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Thread: COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus pandemic

  1. #1076
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    ttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/h...ow/4127197001/

    Record low flu cases show how COVID-19 is more contagious and 'less forgiving,' experts say
    Last edited by raisedbywolves; 06-28-2021 at 12:32 PM.

  2. #1077
    Scoopski Potatoes Nic B's Avatar
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    A coach from my kid's high school (and the high school I graduated from) passed a way from Covid a few days ago.


    Quote Originally Posted by marakisses View Post
    yes i said i will leave it under you storage he said cuddle with me i said shut up it over??? what am i doing wrong??
    Quote Originally Posted by curiouscat View Post
    Happy Birthday! I hid a dead body in your backyard to celebrate. Good luck finding it under the cement. You can only use a stick to look for it.

  3. #1078
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    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...kdown-n1253851

    Third lawmaker tests positive for Covid after Capitol lockdown
    Last edited by raisedbywolves; 06-28-2021 at 12:33 PM.

  4. #1079
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    So looks like none of us are getting vaccines anytime soon. Trump fucked it up...again. I'm sad, but not surprised. Glad it came out now or all the idiots would be blaming Biden. Who am I kidding...they will blame him anyway, even though they are convinced the vaccine will turn them into lizard people. This all comes back to last summer when Trump had the option to pre-order more and didn't, so other countries jumped on it and took the big pre-orders of vaccines. Trump had already released the 2nd doses to make it look like we had more than we ever did. Ugh. As the Gov of Oregon puts it, this is deception on a national scale and it's going to cost many more lives.

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/polit...ose/index.html

    Despite Trump administration promise, there appear to be no more 'reserve' 2nd vaccine doses to release
    Last edited by raisedbywolves; 06-28-2021 at 12:33 PM.

  5. #1080
    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
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    I just read about this and I'M FUCKING LIVID. And this ASSHOLE wants a military send off? THIS IS THE SEND OFF HE DESERVES.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    That is too pretty to be shoved up an ass.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    You can take those Fleets and shove them up your ass



  6. #1081
    Cousin Greg Angiebla's Avatar
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    My county is in the purple now. Shits getting real.

    "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" -Charles Darwin

    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Chelsea, if you are a ghost and reading mds, I command you to walk into the light.

  7. #1082
    Senior Member curiouscat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Babe 73 View Post
    I just read about this and I'M FUCKING LIVID. And this ASSHOLE wants a military send off? THIS IS THE SEND OFF HE DESERVES.

    Hmm... how many views could I get if I posted a video of me taking out the trash and titling it Trump's military send off?!
    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Babe 73 View Post
    I don't have a thousand dollars hanging around to buy a fart in a jar lol.

  8. #1083
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    Yep, my husbands work is getting crazy. I can’t keep up with how many employees are quarantining now bc some co-workers are testing positive.
    Last edited by Lilbirdie; 01-17-2021 at 09:39 AM.

  9. #1084
    Moderator puzzld's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Babe 73 View Post
    I just read about this and I'M FUCKING LIVID. And this ASSHOLE wants a military send off? THIS IS THE SEND OFF HE DESERVES.

    I'd love it if they gave him his red carpet and celebration and he gets on the plane and they don't let it leave... Biden gets sworn in and the secret service brings him off the plane and turn him over to cops. Any cops. NY State Troopers, FBI, DC City cops....
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    lol at Nestle being some vicious smiter, she's the nicest person on this site besides probably puzzld. Or at least the last person to resort to smiting.
    Quote Originally Posted by nestlequikie View Post
    Why on earth would I smite you when I can ban you?

  10. #1085
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    https://biologydiscussionsforum.blog...g-vaccine.html

    MILWAUKEE (AP) — A state board on Wednesday suspended the license of a Wisconsin pharmacist accused of ruining more than 500 doses of COVID-19 vaccine because he thought it was unsafe.
    Steven Brandenburg was working at Advocate Aurora Health in Grafton, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Milwaukee, when he was arrested last month following an investigation into the 57 spoiled vials of the Moderna vaccine. He has not been criminally charged. A status conference in the case is scheduled for Tuesday.

    The Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board said in its order that Brandenburg cannot practice pharmacy while the suspension is in place. It said Brandenburg agreed to the action “in order to focus” on possible charges against him.



    Brandenburg’s attorney, Jason Baltz, did not immediately respond to a phone message left Wednesday evening by The Associated Press.

    Advocate Aurora Health Care Chief Medical Group Officer Jeff Bahr has said Brandenburg admitted that he deliberately removed the vials from refrigeration at the Grafton medical center.

    A detective wrote in a probable cause statement that Brandenburg, 46, is an admitted conspiracy theorist and that he told investigators he intentionally tried to ruin the vaccine because it could hurt people by changing their DNA.

    Misinformation around the COVID-19 vaccines has surged online with false claims circulating on the vaccines’ ingredients and possible side effects.

    One of the earliest false claims suggested that the vaccines could alter DNA. The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine as well as the Moderna vaccine rely on messenger RNA or mRNA, which is a fairly new technology used in vaccines that experts have been working on for years. MRNA vaccines help train the immune system to identify the spike protein on the surface of the coronavirus and create an immune response. Experts have said there is no truth to the claims that the vaccines can genetically modify humans.

    https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin...2772bd106aff8e

  11. #1086
    Cousin Greg Angiebla's Avatar
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    [QUOTE=Lilbirdie;3807843]
    Quote Originally Posted by Angiebla View Post
    My county is in the purple now. Shits getting real.[/QUOTE

    Yep, my husband works in Sharonville. I can’t keep up with how many employees are quarantining now bc some co-workers are testing positive.
    I volunteered there at the main SPCA. It's close to me.

    I feel like the walls are closing in on me.

    "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" -Charles Darwin

    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Chelsea, if you are a ghost and reading mds, I command you to walk into the light.

  12. #1087
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    https://www.abc6.com/ri-doctor-has-l...f-to-covid-19/

    NORTH PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) – Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, Director of The Rhode Island Department of Health has ordered the license of a North Providence doctor to be emergency summarily suspended. Investigators determined that he deliberately exposed his staff and patients to COVID-19, endangering the community.

