Page 29 of 89 FirstFirst ... 19 27 28 29 30 31 39 79 ... LastLast
Results 701 to 725 of 2212

Thread: COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus pandemic

  1. #701
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0
    https://ktla.com/news/coronavirus/de...lection-nears/

    President Donald Trump is escalating his promise for a coronavirus vaccine before Election Day.

    But across America, Democrats, independents and even some Republicans do not trust his administration to produce a safe and effective vaccine on such an aggressive timeline. Such hesitancy threatens to exacerbate the public health risk for millions of Americans whenever a vaccine is released.

    With the Nov. 3 election fast approaching, Democratic officials face a delicate political challenge.

    Should they attack Trump’s vaccine claims too aggressively, Democrats risk further undermining public confidence in a possible lifesaving medicine while looking as though they are rooting against a potential cure. But if they don’t push back, it makes it easier for Trump to use the real or imagined prospect of a vaccine to boost his reelection campaign.

    Washington Gov. Jay Inslee demonstrated the Democrats’ balancing act on Friday when asked whether he would be willing to take a vaccine released by the administration before the election.

    “If all the protocols had been followed and the evidence is in, of course, I’d follow science. It doesn’t matter when it happens,” Inslee told The Associated Press. “But I would have to look at the science, not Donald Trump. There isn’t one single thing I would ever trust from Donald Trump to be true.”

    The focus on a speedy vaccine could be overshadowed by a sudden fight over the future of the Supreme Court in the wake of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death on Friday. But Inslee’s comments are in line with a growing consensus of Democrats in leadership positions, including the party’s presidential nominee, Joe Biden.

    They have repeatedly cast doubt on Trump’s promises but pledged to follow the guidance of scientists and health care experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease specialist.

    Trump restates his promise of an imminent vaccine almost daily.

    Trump on Friday promised that 100 million doses of a still-unknown vaccine would be produced by the end of the year and there would be enough vaccines for all Americans by April.

    “Three vaccines are already in the final stage,” Trump said at a briefing.

    “Joe Biden’s anti-vaccine theories are putting a lot of lives at stake, and they’re only doing it for political reasons,” the president said from a White House podium. “It’s part of their war to discredit the vaccine now that they know we essentially have it. We’ll be announcing it fairly soon.”

    The first case of COVID-19 was reported in the United States just eight months ago. Health experts, including the administration’s own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief, — believe a vaccine will require at least 12 months to 18 months to create because of the extensive testing required to ensure it’s safe and effective.

    The politics of the coronavirus vaccine are complicated.

    Trump has suffered politically from the pandemic, which has devastated the global economy and killed nearly 200,000 Americans, more than triple the number of deaths he predicted in April. But six weeks before the Nov. 3 election, there is a broadening sense from voters that things have begun to move in the right direction — at least a little — even as experts warn that it’s too soon to believe the worst is over.

    Four in 10 people now say the “worst is behind us” — the same number of people who say “the worst is yet to come,” according to a poll released last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That was the most optimistic outlook reported by the think tank since the pandemic began. Three in 4 believed the “worst is yet to come” back in early April.

    At the same time, most Americans worry that the political pressure from the administration will lead the Food and Drug Administration to rush to approve a coronavirus vaccine without making sure it’s safe and effective. That includes 85% of Democrats, 61% of independents and 35% of Republicans, according to Kaiser.

    “At this point, nobody actually believes it will be ready before the election,” said Mollyann Brodie, who oversees public opinion research at Kaiser.

    The politicization of such an important health issue has “huge impacts,” she said, pointing to the extraordinary challenges ahead for public health officials to persuade as many Americans as possible to take the vaccine whenever it’s released.

    Democrats facing difficult elections this fall are working to navigate the delicate issue.

    California Rep. Ami Bera, one of three Democratic physicians serving in the House of Representatives, said the modest drop in infections from the summer peak does not mean the nation has turned the corner, as Trump has suggested.

    He said a vaccine is critically important and welcomed one as soon as possible, as long as it’s deemed safe by science.

    “I don’t have any vaccine hesitancy. I know the immense power of vaccines. We are going to need a vaccine. I have no issue with taking a vaccine,” Bera said.

    But he offered a warning: “Trust the scientists. Trust the doctors. Don’t trust the politicians.”

    On Capitol Hill, Democrats are sticking with a simple, consistent message pushing for a vaccine as soon as possible, but not a moment earlier. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Friday praised the FDA scientists and researchers helming the vaccine initiative, but she has been highly critical of the Trump-appointed FDA commissioner.

    “We all hope and pray for a vaccine, and that will make a tremendous difference,” Pelosi said.

    “We don’t want it one day sooner than it is ready, from a safety and efficacy standpoint, and we don’t want it one day later,” she added. “Hopefully that will be soon.”

    Still, it’s far from certain that all Americans will take the vaccine when it’s available.

    Only about half of Americans say they would definitely or probably get a vaccine if it were available to them today, according to a poll released by the Pew Research Center this past week

  2. #702
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0
    Sonoma County health officials this week reported 62 coronavirus cases traced to outbreaks in at least a dozen preschools and child care centers.

