The Playground

Quote from Shane D.

Damage control, IMO, after the damaging emails between Fauci and NIH Director Collins from Oct 2021, were released under a FOIA request 2 days ago.

In the emails, Collins told Fauci that he wanted "a quick and devastating public take down" of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) authors. Fauci was more than willing to comply, and then, miraculously within the day, the "media" was instantly on the story to apply the "coup de grace".

In your article, my take is that the author starts off pretending to be neutral, and quickly goes in for the kill. It is a hit-piece, disguised as objective journalism.

Why on earth "attack" GBD? I find that declaration sensible, and so do many medical professionals I engage with. Of cause you are allowed to have a different opinion, and are free to express so. But the wordings here is alarming what's wrong with people, can't they just agree on writing an article that explains their view in stead of using language like "quick and devastating public take down". People are nuts, and this shit is only going to make it worse.

Quote from stefan

Why on earth "attack" GBD?

The free masons doctrine since 200 years is having the total information (mind) control or information leadership. So today 99.9% of all journals TV stations are undermined by FM/R/B people.

A good example is Dr. Andrew Hill from Liverpool. He is the standard mafia soldier that first starts to hook in a group by playing the supporter and then he gets his 40 million reward for the construction the biggest possible damage.

Our forum clown plays one or two levels lower. He just made his position thanks to the mafia. So he now has to pay back this by spreading all the mafia FUD.

Nobody with a real intellect would ever link all the bullshit this clown links here. His sources are always the latest FM/R/B mafia slanders. So like the criminal Dr. A.Hill from Liverpool pastes stuff he never did write himself...

Hill will be accused for publishing a paper under his name he didn't write!

Quote from Shane D.

Damage control, IMO, after the damaging emails between Fauci and NIH Director Collins from Oct 2021, were released under a FOIA request 2 days ago.

In the emails, Collins told Fauci that he wanted "a quick and devastating public take down" of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) authors. Fauci was more than willing to comply, and then, miraculously within the day, the "media" was instantly on the story to apply the "coup de grace".

In your article, my take is that the author starts off pretending to be neutral, and quickly goes in for the kill. It is a hit-piece, disguised as objective journalism.

Shane,

You and the antivaxxers push all this politics.

There is ALWAYS politics. So I agree - damage limitation - but also 100% true and the damage is political - caused by false antivaxxer PR. And when you have such scientifically fraudulent arguments pushed all over social media what do you, as a scientists, do? Maybe savvy ones will keep quiet and not feed the trolls, but many will give this stuff the hit it deserves. I agree, it is not objective journalism - but it IS objective science. Which matters more if you want the truth rather than some political game. In this post-modern world I'm not sure objective journalism can exist. Objective science? That is another matter. It can exist, and it is what every decent scientist must aspire to even while knowing they never quite get there. (Yes - there are quite a few not decent scienmtists).

My point is that if you look at the science - the antivaxxer arguments are not just "unpopular" they are clearly logically and scientifically bunkum.

Whereas the mainstream science arguments are nuanced, careful, and correct.

Now - just because the antivaxxers (which you so avidly support) have zero science on their side does not mean mots sensible people think the 1st gen COVID vaccines are as safe as it gets.

Look at Hilda Bastion - no antivaxxer - who strongly prefers the Novavax (traditional) vaccine which we now know is very highly effective and less reactogenic than the mRNA vaccines. Less reactogenic => less side effects (though not necessarily fewer serious side effects, you might think that likely). (Her point is that mRNA vaccines are not a silver bullet but were juts lucky to have first mover advantage for COVID - although against this they do maybe have the promise to be much faster to manufacture and deliver in the future, because growing them is a cleaner faster process).

There is a serious discussion about the harms from vaccines as well as the benefits which is happening in the scientific community and which informs regulators.

It is just that the equation is far far away from the antivaxxer propaganda. The antivaxxers do not even try to estimate properly vaccine side effects because they are too low for the antivaxxer political case to run.

A shame for this site - which if it does what it sort of claims to do it ought to be examining carefully the real arguments about vaccine side effects - not these inflated and political antivaxxer ones.

My lack of patience here is because so many post politics not science.

And I don't see many readers here preferring science over politics either.

THH

PS - I'm not against political arguments about lockdowns. Those are proper and I am sort of in the middle. Only when the anti-lockdown advocates start using false antivaxxer arguments (God knows why - vaccines change the equation to make lockdowns less necessary as we see in the UK).