    Dr. Anthony Farina, a graduate of Brown University School of medicine, runs six medical practices in the state. According to a 21 page document issued by the Department of Health, Dr. Farina has been suspended from practicing medicine indefinitely.

    He has nine complaints against him, with four of the most recent complaints occurring in 2020. The complaints prior to 2020 deal with an extent of issues, such as: the release of medical records, referrals, being difficult to work with, issues with the up keep of equipment and prescribing controlled substances to family members.

    Complaints in 2020 began over the summer, and consisted of people not wearing masks or social distancing. During an inspection, the state health inspector did note that employees were either not wearing masks or wearing them incorrectly at the time. In addition, there were no logs of when things were being cleaned, no COVID plan, or posters displayed showcasing protocols.

    The four most recent complaints came into RIDOH between December 8 and December 13, 2020, anonymously.

    One person complained that Dr. Farina has COVID, but was still working.

    The second complaint stated, that this patient went to the office for an appointment, but left because he was running around throwing things and the atmosphere was tense.

    The third person complained, Dr. Farina had COVID and was not wearing a N-95, was still working and that other staff members were also sick.

    The fourth complaint issued said, Dr. Farina tested positive for the coronavirus at the end of November and continued working, knowingly infecting staff and patients. This person also stated that Dr. Farina altered his personal medical record to say he became symptomatic at a different time.

    Three of the four witnesses testified to the board with the Rhode Island Department of Health on January 7, 2021, saying that if the doctor knew they were testifying, they would suffer consequences.

    A witness says he declined a COVID test when he was symptomatic in November, and another witness says he had symptoms consistent with COVID in November and continued to come to work while wearing a N95 mask that did not cover his nose.

    Dr. Farina told the board that he had a sinus infection in November, but then tested positive for COVID, nine days later. He also state that he properly isolated and wore a mask.

    The investigative committee determined that Dr. Farina was not credible.

    Dr. Farina’s practices are identified as the Center of New England Primary Care Inc., Center of New England Urgent Care Inc., Physicians Weight Loss & Medical Services Inc., North Providence Primary Care Associates Inc., North Providence Urgent Care Inc. and East Greenwich Urgent Care, Inc.

    The investigation also details complaints from patients and employees who reported that Dr. Farina has a temper. One called him frightening.

    “He’s just a nasty man honestly,” said former employee Tressie Seymous. “Completely unprofessional. He yells at everybody.”

    Seymour says she worked at his offices in North Providence and Coventry for a few months in 2018. In that time, she says she was constantly yelled at, and even called stupid.

    “He made everybody so uncomfortable that nobody wanted to work there,” said Seymour.

    ABC 6 News interviewed Dr. Farina over the summer when his practice in North Providence was shut down for not abiding by Covid-19 protocols.

    The Brown Medical School graduate was upset at the time that they weren’t given any warning by the Department of Health.

    “I’m not surprised at all,” said North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi of the allegations.

    Mayor Lombardi knows Dr. Farina well. A few years ago, Dr. Farina sued the town, which had been trying to tear down one of his buildings that was sitting empty and in bad condition. Dr. Farina responded by having a mural painted of the mayor on the side of the building.

    The build was eventually razed.


    The mayor says he’s concerned because he knows many North Providence residents are patients of Dr. Farina.

    “My hat is off to the health department for bringing this to a head. Really, really, really is, and I think it’ll make for a safer environment for the town.”

    Dr. Farina’s attorney, Dennis T. Grieco II, Esq. provided ABC6 News with a statement from the doctor responding to RIDOH’s action:

    “I strongly deny the false allegations made by the Rhode Island Department of Health that I at any time threatened the health of my patients. As a doctor, my first responsibility is to do no harm, and I take that oath extremely seriously. I want to reassure all of my patients that I would never place them in harm. I am appealing RI DOH’s suspension of my license and am confident I will be thoroughly cleared of these false and misleading allegations.”


  13. #1088
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    https://ktla.com/news/local-news/ora...r-coronavirus/

    A California congressman contracted the coronavirus before he could get a second dose of vaccine that would have improved his immunity.

    Democratic Rep. Lou Correa announced Saturday he tested positive upon returning home from Washington, D.C., prompting him to self-quarantine away from his family.

    His office said he received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Dec. 19 and has not received the second shot that would have boosted his immunity to about 95%.

    “While this diagnosis will prevent me from attending the much-anticipated inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, I look forward to working with the new administration to unite our country and help the millions of people devastated by the pandemic,” Correa said in a statement.

    Correa, who represents central Orange County, is the latest House member to report testing positive since dozens of lawmakers huddled together for protection during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York said Thursday he contracted the coronavirus even after getting the second dose of the vaccine.

    Correa’s office said he was not in the secure room but was outside assisting Capitol Police. He was confronted later last week by a group of Donald Trump supporters, some not wearing masks, at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

    The vaccine is about 52% effective after the first dose, Pfizer-BioNTech said. The efficacy of the vaccine rises to about 95% after the second dose.

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    Chinese city says coronavirus was found in ice cream Nexstar news
    - January 17, 2021
    The coronavirus was found on ice cream produced in eastern China, prompting a recall of cartons from the same batch, according to the government.

    The Daqiaodao Food Co., Ltd. in Tianjin, adjacent to Beijing, was sealed and its employees were being tested for the coronavirus, a city government statement said. There was no indication anyone had contracted the virus from the ice cream.

    Most of the 29,000 cartons in the batch had yet to be sold, the government said. It said 390 sold in Tianjin were being tracked down and authorities elsewhere were notified of sales to their areas.

    The ingredients included New Zealand milk powder and whey powder from Ukraine, the government said.

    The Chinese government has suggested the disease, first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, came from abroad and has highlighted what it says are discoveries of the coronavirus on imported fish and other food, though foreign scientists are skeptical.



    https://ktla.com/news/local-news/chi...-in-ice-cream/

    https://biologydiscussionsforum.blog...was-found.html

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    https://biologydiscussionsforum.blog...e-of-more.html


    Los Angeles County confirmed its first case of the new, more contagious coronavirus strain first reported in the United Kingdom, health officials said Saturday.

    Authorities also announced that the region has surpassed 1 million coronavirus cases.

    A man who recently spent time in L.A. County was found to have the virus variant. He has since traveled to Oregon and is currently isolating there.