    In one cluster, 30 people contracted the virus at an early learning center in North County, where the health department believes the first case was a student, according to Dr. Sundari Mase, Sonoma County’s health officer.

    Those infected include 16 children, 11 family members and three staff, and officials say there could be more.

    The county shut down the center for two weeks, as is required by the state.

    “In this cluster, 30 cases, students and staff and we are doing contact tracing, and we have it shutdown as you can imagine, we are following the protocol,” Dr. Mase said in a virtual briefing Wednesday.

    In another cluster, a family child care home, an outbreak with at least nine cases started with a staff member who had the virus.

    Mase said several other home daycare facilities were recently ordered to shut down, but their quarantine period has since ended. None of the facilities were named for privacy reasons, KTLA sister station KRON in San Francisco reported.

    All schools in Sonoma County remain closed for in-person instruction as the county lingers ​in the state’s most restrictive tier, with the case load still too high for it to be allowed to transition to the next tier, which would allow schools to open in a limited capacity.

    The state has allowed child day care centers and schools offering day care to open at limited capacity and with coronavirus safety measures in place.

    The majority of children in the county who tested positive for the virus have contracted it from people in their household, but the health officer says what has happened at these child care facilities is something to watch closely and learn from as officials consider waivers to reopen some grades and private schools for in-person learning.
    https://ktla.com/news/california/62-...dcare-centers/

  3. #703
    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Location
    Under your bed
    Posts
    23,483
    Rep Power
    21474870
    I see both sides here. In a lot of these cases, parents need to work so need the daycare, but at the same time opening up these schools and daycare centers is going to create an explosion of cases that will do more damage than good. Our goverment spends trillions on military yet can't pony up the money to keep people housed and safe until this is gone. It pisses me off. If we had had a national shutdown for three weeks when this all started, we wouldn't be here right now. It's criminal.
    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



  4. #704
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0



  5. #705
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0

  6. #706
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0

  7. #707
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0

  8. #708
    Senior Member curiouscat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Posts
    2,523
    Rep Power
    21474849
    This article is saying there's a new strain that's resistant to hand washing and mask wearing. Great!

    https://nypost.com/2020/09/24/covid-...d-washing/amp/
    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.

  9. #709
    Moderator
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    11,771
    Rep Power
    21474859
    Quote Originally Posted by curiouscat View Post
    This article is saying there's a new strain that's resistant to hand washing and mask wearing. Great!

    https://nypost.com/2020/09/24/covid-...d-washing/amp/
    The strain has a higher viral load, which may indicate it's more contagious. It's not mutating and plotting to get around hand washing and masks like this RWNJ article is implying. The way it's written is so screwed it's ridiculous.

  10. #710
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by raisedbywolves View Post
    The strain has a higher viral load, which may indicate it's more contagious. It's not mutating and plotting to get around hand washing and masks like this RWNJ article is implying. The way it's written is so screwed it's ridiculous.


    Blame Joseph Mercola he is behind this rant for political reasons over SARS-COV-2



    The COVID-19 pandemic has now been going on for nine months, and it’s been six months since the first lockdowns were imposed in the US to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for the pandemic. Now we’re approaching the 2020-21 flu season, which threatens to make a bad situation even worse by adding another potentially lethal respiratory virus to the mix with SARS-CoV-2 and to confuse the care of severely ill patients with symptoms of respiratory infection, as doctors now have to consider the diagnostic possibility of seasonal influenza. Of course, antivaxxers have long targeted the flu vaccine because, compared to most other vaccines, it is an easier target. Different strains of flu predominate every year, forcing public health officials to make a “best guess” in the spring as to which influenza strains will dominate in the fall and winter, so that vaccines can be developed and manufactured in time. A consequence of this necessity is that the efficacy of the flu vaccine can vary widely from year to year. Mismatches between circulating flu strains and the vaccine can lead to poor efficacy some years, while during years that there is a good match to the circulating strains the efficacy is much better. Also, the response to the vaccine tends to be less robust in one group who most needs its protection, the elderly, although higher dose shots can partially solve that problem. Then there’s the issue that flu vaccine uptake is basically never sufficient to achieve community immunity in any given year. Even Mark Crislip used to concede that the flu vaccine is “suboptimal” but nonetheless argued that the evidence is sufficiently robust for its benefit to recommend it every year. Unfortunately, flu vaccines are only moderately effective, but it is clear that they are safe, and it should be remembered that influenza still kills, contrary to the claims of antivaxxers that the flu is not a serious illness.

    With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not long before antivaxxers, being the conspiracy theorists that they are, latched onto a new conspiracy theory linking the flu vaccine to increased susceptibility to COVID-19. Indeed, the first I heard about this was in January, before the coronavirus and the disease it causes had even received their final, formal name. (That happened in March.) Back then, antivaxxers were blaming the flu vaccine for having sparked the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China that later spread to become a pandemic based on China’s having allegedly purchased more doses of flu vaccine than a usual year and a tenuous link to some science about viral interference that I’ll explain in a bit more depth in this post. I bring this up because a couple of weeks ago I came across an article on the website of Dr. Joe Mercola, the ?ber-quack who’s built an online empire that’s made him worth over $100 million, asking “Might Flu Shots Increase COVID-19 Pandemic Risk?” The short answer is no. The long answer follows, and I consider it important to amplify my original rebuttal to this nonsense on a platform with several times more regular readers because antivaccine activists all across the quackosphere (like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) are parrotting the same claim as Mercola.