South African Gov & Academic Centers-Sponsored Study Shows Promise: Omicron Appears Milder than Delta

South African Gov & Academic Centers-Sponsored Study Shows Promise: Omicron Appears Milder than Delta

South Africa has gone through three surges of SARS-CoV-2 infections since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, with waves including Beta and

trialsitenews.com

South Africa has gone through three surges of SARS-CoV-2 infections since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, with waves including Beta and Delta variants of concern dominating the second and third waves respectively. However, by November, South African scientists were the first to detect the new Omicron variant of concern. Specifically, the Network for Genomics Surveillance of South Africa (NGS-SA) detected the super-mutant in South Africa based on analysis of the lineage called B.1.1.529. South African SARS-CoV-2 testing laboratories report an increase in the number of samples with S gene target failure (SGTF) when tested on the TaqPath™ COVID-19 (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) PCR test. Reporting to the World Health Organization (WHO), the mutant was called Omicron. Cases spread rapidly by late November and into early December. By December 16, the Omicron variant was detected in 87 countries. With a great number of mutations, including the C.1.2 (a substantially morphed lineage previously identified in South Africa,) it also includes 22 more substitutions (insertions and deletions) not seen in previous variants of concerns or for that matter, variants of interest. A study team in South Africa just found that while the variant is more transmissible, researchers believe the mutant will involve a reduced risk of hospitalization among SGTF-infected persons when compared to non-SGTF infected persons at the same time. However, once hospitalized, the risk seems comparable for the two types of infected persons, but those with Omicron seem to face less risk for severe disease when compared to previous Delta-infected persons. One plausible contribution is a growing population immunity, both vaccine-induced and natural.

TrialSite provides a brief overview of what could be promising news.

Who led this study?

This lab-based study was led by two corresponding authors, including Dr. Nicole Wolter Centre and Professor Cheryl Cohen, both with the Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis National Institute for Communicable Diseases, of the National Health Laboratory Services in Gauteng, South Africa.

The National Institute for Communicable Disease in South Africa is the national public health institute of South Africa, providing reference microbiology, virology, epidemiology, surveillance, and public health research and training to support the government’s response to communicable disease threats.

The NICD assists in the planning of policies and programs to support communicable disease control and elimination efforts and provides numerous specialized diagnostic services. A critical role of the NICD is to respond to outbreaks through the Outbreak Response Unit and the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC). The NICD houses biosafety level (BSL) 3 laboratories and the only suited high-containment BSL 4 laboratory in Africa, making it a premier research, surveillance, and diagnostics institution in the area of communicable diseases.

What kind of study?

The team conducted data linkages for the following:

∙ SARS-CoV-2 laboratory tests

∙ COVID-19 case data

∙ Genome data

∙ DATCOV national hospital surveillance system for the whole of South Africa

Note, the study team reports that for those cases identified using Thermo Fisher TaqPath COVID-19 PCR, infections were designated as SGTF or non-SGTF. Disease severity was assessed using multivariable logistic regression models comparing SGTF-infected individuals diagnosed between 1 October to 30 November to (i) non-SGTF in the same period, and (ii) Delta infections diagnosed between April and November 2021.

What were the results?

Of 161,328 COVID-19 cases identified between October 1 through December 6, 2021, the team reports 38,282 were tested using the TagPath PCR tool and 29, 721 were SGTF infections. Those SGTF infections grew from 3% in early October to 98% by early December.

The multivariable analysis with appropriate controls associated with hospitalization factors, the study team reported that people with SGTF infection faced a lower probability of hospitalization than compared to the non-SGTF infections: (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 0.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.1-0.3).

Moreover, they found that for those hospitalized, once factoring in appropriate controls, the team concluded that “severe disease did not differ between SGTF-infected individuals compared to non-SGTF individuals diagnosed during the same time period” (aOR 0.7, 95% CI 0.3-1.4). The authors go on to report that when comparing this Omicron mutant variant to the Delta infections, appropriately controlled, those that are SGTF-infected face a lower probability of severe disease (aOR 0.3, 95% CI 0.2-0.5).

Conclusion

While there is still much to learn, the data thus far indicates Omicron is milder than Delta. The risk of hospitalization for SGTF-infected persons is lower than non-SGTF infected persons in the same period. Moreover, once a COVID-19 person is hospitalized, the risk of severe disease is similar for both groups; but SGTF-infected people appear to have a reduced risk of severe disease when compared to those infected with Delta.

This, of course, can potentially be explained at least partially by population immunity.