    Although this is the first confirmed case of the U.K. variant in the county, public health officials believe that the strain is already spreading in the community.

    “The presence of the U.K. variant in Los Angeles County is troubling, as our healthcare system is already severely strained with more than 7,500 people currently hospitalized,” Barbara Ferrer, L.A. County public health director, said in a news release Saturday. “Our community is bearing the brunt of the winter surge, experiencing huge numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, five-times what we experienced over the summer.”

    Ferrer said the more contagious variant makes it easier for infections to spread at worksites, at stores and at home.

    The U.K. variant has a mutation in the receptor binding domain of the spike protein, one that could potentially make it more rapidly transmissible than other circulating strains, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

    Two academic publications released earlier this month — one by the Imperial College London and a preliminary report by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory — both concluded that the new B.1.1.7 variant is more transmissible.

    This variant was first detected in September 2020 and is now highly prevalent in London and Southeast England. It has since been detected in numerous countries around the world, including the United States and Canada, health officials said.

    The first U.S. case of the coronavirus variant was reported on Dec. 29, 2020 in Colorado. The variant was found in a man in his 20s who had no travel history.

    The next day, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced California’s first known case of the virus variant, which was found in a 30-year-old San Diego man with no travel history. San Diego County health officials reported the next day that three more men had contracted the new strain, but none had any known interaction with the other and two of them hadn’t traveled.

    Earlier this month, San Bernardino County health officials reported that two people from the same household had contracted the virus variant after one member had contact with a traveler who returned from the U.K. However, it’s unclear whether the traveler had also tested positive for the same strain.

    The CDC warned on Friday that the new, more infectious variant will probably become the dominant version in the U.S. by March.

    The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said there’s no indication the new strain is more harmful, and added that it appears the current COVID-19 vaccines should be effective in fighting it.

    California is finding cases of the possibly more infectious strain while it deals with an unprecedented coronavirus surge that has already overwhelmed hospitals and some mortuaries.

    L.A. County on Saturday reported an additional 14,669 cases and 253 new COVID-19-related deaths. The new figures now bring the county’s total to 1,003,923 known infections and 13,741 deaths since March 2020, according to the public health department.

    Health officials have been pleading with residents to stop gathering with non-household members as the state remains in the initial phase of its COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan.

    Meanwhile, the county is struggling to vaccinate its 800,000 health workers and doesn’t anticipate being able to provide shot to its 1.3 million people 65 and older until February, health officials said Friday.



    https://ktla.com/news/local-news/l-a...1m-infections/

  16. #1091
    Senior Member kevansvault's Avatar
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    I'm gonna lay some truths out for you guys. I work in healthcare. I am a frontline worker. I do not, however, work with adults. You wanna know why? Because, collectively,
    we are the dumbest motherfucking pieces of shit to ever walk this goddamn planet. Bad enough I have to work with other adults, because we show each other how lame ass brainless we can be...yes, even some of us in healthcare.

    I work with someone whose parents came down to Texas, who flew after being knowingly and intimately exposed to Covid. Both of these people developed symptoms while they were here, exposing their adult children and their grandchildren. My coworker's mother in law died from it. Her son, my coworker's husband, coded twice while in ICU. He is alive and out of the hospital, but he lost his mother from this disease. My coworker even came to work with symptoms, exposing the rest of us. Even though we are all masked, the fact that someone could be so crass, so bewilderingly goddamn ignorant, just boggles my fucking mind.

    I had no idea my coworker was so goddamn stupid. It is really, really sad that this happened, but it was so goddamn preventable.

    People are fucking retarded.
    Don't like what I have to say? I respect that. Go fuck yourself.

  17. #1092
    Moderator puzzld's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kevansvault View Post
    I'm gonna lay some truths out for you guys. I work in healthcare. I am a frontline worker. I do not, however, work with adults. You wanna know why? Because, collectively,
    we are the dumbest motherfucking pieces of shit to ever walk this goddamn planet. Bad enough I have to work with other adults, because we show each other how lame ass brainless we can be...yes, even some of us in healthcare.

    I work with someone whose parents came down to Texas, who flew after being knowingly and intimately exposed to Covid. Both of these people developed symptoms while they were here, exposing their adult children and their grandchildren. My coworker's mother in law died from it. Her son, my coworker's husband, coded twice while in ICU. He is alive and out of the hospital, but he lost his mother from this disease. My coworker even came to work with symptoms, exposing the rest of us. Even though we are all masked, the fact that someone could be so crass, so bewilderingly goddamn ignorant, just boggles my fucking mind.

    I had no idea my coworker was so goddamn stupid. It is really, really sad that this happened, but it was so goddamn preventable.

    People are fucking retarded.
    I am so sorry you had to deal with such maroons. I have had more than one close encounter with people to dumb to take care of themselves and too selfish to worry about others. Stay well!
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    lol at Nestle being some vicious smiter, she's the nicest person on this site besides probably puzzld. Or at least the last person to resort to smiting.
    Quote Originally Posted by nestlequikie View Post
    Why on earth would I smite you when I can ban you?

  18. #1093
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    https://biologydiscussionsforum.blog...velop-dna.html

    Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a DNA test to help spot dangerous secondary infections that may develop during COVID-19 treatment—such as cases of pneumonia associated with ventilator equipment provided during intensive care.

    Patients under mechanical ventilation are typically given anti-inflammatory drugs to ease damage to their lungs, however this may leave them more susceptible to bacteria and fungi in the hospital.

    The test, developed at Cambridge University Hospitals in collaboration with Public Health England, is designed to identify the infection and help suggest the appropriate course of antibiotics.

    The approach—which promises to be much faster than culturing bacterial samples in a lab, taking about four hours total to pick up 52 different pathogens—is currently being rolled out to healthcare providers under the university’s NHS Foundation Trust.

    "Early on in the pandemic we noticed that COVID-19 patients appeared to be particularly at risk of developing secondary pneumonia, and started using a rapid diagnostic test that we had developed for just such a situation," said Andrew Conway Morris, of Cambridge's Department of Medicine, who co-authored a paper examining the rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia among COVID-19 patients.



    "Using this test, we found that patients with COVID-19 were twice as likely to develop secondary pneumonia as other patients in the same intensive care unit," Morris said. As to the reason why, people with severe infections tend to spend more time on ventilators, and may also have poorly regulated or overactive immune system in the face of the virus.