    So the claim that the flu vaccine increases your risk of getting a life-threatening form of COVID-19, by 36% or by however much, is something I’ve written about at least twice already, once in January for my not-so-secret other blog and once in March for SBM. (Oh, wait, there was one other time.) So why revisit it? Simple. Flu season is upon us, which means that, pandemic or no pandemic, public health officials are rolling out the seasonal flu vaccine, as they do every year around this time. Indeed, I just got mine last week, and I had a really bad reaction to it. (Just kidding. I did have an adverse reaction, but it was nothing more than a sore shoulder for a couple of days, more sore than most years. It’s also here that I have to express the disappointment that I express nearly every year that my cancer center chose to use Fluarix Quadrivalent, which does not contain thimerosal. I almost asked the nurse administering the vaccine if she could add some extra thimerosal to it. OK, I’ll stop with the thimerosal jokes. At least the lack of thimerosal in Fluarix saved you from my older—and, I now realize, sometimes offensive to some—jokes when I did receive thimerosal containing vaccines about how the vaccine didn’t make me autistic.)

    Of course, I don’t mind the yearly hassle. I get a flu vaccine every year and still remember the one time I didn’t twelve years ago and ended up knocked on my posterior for a week, sick as a dog with the flu. In any event, with the flu vaccine making its way to doctors’ offices, hospitals, and pharmacies near you, with public health messaging urging everyone to get vaccinated, it’s predictable that the antivaccine movement would do what the antivaccine movement always does at this time of year and try to convince people that the vaccine is dangerous. This year, more than even 2009-2010 (the year of the H1N1 influenza pandemic), this antivaccine pushback has the potential to be really dangerous. After all, with fall coming, there is a very real possibility of a resurgence of COVID-19 cases and deaths at the very same time that influenza cases will be increasing in the same way they do every year. We don’t have a vaccine against COVID-19 yet, but we do have one against influenza.

    That’s why I decided to call out Mercola’s disinformation, which begins:

    Could a “perfect storm” be brewing, ready to be unleashed this fall? If the regular influenza season ends up converging with a resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks, or even a new SARS-CoV-3, the results are anyone’s guess at this point. Confounding matters is the possibility that influenza vaccination may increase people’s risk of other viral infections.

    Mercola quotes Michael Osterholm, virologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and Edward Belongia, director of the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Population Health at the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute in Marshfield, who warned in an editorial in Science in June about the possibility of such a “perfect storm” of influenza and COVID-19 and urged an aggressive influenza vaccination campaign:

    We do not yet have a COVID-19 vaccine, but safe and moderately effective influenza vaccines are available. Their widespread use is more important now than ever, and we encourage health care providers, employers, and community leaders to promote vaccination. Vaccine effectiveness varies by season and subtype, but vaccination offers similar protection against laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalization and outpatient illness. Widespread misinformation on social media includes the false claim that influenza vaccination increases the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Scientists, health care providers, and public health leaders must counter these claims with clear, evidence-based information on the importance of influenza vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    It’s at this point that Mercola pulls a gambit that made me literally laugh out loud:

    But this so-called “false claim” is not a rumor pulled out of thin air. As is so often the case, Osterholm and Belongia are actually insulting fellow virologists and researchers when slapping a hoax label on such claims, seeing how there is published research showing that, yes, influenza vaccination appears to worsen outcomes during viral pandemics.

    If Osterholm and Belongia wanted to be factual and clear, they should dissect the actual studies using scientific methods and reasoning, and not just dismiss them as made-up internet hoaxes.

    The fact that peer-reviewed studies have come to the conclusion that previous flu vaccination seems to increase patients’ risk of contracting more severe pandemic illness at least worthy of consideration and review.

  11. #711
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0
    https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/joe...k-of-covid-19/

    Forgot the link


    Next up, Mercola picks more cherries:

    Another study,7 published in the Journal of Virology in 2011, found the seasonal flu vaccine weakens children’s immune systems and increases their chances of getting sick from influenza viruses not included in the vaccine.

    Further, when blood samples from 27 healthy, unvaccinated children and 14 children who had received an annual flu shot were compared, the former unvaccinated group was found to have naturally built up more antibodies across a wider variety of influenza strains compared to the latter vaccinated group, which is the type of situation Collignon referred to in the quote above.

    Then there’s a 2012 study in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, which found that children receiving inactivated influenza vaccines had a 4.4 times higher relative risk of contracting noninfluenza respiratory virus infections in the nine months following their inoculation.

    The authors proposed the theory that “Being protected against influenza, trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine recipients may lack temporary nonspecific immunity that protected against other respiratory viruses.”

    First off, the first study did not find that the seasonal flu vaccine “weakens the immune system.” Immunologists don’t use terminology like “weaken” or “strengthen” the immune system. Second, this is a small study. Third, the study compared T-cell responses of normal children unvaccinated against the flu with children with cystic fibrosis who underwent yearly vaccination. That’s different from the way Mercola described it. It’s not clear if CF affected the results. The authors tried to argue that it did not, and maybe it didn’t, but we don’t know for sure because there was not the ideal control group, as the authors themselves acknowledged. Moreover, the finding reported is much more subtle than Mercola portrayed it. Basically, the finding was that a certain subset of T-cell response was less in the children vaccinated every year, but the authors noted that a live virus vaccine didn’t have that problem.

