 02, 2022
Pandemic profits: Winners and losers in the Covid casino
This week, John Ratcliffe, former Director of National Intelligence under former President Trump, told CBS News that throughout 2020 he ‘had a high degree of confidence that the origins of Covid-19 were in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)’ and said there was zero intelligence that points to a natural origin noting, ‘It’s been now almost three years since Covid-19 was first identified and there has never been an intermediary host identified’.
He’s not the only highly placed insider who believes Covid may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In February, Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News that, as he’d said before, ‘the hypothesis of an escape from a lab by an accident is possible. Human makes mistakes. So it is possible that the Wuhan lab in China was working on virus enhancement or gene modification, and then there’s an accident where somebody was infected in a lab and then infected family and friends’.
When Bancel says that a lab leak is possible it should carry considerable weight because he was instrumental in bringing the WIV into existence. His first job was at BioMérieux, a company which sponsored his MBA at Harvard and to which he returned as CEO in 2007 aged only 34. The founder of BioMérieux, Alain Mérieux – and his father-in-law Paul Berliet before him – had a deep relationship with the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, at the highest levels, including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and ultimately Xi Jinping.
Mérieux as co-president of the Franco-Chinese Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases lobbied the French government repeatedly to support the construction of the WIV and in 2007, French president Nicolas Sarkozy signed an agreement in China to ‘ensure that all necessary measures are taken as soon as possible to implement… the Wuhan P4 laboratory’. This coincided with Bancel taking over as CEO and supporting Mérieux who worked personally as a consultant in the WIV construction. The company’s relationship with China was so strong that in October 2012, before being officially appointed president, Xi Jinping received Mérieux in private audience.
In 2011, Bancel took over as CEO of Moderna. Could the scientists at the WIV have been using a sequence patented by Moderna to enhance a virus? It certainly looks like it. One of the closest relatives of Sars-CoV-2 is RATG13, a bat coronavirus discovered by researchers at the WIV in 2013. The only significant difference between RATG13 and Sars-CoV-2 is the furin cleavage site in the spike protein which makes the virus infectious in humans. It is this furin cleavage site which contains the 19 nucleotide sequence patented by Moderna five times between 2013 and 2015 and it shares some similarities with the furin cleavage site in the Mers coronavirus which was first identified in 2012 and might have served as a model for researchers at the WIV looking to enhance RATG13. When Bartiromo asked Bancel in February whether part of the DNA of the Sars-CoV-2 virus had been patented by Moderna, he said, ‘It is possible’.
In addition to his relationship with WIV, in 2015, Bancel partnered with the Vaccine Research Centre, part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, to collaborate on vaccines, including mRNA vaccines, and studying coronaviruses. Meanwhile, Fauci’s NIAID was funding gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at WIV via grants to the EcoHealth Alliance headed by Peter Daszak. Indeed, NIAID only terminated the funding last week, after the WIV repeatedly refused to hand over key information about the coronavirus research it conducted with US taxpayer dollars.
Bancel says that it was while he was in Davos for the World Economic Forum in January 2020 that he understood the extent of the impact that the Sars CoV-2 virus would have on the world and started work on his vaccine. Yet Moderna and NIAID had already signed an agreement to transfer their jointly-owned mRNA coronavirus vaccine candidates to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on 12 December 2019 for Ralph Baric to test on animals.
This has taken on fresh relevance with Fauci announcing that he will step down as director of NIAID in December. Republicans say that Fauci might be gone but they will bring him back to testify about what he knew and what he funded at the WIV.
Meanwhile, Moderna has announced that it is suing Pfizer for breach of its patents. It’s a bitter pill to swallow for those who have suffered vaccine injuries and aren’t allowed to sue either company. Unlike Australia with its loss of $144 billion, both companies have profited handsomely from the pandemic. But while Pfizer was already an established titan of the pharmaceutical industry, Moderna was a heavily loss-making biotech with unproven technology, wrote the Sunday Times. As one of Bancel’s peers observed, ‘The pandemic came almost as a blessing to prove the technology’. The question is, what, if anything, did NIAID or Moderna or the WIV do to hasten that blessing?
https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/pandemic-profits
********************************************************‘More than 400,000 people’ have had long Covid for over two years
A total of two million people across the country are estimated to be suffering from long Covid, according to a new survey from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Some 429,000 – the equivalent of around one in five (22%) – first had Covid-19, or suspected they had the virus, at least 24 months previously.