Limitations

Importantly, this manuscript hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed. The data here shouldn’t be cited as conclusive evidence. Other limitations inherent in the study are listed below. Note, we take excerpts from the preprint server medRxiv.

∙ SGTF infections were only identifiable using the TaqPath PCR and only for specimens with high viral loads (Ct≤30) and therefore the number of SGTF infections is underestimated and biased towards geographic regions where this assay was more commonly used

∙ SGTF identified on PCR was used as a proxy for Omicron variant detection. However, SGTF may also identify the Alpha variant and occur sporadically in other variants and therefore some infections may have been misclassified as Omicron. However, we only used SGTF as a proxy for Omicron after 1 October 2021 and genome data generated by NGS-SA has not identified the Alpha variant in South Africa since August 2021 and at its peak Alpha variant was only detected in 6% of samples in May 2021 13. In addition, Omicron has recently been classified into three sub-lineages, one (BA.2) of which does not contain the Δ69-70 deletion, and which therefore will not be identifiable by the SGTF. Genome data from November 2021, showed that of 881 Omicron sequences, 872 (99.0%) were BA.1, 1 (0.1%) was BA.2 and 8 (0.9%) were BA.313. Ongoing sequencing will enable definitive classification of the Omicron variant for future severity analyses

∙ The team’s analysis was conducted in the early phase of the fourth wave after the emergence of Omicron when numbers were small, patients with milder symptoms were more likely to be admitted, and there may be a lag in hospitalizations and severe outcomes caused by this new variant. We accounted for this by only including hospitalized patients with known outcomes, censoring cases to ensure at least three weeks of follow-up, and adjusting for time interval between diagnosis and hospitalization in the severity multivariable models. The inclusion of individuals only with accumulated in-hospital outcomes may have biased SGTF towards shorter hospital stay, hence this result should be interpreted with caution.

∙ The team compared cases through the full Delta wave to cases in the ascending phase of the Omicron wave, this could bias comparisons if case characteristics differ in the ascending and descending wave phases. However, data from the DATCOV program suggest that the proportion of severe cases does not vary substantially through the different wave phases.

∙ They had limited vaccination information only for hospitalized cases and that was based on self-report.

Lead Research/Investigator

Dr. Nicole Wolter, Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis National Institute for Communicable Diseases, of the National Health Laboratory Services in Gauteng, South Africa.

Professor Cheryl Cohen, both with the Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis National Institute for Communicable Diseases, of the National Health Laboratory Services in Gauteng, South Africa.

Call to Action: TrialSite will continue to monitor studies like this around the world.

Early assessment of the clinical severity of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in South Africa

France says it's canceled Merck COVID-19 antiviral treatment order

France says it's canceled Merck COVID-19 antiviral treatment order

France’s health minister said on Wednesday that the country had canceled its 50,000-dose order of Merck’s COVID-19 antiviral drug after clinical trial data…

thehill.com

France’s health minister said on Wednesday that the country had canceled its 50,000-dose order of Merck’s COVID-19 antiviral drug after clinical trial data released by the company in November showed that the treatment reduced hospitalizations and deaths less than previously expected, Reuters reported.

Speaking to French news outlet BFM TV, the country's health minister, Olivier Véran, said that "the latest studies weren't good" and that the country hoped by the end of January to get Pfizer’s Paxlovid antiviral treatment instead, according to Reuters.

No costs will be incurred due to the cancellation, according to Véran, per the wire service.

Speaking of not following the science, maybe vaccine warriors missed this

No country can boost its way out of pandemic: WHO chief

No country can boost its way out of pandemic: WHO chief

The World Health Organization chief warned Wednesday that the rush in wealthy countries to roll out additional Covid vaccine doses was deepening the inequity…

amp.france24.com

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted that the priority must remain to get vaccines to vulnerable people everywhere rather than giving additional doses to the already vaccinated.

"No country can boost its way out of the pandemic," he told reporters.

The UN health agency has long decried the glaring inequity in access to Covid vaccines.

Allowing Covid to spread unabated in some places dramatically increases the chance of new, more dangerous variants emerging, it argues.

"Blanket booster programmes are likely to prolong the pandemic, rather than ending it, by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage, giving the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

Months ago, Tedros called in vain for a moratorium on booster doses to vaccinated, healthy people until at least 40 percent of people in all countries had received a first jab.

He pointed out Wednesday that while enough vaccines had been given to people globally this year to reach that target, distortions in global supply meant that only half the world's countries had done so.

According to UN figures, about 67 percent of people in high-income countries have had at least one vaccine dose -- but not even 10 percent in low-income countries.