    As for the second study cited, that’s a cherry picked study. As the CDC notes:

    After that study was published, many experts looked into this issue further and conducted additional studies to see if the findings could be replicated. No other studies have found this effect. It’s not clear why this finding was detected in the one study, but the majority of evidence suggests that this is not a common or regular occurrence and that flu vaccination does not, in fact, make people more susceptible to other respiratory infections.

    Maria Sundaram et al. (2013). Influenza Vaccination Is Not Associated With Detection of Noninfluenza Respiratory Viruses in Seasonal Studies of Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness.

    Then Mercola throws a red herring in there to distract:

    So, on the one hand, studies have shown that when you get the flu vaccine, you may become more prone to flu caused by influenza viruses that are not contained in the vaccine, or other noninfluenza viral respiratory illnesses, including coronavirus infections (more on that below).

    Conversely, researchers recently found that common colds caused by the betacoronaviruses OC43 and HKU1 might actually make you more resistant to SARS-CoV-2 infection, and that the resulting immunity might last as long as 17 years.

    The authors suggest that if you’ve beat a common cold caused by a OC43 or HKU1 betacoronavirus in the past, you may have a 50/50 chance of having defensive T-cells that can recognize and help defend against SARS-CoV-2.

    This is, of course, good news if it’s true. If the finding is replicated, it would imply that many of us who get the common cold could also as a result have some immunity to COVID-19 without ever having had it. Of course, what Mercola is up to here is not reassurance. He’s using this example to suggest plausibility of his previous Gish galloping with cherry picked studies claiming that the flu vaccine increases your susceptibility to COVID-19, even though coronaviruses are very different from influenza viruses, meaning that having cross immunity between two coronaviruses does not necessarily imply the same relationship between flu viruses and coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2.

    Finally, Mercola pulls out a claim by someone named Dr. Michael Murry on Facebook dated March 30 that the flu vaccine resulted in a higher mortality among the elderly who contracted COVID-19:


    Naturally, there is no scientific evidence presented to support this wild speculation. In addition, Dr. Vasquez runs a website called Inflammation Mastery and is, in addition to being a DO, a chiropractor and a naturopath. His website screams, “Quack!” It touts something called the “Functional Inflammation Protocol”, claiming brain inflammation is a cause of pain and fibromyalgia, and a book blaming autism on the “gut-brain axis”.

    In the end, what we have here from “Dr.” Mercola is nothing more than a Gish gallop of cherry picked studies and observations without context designed to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the flu vaccine. We also know that, despite extensive refutation online and in the mainstream media, the claim that influenza vaccines increase your risk of contracting COVID-19 by 36% (or by whatever) and increase your risk of dying from COVID-19 is yet another antivax slasher claim. What I mean by that is that this claim is like Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th movies or Michael Myers in the Halloween movies. No matter how many times you think he’s been killed at the end of one movie, he always returns for yet another sequel, and, when the sequels finally run out, there’ll always be a reboot of the series. Yes, conspiracy theories are the iconic hockey or William Shatner mask of the COVID-19/antivaxxer unholy alliance.

    Mercola concludes with a warning about fast-tracked COVID-19 vaccines, which is a concern many of us on the provaccine side have brought up ourselves, thus providing the one bit of semi-reasonable concern sprinkled into the fear mongering, in order to provide a touch of plausibility. Also, there’s the grift. There’s always the grift, complete with a plug for an antivaccine conference in October by the National Vaccine Information Center, Barbara Loe Fisher’s antivaccine organization that Mercola has been generously supporting for over a decade.

    Because of course there is.

  12. #712
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by curiouscat View Post
    This article is saying there's a new strain that's resistant to hand washing and mask wearing. Great!

    https://nypost.com/2020/09/24/covid-...d-washing/amp/
    https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/hea...alth-measures/

    Blame this Health Freedom Group for making this claim

    An organization calling itself “National Health Freedom Action” (NHFA) is promoting state legislation that would block public health measures designed to prevent the spread of communicable diseases like COVID-19. If enacted, the legislation would prevent both government and private businesses from instituting public health measures, like mask requirements and social distancing, by making compliance with those measures voluntary.

    Before we get to the specifics, let’s take a look at NHFA and its operations.

    Under the rubric of “health freedom”, a legally meaningless term, NHFA supports several alternative medicine hobbyhorses. Their chief legislative success has been passage of “safe-harbor” laws protecting quacks from being disciplined under state health care practitioner licensing acts, thereby making it virtually impossible for a state to combat the victimization of consumers by charlatans and their nostrums. They and their allies have been instrumental in getting these “Quack Protection Acts” passed in 11 states. One version is now pending in Massachusetts; a Wisconsin bill came close to passing but, fortunately, failed.