The number of people with long Covid who first had the virus at least one year ago is estimated to be 892,000, or 45% of the total.
The figures are based on self-reported long Covid from a representative sample of people in private households in the four weeks to July 31.
They show that long Covid is likely to be adversely affecting the day-to-day activities of 1.5 million people – nearly three-quarters of those with self-reported long Covid – with 384,000 saying their ability to undertake day-to-day activities has been “limited a lot”.
Fatigue is the most common symptom (experienced by 62% of those with self-reported long Covid), followed by shortness of breath (37%), difficulty concentrating (33%) and muscle ache (31%).
The estimates cannot be compared directly with previous long Covid surveys published by the ONS, due to a change in the way the data has been collected.
Prevalence of long Covid is currently highest among 35 to 69-year-olds, at 4.4%, followed by 25 to 34-year-olds, at 3.0%.
People working in social care reported the highest prevalence of long Covid among employment groups (5.6%), followed by teachers and educators (4.4%) and arts and entertainment workers (4.3%).
There is no standard measure for long Covid, with the ONS using a definition based on symptoms that have persisted for more than four weeks after a first suspected coronavirus infection, where the symptoms could not be explained by something else
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Australia: Business hails five-day Covid isolation ‘a game changer’
Business has hailed national cabinet’s decision to reduce mandatory Covid isolation requirements from seven days to five for people with no symptoms, declaring it a “game changer” that will help alleviate labour shortages.
Anthony Albanese, who labelling the move a “proportionate response at this point in the pandemic”, also said masks would no longer be mandatory on domestic flights from September 9 – the same day the isolation changes take effect.
However, all workers in high-risk settings, including aged care and disability care, must still self-isolate for seven days.
Government sources confirmed if a person not in those settings has symptoms on day six and onwards, they should follow their state’s health advice.
“There aren’t mandated requirements for the flu or for a range of other illnesses that people suffer from,” the Prime Minister said. “What we want to do is to make sure that government responds to the changed circumstances. Covid is likely going to be around for a considerable period of time. And we need to respond appropriately to it based upon the weight of evidence.
“We had a discussion about people looking after each other, people looking after their own health,” he added.
Mr Albanese did not rule out extending pandemic leave payments worth up to $750, which are now jointly funded by the commonwealth and states. National cabinet is due to make a decision on the payments when it next meets in a fortnight.
The payments will reflect the five-day isolation rule from September 9, meaning they should be worth about $536.
Restaurant and Catering chief executive Belinda Clarke said that with the current staffing crisis, a reduction in isolation days would be a “game changer”.
“As we’ve continued to learn to live with Covid-19, we have to start becoming more flexible,” she told The Australian. “Other countries have had a five-day isolation period for months now, and this goes a long way to helping staff who are asymptomatic return to work and resume their lives.”
Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said the decision was “overdue and welcome”, stressing it was important for people to get back to work in a more timely manner as the pandemic passes its peak.
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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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Thursday, September 01, 2022
Britain’s COVID rules rethink holds lessons for others
London: When British Prime Minister Boris Johnson ended the legal requirement to self-isolate after a positive COVID-19 test seven months ago, about 3.3 million people – almost one in 19 – in the United Kingdom were infected with the virus.
In early February, some cynics, with the memory of Johnson’s shambolic early handling of the crisis fresh in their minds, described the move as an attempted distraction from his own political scandals.
Downing Street stressed the decision was not a recommendation that people should go to work if they had coronavirus, adding that “guidance” on appropriate behaviour would remain in place.
“Obviously in the same way that someone with flu, we wouldn’t recommend they go to work; we would never recommend anyone goes to work when they have an infectious disease,” it said, wary of a backlash from an anxious public.
It was, at the time, considered somewhat of a gamble and Johnson was condemned in some quarters as reckless and, as one union leader said, “going too far, way too soon”. Life, however, slowly returned to normal in London and major cities throughout the country.
As Australia and other nations emerge from a third long, cold COVID winter, Johnson’s bold move is being examined closely to determine if it was brave or indeed premature.
In Britain, some are warning that cases will most likely increase in autumn and winter as people spend less time in the open air, that disruption to school and university life will continue, and young people will once again be a vector of transmission to older generations.
Experts, such as Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, said scrapping the legal requirement was “pragmatic” as self-isolation rules were, essentially, self-policed anyway.