    It also marks one of the first times that high-throughput PCR sequencing has been employed in the university’s routine clinical practice in such a manner.

    "We found that although patients with COVID-19 were more likely to develop secondary pneumonia, the bacteria that caused these infections were similar to those in ICU patients without COVID-19," said Cambridge researcher and lead study author Mailis Maes. "This means that standard antibiotic protocols can be applied to COVID-19 patients."



    https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtec...pital-acquired

    https://biologydiscussionsforum.blog...cine-safe.html


    A clinical trial has found a COVID-19 vaccine in development at a Sinopharm subsidiary to be safe in children aged three to 17 years, according to Chinese state media.

    COVID-19 vaccine developers initially focused their clinical trials on adults. Pfizer and Moderna went on to study their candidates in children after showing safety in adults, but even then those trials are only enrolling kids aged 12 years and up. In contrast, China National Biotec Group (CNBG), a subsidiary of Sinopharm, has data on the use of one of its vaccines in kids as young as three years.

    Xinhua, China’s official state-run press agency, shared details of the study in an article. Summarizing the Xinhua article, Reuters reported the vaccine appears safe in children and shared a quote from CNBG Chairman Yang Xiaoming.

    Xiaoming told Xinhua: “It should be noted that for three to five-year-old children, because their immune system is still developing, they must be carefully and closely monitored during vaccination.”

    There is some doubt about the vaccine tested in the pediatric trial. CNBG has two COVID-19 vaccines in late-phase development. Based on the Xinhua report, Reuters is unsure which of the jabs Xiaoming was discussing. However, researchers have previously disclosed a phase 2 clinical trial of the CNBG vaccine BBIBP-CorV in children aged three to 17 years old, the same age range targeted in the study covered by the Xinhua report, suggesting that may be the candidate discussed by Xiaoming.

    A clearer picture of what the CNBG clinical trial means for the prospects of COVID-19 vaccines in young children will only become clear if the data are shared. As it stands, no details about the side effect profile beyond the claim the vaccine is safe and available.

    There are reasons to think the studies in children aged 12 years and up will have a bigger impact on the pandemic. While kids of all ages can catch and transmit SARS-CoV-2, younger children appear to be less susceptible to infection and less likely to pass it on to adults or their peers.



    https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotec...-aged-3-and-up

  19. #1094
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    https://nypost.com/2021/01/15/23-die...id-19-vaccine/

    Twenty-three people died in Norway within days of receiving their first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, with 13 of those deaths — all nursing home patients — apparently related to the side effects of the shots, health officials said.

    Common reactions to the vaccine, including fever and nausea, “may have contributed to a fatal outcome in some frail patients,” Sigurd Hortemo, chief physician at the Norwegian Medicines Agency, said in a Friday statement.

    All 13 were nursing home patients and at least 80 years old. While officials aren’t expressing serious concern, they are adjusting their guidance on who should receive the vaccine.

    The news comes just over a week after officials reported the deaths of just two nursing home residents after they received the Pfizer jab.

    More than 30,000 people in Norway have received the first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna coronavirus vaccine in the Scandinavian country since late last month, according to official figures.

    “We are not alarmed by this,” Steinar Madsen, medical director with the agency, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “It is quite clear that these vaccines have very little risk, with a small exception for the frailest patients.”

    “Doctors must now carefully consider who should be vaccinated,” he added. “Those who are very frail and at the very end of life can be vaccinated after an individual assessment.”

    SEE ALSO

    Norway probes deaths of two nursing home residents who got Pfizer’s COVID vaccine
    The agency reported Thursday that a total of 29 people had suffered side effects, including the 13 people who died.

    Twenty-one women and eight men experienced side effects, officials said.

    Besides those who died, nine had serious side effects — including allergic reactions, strong discomfort and severe fever — while seven had less serious ones, including severe pain at the injection site.

    In total, more than 57,000 cases and 500 coronavirus-related deaths have been reported in Norway, according to Johns Hopkins University.

    Health officials noted that around 400 people die each week in the nursing home population.

    A Pfizer rep said the pharmaceutical giant is “aware of reported deaths” following the administration of the vaccine in Norway and is working with the Norwegian Medicines Agency “to gather all the relevant information.”

    “Norwegian authorities have prioritized the immunization of residents in nursing homes, most of whom are very elderly with underlying medical conditions and some which are terminally ill,” a spokeswoman said in a statement. “[The Norwegian Medicine Agency confirms] the number of incidents so far is not alarming, and in line with expectations.”

    “All reported deaths will be thoroughly evaluated by [the agency] to determine if these incidents are related to the vaccine,” she added. “The Norwegian government will also consider adjusting their vaccination instructions to take the patients’ health into more consideration.”

    With Post Wires

  20. #1095
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    https://biologydiscussionsblog.blogs...-in-30-us.html

    NEW YORK (AP) — Coronavirus deaths are rising in nearly two-thirds of American states as a winter surge pushes the overall toll toward 400,000 amid warnings that a new, highly contagious variant is taking hold.
    As Americans observed a national holiday Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pleaded with federal authorities to curtail travel from countries where new variants are spreading.

    Referring to new versions detected in Britain, South Africa and Brazil, Cuomo said: “Stop those people from coming here.... Why are you allowing people to fly into this country and then it’s too late?”

    The U.S. government has already curbed travel from some of the places where the new variants are spreading — such as Britain and Brazil — and recently it announced that it would require proof of a negative COVID-19 test for anyone flying into the country.

    But the new variant seen in Britain is already spreading in the U.S., and the Centers for Disease Control and Protection has warned that it will probably become the dominant version in the country by March. The CDC said the variant is about 50% more contagious than the virus that is causing the bulk of cases in the U.S.

    While the variant does not cause more severe illness, it can cause more hospitalizations and deaths simply because it spreads more easily. In Britain, it has aggravated a severe outbreak that has swamped hospitals, and it has been blamed for sharp leaps in cases in some other European countries.

    As things stand, many U.S. states are already under tremendous strain. The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths is rising in 30 states and the District of Columbia, and on Monday the U.S. death toll surpassed 398,000, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University — by far the highest recorded death toll of any country in the world.

    Full Coverage: Coronavirus pandemic
    Ellie Murray, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health, said cases have proliferated in part because of gatherings for Christmas and New Year — and compounded previous surges from Thanksgiving and the return of students to schools and universities in the fall.

    The pace of any further spread will depend on whether those who did gather with family and friends quarantined afterward or went back to school or work in person, she said.

    One of the states hardest hit during the recent surge is Arizona, where the rolling average has risen over the past two weeks from about 90 deaths per day to about 160 per day on Jan. 17.

    “It’s kind of hard to imagine it getting a lot faster than it is right now, because it is transmitting really fast right now,” said Dr. Joshua LaBaer, director of the Biodesign Institute research center at Arizona State University. “But there is some evidence that Thanksgiving didn’t help things.”

    Rural Yuma County — known as the winter lettuce capital of the U.S. — is now one of the state’s hot spots. Exhausted nurses there are now regularly sending COVID-19 patients on a long helicopter ride to hospitals in Phoenix when they don’t have enough staff. The county has lagged on coronavirus testing in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods and just ran out of vaccines.

    But some support is coming from military nurses and a new wave of free tests for farmworkers and the elderly in Yuma County.



    Amid the rise in cases, a vast effort is underway to get Americans vaccinated — what Cuomo called “a footrace” between the vaccination rate and the infection rate. But the campaign is off to an uneven start. According to the latest federal data, about 31.2 million doses of vaccine have been distributed, but only about 10.6 million people have received at least one dose.

    In some cases, vaccine supplies thus far do not meet demand. More than 172,000 people in Missouri’s St. Louis County have registered for the vaccine, but the local health department so far has only received 975 doses, said County Executive Sam Page.

    In California, the most populous state, counties are pleading for more vaccine as the state tries to reduce a high rate of infection that has led to record numbers of hospitalizations and deaths.

    Although the state last week said anyone age 65 and older can start receiving the vaccine, Los Angeles County and some others have said they don’t have enough to immunize so many people. They are concentrating on protecting health care workers and the most vulnerable elderly in care homes first.

    On Monday, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District sent a letter asking for state and county authorization to provide vaccinations at schools for staff, local community members — and for students once a vaccine for children has been approved.

    The death rate from COVID-19 in Los Angeles County — an epicenter of the U.S. pandemic — works out to about one person every six minutes. On Sunday, the South Coast Air Quality Management District suspended some pollution-control limits on the number of cremations for at least 10 days in order to deal with a backlog of bodies at hospitals and funeral homes.

    In other areas of the country, officials are working to ensure that people take the vaccine once they’re offered it amid concerns that many people are hesitant. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, in a livestreamed event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, received a shot, and urged other Marylanders to do likewise.

    “We’re all looking forward to the day we can take off and throw away our masks,” Hogan said. “The only way we are going to return to a sense of normalcy is by these COVID-19 vaccines.”

    But challenges to the vaccine campaign are surfacing worldwide.

    The World Health Organization chief on Monday lambasted drugmakers’ profits and vaccine inequalities, saying it’s “not right” that younger, healthier adults in some wealthy countries get vaccinated against COVID-19 before older people or health care workers in poorer countries.

    Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus lamented that one country received a mere 25 doses while over 39 million doses have been administered in nearly 50 richer nations.

    “Just 25 doses have been given in one lowest income country — not 25 million, not 25,000 — just 25. I need to be blunt: The world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure,” Tedros said. He did not specify the country, but a WHO spokeswoman identified it as Guinea.

    ___

    AP writers Suman Naishadham in Phoenix and Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed to this report.



    https://apnews.com/article/new-york-...90289ebb9d7630

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    https://biologydiscussionsblog.blogs...-european.html

    BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Vaccines from the West, Russia or China? Or none at all? That dilemma faces nations in southeastern Europe, where coronavirus vaccination campaigns are off to a slow start — overshadowed by heated political debates and conspiracy theories.

    In countries like the Czech Republic, Serbia, Bosnia, Romania and Bulgaria, vaccine skeptics have included former presidents and even some doctors. Serbian tennis champion Novak Djokovic was among those who said he did not want to be forced to get inoculated.

    False beliefs that the coronavirus is a hoax or that vaccines would inject microchips into people have spread in the countries that were formerly under harsh Communist rule. Those who once routinely underwent mass inoculations are deeply split over whether to get the vaccines at all.

    “There is a direct link between support for conspiracy theories and skepticism toward vaccination,” a recent Balkan study warned. “A majority across the region does not plan to take the vaccine, a ratio considerably lower than elsewhere in Europe, where a majority favors taking the vaccine.”

    Only about 200,000 people applied for the vaccine in Serbia, a country of 7 million, in the days after authorities opened the procedure. By contrast, 1 million Serbians signed up for 100 euros ($120) on the first day the government offered the pandemic aid.

    Hoping to encourage vaccinations, Serbian officials have gotten their shots on TV. Yet they themselves have been split over whether to get the Western-made Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or Russia’s Sputnik V, more divisions in a country that is formally seeking European Union membership but where many favor closer ties with Moscow.

    Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Saturday greeted a shipment of 1 million doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, saying he will receive a shot to show that it is safe.

    “Serbs prefer the Russian vaccine,” read a recent headline of the Informer, a pro-government tabloid, as officials announced that 38% of those who have applied to take the shots favor the Russian vaccine, while 31% want the Pfizer-BioNTech version — a rough division among pro-Russians and pro-Westerners in Serbia.

    In neighboring Bosnia, a war-torn country that remains ethnically divided among Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats, politics also are a factor, as the Serb-run half appeared set to opt for the Russian vaccine, while the Bosniak-Croat part likely will turn to the Western ones.

    Sasa Milovanovic, a 57-year-old real estate agent from Belgrade, sees all vaccines as part of the “global manipulation” of the pandemic.

    “People are locked up, they have no lives any longer and live in a state of hysteria and fear,” he said.

    Djokovic has said he was against being forced to take a coronavirus vaccine in order to travel and compete but was keeping his mind open. The top-ranked tennis player and his wife tested positive in June after a series of exhibition matches with zero social distancing that he organized in the Balkans. They and their foundation have donated 1 million euros ($1.1 million) to buy ventilators and other medical equipment for hospitals in Serbia.

    Serbian Health Ministry official Mirsad Djerlek has described the vaccine response as “satisfactory,” but cautioned on the state-run RTS broadcaster that “people in rural areas usually believe in conspiracy theories, and that is why we should talk to them and explain that the vaccine is the only way out in this situation.”

    A study by the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group, published before the regional vaccination campaign started in December, concluded that virus conspiracy theories are believed by nearly 80% of citizens of the Western Balkan countries striving to join the EU. About half of them will refuse to get vaccinated, it said.

    Baseless theories allege the virus isn’t real or that it’s a bioweapon created by the U.S. or its adversaries. Another popular falsehood holds that Microsoft founder Bill Gates is using COVID-19 vaccines to implant microchips in the planet’s 7 billion people.

    A low level of information about the virus and vaccines, distrust in governments and repeated assertions by authorities that their countries are besieged by foreigners help explain the high prevalence of such beliefs, according to the Balkans think tank.

    Similar trends have been seen even in some eastern European Union countries.

    In Bulgaria, widespread conspiracy theories hampered past efforts to deal with a measles outbreak. Surveys there suggested distrust of vaccines remains high even as coronavirus cases keep rising. A recent Gallup International poll found that 30% of respondents want to get vaccinated, 46% will refuse and 24% are undecided.

    Bulgarian doctors have tried to change attitudes. Dr. Stefan Konstantinov, a former health minister, joked that people should be told neighboring Greece would close resorts to tourists who don’t get vaccinated, because “this would guarantee that some 70% of the population would rush to get a jab.”

    In the Czech Republic, where surveys show some 40% reject vaccination, protesters at a big rally against government virus restrictions in Prague demanded that vaccinations not be mandatory. Former President Vaclav Klaus, a fierce critic of the government’s pandemic response, told the crowd that vaccines are not a solution.

    “They say that everything will be solved by a miracle vaccine,” said the 79-year-old Klaus, who insists that people should get exposed to the virus to gain immunity, which experts reject. “We have to say loud and clear that there’s no such a thing. … I am not going to get vaccinated.”

    Populist authorities in Hungary have taken a hard line against virus misinformation, but rejection of vaccines is still projected at about 30%. Parliament passed emergency powers in March that allows authorities to prosecute anyone deemed to be “inhibiting the successful defense” against the virus, including “fearmongering” or spreading false news. At least two people who criticized the government’s response to the pandemic on social media were arrested, but neither was formally charged.

    Romanian Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu said he is relying on family doctors to “inform, schedule and monitor people after the vaccine” and that his ministry will offer bonuses to medical workers based on the number of people they get onboard. Asked if such incentives would fuel anti-vaccination propaganda, Voiculescu said: “I am interested more by the doctors’ view on the matter than I am about the anti-vaxxers.”

    Dr. Ivica Jeremic, who has worked with virus patients in Serbia since March and tested positive himself in November, hopes vaccination programs will gain speed once people overcome their fear of the unknown.

    “People will realize the vaccine is the only way to return to normal life,” he said.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria; Karel Janicek in Prague, Czech Republic; Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary; and Vadim Ghirda in Bucharest, Romania, contributed.



    https://apnews.com/article/conspirac...8d499ec08e0504

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — California on Monday became the first state to record more than 3 million known coronavirus infections.
    The grim milestone, as tallied by Johns Hopkins University, wasn’t entirely unexpected in a state with 40 million residents but its speed stunning. The state only reached 2 million reported cases on Dec. 24.
    The first coronavirus case in California was confirmed last Jan. 25. It took 292 days to get to 1 million infections on Nov. 11 and 44 days to top 2 million.
    California’s caseload is also far ahead of other large states. Texas had more than 2 million and Florida topped 1.5 million.
    The state has recorded more than 33,600 deaths related to COVID-19.
    A caseload surge that began last fall has strained hospitals and especially intensive care units as a percentage of the infected — typically estimated to be around 12% by public health officials — become sick enough weeks later to need medical care.
    On average, California has seen about 500 deaths and 40,000 new cases daily for the past two weeks.
    Officials warn that a recent slight downward trend in hospitalizations could reverse when the full impact of New Year’s Eve gathering transmissions is felt.
    The state is placing its hopes on mass vaccinations to reduce the number of infections but there have been snags in the immunization drive. On Sunday, Dr. Erica S. Pan, the state epidemiologist, urged that providers stop using one lot of a Moderna vaccine because some people needed medical treatment for possible severe allergic reactions.
    More than 330,000 doses from lot 41L20A arrived in California between Jan. 5 and Jan. 12 and were distributed to 287 providers, she said.
    In Northern California, Stanislaus County health officials responded by announcing they wouldn’t be holding vaccination clinics until further notice.
    “Out of an extreme abundance of caution and also recognizing the extremely limited supply of vaccine, we are recommending that providers use other available vaccine inventory” pending completion of an investigation by state officials, Moderna, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the federal Food and Drug Administration, Pan said in a statement.
    Fewer than 10 people, who all received the vaccine at the same community site, needed medical attention over a 24-hour period, Pan said. No other similar clusters were found.
    Pan did not specify the number of cases involved or where they occurred.
    Six San Diego health care workers had allergic reactions to vaccines they received at a mass vaccination center on Jan. 14. The site was temporarily closed and is now using other vaccines, KTGV-TV reported.
    Moderna in a statement said the company “is unaware of comparable adverse events from other vaccination centers which may have administered vaccines from the same lot.”
    The CDC has said COVID-19 vaccines can cause side effects for a few days that include fever, chills, headache, swelling or tiredness, “which are normal signs that your body is building protection.”
    However, severe reactions are extremely rare. Pan said in a vaccine similar to Moderna’s, the rate of anaphylaxis — in which an immune system reaction can block breathing and cause blood pressure to drop — was about 1 in 100,000.
    The announcement came as California counties continue to plead for more COVID-19 vaccine as the state tries to tamp down its rate of infection, which has resulted in record numbers of hospitalizations and deaths.
    California has shipped about about 3.2 million doses of the vaccine — which requires two doses for full immunization — to local health departments and health care systems, the state’s Department of Public Health reported Monday.
    Only about 1.4 million of those doses, or around 40%, have been administered.
    So far, the state has vaccinated fewer than 2,500 people per 100,000 residents, a rate that falls well below the national average, according to federal data.
    Although Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that anyone age 65 and older would be eligible to start receiving the vaccine, Los Angeles County and some others have said they do not have enough doses to vaccinate that many people and are first concentrating on inoculating health care workers and the most vulnerable elderly living in care homes.
    The death rate from COVID-19 in Los Angeles County — the nation’s most populous and an epicenter of the state pandemic — works out to about one person every six minutes.
    On Sunday, the South Coast Air Quality Management District suspended some pollution-control limits on the number of cremations for at least 10 days in order to deal with a backlog of bodies at hospitals and funeral homes.
    “The current rate of death is more than double that of pre-pandemic years,” the agency said.
    Adding to concerns, California is experiencing new, possibly more transmissible forms of COVID-19.
    The state health department announced Sunday that an L452R variant of the virus is increasingly showing up in genetic sequencing of COVID-19 test samples from several counties.
    The variant was first identified last year in California and in other states and countries but has been identified more frequently since November and in several large outbreaks in Northern California’s Santa Clara County, the department said.
    Overall, the variant has been found in at least a dozen counties. In some places, testing has found the variant in a quarter of the samples sequenced, said Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist and professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California San Francisco.
    However, not all test samples receive genetic sequencing to identify variants so its frequency wasn’t immediately clear.
    Health officials said it was linked to a Christmas-time outbreak at Kaiser Permanente San Jose that infected at least 89 staff members and patients, killing a receptionist. The outbreak has been blamed on an employee who visited the hospital emergency room wearing an air-powered inflatable Christmas tree costume.
    The variant is different from another mutation, B117, that was first reported in the United Kingdom and appears to spread much more easily, although it doesn’t appear to make people sicker. That variant has already shown up in San Diego County and Los Angeles County announced over the weekend that it had detected its first case.
    https://apnews.com/article/los-angel...6553a27603ba4e


  23. #1098
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    Freaking fabulous.

    https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/...d362295bdc64ba

    New coronavirus variant could be problematic for vaccines, a second study in two days suggests



    https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/f...rnd/index.html

    For flight attendants, getting people to wear masks is now one of the hardest parts of the job
    Last edited by raisedbywolves; 06-28-2021 at 12:35 PM.

  24. #1099
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    https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the...d-19-vaccines/

    Over a decade ago, I partnered with some colleagues to establish a Facebook group that refuted misinformation about the H1N1 vaccine. It was a challenging, if futile task. At the time, public health agencies had little active engagement on social media. Few seemed to recognize the growing importance of “Web 2.0” (as it was called at the time) as a communications tool that could be used positively, but equally as a vector for spreading fear and sowing doubt. Frustrated with our experience, we made our way on to the agenda of subsequent public health conference where we described the tactics and tropes of the anti-vaccine movement, and did our best to convince public health professionals to take social media, and the antivaccine movement, seriously. The anti-vaccine movement was highly organized and growing, and public health was not.

    Looking at all that work in hindsight, it’s remarkable but also entirely predictable that we are in in our current situation. But what I didn’t realize back in 2009 was how much social media companies stood to gain from the anti-vaccine movement. In January 2021 we in the midst of a deadly pandemic that has already killed millions, and continues to kill thousands daily. Despite hospital intensive care units that are at capacity, there is ongoing disease denial and deliberate minimization of the harms of COVID-19 infections. There is limited but strident opposition to basic, simple public health measures, like distancing and masks. And despite newly-developed vaccines showing high rates of efficacy and good safety profiles, there is considerable and widespread vaccine hesitancy.

    The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) recently published a report, The Anti-Vaxx Playbook, that describes in detail how key members of the anti-vaccine movement are collaborating and partnering in new ways to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic, create consistent anti-vaccine messaging, and destroy confidence in vaccination. The report is based on observations from the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)’s conference held online in 2020. Misleadingly titled “Protecting Health and Autonomy in the 21st Century“, this event brought together a long list of anti-vaccine advocates with the apparent goal of helping participants more effectively push back against science, evidence, and public health measures.

    The problem
    In early 2020 the CCDH put out a report entitled The Anti-Vaxx Industry which examined anti-vaccine social media, noting that 409 different English language anti-vaccine accounts had 58 million followers, with evidence that collectively, followers had grown approximately 19% since 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a booming business opportunity for anti-vaxxers and social media alike. The CCDH named four different sub-communities of anti-vaxxers:

    Campaigners are full-time, anti-vaccine professionals who may be seen as “experts”. They make a living based on promoting anti-vaccine sentiment and ideas. Their examples include: Informed Consent Action Network (Del Bigtree), Children’s Health Defence (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.), and the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).
    Entrepreneurs leverage and amplify vaccine fears to sell content, products and services. Examples include Rashid Buttar, Ty and Charlene Bollinger, David Wolfe, Judy Mikovits, and the biggest, Joseph Mercola.
    Conspiracists focus on vaccines from an conspiracy angle, but vaccines are not their full-time focus. They may also ben entrepreneurs. Examples they listed include Brian Rose, David Icke, and Patrick Bet-David.
    Communities are groups that share anti-vaccine ideas and stories, usually in Facebook Groups. Examples include “Stop Mandatory Vaccination”, “Vaccine Re-education Discussion Forum”, “Vaccine Choices”, and many more hidden, private groups.
    Certainly there is some overlap in these categories, and while I might quibble with their classifications, it’s worth acknowledging that anti-vaccine sentiment and rhetoric can be driven by an variety of motivations. While Facebook and other providers took some steps to address anti-vaccine sentiment after measles outbreaks in the US, the measures were largely ineffective in preventing their continued growth on the platforms. For example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has touted COVID-related conspiracies since the beginning of the pandemic, has seen his Instagram following rise from 121,000 at the beginning of the pandemic to 792,000 today. He is just one example of the number anti-vaccine advocates who have seen large increases in audience and reach. This type of growth is continuing largely unabated, probably because the CCDH has estimated that the anti-vaccine movement could be generating up to $1 billion in advertising revenue across the different platforms. Facilitating and spreading vaccine misinformation is highly profitable.

    The master narrative
    Despite the disparate group of individuals that are driving anti-vaccine sentiment, messaging has consolidated around a few key messages. NVIC’s virtual conference in October 2020 was accessible to anyone that registered, and CCDH attended. Prominent speakers included Barbara Loe Fisher (NVIC), Joseph Mercola, Del Bigtree, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sherri Tenpenny, and Andrew Wakefield. CCDH noted that these speakers see COVID-19 as a historic opportunity:

    A number of speakers at the NVIC conference presented the Covid pandemic as an historic opportunity to popularise anti-vaccine sentiment. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told activists listening to the conference “All of the truths that we’ve been trying to broadcast for many, many years. There are people hearing it and the impact and those seeds are landing on very fertile ground.” The disgraced physician Andrew Wakefield echoed these sentiments, saying “The population who are aware of these issues has grown dramatically in the face of coronavirus, Covid-19. It is now an issue for discussion by everyone.” Other anti-vaxxers such as Sherri Tenpenny highlighted the Covid pandemic as an opportunity to build a wider movement with campaigners against masks and lockdowns: “We need everyone to get politically active, get behind this cause, get behind Hugs Over Masks, get behind MAD, Mothers Against Distancing, get behind the NVIC, the National Vaccine Information Center, get behind the things that we’re doing over at vaxxter.com, and Courses for Mastery, and our boot camp course that open enrolment is coming up again, the end of September. All the things that we’re doing, we need all hands on deck. We need everybody to release their fear from their brains, get rid of their masks, go hug people and absolutely say no. Wake up your community.”

    There are three key messages identified by the CCDH that are overlapping and common across these different speakers. They are recurrent and you will see them, in some form, in almost all anti-COVID-19-vaccine messaging:

    COVID-19 is not dangerous. Talking points: There are few deaths, and death reports are exaggerated. “It’s just the flu.” “It will just go away on its own.”
    COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous. Talking points: “The vaccines were rushed.” “The vaccines are killing people.” “Natural” immunity is better. Other treatments (e.g., hydroxychloroquine) are safer and better. “Vaccines are toxic.” “Vaccines will change your DNA/destroy your immune system.” etc. etc.
    Vaccine advocates cannot be trusted. Talking points: “It’s politics over health.” “It’s Big Pharma profits over health.” Vaccines are “too big to fail” and manufacturers are “not liable for injuries.” “Bill Gates! Bill Gates! Bill Gates!”
    Adapting the Master Narrative
    The Master Narrative is easily adaptable to target specific groups. The CCDH lists four, and describes how messaging is being modified to make the messaging more appealing:

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    https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the...ntinues-apace/

    Think of this post as a continuation of a series related to COVID-19 vaccines. You might recall that, right before the holidays last December, I predicted an impending tsunami of adverse events (AEs) falsely attributed to COVID-19 vaccines that would be spread by the antivaccine movement as the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines found their way into more and more arms around the world and more and more bad things happened to people by coincidence soon after COVID-19 vaccination. I won’t take any credit for the prediction coming true, as anyone who’s followed the antivaccine movement for a while could have predicted it (and did). After all, every pre-pandemic antivaccine trope in the book had already been picked up, dusted off, and recycled for use with COVID-19. Examples abound, including the claim that the COVID-19 vaccine renders females infertile, permanently alters your DNA, causes autoimmune disease, or even kills. The only claim, it seems, not yet made by the antivaccine movement about COVID-19 vaccines is that they cause autism, but give them time – the vaccines are not approved for children yet. I fully expect that when young children start receiving the vaccines, antivaxxers will claim they cause autism just as they have for nearly every other vaccine.

    To continue the series, I thought I’d survey how antivaxxers are spinning stories about possible adverse events after vaccination against COVID-19, as more and more vaccines are finding their way into more and more arms. As you might expect, antivaxxers are doing everything they can to use such stories to stoke fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the vaccine. Indeed, reading antivaccine social media and listening to antivaxxers about the vaccine rollout, I’m reminded of Bill Murray in Ghostbusters describing what was coming.

    Doctors, don’t give quotes like this to the press
    Last week, I discussed the tragic case of an OB/GYN from Miami who died a little more than two weeks after receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and whose story went viral as a result of a Facebook post by his widow Heidi Neckelmann. What made the case of Dr. Gregory Michael so dramatic and unusual was that he developed lesions on his skin three days after vaccination and then went on to have a case of immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) so severe that it actually killed him. He died of a hemorrhagic stroke 16 days after vaccination.

    At the time, I conceded that it is possible that Dr. Michael’s death could be related to the vaccine but also, as always, cautioned that it was impossible to tell from one anecdote whether there was an association between the vaccine and Dr. Gregory’s death. Also, given that there were tens of thousands of people in the phase III clinical trials that tested both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, even if the vaccine did cause Dr. Michael’s ITP, we can safely conclude that this is a relatively rare issue, given that no signal that the vaccines might cause ITP was observed in the clinical trials. Obviously, the antivaccine movement was nowhere near as…cautious…as I was in my assessment. Predictably, they immediately leapt on the story as “proof” that the vaccine kills.

    There isn’t really any new news since last week other than further reactions of the antivaccine movement. I haven’t been able to find any news of the investigations or whether the FDA or Pfizer have yet concluded if there might have been causation. Unfortunately, not all physicians quoted in the press have been as cautious.

    In The New York Times last week:

    Dr. Jerry L. Spivak, an expert on blood disorders at Johns Hopkins University, who was not involved in Dr. Michael’s care, said that based on Ms. Neckelmann’s description, “I think it is a medical certainty that the vaccine was related.”

    “This is going to be very rare,” said Dr. Spivak, an emeritus professor of medicine. But he added, “It happened and it could happen again.”

    Predictably, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s antivaccine group Children’s Health Defense, was all over it in an article entitled, “Johns Hopkins Scientist: ‘A Medical Certainty’ Pfizer Vaccine Caused Death of Florida Doctor“. They even used it to make this deceptive claim:

    Redwood also pointed out that ITP has been reported to occur following exposure to drugs containing polyethylene glycol (PEG), a compound used in both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

    If you go to the actual study cited by antivaxxer Lynn Redwood, you’ll find that the drug was peg-interferon-alpha2a, in concert with ribavirin and telaprevir antiviral treatment and that Redwood failed to mention that ITP is a known issue with interferon treatment, with the PEG likely having nothing to do with the case of ITP reported.

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