    In Maine, for example, an unlicensed practitioner providing “alternative or complementary health care services” can diagnose and treat any disease or condition (with very few exceptions), without informed consent and without any obligation to refer the consumer to a physician. There is no requirement that a CAM practitioner keep patient records (of, say, symptoms and treatment) nor are there confidentiality protections for patient information. Unlike licensed health care practitioners, such as physicians and nurses, there are no education and training requirements; no criminal background checks; no prohibitions against false advertising, conflicts of interest, or financial or sexual exploitation of patients (at least those prohibitions established by the state’s licensing laws); and no required reporting (e.g., of infectious diseases or child abuse). They essentially practice medicine with no standard of care and completely free of state regulation.

    Concomitant with protecting quacks, NHFA opposes licensing of health care practitioners like dietitians and massage therapists. They also oppose vaccination mandates and support “personal and philosophical” exemptions, including the virtually unchecked authority of health care providers to underwrite vaccine exemptions. NHFA supports GMO labeling, “protection of access to” dangerous raw, unpasteurized dairy products, and parental “rights” to choose “alternative” health care for their children. (We’ve discussed the tragic consequences for the child when parents exercise their “rights” a number of times here on SBM, including here, here, and here.)

    NHFA, with its sister organization, the National Health Freedom Coalition (NHFC), promotes false information about COVID-19, including a posts by GreenMedInfo and the Weston A. Price Foundation, both on NewsGuard’s list of websites known for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. For example, a post by Weston A. Price Foundation founder (and English major) Sally Fallon Morell opines, among other idiotic notions, that the rollout of 5G is somehow responsible for the COVID-19 outbreak and that vaccines make people susceptible to it, both thoroughly debunked by David Gorski. (Morell has a book out promoting this and other nonsense, such as “the disease called Covid-19 is not contagious and scientists have not properly isolated and purified a virus associated with the disease”.) Another post recommends the use of homeopathy, falsely claiming that it “is very effective in epidemics”.

    NHFC, in turn, hosts the United States Health Freedom Congress, which is sponsored by COVID-19 misinformation “super-spreaders” mercola.com and the National Vaccine Information Center (or, as we prefer here at SBM, the National Vaccine Misinformation Center), as well as companies selling various nostrums, like EMF “protection” and homeopathic remedies.

    The “Right to Refuse” model act
    In sum, NHFA operates within an ecosystem COVID-19 misinformation, profit-making quackery promotion, anti-consumer legislation, anti-vaccination hysteria, and all-around junk science. It is therefore unsurprising that NHFA is spearheading an effort to pass legislation blocking public health measures during the current pandemic. Billed as the “Right to Refuse” law, NHFA drafted a model act for state legislatures, fresh off the presses, ready and waiting for introduction in your state’s next legislative session.

    The “Right to Refuse” model act gives all individuals the “right” to refuse health-related “countermeasures” including, “but not limited to”, refusing

    medical treatments or procedures;
    testing;
    physical or mental examination;
    vaccination;
    experimental procedures and protocols;
    collection of specimens;
    participation in tracking or tracing programs;
    the wearing of masks;
    the maintaining of measured distance from other humans and animals that is not otherwise unlawful;
    the involuntary sharing of personal data or medical information; and
    other recommended or mandated countermeasures.
    All existing laws, regulations, and orders addressing outbreaks or potential outbreaks of contagious, infectious, or communicable diseases, to the extent they impose the disease countermeasures listed above, are overridden. More broadly, if a law, regulation, or order was created in response to an emergency, whether it relates to disease spread or not, including national security emergencies and “any peacetime emergency”, provisions conflicting with the “Right to Refuse” are also overridden.

    Given the fact that unspecified “other recommended or mandated countermeasures” are forbidden, and the right to refuse is “not limited to” the listed countermeasures, it is hard to imagine what might be left in the government’s toolbox to combat a public health or national security emergency, other than some confusing and contradictory measures we’ll get to in a moment. Ebola epidemic? Too bad. Biochemical warfare? Too bad. Nuclear attack? Too bad, because

  13. #713
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by raisedbywolves View Post
    The strain has a higher viral load, which may indicate it's more contagious. It's not mutating and plotting to get around hand washing and masks like this RWNJ article is implying. The way it's written is so screwed it's ridiculous.
    https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/hea...alth-measures/

    NHFC, in turn, hosts the United States Health Freedom Congress, which is sponsored by COVID-19 misinformation “super-spreaders” mercola.com and the National Vaccine Information Center (or, as we prefer here at SBM, the National Vaccine Misinformation Center), as well as companies selling various nostrums, like EMF “protection” and homeopathic remedies.

    The “Right to Refuse” model act
    In sum, NHFA operates within an ecosystem COVID-19 misinformation, profit-making quackery promotion, anti-consumer legislation, anti-vaccination hysteria, and all-around junk science. It is therefore unsurprising that NHFA is spearheading an effort to pass legislation blocking public health measures during the current pandemic. Billed as the “Right to Refuse” law, NHFA drafted a model act for state legislatures, fresh off the presses, ready and waiting for introduction in your state’s next legislative session.