“No longer mandating isolation periods isn’t going to make a big difference,” he said then. But he stressed the need to continue with “strong public health messaging”, adding that the government “must not pretend it’s over”.
Authorities held their nerves as a new variant appeared and, by the end of March, infection numbers hit a record 4.9 million at the peak of the Omicron BA.2 wave before falling again. Infections jumped again by a fifth in early June after Jubilee celebrations amid increased socialising, waning immunity and a drop-off in preventative measures helped spread the virus.
In the months since, case numbers have largely stabilised, not only because of a long, hot summer where windows are open and people have spent hours outside, but because of a dramatic fall in testing after the government scrapped free kits in April. Many people now have COVID without even knowing it.
The government took a calculated risk in lifting restrictions before all the data was in, and, most now agree the decision was justified. Politicians have to lead, after all, and the Band-Aid needed to be ripped off.
While more than 200,000 Britons have now died with COVID mentioned on their death certificates, the virus is not the killer it once was. At the start of the pandemic, one in 100 people who caught it died. Now, that figure is as low as one in 3000.
On Thursday, the last coronavirus requirements in England will be scrapped when even hospital patients and care home residents will no longer be tested for COVID-19 unless they have symptoms.
In the latest estimates of infections, released last week, cases fell by 16 per cent from the previous week. One in every 45 people were believed to be infected – about 2.2 per cent of the population.
The government said it expected prevalence to remain low following the most recent wave, caused by the BA.4 and BA.5 variants of Omicron. The authorities now intend to protect individuals through vaccination and antiviral treatments, instead of isolation and testing.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay said last week that pausing routine asymptomatic testing in most high-risk settings was possible because of a strong vaccine rollout.
“This reflects the fact case rates have fallen and the risk of transmission has reduced, though we will continue to closely monitor the situation and work with sectors to resume testing should it be needed,” he said.
Barclay said the upcoming autumn booster program would offer jabs to protect those at greatest risk from severe COVID-19.
In an editorial last month, The Times declared: “Draconian restrictions on the model of 2020 are not necessary or desirable but modest measures to arrest the spread of infection, including a return to mask-wearing on public transport and encouraging social distancing, would be prudent.”
Ending mandatory isolation for positive cases relegated COVID from the front pages of newspapers and TV news bulletins, but the move did not result in a massive uptick in economic activity.
Gross domestic product, the measure of the quantity of goods and services produced, fell 0.1 per cent in the second quarter this year after rising 0.7 per cent in the previous quarter, as households cut spending when the cost of living crisis began to bite and health sector output fell as cases and testing declined.
Warning that a new wave could put added pressure on the stretched public hospital system, a think tank headed by former prime minister Tony Blair has called for the government to adapt to the changing circumstance and make face masks compulsory on trains and buses.
The National Health Service (NHS) is struggling, though not directly because of the virus. Of the 92,000 general acute beds that are open in England, fewer than 5000 are occupied by patients who are there because of COVID.
The proportion of people being treated for very severe infections and needing intensive care remains lower than earlier in the pandemic, as vaccinations continue to protect people from severe disease.
But the system is facing a record backlog of patients waiting for treatment following more than two years of disruption.
The number of people waiting more than 12 hours in emergency departments rose 33 per cent in July from the previous month, according to data from NHS England, a record high that underscores the intense pressure facing the health system.
Face coverings have not been in force since July last year, but Blair’s institute said, “the strategic implementation of mask mandates should be considered for this autumn and winter” on public transport.
It also suggested masks should be brought back for indoor events if a new variant emerges that causes a surge in hospitalisations. Blair has also called for the COVID booster vaccination campaign to be expanded to include all adults.
Current guidance from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation says that over-50s, the clinically vulnerable and frontline health and social care workers can get a booster, with all expected to get an upgraded, Omicron-specific jab.
“This winter will bring a perfect storm, resulting in unprecedented demand and reduced capacity, which will combine to create the worst winter crisis in the NHS’s history,” the report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change warned.
“The government must do whatever it takes to support the NHS through this period and act immediately to avert an unmitigated disaster.”
While official health guidance in the UK remains “try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for five days” after they start feeling unwell, a new study by Imperial College London, released last week, now suggests this five-day period is not long enough to cut transmission.