"It's frankly difficult to understand how a year since the first vaccines were administered, three in four health workers in Africa remain unvaccinated," said Tedros.

Omicron in 106 countries

His comments came as the Omicron variant's lightning dash around the globe since it was first detected in South Africa last month dampened hopes the worst of the pandemic was over.

The new variant is spreading at unprecedented speed and has already been detected in 106 countries, the WHO said.

Early data indicates that it could be better at dodging some vaccine protections, spurring the rush to provide boosters.

But Tedros insisted Wednesday that "the vaccines we have remain effective against both the Delta and Omicron variants."

"It's important to remember that the vast majority of hospitalisations and deaths are in unvaccinated people, not un-boosted people," he said.

The WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunisation also recommended Wednesday against blanket booster programmes, insisting additional doses should be "targeted to the population groups at highest risk of serious disease and those necessary to protect the health system".

So far, 120 countries have begun implementing programmes to administer booster vaccines or additional doses, it said -- but none of them are low-income countries.

'Very difficult decisions'

As case numbers surge, the UN health agency also called on countries and individuals to take all necessary precautions to halt the spread of the virus heading into the Christmas holidays.

"Boosters cannot be seen as a ticket to go ahead with planned celebrations," Tedros said.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO lead on the Covid pandemic, stressed that people now know what they need to do, from wearing masks to physical distancing.

But she acknowledged the frustration of changing holiday plans.

"There are very difficult decisions that need to be had in terms of making sure that we keep ourselves safe," she said

University of Pennsylvania Translational Research Outcome Reveals ACE2-based Chewing Gum Destroys SARS-CoV-2 in Oral Cavity

University of Pennsylvania Translational Research Outcome Reveals ACE2-based Chewing Gum Destroys SARS-CoV-2 in Oral Cavity

Can a chewing gum inhibit SARS-Cov-2, at least the viral load in the saliva?  Imagine if this was the case, that the potential to fight this viral

trialsitenews.com

Can a chewing gum inhibit SARS-Cov-2, at least the viral load in the saliva? Imagine if this was the case, that the potential to fight this viral pathogen that can enter the body through one of a few ways, including the mouth. The research for this intriguing pursuit arises out of the work from a University of Pennsylvania (Penn) School of Dental Medicine investigator along with scientists at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and School of Veterinary Medicine, as well as from the Wistar Institute and Fraunhofer USA. Could this early-stage work lead to a low-cost treatment that could be used around the world to combat COVID-19? Peer reviewers of the journal Molecular Therapy, a scientific journal, most certainly emphasize the promise.

Vaccines not Enough

Led by Henry Daniell, the researchers understood, embarking on this study, that the fundamental premise of the early promise of the vaccine to stop transmission failed to yield such a reality. Rather, vaccines have benefited much of the population immunized to reduce severe disease and mortality, at least up until today. But with the Delta and now Omicron variants of concern, those individuals who are fully vaccinated increasingly appear susceptible to breakthrough infections and consequently, carry a viral load of the pathogen like the unvaccinated. TrialSite has chronicled studies month after month that evidences this trend.

The Salivary Glands are the Place

As it turns out SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, “…replicates in the salivary glands, and we know that when someone who is infected sneezes, coughs, or speaks some of the virus can be expelled to reach others,” reports Dr. Daniell in Penn Today.

But TrialSite has reported that the current vaccines don’t help address this region of the human body. For example, one TrialSite piece covered Scripps’ Dr. Eric Topol’s call for vaccines that induce mucosal immunity. The Scripps Research Translational Institute scientist shared that the current vaccines cannot sterilize the environment to rid the world of SARS-CoV-2 as they weren’t designed “to achieve sterilization mucosal immunity.”

Perhaps breakthroughs with nasal therapies along with treatments such as this early-stage product for the oral region of the body could help to eradicate the virus.

Enter Penn’s Dr. Daniell

As reported in Penn Today recently, Dr. Henry Daniell’s ongoing research may have proved fortuitous for the current needs arising out of the pandemic. The Ph.D. in biochemistry is a heavy hitter in the world of early-stage and translational medical research few probably know.

With a passion for overcoming healthcare inequity and striving for global human rights, this Vice-Chair and Professor of Basic and Translational Sciences at Penn Dental Medicine has developed and advanced several important breakthroughs including:

Novel approaches to orally delivering affordable biopharmaceuticals involving the elimination of expensive injections and refrigeration

Pulmonary, diabetes retinopathy, and Alzheimer’s disease

Development of oral vaccines for cholera, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, and plague

Background Research Fortuitous

Before COVID-19, the Penn research scientist investigated the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) protein in association with the development of therapies for hypertension, a major long-term health problem associated with high blood pressure in the arteries.

Growing this protein, and many others with therapeutic potential, his laboratory used a patented plant-based production system. As reported by Penn Today, He found that when he and team could bombard plant material with the DNA of target proteins, they “coaxed plant chloroplasts to take up the DNA and begin growing the proteins.”

Once this plant-based material is prepared correctly (freeze-dried and ground-up), the substance could be used to deliver the protein. So, what’s the benefit? This approach could potentially help overcome a known challenge—protein drug synthesis—that is a high-cost production and purification process.

Daniell also collaborated with Hyun (Michael) Koo at Penn Dental Medical College involving the development of a chewing gum infused with plant-grown proteins to disrupt dental plaque.

The combined and synthesized ideas from both research programs sought to investigate if such a gum infused with plant-grown ACE2 proteins could neutralize SARS-CoV-2 in the oral cavity. Daniell and Koo pulled in a Penn Medicine virologist and pulmonary and critical care doctor who by the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic was accumulating a mini COVID-19 biobank within the academic medical center, accumulating blood, nasal swabs, saliva and other biospecimens from COVID-19 patients for scientific research.

The Study

So, the Penn-based team collaborated to develop and test the chewing gum by growing ACE2 in plants, paired with another compound enabling the protein to cross the mucosal barriers and thus support binding while including the produced plant material into cinnamon-flavored gum tablets.

In this translational research lab, the team incubated nasopharyngeal swab-based samples directly from SARS-CoV-2 infected patients with the gum, revealing that the ACE2 present neutralized the pathogen causing COVID-19.

To verify the breakthrough, researchers from Pennsylvania-based The Wistar institute and Penn Vet modified other less-pathogenic viruses to express the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. What did they find? That the chewing gum “largely prevented the viruses or viral particles from entering cells,” Penn Today via either A) blocking the ACE2 receptor on the cells or B) binding directly to spike protein.

Finally, in the lab the researchers took COVID-19 patient samples and exposed them to the ACE2 gum. Lo and behold they found that viral RNA levels nearly disappeared to the point of being undetectable.

Penn Today shared some images of the before and after impact of the ACE2 gum:

In the above image note the sample with the ACE2 chewing gum on the right—the SARS-CoV-2 swab-based samples nearly go away.

In another image below, the team via Penn Today shared the mechanism of action for the investigational product—in this case the ACE2 chewing gum—that either blocks the ACE2 receptor or binds to the SARS-CoV-2 protein to reduce viral entry into the human cells.

What’s Next

A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared human clinical trial hopefully is on the schedule. If the Penn-led translational researchers can secure the greenlight, they can test in a randomized controlled trial if the chewing gum is both safe and effective in COVID-19 infected patients.

If successful, and this could take quite a bit of time given the traditionally lengthy clinical trials process, this could become a regimen for people who were exposed to the pathogen (contacts) but whose status is unknown. Or it could be used during routine dental check-ups when masks need to be removed to reduce the likelihood of viral transmission.

Principal Investigator Point of View

Dr. Daniell shared the potential of such a treatment “We are already using masks and other physical barriers to reduce the chance of transmission” continuing that the “gum could be used as an additional tool in the fight.”

The Funding

This early-stage, translational research was supported by a few grants from the following sources:

National Institutes of Health

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine COVID-19 Pilot Award

Mercatus Center award

Penn Center for Precision Medicine

Penn Health-Tech

The Penn Center for Innovation and Precision Dentistry

NIH RADx Program

The Patent

Dr. Danielle has moved to patent this investigational product. A list of his patents and applications can be reviewed here.

Lead Research/Investigator

Henry Daniell, Ph.D., vice chair and the W.D. Miller Professor, Department of Basic and Translational Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, School of Dental Medicine

Ronald Collman, MD, professor of medicine and microbiology and director of the Penn Center for AIDS Research, University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine

Other study authors can be reviewed at the source.

Call to Action: TrialSite will monitor Daniell, Collman and team and track progress of their effort to organize a randomized controlled trial

A chewing gum that could reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission | Penn Today

In experiments using saliva samples from COVID-19 patients, the gum, which contains the ACE2 protein, neutralized the virus, according to research led by…

penntoday.upenn.edu

COVID-19 Cases Skyrocket in Heavily Vaccinated Maryland While Triple Vaxxed Gov. Infected

COVID-19 Cases Skyrocket in Heavily Vaccinated Maryland While Triple Vaxxed Gov. Infected

Just how safe are people that have received both COVID-19 vaccines and a booster? New variants of concern represent a real threat for an increase in

trialsitenews.com

Just how safe are people that have received both COVID-19 vaccines and a booster? New variants of concern represent a real threat for an increase in breakthrough infections and community transmission. A high-profile politician just reported positive for the novel coronavirus, despite two jabs and a booster. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has tested positive for COVID-19, which he recently shared via social media just on Monday. Also, new COVID-19 cases in the state absolutely skyrocketed, shattering old records. Why is one of the most vaccinated states now experiencing record infections? How pervasive are breakthrough infections among individuals with not only two doses, but also a booster?

Gov. Hogan received two doses of Moderna by the start of the year (January and then February) and received the booster dose by August 2021.

Pamela Wood and Meredith Cohn of the Baltimore Sun write that Gov. Hogan first received the positive notice after a standard rapid test which was confirmed Monday evening with the polymerase chain reaction or PCR test. While feeling fine on Monday, the Gov. reported on Tuesday he started to come down with “some cold-like symptoms.”

Note, the Sun scribes spoke with Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center data lead Beth Blauer who shared with the journalists that this recent news underscores the criticality of testing in a bid to identify cases to slow down community transmission.

While of course, no vaccine is 100% effective, study after study indicates the current crop of what TrialSite refers to as early-stage, version 1.0 vaccine products wane in effectiveness within a few months. That’s not normal, and potentially indicative of what are still somewhat immature products.

While testing will be key to managing transmission as these vaccines are not always full proof, a mounting challenge reports the Sun scribes in Maryland is diminishing testing facilities.

The Sun reports 28,500 new cases have emerged in this state since Dec. 3. Moreover, the number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 has doubled since Nov., now reaching 1,345 on Monday. The Gov. doesn’t know where he contracted the virus—but he has made many public appearances of late.

TrialSite recently reported that the data indicate no correlation between the number of new cases and vaccination status. For example, America’s top 10 vaccinated states have more new case surges than the least 10 most vaccinated states.

Maryland is in the top 10 most vaccinated states, and on Dec. 20 a record number of new cases were reported at 28,541, shattering previous records according to data from the New York Times. Thankfully, deaths are holding lower, but with this latest surge, the risk of increased hospitalization and death could increase. At least 70% of the state has received two doses and a great majority of adults are fully vaccinated

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Israel Approves Fourth Covid Shot and New Restrictions

Israel Approves Fourth Covid Shot and New Restrictions

On Tuesday night the Israeli government recommended people over sixty should get a fourth shot of the covid vaccine. That’s right—the fourth one. This

trialsitenews.com

On Tuesday night the Israeli government recommended people over sixty should get a fourth shot of the covid vaccine. That’s right—the fourth one. This wasn’t a surprise. Early in December, TrialSite News suggested that the Israelis would be moving in this direction. Israel has consistently monitored its population and, as TrialSite reported, a study by the Rabin Medical Center that works with Clalit Health Services found results for the immune-compromised after vaccination were less impressive than those who do not have underlying health issues. Remember that the Israeli healthcare system is socialized, and the country has a smaller population than most nations in Europe and, of course, the United States.

Not Just the Elderly

The Israeli Haaretz reports that in addition to people over sixty, healthcare workers will also receive a fourth shot. This decision was made by an Israeli Health Ministry panel of experts and is still pending approval by the ministry’s director-general. According to The Times of Israel, the fourth shot will be available on Sunday. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the decision by the ministry is “great news,” which will help us make it through the worldwide omicron wave.

More Rules

In addition to the decision about the fourth shot, the Health Ministry added new regulations regarding crowd size in shopping centers to curb the new variant. According to Haaretz, shoppers will be restricted to one customer per 15 square meters (160 square feet) and must show proof of full vaccination to enter stores with more than 100 square meters (1,067 square feet).

The Israeli Green Pass shows government proof of two or three vaccinations and will be required by employees of large stores. Indoor dining is banned, and mall food shops will only serve Green Pass holders. Places which provide essential services are exempt from the Green Pass rules.

Israel has also banned travel to the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Morocco, Portugal, and Switzerland. These have been categorized as “red countries.”

Dividing Up Children by Status

According to CNN, Israel is now dividing children in school according to vaccine percentage. Children living in areas of low vaccine uptake among under-18years could find themselves back in online schooling as early as this week. In areas with high covid case numbers, known as red or orange communities, only classes in which at least 70% of children have received at least one dose of the vaccine will be taught at school. Classes with lower vaccination rates will be taught online. Israel started vaccinations for children between 5 and 11 on November 23rd. Israel has been lagging in children’s vaccinations.

TrialSite News has been following developments in Israel since the onset of the pandemic. This eastern Mediterranean nation is one of the most vaccinated populations on the planet. To a certain degree, Israel has led the way in confronting the disease. But the Israeli response to COVID-19 has, in many ways, been harsh yet the population has followed with limited objection. TrialSite has reported a growing vaccine hesitancy, especially among parents of children. Could these measures work in the United States or Europe? To date, apparently not.

Israel bans travel to U.S., Canada, eight other countries over omicron surge

***

www.haaretz.com

Japan has closed its borders for an indefinite period - actually they never re-opened - the re-open date was December 31st. Also introduced very strict new rules about isolation for contacts with suspected cases - now to be done in government approved locations only. Ban goes my planned visit in the New Year.

Quote from Alan Smith

Japan has closed its borders for an indefinite period - actually they never re-opened - the re-open date was December 31st. Also introduced very strict new rules about isolation for contacts with suspected cases - now to be done in government approved locations only. Ban goes my planned visit in the New Year.

Japan has seen a very small increase in cases in the last 3 days and has confirmed a non travel omicron case. Experts are still unsure of why Japan has so little spread at this time. Vaccination just doesn't explain it.

While omicron explodes around the world, COVID-19 cases in Japan are plummeting and no one knows exactly why

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Japan has had much lower rates of infection and death than in many Western countries.

While omicron explodes around the world, COVID-19 cases in Japan are plummeting and no one knows exactly why

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Japan has had much lower rates of infection and death than in many Western countries.

www.inquirer.com

Quote from Fm1

Speaking of not following the science, maybe vaccine warriors missed this

No country can boost its way out of pandemic: WHO chief

FM1 -

I am going to call you Mr. Straw Man

No country thinks it will boost its way out of the pandemic.

However, if the have the elder 2/3 of the population boostered (as the UK) then deaths and hospitalisations and infections will be lower.

Now, infection is transient - in a pandemic if people are not infected one month they will be infected the next. But hospitalisations and deaths are what democratic governments care about. Actually, hospitalisations, which make tv pictures, more than deaths. And it is peak hospitalisations

You turn this into a vaccine does everything / is useless thing. Which it is not. Without boosters many more would die in the UK, possibly including me, and, more important, our health service already under great stress would be much worse off.

Those are the reasons for boosters.

And before we get another straw man "so you are OK with boosters indefinitely?"

It is not indefinite. As time goes on more people have been well vaccinated or had COVID, the health system risks are less. Compare this winder - not locked down - with last winder locked down. Yet our case rate is higher.

Long term I'd expect we have COVID jabs just like Flu jabs. They will be better than the 1st gen mRNA vaccines. Less reactogenic, and better able to give extra protection from variants.

To listen to you the US doctors are total idiots - but I don't really believe that. Given the choice - if you force me to do it - I'd say more likely you are a total idiot. But I see no reason for such a choice (or to call you an idiot) because I think your argument here is a straw man.

Quote from Fm1

The WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunisation also recommended Wednesday against blanket booster programmes, insisting additional doses should be "targeted to the population groups at highest risk of serious disease and those necessary to protect the health system".

Seems like the WHO is agreeing with the Great Barrington Declaration

Quote from THHuxleynew

FM1 -

I am going to call you Mr. Straw Man

No country thinks it will boost its way out of the pandemic.

However, if the have the elder 2/3 of the population boostered (as the UK) then deaths and hospitalisations and infections will be lower.

Now, infection is transient - in a pandemic if people are not infected one month they will be infected the next. But hospitalisations and deaths are what democratic governments care about. Actually, hospitalisations, which make tv pictures, more than deaths. And it is peak hospitalisations

You turn this into a vaccine does everything / is useless thing. Which it is not. Without boosters many more would die in the UK, possibly including me, and, more important, our health service already under great stress would be much worse off.

Those are the reasons for boosters.

And before we get another straw man "so you are OK with boosters indefinitely?"

It is not indefinite. As time goes on more people have been well vaccinated or had COVID, the health system risks are less. Compare this winder - not locked down - with last winder locked down. Yet our case rate is higher.