    The “Right to Refuse” model act gives all individuals the “right” to refuse health-related “countermeasures” including, “but not limited to”, refusing

    medical treatments or procedures;
    testing;
    physical or mental examination;
    vaccination;
    experimental procedures and protocols;
    collection of specimens;
    participation in tracking or tracing programs;
    the wearing of masks;
    the maintaining of measured distance from other humans and animals that is not otherwise unlawful;
    the involuntary sharing of personal data or medical information; and
    other recommended or mandated countermeasures.
    All existing laws, regulations, and orders addressing outbreaks or potential outbreaks of contagious, infectious, or communicable diseases, to the extent they impose the disease countermeasures listed above, are overridden. More broadly, if a law, regulation, or order was created in response to an emergency, whether it relates to disease spread or not, including national security emergencies and “any peacetime emergency”, provisions conflicting with the “Right to Refuse” are also overridden.

    Given the fact that unspecified “other recommended or mandated countermeasures” are forbidden, and the right to refuse is “not limited to” the listed countermeasures, it is hard to imagine what might be left in the government’s toolbox to combat a public health or national security emergency, other than some confusing and contradictory measures we’ll get to in a moment. Ebola epidemic? Too bad. Biochemical warfare? Too bad. Nuclear attack? Too bad, because

    An individual who has been directed or ordered by a government . . . or public or private business entity, to subject to a directive or order [described in the list above] may choose to decline to comply, respond to, or participate with said directive or order.

    Note that this would include hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care facilities, which, during the current pandemic, would be prevented from barring individuals who refuse to wear masks, socially distance, or have their temperature checked.

    To emphasize the startling breadth of its prohibitions, under the heading “Coercion”, the model act provides:

    The government or its designees, or other employers, businesses, non-profits, institutions, churches, travel carriers, or other public or private entities, may not infringe upon, put conditions on, restrict, or take away a person’s ability to fully participate in necessary and important services and lifestyle choices and preferences including but not limited to education, daycare, employment, travel, religion, hobbies, entertainment, sports, and lifestyle preferences, based on a person choosing to decline countermeasures as described [in the list above].

    To ensure that we are all fully informed about our right to uninhibited lifestyle choices and preferences, not to mention hobbies and entertainment, the model acts requires anyone (government official and businessperson alike) daring to direct, or even request, our compliance with the listed countermeasures to read us our “rights” by reciting both the above-quoted paragraph and the 11 countermeasures we can refuse, along with assorted other verbiage, to the tune of almost 350 words. In addition, the person refusing the countermeasure (we’ll call him the “refusenik”) must be given a copy of the section of the model act requiring this recitation of his rights. Then, the reader of the recitation of rights has to “obtain a signature of acknowledgement of receipt of notification” of the right to refuse by the refusenik.

    By my calculation, this recitation of the right to refuse takes about 3 minutes. (I have a Southern accent, your results may differ.) Then there’s the additional time necessary to give out the written notification of the requirement that one’s right of refusal be recited and get a signature. Given the anti-mask sentiment in certain quarters, high-traffic government offices and businesses would likely have to hire someone whose sole duty it is to read refuseniks their “rights”, give them the written handout, and get it signed. (Given their anti-regulation sentiment, query how many refuseniks are going to stand there patiently while all of this takes place.)

    But wait . . . there’s more, although it’s so poorly drafted it’s hard to make heads or tails of it.

    According to the model act, if our refusenik is actually infected, or reasonably believed to be infected, or has been exposed to infection, he “may” (not “must”, but “may”) participate in isolation or quarantine. However, if this isolation or quarantine is truly optional, other provisions don’t make any sense. For example, if our refusenik is “non-infected”, this apparently optional quarantine must be based on “sufficient evidence of contact or close proximity with an infected person”. But why would this evidence be necessary if the person is voluntarily choosing quarantine? Likewise, isolation and quarantine must “include reasonable notice and due process”. Again, if the isolation or quarantine is self-imposed, how would due process (that is, notice and an opportunity to be heard) come into play?

    If the restrictions are not voluntary, what means would the government have of knowing a person is infected in the first place, given the right to refuse requests for medical information and testing? In any event, even if the drafters meant quarantine or isolation can be mandated, I’ll guarantee you the refusenik’s attorney is going to argue that the “Right to Refuse” law says otherwise; that “may” means it’s voluntary. (The thought occurs to me that this obfuscation could be intentional.)

    Isolation or quarantine, whether mandated or self-imposed, “must be of the least restrictive means possible” and includes the right to live in one’s home with family or friends as well as a prohibition against removing minor children from the home. Testing, treatment, tracking, or prevention cannot be imposed as a requirement of ending quarantine or isolation. And the drafters of this model act, being who they are, included this:

    A person in isolation or quarantine has the right to utilize the health care treatments of their choice. . .

    One would like to think that a law undermining public health during a pandemic has little chance of passing, but the facts suggest otherwise. First, there is the anti-mitigation, anti-science, pro-quackery “leadership” coming from the top echelons of our government. Second, a “right to refuse” law, similar but weaker in its terms, already passed in Minnesota. Third, as mentioned, NHFA has been successful in passing laws giving quacks carte blanche to prey on consumers by eliminating state oversight. Fourth, state legislatures have shown themselves more than willing to throw obstacles in the way of public health measures like vaccination. Finally, state legislatures have also proven themselves incapable of understanding science many times, having passed numerous laws licensing quackery. In other words, don’t count them out.