In the first real-world study of its kind, experts monitored 57 people at home after they were exposed to the coronavirus to test how long they remained infectious. The participants completed questionnaires about their symptoms and had daily tests looking at how much virus they were shedding each day.
Only one in five was infectious before their symptoms developed, but two-thirds of cases were still infectious five days after first reporting symptoms.
Professor Ajit Lalvani, the lead author, said 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 reduced substantially.
He said that people should isolate for five days and not leave isolation until they had tested negative twice on rapid tests.
“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.”
Pandemic leave payments ‘can’t continue forever’: treasurer
Adam Finn, a professor of paediatrics at the University of Bristol and a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the fact that the booster program was now focused entirely on people at enhanced risk of serious illness might help this winter. Eight out of 10 of those aged 75 and over had the spring booster.
He stressed the need for clear communication over the booster program.
“We’ve got a tool that is really good at stopping the old folks from dying,” he said. “We’ve more or less given up on the idea of mass immunisation to control the spread of infection. Vaccinating everyone every three months is just not feasible.”
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FDA authorizes updated COVID-19 boosters
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized two newly updated COVID-19 booster shots: one made by Moderna and one made by Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech, according to a statement(opens in new tab) released Wednesday (Aug. 31).
Both boosters guard against the original SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus variant targeted by the original vaccines as well as two omicron subvariants, known as the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages. These two versions of omicron are "currently causing most cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. and are predicted to circulate this fall and winter," the FDA statement notes. BA.5 accounts for nearly 90% of current cases in the U.S., and BA.4 accounts for most of the remaining cases, STAT reported(opens in new tab).
Through an "emergency use authorization," the updated Moderna booster can be used in people ages 18 and older, while the Pfizer-BioNTech booster is authorized for people as young as 12. The single-dose shots can be given to people who are at least two months out from the final dose of their initial COVID-19 vaccine series or at least two months out from their last booster shot, if they've received one.
"As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants," FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert M. Califf said in Wednesday's statement. (The term "bivalent" means the boosters target two coronavirus components: one from the original SARS-CoV-2 strain and one that's shared by BA.4 and BA.5.)
https://www.livescience.com/first-updated-covid19-boosters-authorized
****************************************************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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Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Taking Mask Off Science Driving COVID-19 Responses as Schools Reopen
Despite the evidence, back to school means back to masks again for some children this year, and parents and educators still don't have evidence that mask policies keep students or teachers safe.
Rather, the experience of the past two years has taught us that teacher unions and other education interest groups, not science, are driving school responses to COVID-19.
That means political power is a bigger concern than health and student achievement.
The primary concern for parents, teachers, and policymakers today must be student learning.
Commentators and analysts on both sides of the ideological divide have called prolonged school closures "disastrous," "catastrophic," and "severe," among other epithets.
Research has uncovered significant learning losses among K-12 students over the past two years, with greater academic setbacks for children who were forced to stay out of the classroom for longer periods compared with those who returned earlier to in-person learning.
Some project that the learning losses will be greater for those students who were already falling behind before the pandemic, a forecast that should surprise no one. The learning losses do not point directly to mask mandates, but those requirements are part of a litany of policies that divert attention away from student success.
Still, school officials in Jefferson County, Kentucky, the state's largest school district, along with educators in Philadelphia are among those continuing mask mandates to start the school year. Other school administrators in Fairfax County, Virginia, and some school districts in California either started the year with a mask mandate or are considering a mandate now.
As of Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classified more than one-third of counties in the U.S. as areas with high transmission, including some of the largest school districts in the country, such as Miami's.
The CDC continues to recommend school mask mandates in those counties. Americans have reason to doubt the scientific basis for those decisions, however.
Politics have become inseparable from school health policies. In March, Republicans in Congress released a report confirming what many had long suspected: Teachers unions colluded with the White House and CDC officials to write federal guidance that kept schools closed, despite evidence demonstrating that children were the least affected by the virus.
Agency officials recently pledged to reform the CDC, saying what all Americans have recognized by now: The agency "lost its focus" and had "manifold failures" over the pandemic.
For those reasons, along with a lack of reliable evidence for certain pandemic responses, the CDC has damaged its credibility on school mask mandates. School officials are far less likely today than they were last fall to adopt the agency's recommendations.
That's a good thing for parents who will have more latitude to make their own decisions concerning their children's well-being.
Many school officials are appropriately making decisions on their own. According to Burbio, a data service that aggregates school and community data, only 1.8% of the 500 largest school districts it tracks have such mandates in place. Last fall, nearly three-quarters of those districts required students to wear masks.
School districts across the U.S. are ignoring the CDC's school masking guidance. Some of that's due to lower levels of public anxiety about COVID-19. But it also is related to the agency's failure to establish a sound basis for its recommendations.
Consider: A widely cited study published last September in the CDC's flagship journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, found that "school masking requirements [were] associated with lower daily case rates of pediatric COVID-19."
But a preprint accepted for publication by The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, replicated and extended the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report study's methodology and reached the opposite conclusion.
The Lancet study's authors looked at schools in the 565 counties included in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report study. They found that, while schools that mandated masks had lower instances of pediatric COVID-19 after three weeks, that difference disappeared after six weeks.
Extending the sample to 1,832 counties, they found no difference in pediatric case rates between schools with mask mandates and those without them.
The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report declined to publish the study, although it used the same methods as the study that the journal published last September.
Americans should remember that if school officials do not require masks, educators and students can still choose to wear face coverings. But public officials do not have the research evidence to require everyone to wear masks.
Educators do have enough research, however, to prioritize student success. So far, that's been one of sad casualties of the pandemic -- but one we can still remedy if we put children ahead of politics.
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DC Delays School Vaccine Mandate After Daily Signal Report
Fewer than 24 hours after The Daily Signal reported that the District of Columbia would not offer remote learning and planned to bar unvaccinated students, many of whom are black, from attending school in person 20 days after school started on Monday, the city abruptly announced it was delaying the policy until next year.
DCist reported that Washington, D.C., Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn announced that enforcement of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate would not begin until Jan. 3, 2023.
Students 12 and up who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 will receive a notice of noncompliance on Nov. 21. If they do not comply by Jan. 3, 2023, they will no longer be able to attend school in person.
Citing “the challenges of tracking enforcement for COVID-19 vaccinations,” in a Friday letter to city education officials, Kihn wrote:
We have heard from many of you about the challenges of tracking enforcement for COVID-19 vaccinations … We hope that the Jan. 3, 2023 date for first exclusions of non-compliant students will give schools and [local education agencies] additional time to prepare and for students to get their COVID-19 vaccinations.
On Thursday, The Daily Signal questioned D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, on what unvaccinated students could expect when public school started on Monday.
“They can go to school on Monday,” Bowser said, “But they need to get their vaccinations … and their families will be alerted as to the dates.”
The Daily Signal then asked whether unvaccinated children would have the option to learn virtually if they didn’t get vaccinated. As of Thursday, students were told they had 20 days from the start of school to show proof of vaccination.
Bowser replied, “We’re not offering remote learning for children, and families will need to comply with what is necessary to come to school.”
The Daily Signal’s article was shared widely on Twitter, including by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
The D.C. government’s vaccine numbers website shows 47% of the black children in the District ages 12-15 had not completed their primary vaccination series necessary to go back to school in person.
Among black teens aged 16-17, 42% are unvaccinated.
The announcement comes on the heels of D.C. Superior Court Judge Maurice A. Ross’ decision Thursday that the city’s vaccination mandate for city employees was unlawful.
Just Washington, D.C., and New Orleans currently require students to be vaccinated for COVID-19 in order to attend school in person, according to The Washington Post.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/26/dc-delays-school-vaccine-mandate-after-daily-signal-report
****************************************************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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Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Judge Rules COVID Vaccine Mandate for DC Government Workers Is Unconstitutional
A Washington D.C. superior court judge ruled Thursday that the city's COVID-19 vaccine mandate that was imposed on city employees is unlawful.
An order that was handed down by Judge Maurice A. Ross was a response to a lawsuit filed by the Washington D.C. Police Union and other groups that opposed Mayor Muriel Bowser's mandate. Bowser in August of last year ordered city government employees to provide proof of vaccination although some workers could seek a medical or religious exemption to the shot.
"A vaccine mandate is not an everyday exercise of power," Ross wrote in his 17-page ruling (pdf). "It is instead a significant encroachment into the life"”and health"”of an employee. It is strikingly unlike any other workplace regulations typically imposed, as it "˜cannot be undone at the end of the workday.' Thus, there is an expectation that a vaccine mandate must come from a legislative body."
Ross also argued that the legal "system does not permit the Mayor to act unlawfully even in the pursuit of desirable ends," including curbing COVID-19, adding that "the Mayor lacks legal authority to impose a vaccine mandate on Plaintiffs."
The judge rejected city lawyers' arguments that Bowser could impose a vaccine mandate in her capacity to regulate occupational and workplace hazards. The Biden administration made a similar claim to the U.S. Supreme Court last year on its vaccine mandate for private businesses before the court struck the rule down in January.
"Although COVID-19 is a risk that can occur in many workplaces, it is not an occupational hazard in most," Ross wrote in his order.
Response
It means the city can't enforce the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Meanwhile, disciplinary actions that were taken to enforce compliance can be reversed, according to Ross's ruling.
The DC Police Union praised the decision and said it will ensure that its officers won't be terminated or forced to take the vaccine.
"Had the Mayor just engaged the Union in good faith bargaining, we would have reached a reasonable compromise that protected everyone's interests," Gregg Pemberton, the chairman of the union, said in a statement. "Now, all of our members can go back to do the necessary work of trying to protect our communities from crime and violence without unlawful threats of discipline and termination."
The office of Bowser, a Democrat, issued a statement Friday to WUSA9 in response to the ruling.
"We are reviewing the Court's ruling, and believe that the judge misunderstood the strength and diversity of the authorities we relied upon in issuing the employee vaccination mandate," the statement said, adding that "going forward, we will comply with the Court's orders as we continue encouraging our community to access life-saving vaccines."
Bowser's statement further claimed that her office believes that "COVID-19 vaccines work" and "save lives." Some recent studies, however, have suggested the opposite may be true.
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Thailand study of young adults post jab showed nearly 30% with cardiovascular injuries
A new study on cardiovascular impacts of the COVID vaccines done in Thailand is particularly troubling: 29% of the young adults experience non-trivial changes in their cardiac biomarkers.
It is amazing what you find when scientists doing a study are honest and want to know the truth.
“Why isn’t a study like this being done in the US?” asks UCSF Professor Vinay Prasad.
Heck, we don’t even know the d-dimer of people before vs. after the vax.
This is just more evidence of corruption of the medical community that nobody was calling for any of this data.
These vaccines are a disaster. Every day, the evidence gets worse and worse.
Will this new study stop the vaccines for kids? Of course not!
Look, even if the shots killed every child under 20 who takes it, they’d write off the death to something else and recommend that kids get the shot. The brainwashing is that bad. It’s stunning. Facts do not matter.
Consider this Thailand study:
18% of kids had an abnormal EKG post-vaccine?!? That has to be extremely troubling. A vaccine is not supposed to do that. Are doctors telling parents the vaccine causes serious heart issues in 18% of kids? At least let them know.
The paper noted that “Cardiovascular effects were found in 29.24% of patients, ranging from tachycardia, palpitation, and myo/pericarditis.” Wow.
Almost 30% of the cases?!?! That’s not “rare.”
Finally a 3.5% rate of myo/pericarditis (including subclinical) among males 13-18 is not rare either. We were lied to by the CDC. Big time.
Interestingly, this is consistent with the number of myocarditis rates at Monte Vista Christian School in Watsonville, CA which was in excess of 1% but they wouldn’t reveal any of the details beyond that publicly; gotta keep the school safe from lawsuits. Major credit there goes to Head of School Nikki Daniels for making sure that nobody found out that the shots they gave at the school were hurting kids. When adverse reactions started showing up, they did the right thing: they kept their mouths shut.
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/thailand-study-of-young-adults-post
*****************************************************The Republican Party is moving toward a true opposition party, and Biden fears it
By Bill Wilson
The time-worn tactic of the establishment Left is to always blame their opponents of their own crimes. While it may appear childish – Mom, I didn’t break the window, the other kid did it! – it works or at least it eases the minds of some of the worst human rights, anti-liberty fiends in history. Proving once again that every other day or so, Joe Biden can read from a teleprompter, he did it last week, labeling his opponents “semi-fascists.”
Last week, the “President” made a speech at a political rally where he set out the narrative of the Left for the coming mid-term elections. There are, according to Biden, good traditional Republicans and then there are MAGA Republicans. The good Republicans of course are the slithering quislings that have handed the Democrats and the radical left everything they ever wanted, playing the role of loyal opposition in order to divert patriotic citizens from anything approaching real, organized opposition. MAGA Republicans, you see, according to Biden don’t want to play that weak, pathetic treasonous role. They actually want to advance ideas!
And advancing ideas is, according to the regime, fascist. The Washington Post paid hack Dana Milbank echoed Biden and tried to add some flourish to the words of the babbler-in-chief. And of course he would. Milbank, after all, is nothing more than a corporate paid shill for the Democrat Party. He is a loyal member in good standing of leftist politics since his days at Yale, (of course). He is married to the daughter of a Democrat-operative royalty Stan Greenberg and the step daughter of one of the most radical and destructive Members of Congress, Rosa DeLauro. So, to be frank, anything this two-bit hack pens is by definition propaganda.
So, what is the crime, what have MAGA Republicans done that reducing them to mere caricatures to the regime? Well, they “encourage violence”, says Milbank. No mention of the three months of riots in 2020 that killed people and destroyed billions of dollars of property. And no mention of the use of criminals to terrorize American cities by communist District Attorneys. The use of criminal terror to cow the citizenry was a tactic of who? Oh yeah, we are not allowed to draw that comparison.
Well, what else makes half the country “semi-fascist”? According to Milbank and Biden, MAGA Republicans “reject the legitimate outcome of the last election — and are making it easier to reject the will of the voters in the next.” Oh, I see. So, when leftists rejected the Bush re-election in 2004 and attempted to undercut it, that was ok. And when people like Biden and Milbank and all of their comrades rejected the election of Trump in 2016, that was just right and fair. But, when citizens look at the mountain of evidence that the 2020 election was stolen, when they see that the FBI on purpose manipulated the news about the crimes of Hunter Biden, when they learn that the entire intelligence structure was employed to divert attention from the real national security threat that Hunter Biden poses, they should just ignore it and fall in line.
Anything else? You bet! According to Milbank, “A systemic campaign of disinformation makes their supporters feel victimized by shadowy “elites.” These are hallmarks of authoritarianism.” So, the “elites” are the victims here, right? Shadowy? You mean like conspiring with some flunky association to have parents labeled domestic terrorists for asking questions? Do they mean denying children lunches unless the local school system embraces and celebrates “transgenderism”? Maybe they mean disinformation like the lies being spread about the disaster of the sanctions on Russia, how Europeans will freeze and see food stock plumet this winter because of such mindless “empire building”?
No, I guess all of these facts are just too much for little Dana to consider. We know that Biden doesn’t have the cognitive ability to do so. At the end of the day, the cynical and disgusting ploy by Biden as echoed by his propagandist is just the latest rancid, rotting move by a dying and incompetent regime.
So, for the record Dana, the quisling Republicans your boss loves so much are gone, they are dead. The few squealing members exist only to serve the Deep State’s desire to have control of both parties. But, as Liz Cheney proved, there is no base for that putrid lie. The Republican Party is moving toward a true opposition party, a party that embraces an America First agenda. And isn’t that what you and your ilk really hate and fear? The Agenda, not the man Donald Trump or any group of advocates, right?
And what is that agenda that you fear and hate so much?
It is secure borders, saying to everyone who came to the U.S. legally and did what was asked in order to become citizens that they are valued and that respect for law means you respect the laws on entry into our country. It is trade deals that do not kill American industries and jobs. It means that globalist organizations like the WTO or the UN have no say in how we conduct our business and that working people and communities rule. It is an agenda that rejects the insanity of energy dependence. It is an agenda that does not accept the lie of man-made climate change and embraces real science as the solution to our challenges.
And, most importantly, it is an agenda that rejects the global role of the U.S. as policeman to the world. It rejects the idea that our sons and daughters should be put in harm’s way to make the world safer for Goldman Sachs. It is an agenda that values our defense forces but not the military industrial complex getting rich off their blood. It is an agenda that refuses to play the role of empire and rejects the physical and financial oppression that empire requires to be imposed on other peoples and our own citizens.
To all MAGA supporters and allies, when Biden and his kind start to hurl slurs at you, do not fall for their bait. Make them define what they want. Demand that they debate the issues that make up the MAGA agenda. Force these mindless trolls of the Deep State to defend their insults. And then continue to spread the word, organize and act like these toads do not exist. They are not real. They are in fact mere projections of a dead and rotting regime looking at itself and wanting to find someone to blame.
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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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