Long term I'd expect we have COVID jabs just like Flu jabs. They will be better than the 1st gen mRNA vaccines. Less reactogenic, and better able to give extra protection from variants.

To listen to you the US doctors are total idiots - but I don't really believe that. Given the choice - if you force me to do it - I'd say more likely you are a total idiot. But I see no reason for such a choice (or to call you an idiot) because I think your argument here is a straw man.

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Typical insider industry respones, kill the messenger.

You support giving boosters to fight a strain that already shows evasive tendencies to the vaccine. A booster that still allows breakthrough infections. I thought mRNA vaccines were easily tweaked to combat such issues. Your right , countries aren't boosting their way out, they are filling the coffers of big pharma, one round of boosters at a time. Strawman, that's funny

mRNA Was Supposed To Stay Ahead Of Variants. Why Aren't We Using Its Full Potential?

mRNA Was Supposed To Stay Ahead Of Variants. Why Aren't We Using Its Full Potential?

Updated vaccines could generate antibodies that are better at fighting the now-dominant delta strain of the coronavirus. But probably not by much.

www.wbur.org

Quote from Alan Smith

Japan has closed its borders for an indefinite period - actually they never re-opened - the re-open date was December 31st. Also introduced very strict new rules about isolation for contacts with suspected cases - now to be done in government approved locations only. Ban goes my planned visit in the New Year.

After delaying twice, missing the Olympics, and hoping for this New Year, I'm now thinking about next summer. Easter remains a distant possibility for now.

Quote from Fm1

Typical insider industry respones, kill the messenger.

Call him a clown or a FM/R/B bot...

Europe already killed more children with with the famous "vaccine treatment" than CoV-19 ever will kill. Even more children are permanently disabled thanks to the "vaccines".

But as a clown you have to accept it - this is a part of the business...

Vaccines do not at all protect the older these just delay their death. Real gene therapy protection is at most 30%...

Such claims of high protection can only be made based on incomplete information provided by fake studies (did not include old people) . All antigen studies show that at least 15% of all symptomatic CoV-19 cases do not generate S-antibodies and related Ig-G because they have full natural immunity. This is the first reduction you must make from all "vaccine" fake protection claims. The second is the reduction for all recovered (>50% today) . The third for all with cross immunity.

Key would be to identify the people that really need this cancer chemo. Most likely about 2-3% of the population really is vulnerable. The criminal task behind the today's campaign is the claim that this "drug" is harmless. But it is a widely untested cancer chemo according to a former Biontec cancer chemo researcher.

So basically high poison is sold to low risk people. I would prefer heroin instead or any other drug that at least provides once a funny sensation...

Quote from Alan Smith

Japan has closed its borders for an indefinite period - actually they never re-opened -

It doesn't really seem that we have a lockdown (officially only for unvaxx.)

Busy shopping malls, busy roads with many foreign license plates, even from UK (sorry Alan 😉), busy, busy, busy..... all the bla, bla of a more environmental friendly lifestyle... just smoke. The show must go on!

A "magical" change in death and hospital rates occurred during last 3 weeks in UK.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1043608/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_51.pdf

One part is based on the widespread booster usage. And the sad part of this is based on the fact that the boosters did kill far more people than we expected by Pfizer induced CoV-19. In Israel the boosters killed about 250-300 old people so in UK we must expect that far more than 2000 have been killed by the boosters. These deaths did spoil the statistics....

The third effect is that also the absolute number of unvaxx people dying did increase by 30% during the last 3 weeks.

The 4th effect is that already a small change in total vaxx rate from e.g. 95 -->96% changes the weight by a large factor.

Here (CH) hospital cases stay flat due to rising omicron share.

Quote from Fm1

Experts are still unsure of why Japan has so little spread at this time. Vaccination just doesn't explain it.

Vaccination plus masks and case tracking explain it. This is not rocket science. The vaccinations plus masks stopped delta. There are still practically no cases of omicron, because international travel is so limited and case tracking so effective. There is no doubt omicron will spread sometime in the next few months. They hope to give most of the population a booster before that happens, to limit the number of serious cases and deaths.

Case tracking can be done effectively when there are only 200 cases a day in the whole country, and when large parts of the country have no cases, such as all of Shikoku (https://covid19japan.com/). Case tracking would be impossible with the high number of cases in the US or the UK.

Community transmission of Omicron spreads in western Japan

An elementary school pupil is newly found in Osaka Prefecture to be infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus through unknown routes, the local…

english.kyodonews.net