  14. #714
    Moderator
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    11,771
    Rep Power
    21474859
    It's not just medical stuff. RWNJs are trying to get rid of all licensing. They want to make it illegal for a CPA to disclose that they have a license and are educated and qualified, because they want Billy Bob with the 8th grade education to be able to do all the things a CPA can do, but oh yeah, Billy Bob won't be held to any legal or ethical obligations like a CPA, and you can't sue him if he fucks up your taxes/estate/books/etc because he isn't licensed...but they also want to make it where you can't find out if someone is or isn't licensed. They say its elitist and discriminatory to require education and licensing to do ANY job, including lawyers, physicians, CPA's, architects, pilots, etc.

    Big bucks are being spent on lobbying to try to get rid of licensing. We're doing everything we can to go back to the dark ages.

  15. #715
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by raisedbywolves View Post
    It's not just medical stuff. RWNJs are trying to get rid of all licensing. They want to make it illegal for a CPA to disclose that they have a license and are educated and qualified, because they want Billy Bob with the 8th grade education to be able to do all the things a CPA can do, but oh yeah, Billy Bob won't be held to any legal or ethical obligations like a CPA, and you can't sue him if he fucks up your taxes/estate/books/etc because he isn't licensed...but they also want to make it where you can't find out if someone is or isn't licensed. They say its elitist and discriminatory to require education and licensing to do ANY job, including lawyers, physicians, CPA's, architects, pilots, etc.

    Big bucks are being spent on lobbying to try to get rid of licensing. We're doing everything we can to go back to the dark ages.
    Apparently the Right calls that Utopia though and they will run this to spark their next Jim Jones move here. Who is going to be the Leo Ryan of this decade is yet to be seen.

  16. #716
    Moderator puzzld's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Posts
    21,600
    Rep Power
    21474874
    Quote Originally Posted by raisedbywolves View Post
    It's not just medical stuff. RWNJs are trying to get rid of all licensing. They want to make it illegal for a CPA to disclose that they have a license and are educated and qualified, because they want Billy Bob with the 8th grade education to be able to do all the things a CPA can do, but oh yeah, Billy Bob won't be held to any legal or ethical obligations like a CPA, and you can't sue him if he fucks up your taxes/estate/books/etc because he isn't licensed...but they also want to make it where you can't find out if someone is or isn't licensed. They say its elitist and discriminatory to require education and licensing to do ANY job, including lawyers, physicians, CPA's, architects, pilots, etc.

    Big bucks are being spent on lobbying to try to get rid of licensing. We're doing everything we can to go back to the dark ages.
    Yeah it's redic. They've already managed to discredit the CDC, the FDA, working on the Supreme Court and Congress and don't even get me started on the FBI, CIA and POTUS...
    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?

  17. #717
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Posts
    11,903
    Rep Power
    14329607
    Are any of you getting the shot once its available?

  18. #718
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=pocket-newtab

    After the novel coronavirus first appeared in Africa in late February, Ghana?s government decided it would take no chances. Ghanaian citizens were soon put under lockdown, and travel between major cities was banned. Then President Nana Akufo-Addo announced the closure of the country?s land and sea borders.

    At the time, my dad was in Ghana visiting family, and he faced the prospect of being stuck until commercial flights resumed. As experts predicted how the pandemic would be a unique and devastating disaster in Africa, my siblings and I scrambled to get my father a spot on a State Department repatriation flight for U.S. citizens. We rushed to get him out because we thought he would be better off in the United States.

    But after he got back to Texas, the number of cases there started to rise, and I joked with him that he would have been safer in Ghana. ?Ghana is doing much better with this than America,? he had said after I picked him up from the airport, amused that I sprayed down the entire car with disinfectant before making him sit in the back seat, away from me.

    Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic

    News reports and opinion articles have posited that corruption and a lack of health-care infrastructure meant that Africa was a ?time bomb? waiting to explode. Rampant poverty and a lack of effective governance would cause the dark continent to fall apart under the weight of a public health emergency. The world, the experts said, should prepare to offer aid, loans and debt forgiveness to African governments ? in other words, they should prepare to save Africa.

    No need.

    While so much about the virus and how it operates remains unclear, sub-Saharan Africa so far has dodged a deadly wave of coronavirus cases. Many factors have contributed to this. A number of West African nations already had a pandemic response infrastructure in place from the Ebola outbreak of late 2013 to 2016. Just six years ago, Liberia lost nearly 5,000 people to Ebola. At the beginning of this year, Liberia began screening for covid-19 at airports. Travelers coming in from countries with more than 200 cases were quarantined. To date, Liberia, a country of some 5 million, has 1,335 cases and around 82 deaths.

    After the Ebola pandemic, Senegal set up an emergency operations center to manage public health crises. Some covid-19 test results come back in 24 hours, and the country employs aggressive contact tracing. Every coronavirus patient is given a bed in hospital or other health-care facility. Senegal has a population of 16 million, but has only 302 registered deaths. Several countries have come up with innovations. Rwanda, a country of 12 million, also responded early and aggressively to the virus, using equipment and infrastructure that was in place to deal with HIV/AIDS. Testing and treatment for the virus are free. Rwanda has recorded only 26 deaths.

    As the United States approaches 200,000 deaths, the West seems largely blind to Africa?s successes. In recent weeks, headline writers seem to be doing their hardest to try to reconcile Western stereotypes about Africa with the reality of the low death rates on the continent. The BBC came under fire for a since-changed headline and a tweet that read ?Coronavirus in Africa: Could poverty explain mystery of low death rate?? The New York Post published an article with the headline, ?Scientists can?t explain puzzling lack of coronavirus outbreaks in Africa.?

    It?s almost as if they are disappointed that Africans aren?t dying en masse and countries are not collapsing. While Black Americans have been disproportionately contracting covid-19 and dying, Africa?s performance shows, as I quoted a Kenyan anthropologist saying in May, ?being a black person in this world doesn?t kill you, but being a black person in America clearly can.?

    This pandemic has coincided with a global movement challenging anti-Black racism and white supremacy. This should have been a moment for media outlets to challenge corrosive narratives about Africa and the idea that Africans are not capable of effective policy-making. We could be learning from the experiences that Africans and their governments have had with pandemics and viral diseases, including Ebola and AIDS.

    Instead, the media has largely ignored the policy successes out of Africa. In doing so, Western media is reinforcing colonial narratives of Black inferiority and the inability of Black nations to govern themselves at all, much less govern better than resource-rich White nations.

    We are interested in hearing about how the struggle to reopen amid the pandemic is affecting people's lives. Please tell us yours.

    None of this is to say there have not been missteps and challenges on the continent. In countries such as Kenya, police officers have used coronavirus restrictions as a cover to escalate police brutality against citizens ? police killed 15 people while enforcing curfew restrictions. Misinformation has spread online, making things harder for health-care professionals.

    But overall, African countries have made great efforts to contain the coronavirus, and citizens so far have escaped the nightmare predictions. African lives have been saved thanks to the hard work of many dedicated health-care workers and the collective responsibility of communities.

    In this global pandemic, Africa?s success stories matter more than ever.

  19. #719
    Cousin Greg Angiebla's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Posts
    17,434
    Rep Power
    21474865
    I'm watching Outbreak to compare notes

    My mom was in the doctors office with a woman whose daughter had heart issues from COVID and the woman claimed 65% of all cases cause heart problems. I dont believe that but people like to make up their own facts about this virus. She said one young woman needed a heart transplant after getting COVID.

    Now I'm terrified I will get it and have a heart attack.

    ETA: I wouldn't be surprised if it caused permenant lung damage though.
    Last edited by Angiebla; 09-26-2020 at 04:41 PM.

    "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.

  20. #720
    Senior Member KimTisha's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Somewhere Over the Rainbow
    Posts
    7,229
    Rep Power
    21474861
    Quote Originally Posted by S281Saleen160 View Post
    Are any of you getting the shot once its available?
    I'm undecided. I've had reactions with the flu shot, but I've had all my other shots with no problems.

    Quote Originally Posted by Angiebla View Post
    I'm watching Outbreak to compare notes

    My mom was in the doctors office with a woman whose daughter had heart issues from COVID and the woman claimed 65% of all cases cause heart problems. I dont believe that but people like to make up their own facts about this virus. She said one young woman needed a heart transplant after getting COVID.

    Now I'm terrified I will get it and have a heart attack.

    ETA: I wouldn't be surprised if it caused permenant lung damage though.
    But the heart and lungs are so closely linked - think of heart and lung transplants, Heart & Lung Centers. I agree though, that people make up their own facts.

    My 85yo BIL is fully recovered from COVID19. He was in the hospital for two weeks and has a bad heart, COPD, and diabetes. His wife had it as well but was asymptomatic. These two were really paranoid about COVID19 and went to extreme measures to protect themselves. Banning visitors, contactless grocery deliveries, spraying down the groceries, their mail, etc. before it was ever popular. How they got the virus without leaving the house is beyond me. If they could get it after all their precautions, anyone can get it.
    You are talking to a woman who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom and chuckled at catastrophe.
    ...Collector of Chairs. Reader of Books. Hater of Nutmeg...

  21. #721
    Moderator puzzld's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Posts
    21,600
    Rep Power
    21474874
    Quote Originally Posted by Angiebla View Post
    I'm watching Outbreak to compare notes

    My mom was in the doctors office with a woman whose daughter had heart issues from COVID and the woman claimed 65% of all cases cause heart problems. I dont believe that but people like to make up their own facts about this virus. She said one young woman needed a heart transplant after getting COVID.

    Now I'm terrified I will get it and have a heart attack.

    ETA: I wouldn't be surprised if it caused permenant lung damage though.
    I think it leaves long term damage in a lot of people. A friend has a friend 33 years old who had covid. Sick, but not that sick for a week or so. Recovered just fine. Dropped dead 6 weeks or so after she went back to work. Now maybe it was totally unrelated, but...
    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?

  22. #722
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Posts
    11,903
    Rep Power
    14329607
    What happened to that meat shortage some of you warned about? Bcz of what you read online some of you were 100% sure there would be a food shortage, any updates on that? Will we run out of steaks and chicken and bacon?

  23. #723
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0

  24. #724

  25. #725
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Posts
    4,558
    Rep Power
    0

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 145 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 145 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •