May 212021
 
 May 21, 2021  Posted by at 9:02 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  52 Responses »


Herri met de Bles Landscape with Saint Christopher 1535 – 1545

 

Israel-Palestinian Ceasefire Comes Into Force (Y!)
Celebrations In Gaza As Ceasefire Takes Hold (AlJ)
US Arms Makers Make a Killing Off of Israel’s Slaughter in Gaza (MPN)
Existing Cheap Drugs Could Rapidly Reduce Covid-19 Cases, Deaths In India (ToI)
Why Big Pharma’s Arguments Against Patent Waivers Don’t Add Up (CP)
If You Try To Bite Russia, We’ll Knock Out Your Teeth – Putin (RT)
Koch Funded Eviction Push While Buying Real Estate Stakes (DP)
US No Longer Wants To Buy Greenland, Blinken Confirms (G.)
The Squad Enables Pelosi’s Massive Capitol Police Spending Bill (Greenwald)
The Largest Iceberg on Earth Has Just Broken Off of Antarctica (Vice)
Lazy Entitled Boomers Told To Get A Jab (Chaser)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not the US. Not Putin. Egypt.

Israel-Palestinian Ceasefire Comes Into Force (Y!)

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip, came into force early Friday after 11 days of deadly fighting that pounded the Palestinian enclave and forced countless Israelis to seek shelter from rockets. Celebrations were heard on Gaza streets in the minutes after the truce began as cars honked their horns and some guns were fired in the air, AFP journalists said, while in the occupied West Bank, joyful crowds also took to the streets. With no alerts sounding in Israel to warn of incoming Hamas rockets, the ceasefire appeared to be holding in the early hours of Friday. The truce brokered by Egypt, that also included Gaza’s second-most powerful armed group, Islamic Jihad, was agreed following mounting international pressure to stem the bloodshed which erupted on May 10.

US President Joe Biden welcomed the deal. “I believe we have a genuine opportunity to make progress and I’m committed to working toward it,” Biden said at the White House, hailing Egypt’s role in brokering the agreement. A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the security cabinet had “unanimously accepted the recommendation of all of the security officials … to accept the Egyptian initiative for a mutual ceasefire without pre-conditions”. Hamas and Islamic Jihad also confirmed the ceasefire in statements. “This is the euphoria of victory,” said Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas figure, in front of a crowd of thousands of Palestinians who had gathered in the streets to celebrate.

The Israeli statement said its aerial campaign had made “unprecedented” achievements in Gaza, a territory it has blockaded since 2007, the year of Hamas’s takeover. “The political leadership emphasises that it is the reality on the ground that will determine the future of the operation,” it added. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday he would be “prepared at any time to go to Israel, to the Middle East, if that would serve the purpose of moving beyond the violence and helping to work on improving lives for Israelis and Palestinians alike”.

Read more …

“At least 232 Palestinians, including 65 children, have been killed in the Israeli bombardment. On the Israeli side, 12 people, including two children, have been killed.”

Celebrations In Gaza As Ceasefire Takes Hold (AlJ)

A ceasefire came into force in the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Friday morning after Egypt brokered an agreement between Israel and Hamas to halt 11 days of conflict. A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the security cabinet had “unanimously accepted the recommendations to accept an Egyptian initiative for an unconditional … ceasefire.” Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad then confirmed the ceasefire in a statement, saying it would come into force at 2:00am on Friday (23:00 GMT on Thursday). Thousands of people in Gaza and the Palestinian territories poured onto the streets to celebrate the ceasefire, waving flags and flashing ‘V’ signs for victory. At least 232 Palestinians, including 65 children, have been killed in the Israeli bombardment. On the Israeli side, 12 people, including two children, have been killed.

Read more …

US tax dollars pay Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin.

US Arms Makers Make a Killing Off of Israel’s Slaughter in Gaza (MPN)

As diplomatic powers and regional players meet behind closed doors for ceasefire talks, Israel continues showering Gaza with missile fire. Israeli airstrikes have so far killed at least 230 Palestinians, including 65 children, and injured 1,710 others. The heavy bombardment has also wiped out entire residential buildings and houses, leaving 72,000 people homeless, and has destroyed media offices, schools, libraries and charities. According to the Israeli Air Force (IAF), on Wednesday night Israel fired 120 missiles in the span of 25 minutes. The most recent attack hit the city of Khan Yunis in Gaza, killing one and injuring eight. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) could not provide an exact number of how many bombs are being dropped on Gaza per hour. The IAF did not respond to press inquiries.

The Times of Gaza, however, reported that more than 100 airstrikes occurred in a 30 minute period on May 14. Amid the rubble, Palestinians in Gaza have found unexploded missiles with writing indicating these bombs were manufactured in the United States. The use of American-made weaponry in Israel’s latest assault on Gaza is renewing discussions on U.S. foreign assistance to Israel and U.S. complicity in Israeli state violence. [..] Boeing makes the F-15 fighter jets and Lockheed Martin manufactures F-16 and F-35 warplanes. But these are not the only American corporations involved in the production of Israel’s military aircraft.

General Electric produces the engines for F-15 and F-16 jets. Raytheon Technologies creates the missiles used to arm F-15 and F-35 planes. According to the American Friends Service Committee’s Investigate Database, Northrop Grumman manufactures “approximately 35% of the Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft, including its center fuselage, radar, avionics, electro-optics, navigation, communications and identification subsystems, and mission systems and mission-planning software.” The arms manufacturer has also partnered with the Israeli military industry to build the LITENING targeting pod, a weapons laser navigation system used on F-16 warplanes.

Military sales to Israel generate massive profits for these American corporations. Boeing secured a $2.4 billion sale to Israel from the U.S. State Department last year. In February, the aerospace behemoth scored a whopping $9 billion deal with Israel’s Ministry of Defense. In the last decade, Raytheon’s contracts to Israel have totaled more than $4 billion. Lockheed Martin’s most recent sale to Israel is estimated at more than $2 billion. In 2016, General Electric obtained part of a $300 million sale to Israel. Northrop Grumman is less transparent about its international sales. Out of Northrop Grumman’s reported $36.8 billion in sales in 2020, 14 percent were international.

Read more …

India has its back against the wall.

Existing Cheap Drugs Could Rapidly Reduce Covid-19 Cases, Deaths In India (ToI)

The COVID-19 humanitarian calamity unfolding in India is on a scale not seen in this pandemic. This is an extraordinary situation – and it may benefit from an extraordinary response. There exist affordable, readily available and minimally toxic drugs approved for non-COVID-19 use which show remarkable promise in preventing or treating the new coronavirus. Deploying these drugs in India is likely to rapidly reduce the number of COVID-19 patients, reduce the number requiring hospitalization, supplemental oxygen and intensive care and improve outcomes in hospitalized patients. Some of these drugs are being tested in large-scale randomized clinical trials in the US and abroad but in most cases, definitive efficacy data is pending. With the current COVID-19 situation in India, we do not have time to wait for results of these studies.

Importantly, currently available safety and outcomes data on these drugs is strong enough that it is time to incorporate them into national practice guidelines. Indian authorities should issue such guidelines on the most promising drugs for each stage of COVID-19. By so doing, physicians will be encouraged to use these interventions. The resulting real world data from a few healthcare settings in select cities should be tracked in real time and guidelines suitably revised. If such measures were adopted, we could see effects in 3-4 weeks. This strategy might be unusual but it is not unheard of: France has the Temporary Recommendation for Use, a “regulatory instrument which aims to allow, on a temporary basis, the use of a medicinal product to allow its effectiveness to be evaluated on the basis of its use.”

The choice of drugs is critical. We have worked closely with personnel at the Food and Drug Administration and have connected with the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health to evaluate the merits of repurposed drugs. Based on a mechanistic rationale, data in animal models, human retrospective analyses, clinical trials (some randomized, others not) and anecdotal human data, we created a prioritized list of interventions that hold the greatest promise and that could be deployed at scale. For instance, there is strong data from a randomized trial and a real-world study that administering fluvoxamine sharply reduces the need for hospitalization in COVID-19 outpatients. Moreover, anecdotal unpublished data in over 400 acutely ill COVID-19 patients from several community practitioners suggests that administering fluvoxamine and ivermectin together may be even more efficacious.

Intervention as early as possible after symptom onset is key. Ivermectin is already listed as a “MAY DO” on the ICMR and Indian government guidelines for treatment of acute mild COVID-19 and we suggest that fluvoxamine be added in this category. Also, ivermectin in the prophylactic setting merits serious consideration. For the hospitalized, there are treatments currently used for other conditions that might reduce the need for ventilator support and lower the risk of death. These include inhaled adenosine, cyproheptadine and dipyridamole. For ideas for which there is rather limited human data, the government should offer pre-approved pilot protocols and funding for rapid implementation in select centers rather than issue a recommendation for use.

Read more …

It’s Bill Gates again.

Why Big Pharma’s Arguments Against Patent Waivers Don’t Add Up (CP)

Days after he publicly opposed the waiving of patents for lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates had a change of heart. He released a statement saying, “No barriers should stand in the way of equitable access to vaccines, including intellectual property, which is why we are supportive of a narrow waiver during the pandemic.” His statement came after President Joe Biden, in a surprising move, and in contrast to his European allies, backed a temporary waiver on COVID-19 vaccine patents. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai released a statement saying, “extraordinary circumstances… call for extraordinary measures.” Immediately, the big drugmakers’ share prices fell, and they shot back in anger with a litany of dire predictions.

Gates had been singing a different tune just a few weeks earlier, expressing opposition to vaccine patent waivers when he said in an interview, “The thing that’s holding things back in this case is not intellectual property. There’s not like some idle vaccine factory, with regulatory approval, that makes magically safe vaccines.” Gates’ initial opposition echoes the pharmaceutical industry’s staunch resistance to waiving the intellectual property rights to COVID-19 vaccine technology. In a letter to the Biden administration, members of an industry group called Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) wrote, “Eliminating those protections would undermine the global response to the pandemic, including ongoing effort to tackle new variants, create confusion that could potentially undermine public confidence in vaccine safety, and create a barrier to information sharing.”

The signatories added, “Most importantly, eliminating protections would not speed up production.” Walden Bello, co-founder of the advocacy organization Focus on the Global South and an international adjunct professor at SUNY Binghamton, told me in an interview from Manila, Philippines, that “these arguments are really quite spurious.” Bello had penned an opinion column in the New York Times saying, “A short-term Trips waiver would allow developing nations to quickly ramp up vaccine production and save lives at an affordable cost.” The demand for vaccine patent waivers originated in October 2020 when the governments of India and South Africa proposed a temporary suspension of the World Trade Organization’s 1995 TRIPS agreement. Now, more than 100 nations support the call. TRIPS stands for the “Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights,” and for years has been a boon to corporations that have manufactured products with the help of public investment and reaped massive profits through the 20-year monopolies that the agreement grants them.

Read more …

“As one of our emperors said, ‘Our enormity terrifies everybody,’” Putin added..”

If You Try To Bite Russia, We’ll Knock Out Your Teeth – Putin (RT)

President Vladimir Putin has issued a fiery rebuke to those who, he says, are intent on bringing about the breakup of the world’s largest country, insisting that Russia will defend itself from potential interference from overseas. In a speech on Tuesday to the ‘Victory’ organizing committee, which is responsible for memorializing those killed in the Second World War, the Russian leader claimed that “everyone wants to bite us somewhere, or to bite something off of us.” If or when this happens, he said the country will “knock out the teeth” of those who try. He said that Russia’s size and its natural resources meant that rivals would always find reasons to attempt to clip its wings as it grew stronger. “As one of our emperors said, ‘Our enormity terrifies everybody,’” Putin added. The full quote, attributed to Tsar Alexander III, claims this is the reason that “Russia has no friends.”


The president went on to criticize those who claim that the country’s natural resources – much of them in lumber, minerals and energy reserves in the vast expanses of Siberia – should not belong to one country alone. “It’s strange to hear these things, especially in public, but they sometimes come up,” he said. Russian officials have repeatedly attributed a quote to former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, in which she purportedly claimed that “the colossal natural resources of Siberia should not belong to Russia alone.” However, there is no clear evidence that Albright said this, and she herself has denied that these were her words. However, the idea that Russia could disintegrate or be broken up has been a longstanding concern within the country, with some Western analysts arguing in favor of the idea.

Read more …

“..since 2012, “its affiliated funds have acquired and operated more than 30,000 homes.”

Koch Funded Eviction Push While Buying Real Estate Stakes (DP)

Billionaire Charles Koch’s foundation has bankrolled three conservative legal groups leading the court battle to eliminate prohibitions against tenant evictions during the COVID-19 outbreak. At the same time, Koch’s corporate empire has suddenly stepped up its real estate purchases during the pandemic — including making large investments in real estate companies with a potential financial interest in eliminating eviction restrictions. In the last few months, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, and the New Civil Rights Alliance have been pushing federal courts to strike down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) eviction moratorium, which is designed to protect millions of Americans from being thrown out of their homes during the pandemic. The groups have so far won two rulings.

Between 2017 and 2019, the Charles Koch Foundation contributed almost $7.7 million to those three conservative organizations, according to the foundation’s tax returns reviewed by The Daily Poster. Koch has been among the biggest financiers of conservative advocacy groups and political causes, and he is one of the wealthiest people on the planet thanks to his stake in Koch Industries, which is the nation’s second-largest privately held company and best known for its investments in fossil fuels. But since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Koch Industries has been plowing money into real estate. In March this year, The Wall Street Journal published a report headlined “Charles Koch Is Betting Big on Distressed Real Estate.”

The paper reported that the billionaire’s corporate conglomerate “is emerging as a major real-estate investor during the pandemic, using its robust cash reserves to buy properties at beaten-down prices and betting on a longer-term recovery.” Last April, a month into the pandemic, Koch Real Estate Investments made a “$200 million preferred-equity investment in Amherst Holdings LLC’s single-family rental business,” according to the corporate law firm Jones Day, which said it advised the Koch Industries subsidiary on the deal. Amherst says that since 2012, “its affiliated funds have acquired and operated more than 30,000 homes.”

Read more …

Must have been a very slow news day.

US No Longer Wants To Buy Greenland, Blinken Confirms (G.)

US secretary of state Antony Blinken has confirmed that America no longer wants to buy Greenland. Blinken visited the Danish autonomous territory as he ended a four-day trip that included a meeting of the foreign ministers of countries bordering the Arctic. “I am in Greenland because the United States deeply values our partnership and wants to make it even stronger,” Antony Blinken told reporters on his final stop of the Arctic tour. He stressed that he was not there to buy the country, signalling a change in policy from the Trump administration. Asked whether the US had definitively ruled out any plans to buy Greenland, Blinken replied with a smile: “I can confirm that’s correct.”

Former US President Donald Trump announced in August 2019 that he was considering buying the land mass, which is a quarter of the size of the US. “Denmark essentially owns it,” he said at the time. “We’re very good allies with Denmark, we protect Denmark like we protect large portions of the world. So the concept came up and I said, ‘Certainly I’d be.’ Strategically it’s interesting and we’d be interested but we’ll talk to them a little bit. It’s not No1 on the burner, I can tell you that.” The purchase would be “essentially a large real estate deal”, he said at the time. Trump’s proposal, described as “absurd” by the Danish government, caused a diplomatic kerfuffle.

Last year, the US reopened a consulate in Greenland’s capital Nuuk, and pledged $12m in aid for civilian projects. While he spoke of potential additional funding, Blinken was vague about new US projects, even though the new Greenlandic local government had floated the idea of a free trade agreement earlier in the week. “We would like to find ways to strengthen even more the commercial relationship,” Blinken said.

Read more …

“Three Squad members — all of whom recently chanted “Defund the Police” – all had the power to kill a $1.9 billion increase in Capitol Police and security spending. Instead, @AOC, @JamaalBowmanNY and @RashidaTlaib ensured its passage.”

The Squad Enables Pelosi’s Massive Capitol Police Spending Bill (Greenwald)

By a margin of one vote, the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill that allocates $1.9 billion to intensify security and increase policing at the U.S. Capitol. Among other things, the bill would boost armed security for members of Congress, fortify security protections at the Capitol, provide funds in “reimbursement” to the National Guard, and increase funding for the Capitol Police. A small portion of it would provide counseling services to Capitol Police officers dealing with trauma. The 213-212 vote was a party line vote with six exceptions. All Republicans voted against it. All Democrats voted for the bill except for six. Three members of the left-wing faction of the House known as the “Squad” joined their GOP colleagues to vote against the bill: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA).

But the other three members of the Squad — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) — voted neither “yes” nor “no” but rather “present.” All six had previously told activist groups that they opposed the bill. Had any of these three Squad members voted “no” instead of “present,” then the bill would have been defeated. In other words, this faction of the Squad had the power fully in their hands to block passage of a bill that would increase police funding and enhance the power of the security state to prevent the public from entering the U.S. Capitol: a bill they claimed to oppose. But they chose not to use that power and instead allowed this pro-police, pro-security-state bill to pass the House.

It now heads to the Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has vowed to bring it to a floor vote, though it remains uncertain if they will be able to find ten Republican Senators needed for it to pass the Senate and be sent to the White House for signing. There are several amazing aspects to this episode. To begin with, all three Squad members who abstained today on this bill — which effectively ensured its passage — have spent the last year chanting and tweeting that the police should be defunded. [..] In the summer of 2020, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez left no doubt about what she favors when she invokes this mantra: “Defunding police means defunding police,” she said. The Congresswoman was criticizing cuts to New York City’s police budget as insufficient and the byproduct of accounting tricks rather than real defunding efforts.

And yet, what do we have today? When it comes to their own security, these three Squad members are evidently eager for close to $2 billion to be spent in additional funds to increase the police presence around them and fortify the armed guards and other security state mechanisms that protect them. This is always a key point of “Defund the Police” campaigns.

Read more …

70 times the size of Manhattan.

The Largest Iceberg on Earth Has Just Broken Off of Antarctica (Vice)

The largest iceberg on Earth, measuring over 100 miles across 15 miles wide, has just broken off of Antarctica. Named A7-6, the gigantic iceberg was calved from the southern continent’s Ronne Ice Shelf and is now floating across the Weddell Sea. The huge chunk of ice was first spotted by Keith Makinson of the British Antarctic Survey last week, and has been imaged from space by the Copernicus-Sentinel-1 mission, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). A-76 has a rectangular shape similar to Manhattan Island, though it is about 70 times bigger.


The structure has snatched the mantle of the world’s largest iceberg from A-23A, its neighbor in the Weddell Sea, which is about 10 percent smaller. Icebergs are named after their quadrant of origin, in this case A, and then given sequential numbers. These enormous floating ice structures break off of Antarctic ice sheets as part of a natural seasonal cycle, and scientists have not linked the birth of A-76 directly to climate change. However, warming global temperatures may accelerate the collapse of some of Antarctica’s ice sheets in the future.

Read more …

”Put down the avocado toast, be a grown up and get a vaccine!”

Lazy Entitled Boomers Told To Get A Jab (Chaser)

Young people around the country have been seen telling Boomers to put down the avocado toast, stop being so entitled and go out and get a jab. This comes after research suggests nearly 30% of Australians are now hesitant to get the life saving vaccine over a blood-clotting risk potentially high as 0.0017%, which has led to the Boomer generation to be way to ‘choosy’ about which vaccine to have. Now young people have had enough and have told the lazy Boomers to ‘go out an get a vaccine, any of the vaccines are better than nothing.’ “Have you bothered to go get a vaccine yet?” said Mike a 26 year old after getting home from trying to find an entry level job that doesn’t require 5+ years of experience in the field and a degree.

“All you do is sit around watching tv. Put down the avocado toast, be a grown up and get a vaccine! I don’t care if it isn’t your dream vaccine, it is at least a vaccine that works. Go now, it’s for your own good.” “Classic old people they are just so entitled these days,” said Lauren a 20 year old full time-student who also has 2 jobs so she can pay her bills, “they just expect everything to be handed to them. They have been spoiled their entire lives and now they refuse to do anything for themselves. Growing up with these cheap houses meaning rent money is just handed to them, it’s made them so selfish and lazy. You know in my day, we have to go out and find a roommate to be able to afford rent in a run-down 1 bedroom apartment, but we do because we know what is important.”

“First the housing market and now vaccines, they just hoard everything for themselves even if they don’t actually want to use it. What a selfish and rude generation they are!”

Read more …

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

May 192021
 


Andrew Wyeth Christina’s world 1948

 

The CDC Is Manipulating Data To Prop-up “Vaccine Effectiveness” (OffG)
CDC Head Now Differentiates Between Dying ‘From’ Vs. Dying ‘With’ Covid (Fox)
Is The Pfizer Vaccine As Effective As Claimed? (P&R)
One Shot Is Enough To Obtain An EU Covid Travel Certificate (CC)
Vaccine Cocktails Could Be On The Menu (RT)
Unvaccinated Americans Twice As Likely To Feel Comfortable Ditching Masks (F.)
Canada Invests $200 Million To Build An mRNA Vaccine Plant (CBC)
New York Investigation Into Trump Organization Now Criminal (R.)
The Glass House Where the Power Elite Gather to Throw Stones (MPN)
Is The Age Of Permanent War Finally Over? (Krainer)
Israel Kills 11 Children Receiving Trauma Care in Their Homes (NRC)
Biden To Waive Sanctions On Company In Charge Of Nord Stream 2 (Axios)
From Basic Income To Inheritance For All (Piketty)

 

 

 

 

Any questions?

The CDC Is Manipulating Data To Prop-up “Vaccine Effectiveness” (OffG)

The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) is altering its practices of data logging and testing for “Covid19” in order to make it seem the experimental gene-therapy “vaccines” are effective at preventing the alleged disease. They made no secret of this, announcing the policy changes on their website in late April/early May, (though naturally without admitting the fairly obvious motivation behind the change). The trick is in their reporting of what they call “breakthrough infections” – that is people who are fully “vaccinated” against Sars-Cov-2 infection, but get infected anyway. Essentially, Covid19 has long been shown – to those willing to pay attention – to be an entirely created pandemic narrative built on two key factors:

• False-postive tests. The unreliable PCR test can be manipulated into reporting a high number of false-positives by altering the cycle threshold (CT value) • Inflated Case-count. The incredibly broad definition of “Covid case”, used all over the world, lists anyone who receives a positive test as a “Covid19 case”, even if they never experienced any symptoms. Without these two policies, there would never have been an appreciable pandemic at all, and now the CDC has enacted two policy changes which means they no longer apply to vaccinated people. Firstly, they are lowering their CT value when testing samples from suspected “breakthrough infections”. From the CDC’s instructions for state health authorities on handling “possible breakthrough infections” (uploaded to their website in late April):

“For cases with a known RT-PCR cycle threshold (Ct) value, submit only specimens with Ct value ≤28 to CDC for sequencing. (Sequencing is not feasible with higher Ct values.)” Throughout the pandemic, CT values in excess of 35 have been the norm, with labs around the world going into the 40s. Essentially labs were running as many cycles as necessary to achieve a positive result, despite experts warning that this was pointless (even Fauci himself said anything over 35 cycles is meaningless). But NOW, and only for fully vaccinated people, the CDC will only accept samples achieved from 28 cycles or fewer. That can only be a deliberate decision in order to decrease the number of “breakthrough infections” being officially recorded.

Secondly, asymptomatic or mild infections will no longer be recorded as “covid cases”. That’s right. Even if a sample collected at the low CT value of 28 can be sequenced into the virus alleged to cause Covid19, the CDC will no longer be keeping records of breakthrough infections that don’t result in hospitalisation or death. From their website: “As of May 1, 2021, CDC transitioned from monitoring all reported vaccine breakthrough cases to focus on identifying and investigating only hospitalized or fatal cases due to any cause. This shift will help maximize the quality of the data collected on cases of greatest clinical and public health importance. Previous case counts, which were last updated on April 26, 2021, are available for reference only and will not be updated moving forward.” Just like that, being asymptomatic – or having only minor symptoms – will no longer count as a “Covid case” but only if you’ve been vaccinated.

The CDC has put new policies in place which effectively created a tiered system of diagnosis. Meaning, from now on, unvaccinated people will find it much easier to be diagnosed with Covid19 than vaccinated people.

Consider…

Person A has not been vaccinated. They test positive for Covid using a PCR test at 40 cycles and, despite having no symptoms, they are officially a “covid case”.

Person B has been vaccinated. They test positive at 28 cycles, and spend six weeks bedridden with a high fever. Because they never went into a hospital and didn’t die they are NOT a Covid case.

Person C, who was also vaccinated, did die. After weeks in hospital with a high fever and respiratory problems. Only their positive PCR test was 29 cycles, so they’re not officially a Covid case either.

Read more …

Seriously wondering what they pay their PR people.

CDC Head Now Differentiates Between Dying ‘From’ Vs. Dying ‘With’ Covid (Fox)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky drew criticism on Sunday for her method of identifying COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., making a sudden distinction between those who died “from” the virus and those who died “with” it. During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Walensky was asked about vaccinated Americans who have contracted the virus – and whether anyone has died from an infection, despite being inoculated. Walensky said the CDC is aware of 223 so-called “break-through” infections in vaccinated Americans, but clarified that many of those individuals died due to other causes. “Not all of those 223 cases who had COVID actually died of COVID,” she said. “They may have had mild disease but died, for example, of a heart attack.”

But critics pounced on Walensky’s reasoning. “After all this time, we are going to start distinguishing died ‘with’ Covid from died ‘from’ Covid,” one Twitter user wrote. “How anyone lives with the dishonest reporting of numbers is beyond me. Either we treat all the deaths with the same questioning or none of them, Period.” Another user wrote: ‘So she literally just admitted that the covid death count isn’t a real count of covid deaths. The response to this pandemic gets more baffling by the day.” Others suggested that all COVID-19 deaths should be re-examined to determine whether the person died “from” the virus or “with” it. “Sounds like 500k cases need to be reviewed to more accurately distinguish ‘with’ and ‘from’,” one user said. “Hmm, thought I heard this same sentiment expressed in the past.”

Close to 47% of the adult population in the U.S. is fully vaccinated, according to data published by the CDC, while nearly 60% of the adult population – or roughly 157 million people – has received at least one dose. The vaccination rate is expected to rise shortly following the Food and Drug Administration’s approval this week for the use of the Pfizer vaccine in children between the ages of 12 and 15. More than 32.7 million Americans have been infected with COVID-19, and more than 582,000 people died from the virus, according to the CDC.

Read more …

No, of course not, it’s just a sales campaign.

Is The Pfizer Vaccine As Effective As Claimed? (P&R)

Using the simple ‘cases per 1000 tests’ (rather than the biased ‘incident rate per 100,000 person days’), results in an approximate ‘vaccine effectiveness’ measure of 75.7%. While this is much less than the 95% headline figure, it is still impressive, so it is strange why the study failed to account for the difference in proportions tested. It appears that the failure to adjust the vaccine effectiveness calculation for different testing protocols for vaccinated and unvaccinated people is not restricted to this Pfizer study in Israel. The data in the FDA briefing document on the Pfizer vaccine (dated 10 Dec 2020) suggests there was a similar problem with the phase 3 trial of the vaccine. This was a randomized, double-blinded and placebo-controlled trial of the vaccine in 44,000 uninfected participants.

It similarly reports a 95% effectiveness measure based on the fact that (post injection) there were 162 confirmed Covid-19 cases among the placebo participants compared to just 8 among the vaccinated participants. However, the study also reports that there were a much larger number of ‘suspected but unconfirmed’ cases and that these were more evenly spread between placebo participants (1,816 such cases) and vaccinated participants (1,594 such cases). This seems to suggest that a disproportionately small number of vaccinated participants with symptoms received PCR tests compared to placebo participants with symptoms. Clearly the failure to properly adjust for both a decreasing infection rate and different testing protocols for vaccinated and unvaccinated people casts doubt on the validity of the studies.

It is also worth noting that, even if we ignore all of the above issues and accept as undisputed the number for ‘COVID-19 related deaths’ in the Israel study (715 among the unvaccinated and 138 among the vaccinated), then the absolute percentage increase in risk of death for an unvaccinated person is just 0.036%. That means that, even if we accept the 95% effectiveness measure, for every 10,000 unvaccinated people, about 3 or 4 would die as a result of not being vaccinated. And this brings us to the final (and critical) problem with the study. It does not provide any information about the number of adverse reactions – in particular the number of deaths – due to the vaccine. Hence, it does not provides the necessary information to make an informed decision about the overall risk/benefit of the vaccine.

Read more …

Follow the science, you said? If they had enough vaccines, they would make it two. But they don’t, and everyone wants tourism, so it’s one.

One Shot Is Enough To Obtain An EU Covid Travel Certificate (CC)

You are expected to need only one injection this summer to travel in the European Union. So people don’t have to wait for both shots before they can apply for a Covid travel certificate, EU sources say. In recent weeks, there have been crowded meetings within the European Union over the Covid travel certification. Today, the member states, the European Parliament and the European Commission are back together. The exact terms of the travel certificate are expected to become clear at the end of the week. There are still a number of points on which negotiators disagree. For example, it appears that there will be no free PCR tests for people who want to apply for a travel certificate. The European Parliament wanted to take care of this, as it would make an unfair difference between those who were vaccinated and did not have to pay for it and those who would have to pay for a PCR test before traveling.


But according to diplomats from the European Union, a number of countries, including the Netherlands, do not like this. They think the countries themselves revolve around this. In their opinion, therefore, a free injection should not be imposed from the European Union. The board is likely to issue its opinion on pricing for PCR tests. According to the sources, the Cabinet will decide next Friday the conditions and prices for exams in the Netherlands. Travelers who go on vacation by car will likely avoid a lot of trouble. The intention is that there will be no border controls. Once in the country, you can check. But it is not clear how. The PCR test should be done 72 hours before departure, but if travelers are not screened at the border, this is difficult to prove.

Read more …

Where did we lose track?

Vaccine Cocktails Could Be On The Menu (RT)

A Spanish study has suggested that administering a second dose of Pfizer to those who received AstraZeneca as their first dose is safe. It saw antibodies increase seven-fold compared to those who were given no second jab at all. The CombivacS study, which enrolled 676 participants who had already received a first dose of AstraZeneca and gave them a second dose of Pfizer, has produced positive preliminary results. Of the total cohort, 450 people were given Pfizer as their second dose, and the remaining 226 have not received any second dose and are being observed as the control group.

Published on Tuesday, the study, launched by the Carlos III Health Institute, reported that the combination was both safe and effective. Jesus Antonio Frias, coordinator of the ISCIII Clinical Research Network, said, “A more than seven-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies was observed 14 days after vaccination.” According to Magdalena Campins, of the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, very few side effects have been reported, other than minor pain at the injection site and general discomfort or headaches.

The data reinforces the findings of a larger British study that published its preliminary results last week. It said there were no immediate safety concerns about mixing AstraZeneca and Pfizer jabs, but noted that adverse reactions were heightened. The researchers suggested it was possible that these were more prevalent among younger people, but did not elaborate. Spain commenced its study following the government’s decision to stop using AstraZeneca for those under the age of 60. The study’s findings will inform whether the nearly two million essential workers who received a first dose of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 shot will receive a second dose, and which jab they will be given.

Read more …

Fear is a harsh mistress.

Unvaccinated Americans Twice As Likely To Feel Comfortable Ditching Masks (F.)

A majority of Americans still say they would not feel comfortable performing most activities without a mask even amid new public health guidance, a new Morning Consult poll finds—but unvaccinated Americans are far more likely to be OK with going maskless, suggesting new mask guidelines might not incentivize a lot of them to get the shot. No more than 48% of U.S. adults would be comfortable doing any of the activities polled without a mask—with outdoor dining being the activity with the highest degree of comfort and international flights having the lowest degree—according to the poll, which was conducted May 14-17 among 2,200 respondents. For every single activity polled, unvaccinated Americans were dramatically more likely to say they’d be comfortable going maskless than their vaccinated counterparts.


Unvaccinated people were approximately twice as likely as vaccinated people to say they’re comfortable not wearing a mask at the movies (40% unvaccinated comfortable versus 20% vaccinated), a shopping mall (41% versus 21%), an amusement park (41% versus 21%), a religious gathering (41% versus 21%), museums (42% versus 22$), a work conference (40% versus 19%), the gym or exercise class (40% versus 20%) and going to school (40% versus 21%). The biggest discrepancies between unvaccinated Americans and vaccinated were in their comfort level going unmasked on a cruise (36% unvaccinated comfortable versus 16% vaccinated), public transportation (33% versus 12%) and on airplanes to domestic locations (34% versus 14%) and international locations (31% versus 12%).

Read more …

It’s for the rest of your life.

Canada Invests $200 Million To Build An mRNA Vaccine Plant (CBC)

The federal government today announced a $200-million investment to help a Mississauga, Ont.-based company build a plant that can churn out millions of mRNA vaccines. Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the money will be used to expand an existing site owned by Resilience Biotechnologies Inc. to provide “made-in-Canada solutions such as vaccines and treatments for future pandemics.” The funds will expand Resilience’s manufacturing and fill-finish capacity for a number of vaccines and therapeutics, including mRNA shots like the ones now being used to fight COVID-19, Champagne said. The government says the plant expansion will create 500 permanent jobs and 50 co-op placements for students once construction is complete in 2024.


The addition of some 55,000 square feet of factory space will allow Resilience to manufacture between 112 million and 640 million doses of mRNA product each year. The goal is to leave Canada less dependent on foreign vaccine makers when the next pandemic hits. Resilience is a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), which means it assembles products developed by other companies. It’s standard for big pharmaceutical companies like AstraZeneca, Merck and Pfizer to outsource the actual drug manufacturing process to third parties. Some companies have sold their manufacturing sites to focus on research and development. A Novartis-owned plant in Boucherville, Que. was sold to Avara, a contract manufacturing operation, in 2018.

Read more …

Tie this in with Jan. 6.

New York Investigation Into Trump Organization Now Criminal (R.)

The New York state attorney general’s office has told the Trump Organization that its investigation of the company is now a criminal probe, not purely civil. Cyrus Vance, Manhattan’s district attorney, has also been investigating the business run by former president Donald Trump for more than two years. “We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature,” spokesman Fabien Levy said in a statement for New York state attorney general, Letitia James. “We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” he said.


Vance’s office has said in court filings it was investigating “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct” at the former president’s Trump Organization, including tax and insurance fraud and falsification of business records. Vance’s probe began after Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen paid hush money to silence two women before the 2016 election about claimed sexual encounters with Trump. That probe has accelerated since Republican Trump lost his bid for a second term to president Joe Biden, a Democrat. James, who like Vance is a Democrat, is leading a separate criminal probe into whether Trump’s company falsely reported property values to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits.

Read more …

“Asian NATO”

The Glass House Where the Power Elite Gather to Throw Stones (MPN)

The United States is the nation that most threatens democracy worldwide, far more than Russia or even China. That is the headline finding from a new worldwide poll of 53 countries commissioned by the Alliance of Democracies (AoD). The poll also found that the global public considers rising inequality and the increased power of the super rich to be the greatest threat to liberty and democracy. This was likely not the response the Alliance of Democracies wished to hear as it opened its third annual Democracy Summit in Copenhagen this week — precisely because the organization represents the U.S. government and the wealthy elite more generally. Featuring an all-star panel of American officials, Western heads of state and military leaders, this year’s summit was somber in tone and focused on the “urgent need” for Western nations to unite and come up with a “transatlantic response” to counter both Russia and China.

To that end, there was talk of building an “Asian NATO” and of further controlling what can be said online, all in the service of defending and upholding democracy from these foes. The Alliance of Democracies was founded in 2017 by former Prime Minister of Denmark Anders Fogh Rasmussen. As Secretary General of NATO between 2009 and 2014, he also oversaw the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, as well as the attack and regime-change operation in Libya, which saw ISIS-affiliated jihadists take control of the country. Together with future President Joe Biden and former Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Rasmussen also founded the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity (TECI), an AoD body at the forefront of accusing Russia of election meddling in the U.S. Biden was one of the inaugural speakers at the first Democracy Summit in 2018.

The great and the good — including presidents, journalists and business magnates — gathered both in person and virtually to discuss the supposed threats to the democratic order, with Rasmussen in particular pushing for a more formal military, political and economic alliance among the world’s “democracies” against Russia and China. The well-dressed and soft-spoken Dane also introduced lineups of speakers who argued for regime change in states the alliance does not feel are democratic enough for their liking.

Read more …

“We must therefore guard against believing that our enemies are the Russians, the Chinese or whomever the logic of divide-and-rule would pit us against.”

Is The Age Of Permanent War Finally Over? (Krainer)

Recent events in the world have given me great hope that we might finally emerge from the century of permanent war. The Great Reset agenda seems to be losing steam and those in charge of implementing it are losing conviction (with the exception, perhaps, of the very top echelon in power). At the same time, the ranks of people who are opposed to it and are willing to take a stand, appear to be swelling. Since the very start of the great pandemic of 2020, something about the public health response didn’t feel right. It was clear from the measures that were enacted and from measures that were not enacted that their purpose had little to do with public health. Instead, they seemed to further a different agenda. Soon we learned that this was all connected to World Economic Forum’s hugely ambitious Fourth Industrial Revolution or the Great Reset.

But the agenda and the steps taken seemed rushed, panicked and frankly, hopeless. Many of the solutions and technologies that would need to be rolled out and ready to use turned out to be non-existent or only in conceptual stages of development. As months went on, the events proved this impression correct as we watched the authorities muddle through, destroying their own credibility in the process. In a very recent interview Dr. Rainer Fullmich stated as follows: “We have a whistleblower and she told us that the original plan was to roll this out in 2050. But then those who are involved with this got greedy and pulled things forward to 2030 and then to 2020 and that’s why so many mistakes are happening.”

I do not believe that the people involved with this got greedy — I believe that their concern is with the fragility and imminent demise of the financial system which is their key mechanism of control over all the levers of influence in society. The implosion of that system would also jeopardize their position of power, so they rushed the Great Reset right off the back of the 2020 pandemic to try and front-run the collapse and give themselves an iron-fisted control of things ahead of the unfolding crisis. From their various documents and white papers, it is also evident that they had anticipated the public pushback. As I wrote last August, they have “surely planned diversions to misdirect our grievances… One of the greatest means of diversion are wars. We must therefore guard against believing that our enemies are the Russians, the Chinese or whomever the logic of divide-and-rule would pit us against.”

Read more …

By the Norwegian Refugee Council

“..buried with their dreams and the nightmares that haunted them..”

If this doesn’t break your heart…

Israel Kills 11 Children Receiving Trauma Care in Their Homes (NRC)

The Norwegian Refugee Council confirmed that 11 of over 60 children killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza over the last week were participating in its psycho-social program aimed at helping them deal with trauma. All of the children between 5 and 15 years old were killed in their homes in densely populated areas along with countless other relatives who died or received injuries. “We are devastated to learn that eight children we were helping with trauma were bombarded while they were at home and thought they were safe,” said NRC’s Secretary General Jan Egeland. “They are now gone, killed with their families, buried with their dreams and the nightmares that haunted them. We call on Israel to stop this madness: children must be protected. Their homes must not be targets. Schools must not be targets. Spare these children and their families. Stop bombing them now.”

The children NRC assisted included Lina Iyad Sharir, 15, who was killed with both of her parents in their home on May 11 in Gaza City’s Al Manara neighborhood. Her two-year-old sister Mina sustained third degree burns and remains in critical condition. Hala Hussein al-Rifi, 13, was killed on the night of May 12 when an air strike hit the Salha residential building in Gaza City’s Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood. The attack also killed four-year-old Zaid Mohammad Telbani and his mother Rima, who was five months pregnant. Zaid’s sister remains missing and is presumed dead.

Multiple air raids on 16 May in Al Wahda Street in central Gaza City killed six children that NRC worked with, together with several family members. These included Tala Ayman Abu al-Auf, 13, and her 17-year-old brother. Their father, Dr Ayman Abu al-Auf, was the head of internal medicine at Gaza City’s Shifa hospital. He was also killed. The same attacks also killed Rula Mohammad al-Kawlak, 5, Yara, 9, and Hala, 12 – all sisters – together with their cousin Hana, 14, and several other of their relatives, as well as sisters Dima and Mira Rami al-Ifranji, 15 and 11, and neighbour Dana Riad Hasan Ishkantna, 9.

Read more …

Merkel would have never given in.

Biden To Waive Sanctions On Company In Charge Of Nord Stream 2 (Axios)

The Biden administration will waive sanctions on the corporate entity and CEO overseeing the construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Germany, according to two sources briefed on the decision. The decision indicates the Biden administration is not willing to compromise its relationship with Germany over this pipeline, and it underscores the difficulties President Biden faces in matching actions to rhetoric on a tougher approach to Russia. The State Department will imminently send its mandatory 90-day report to Congress listing entities involved in Nord Stream 2 that deserve sanctions. Sources familiar with the drafting of the report tell Axios the State Department plans to call for sanctions against a handful of Russian ships.

The State Department will also acknowledge that the corporate entity in charge of the project (Nord Stream 2 AG) and its CEO (Putin crony and former East German intelligence officer Matthias Warnig) are engaged in sanctionable activities. However, the State Department will waive the applications of those sanctions, citing U.S. national interests. This planned move seems at odds with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement, made during his confirmation hearing: “I am determined to do whatever we can to prevent that completion” of Nord Stream 2. This planned move also sets up a bizarre situation in which the Biden administration will be sanctioning ships involved in the building of Nord Stream 2 but refusing to sanction the actual company in charge of the project.

Sources close to the situation say that top Biden officials have determined that the only way to potentially stop the project — which is 95% complete — is to sanction the German end users of the gas. And the Biden administration is not willing to rupture its relationship with Germany over Nord Stream 2.

Read more …

“..it is preferable to speak of a basic income than of a universal income..”

From Basic Income To Inheritance For All (Piketty)

The Covid crisis is forcing us to rethink the tools of redistribution and solidarity. Proposals are springing up everywhere: basic income, job guarantee, inheritance for all. Let’s say it straight away: these proposals are complementary and not substitutable. In the long run, they must all be implemented, in stages and in this order. Let’s start with basic income. Such a system is dramatically lacking today, especially in the South, where the incomes of the working poor have collapsed and containment rules are unenforceable in the absence of a minimum income. Opposition parties had proposed introducing a basic income in India in the 2019 elections, but the ruling nationalist-conservatives in Delhi are still dragging their feet.

In Europe, various forms of minimum income exist in most countries, but with many shortcomings. In particular, there is an urgent need to extend access to them to younger people and students (this has already long been the case in Denmark), and especially to people without a fixed address or bank account, who often face insurmountable obstacles. It is worth noting in passing the importance of the current discussions on central bank digital currencies, which should ideally lead to the creation of a genuine public banking service, free and accessible to all, the antithesis of the systems dreamt up by private operators (whether decentralised and polluting, like bitcoin, or centralised and inegalitarian, like the projects of Facebook or private banks).

It is also essential to extend the basic income to include low-paid workers, with a system of automatic payment on pay slips and bank accounts, without people having to ask for it, linked to the progressive tax system (also deducted at source). Basic income is an essential but insufficient tool. In particular, its amount is always extremely modest. Depending on the proposal, it is generally between half and three quarters of the full-time minimum wage, so that, by construction it can only be a partial tool in the fight against inequality. For this reason, it is preferable to speak of a basic income than of a universal income (a notion that promises more than this minimalist reality).

Read more …

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

May 142021
 


Pablo Picasso Woman Sitting Near a Window (Marie-Therese) 1932 (sold yesterday for $103.4 million)

 

Predictions On Outcome Of Mass Vaccination During A Pandemic (VanDenBossche)
Don’t Mention Ivermectin; It’ll Upset The Vaccine Rollout (BizN)
CDC Says Vaccinated People Can Largely Stop Wearing Masks (F.)
8 Vaccinated Yanks Coaches, Staff Have Virus (AP)
More Than A Quarter Of EU Adults Reluctant To Get Covid Vaccine (RT)
Scientists Slam WHO For Dismissing Wuhan Lab Leak Theory (DM)
New Study Finds Delaying The Second Dose Of Vaccine Can Save Lives (Hill)
An Insider’s View Of The Tragedy Of The US Deep State (Escobar)
Debt Collectors: We Should Be Able to Break Your Legs (Sirota)
Why Has Netanyahu Allowed For A Palestinian Uprising? (RT)

 

 

There’s no such rule. If only because if there were, it would be illegal.

 

 

VanDenBossche will not be silenced.

Predictions On Outcome Of Mass Vaccination During A Pandemic (VanDenBossche)

Current single (S) and full (F) vaccination rates are shown next to the country name. In all cases, full vaccine resistance is expected to occur within the next few months, or even weeks. A number of smaller islands (e.g., Seychelles, Maldives, Bahrain) have managed high vaccine coverage rates within a relatively short period of time. Some of them had relaxed their infection prevention measures as their vaccine coverage rates were growing (e.g., Seychelles). This already explains why these islands have now begun to face a substantial wave of morbidity and mortality (more infectious variants), even in subjects who’ve been fully vaccinated (see fig. 3a, 3b).

Overall conclusion: Covid-19 vaccination campaigns that are rolled out in the heat of a pandemic will inevitably breed variants that are more infectious and ultimately become resistant to vaccines. The smaller the population and the faster mass vaccination campaigns are rolled out, the faster infection, morbidity and mortality rates will rise. Based on how the pandemic is currently evolving in a number of smaller countries/ islands (e.g., Seychelles, Maldives, Bahrain), it is reasonable to assume that over the next coming months, or weeks, several other countries are going to show a dramatic increase in these rates as well.

Read more …

“Only 19 deaths are known and side-affects are generally mild and short. As a comparison, approximately 450 US citizens die from paracetamol every year.”

Don’t Mention Ivermectin; It’ll Upset The Vaccine Rollout (BizN)

What if there was a cheap drug, so old its patent had expired, so safe that it’s on the WHO’s lists of Essential and Children’s Medicines, and used in mass drug administration rollouts? What if it can be taken at home with the first signs COVID symptoms, given to those in close contact, and significantly reduce COVID disease progression and cases, and far fewer few people would need hospitalisation? The international vaccine rollout under Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) would legally have to be halted. For an EUA to be legal, “there must be no adequate, approved and available alternative to the candidate product for diagnosing, preventing or treating the disease or condition.” The vaccines would only become legal once they passed level 4 trials and that certainly won’t happen in 2021.

This would present a major headache for the big public health agencies led by the WHO. The vaccine rollout, outside of trials, would become illegal. The vaccine manufactures, having spent hundreds of million dollars developing and testing vaccines during a pandemic, would not see the $100bn they were expecting in 2021. In a pandemic, and for the next one, we need big pharma to react quickly, and the best way to that, is to reward them financially. Allowing any existing drug, at this time, well into stage 3 trials, to challenge the legality of the EUA of vaccines, is not going to happen easily. On the 31st of March 2021, the WHO recommended against the use of Ivermectin for COVID treatment, citing safety and lack of large RCT proof.

[..] In January this year, the several months long, Ivermectin research, meta-analysis of Randomised Control Trials (RCT), commissioned by WHO was released. The paper showed that Ivermectin reduces death by 74% and is 85% effective as prophylaxis. [..] Ivermectin has been used in humans for 35 years and over 4 billion doses have been administered. Merck, the original patent holder, donated 3.7 billion doses to developing countries. 2015 the two individuals who developed Ivermectin were awarded a Nobel Prize for medicine. While known primarily as an anti-parasitic, Ivermectin has powerful anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. Its safety is documented at doses twenty times the normal. Only 19 deaths are known and side-affects are generally mild and short. As a comparison, approximately 450 US citizens die from paracetamol every year.

Merck’s patent on Ivermectin expired in 1996 and they produce less than 5% of global supply. In 2020 they were asked to assist in Nigerian and Japanese trials but declined both. In 2021 Merck released a statement claiming that Ivermectin was not an effective treatment against Covid-19 and bizarrely claimed, “A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies” of the a drug they donated to be distributed in mass rollouts, by primary care workers, in mass campaigns, to millions in developing countries. The media reported the Merck statement as a blinding truth without looking at the conflict of interests when days later, Merck received $356m from the US government to develop an investigational therapeutic. The WHO even quoted Merck, as evidence, that it didn’t work, in their recommendation against the use of Ivermectin. It’s a dangerous world when corporate marketing determines public health policy. Global vaccine rollout, to everyone, is the policy.

Read more …

Having a robust immune system will save you from the virus, but not from the new religion.

CDC Says Vaccinated People Can Largely Stop Wearing Masks (F.)

Fully vaccinated Americans no longer need to wear masks indoors or socially distance in most cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday, a major loosening of Covid-19 advice as more Americans get vaccinated. The CDC’s new guidelines say it’s safe for vaccinated people to go maskless in most indoor and outdoor settings, and they can participate in large activities without physical distancing, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing. Americans should still wear masks in healthcare facilities and other sensitive locations, and immunocompromised people should seek medical advice, Walensky said. Walensky cited a range of studies showing the vaccines are highly effective at stopping the spread of coronavirus and staving off serious illness, including most new variants.

Mask mandates are normally the domain of state and city governments, but the CDC releases advice for public officials and individuals, and the federal government mandates masks inside federal buildings and on interstate modes of transit. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” Walensky said. “We have all longed for this moment.” 35.4%. That’s the share of Americans who are fully vaccinated, meaning they’ve received two doses of Pfizer or Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine or one dose of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine. Some 46.4% have received at least one vaccine shot.

The CDC has gradually lifted its coronavirus guidelines in recent weeks. The agency now says it’s safe for fully vaccinated people to gather in small groups without masks, go maskless outdoors unless they’re in crowded areas, or travel domestically. But some health experts have urged the CDC to move faster, arguing vaccinated people face very little risk of contracting Covid-19 and looser rules would encourage hesitant people to take the vaccine. Many states have already loosened or dropped their mask mandates. Texas and Mississippi struck down virtually all of their coronavirus restrictions in March, some states like Massachusetts and New York have lifted outdoor mask-wearing rules but left indoor restrictions in place, and stricter places like California have promised to drop masking rules in the coming months.

Dr. Anthony Fauci — the federal government’s top infectious disease expert — has started encouraging vaccinated Americans to get used to going maskless outdoors, amid criticism President Joe Biden’s administration has been overly cautious in loosening coronavirus guidelines. “Put aside your mask. You don’t have to wear it,” Fauci told CBS News Thursday.

Read more …

Calling VanDenBossche. “All are fully vaccinated.”

8 Vaccinated Yanks Coaches, Staff Have Virus (AP)

New York Yankees shortstop Gleyber Torres was kept out of Wednesday night’s starting lineup at Tampa Bay as a precaution as the number of confirmed positive COVID-19 tests among the team’s coaching and support staff reached seven. Manager Aaron Boone said MLB’s Joint COVID-19 Health and Safety Committee is waiting and reviewing a number of test results. The members of New York’s traveling party have been tested at least three times each since Tuesday. “I know everybody is going to read into that but hopefully it’s nothing, it’s more just getting all the information,” Boone said of Torres. Boone said the Yankees expect to receive an update about Torres on Wednesday night. He added that Torres tested positive for COVID-19 in December and has been vaccinated.


It was also confirmed by Boone that pitching coach Matt Blake has joined third base Phil Nevin and first base coach Reggie Willits as members of the coaching staff testing positive for the virus. A couple additional staff members had positive tests confirmed on Wednesday, bringing the total there to four. Six of the seven are asymptomatic. All are fully vaccinated. “We’re seeing the vaccinations also kind of blunt the effects of the virus,” Boone said. “We’re also learning as we go and getting informed as what we need to do exactly and just try to do as best we can to be able to make quick adjustments on the fly. Just doing the best we can with it all.” The Yankees on April 30 were able to relax MLB protocols after reaching an 85 percent vaccination rate among players and staff such as managers, coaches and athletic trainers.

Read more …

They’ll be shamed and restricted.

More Than A Quarter Of EU Adults Reluctant To Get Covid Vaccine (RT)

Vaccine hesitancy rates in the EU are raising alarms, after a survey found that 27% of adults across the bloc said they’d be unlikely to accept a Covid-19 jab, amid a “failure” to persuade people of its efficacy and safety. A Eurofound survey investigating vaccine take-up across EU member states flagged concerns about the success of messaging from health officials on Covid jabs, warning that the failure to fully convince the adult population to be inoculated could put the fight against the pandemic at risk. Some 27% of those surveyed across Europe, including half of French respondents and 67% of those in Bulgaria, said they would be very unlikely or rather unlikely to get a Covid vaccine.


There were big variations between states though, with people surveyed in Eastern European nations more likely to be more cautious about taking the jab. Hesitancy figures were above 30% in several states, including Croatia, Latvia, Poland and Slovenia. “Unfortunately, these findings reflect a failure to deliver persuasive and clear communication regarding the efficacy and safety of vaccines,” Daphne Ahrendt, senior research manager at Eurofound, said. Looking at the possible root causes of vaccine hesitancy, researchers found a link between people who said they were less likely to get a Covid jab and social media as a main source of information. Among those surveyed who said they primarily relied on social media

Read more …

‘The information, data, and samples for the study’s first phase were collected and summarized by the Chinese half of the team; the rest of the team built on this analysis..’

Scientists Slam WHO For Dismissing Wuhan Lab Leak Theory (DM)

Researchers at a number of top universities have penned a letter saying theories that COVID-19 escaped from a Wuhan lab ‘remain viable’ and called for further studies to investigate the origins of the virus. Stanford University microbiologist David Relman and the University of Washington virologist Jesse Bloom organized the letter published in the journal Science and signed by 18 prominent biologists from universities like Harvard and Cambridge. Claims that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology have been laughed off as conspiracy theories – but the researchers suggest in the letter that the ‘hypotheses’ cannot be ruled out until there is more evidence. Relman told The Times of London that ‘many who signed this letter feel the same way’ that researchers ‘simply just don’t have enough information.’

‘Anyone who asserts a strong opinion one way or another can’t really be basing it on a whole lot of good data,’ he said. He added: ‘Let’s try to refrain from offering speculation where we really don’t have a basis for it, especially when we’re trying to maintain our credibility has purveyors of good science.’ The letter reads that ‘yet more investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic.’ ‘Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks,’ the letter reads. The letter blasts the World Health Organization and China for their recent joint study investigating the origins of COVID-19, saying that the theory it came from the lab was ‘not given balanced consideration’ to the theory it came from natural spillover.

The report concluded that it was ‘likely to very likely’ that a bat had infected an intermediate host but said it was ‘extremely unlikely’ it was the result of a laboratory accident. ‘The information, data, and samples for the study’s first phase were collected and summarized by the Chinese half of the team; the rest of the team built on this analysis,’ the letter reads, suggesting China had a conflict of interest. The letter noted that ‘only 4 of the 313 pages of the report and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory accident.’ ‘A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest,’ the letter reads.

Read more …

Now they’re just f*king with you.

“Results displayed up to 20 percent less mortality, namely for hypothetical countries ..”

New Study Finds Delaying The Second Dose Of Vaccine Can Save Lives (Hill)

Delaying the second dosage of the COVID-19 vaccine could result in a lower COVID-19 mortality rate, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal. In the United States, the vaccination rate has been consistently increasing under President Biden’s ambitious inoculation goals. But other countries are experiencing more delay in vaccinating their residents. Public health experts have advised that Pfizer vaccines be given three weeks apart and Moderna vaccines be given four weeks apart for optimal efficacy. Now, new research suggests that waiting on the second dose may pose some public health benefits. A team of international scientists and researchers constructed a simulation examining the health outcomes associated with the standard interval between COVID-19 vaccinations versus those associated with a delayed second shot.

They found that the cumulative mortality rate tended to be lower in the simulation where participants delayed their second shot beyond the recommended 21 to 28 days after the first shot. Results displayed up to 20 percent less mortality, namely for hypothetical countries that have a lower vaccination rate at 0.1 or 0.3 percent. The report authors made a point to exclude people aged 65 years and older who tend to be more vulnerable to severe COVID-19 infections. “A delayed second dose vaccination strategy, at least for people aged under 65, could result in reduced cumulative mortality under certain conditions,” the authors concluded. Notably, researchers found that the declining mortality rate was primarily associated with situations with a low vaccination rate and when the vaccine used in the simulation is above 70 percent effective at preventing infections.

“These results suggest that higher first dose efficacy estimates favor delaying the second dose and that for a first dose efficacy of 70% or below, no meaningful difference is apparent between the standard and delayed second dose strategy,” the report reads. This could have beneficial implications for countries struggling to secure enough vaccine doses to vaccinate their population and that, in certain situations, delaying a second dose could help lower deaths due to COVID-19.

Read more …

“The first point that we make is that it was not Kissinger who created policy for Nixon, but the Deep State. Kissinger was just a messenger boy. ”

An Insider’s View Of The Tragedy Of The US Deep State (Escobar)

Henry Kissinger, 97, Henry the K. for those he keeps close, is either a Delphic oracle-style strategic thinker or a certified war criminal for those kept not so close… He now seems to have been taking time off his usual Divide and Rule stock in trade – advising the combo behind POTUS, a.k.a. Crash Test Dummy – to emit some realpolitik pearls of wisdom. At a recent forum in Arizona, referring to the festering, larger than life Sino-American clash, Henry the K. said, “It’s the biggest problem for America; it’s the biggest problem for the world. Because if we can’t solve that, then the risk is that all over the world a kind of cold war will develop between China and the United States.” In realpolitik terms, this “kind of Cold War” is already on; across the Beltway, China is unanimously regarded as the premier U.S. national security threat.

Kissinger added U.S. policy toward China must be a mix of stressing U.S. “principles” to demand China’s respect and dialogue to find areas of cooperation: “I’m not saying that diplomacy will always lead to beneficial results…This is the complex task we have… Nobody has succeeded in doing it completely.” Henry the K. actually must have lost the – diplomatic – plot. What Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are now involved in, full time, is to demonstrate – mostly to the Global South – how the American-enforced “rules-based international order” has absolutely nothing to do with international law and the respect of national sovereignty. At first I had archived these Henry the K. platitudes out of sight. But then someone who used to hold a stellar position at the top of the U.S. Deep State showed he had been paying close attention.

This personality – let’s call him Mr. S. – has been one of my invaluable, trustworthy sources since the early 2000s. Mutual confidence was always key. I asked him if I could publish selected passages of his analysis, not naming names. Consent was given – ruefully. So fasten your seat belts. Mr. S., in a quite intriguing fashion, seems to be expressing the collective views of a number of extremely qualified people. Right from the start, he points out how Henry the K.’s observations explain today’s Russia-China-Iran triangle. “The first point that we make is that it was not Kissinger who created policy for Nixon, but the Deep State. Kissinger was just a messenger boy. In the 1972 situation the Deep State wanted to get out of Vietnam, which policy was put in place as containment of communist China and Russia. We were there based on the domino theory.”

“The Deep State wanted to achieve a number of objectives in approaching Chairman Mao, who was antagonized by Russia. It wanted to ally in 1972 with China against Russia. That made Vietnam meaningless, for China would become the containing party of Russia and Vietnam no longer meant anything. We wanted to balance China against Russia. Now, China was not a major power in 1972 but it could drain Russia, forcing it to place 400,000 troops on their border. And our Deep State policy worked. We in the Deep State had thought it through, and not Kissinger. 400,000 troops on the Chinese border was a drain on their budget, as later Afghanistan became with over 100,000 troops, and the Warsaw Pact had another 600,000 troops.”

Read more …

Lobby.

Debt Collectors: We Should Be Able to Break Your Legs (Sirota)

Two months ago, debt collectors won a victory when congressional lawmakers allowed stimulus checks to be garnished by creditors and government agencies. Now, as the credit industry hits a jackpot during the pandemic, the leading lobby group for debt collectors has more than tripled the amount of cash it funnels to lawmakers as it campaigns to block upcoming Democratic legislation to protect millions of Americans from the repo man. At issue is a package of bills designed to restrict the $13 billion debt collection industry, as new Federal Reserve and Census Bureau reports show consumer and medical debt has skyrocketed during the pandemic. One measure would prohibit the collection of medical debt for the first two years after a medical payment is due.

Another would discharge student debt in the event of a debtor’s death. Other provisions aim to block lenders from forcing debtors to sign away their legal rights; outlaw threats of demotion that debt collectors reportedly aim at members of the military; and subject government-contracted debt collectors to the same restrictions as consumer debt collectors. “In the midst of the pandemic crisis, predatory debt collectors have made record profits while continuing with their abusive, harassing tactics while consumers struggle to make ends meet through no fault of their own,” said Democratic representative Maxine Waters, who led the successful effort to pass the bill through the House Financial Services Committee last month over the objections of GOP lawmakers.

As the legislation now moves to the House floor Thursday, ACA International — which bills itself as “the largest trade group for the debt collection industry” — has been running what it calls a “grassroots campaign” urging its 2,500 members to pressure lawmakers to vote down the legislation. “The accounts receivable management industry plays a key role in the process of attempting to recover outstanding payments, and as such, collection agencies are an extension of every community’s businesses,” says a form letter that ACA has asked debt collectors to send to lawmakers. “If creditors cannot collect, they will be forced to not lend, and consumers — who much of this legislation is supposedly aimed at protecting — will end up being harmed the most, particularly those with fewer options for credit.”

Read more …

Trying to stay out of jail.

Why Has Netanyahu Allowed For A Palestinian Uprising? (RT)

Lehava, the extremist settler group that organised the racist demonstration weeks ago, is headed by a man named Bentzi Gopstein. Although the group would previously have been allowed no legitimacy by the Israeli government, Gopstein’s lawyer, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is a member of the Knesset and a close ally of Israeli PM Netanyahu. Ben-Gvir heads the Jewish Power party (Otzma Yehudit), which falls under the Religious Zionism slate led by Bezalel Smotrich. It’s no surprise, then, that Lehava feels they have been accorded a sense of legitimacy, when they witness Israeli members of the Knesset and allies of the prime minister standing beside them in Jerusalem. Israel just had its fourth round of elections since 2019, in which Netanyahu’s Likud won the most seats of any party.

But Likud’s, combined with the seats of their natural allies, still fell short of the 61-seat threshold required to form a government. The Religious Zionism slate forms part of Netanyahu’s backbone when it comes to his political survival, so any decision by the Israeli premier to abandon them could hurt him politically. After Netanyahu failed to form a coalition government, the responsibility to do so was handed over to the opposition figure Yair Lapid, who was invited to form a coalition of anti-Netanyahu parties. At this point, Netanyahu is fighting not only to stay in government, but also to avoid potentially going to prison on charges of corruption. Conversely, if Yesh Atid party leader Lapid cannot form a coalition government either, Israel will then head to a fifth round of elections, which would keep Netanyahu in power and give him more time to prepare for a potential future victory at the polls.

Following the Israeli settler “death to Arabs” march, the leader of the Palestinian political party Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, warned that the next march, planned for Israel’s Jerusalem Day would not be tolerated and there would be a response. In fact, a barrage of about 30 rockets was fired the night following the original march, and claimed by the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in response to attacks on hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem. The issue of Israeli courts processing the orders for evicting Palestinians from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, which threatens to render 550 people homeless, has also been another point of contention.

Instead of stepping in to de-escalate tensions, in accordance with calls from Israel’s close ally, the United States, Netanyahu has allowed his allies from the Religious Zionism slate to provoke Palestinians further. When last Friday’s attack on worshippers at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound occurred, the ‘Joint Operations Room’ of Palestinian armed factions, based in Gaza, vowed a response to Israel if it did not stop the settler march planned for Monday. Yet Netanyahu still stood idly by and refused to act, ignoring the threats, and, on Monday, allowed for another escalation, which led to the injuring of hundreds in Jerusalem.

Richard Medhurst
https://twitter.com/i/status/1392873946232639488

Read more …

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 

 

As Elon Musk dishes bitcoin and promotes dogecoin, here’s what the latter’s founder thinks of him:

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

Jan 242020
 


John Vachon Window in home of unemployed steelworker, Ambridge, PA 1941

 

Chinese Hospitals In Chaos As Lockdown Spreads To Affect 33m People (G.)
Four ‘Generations’ Of Spread Seen With Virus In China (STAT)
Cases of China’s Viral Pneumonia Surge Exponentially (ET)
Wuhan Virus Will Shape China’s Smart City Vision (R.)
Doomsday Clock Moves Within 100 Seconds Of Midnight (NPR)
The House Impeachment Case Vs The Law of Attempts (Turley)
Fed’s Repos Drop to Oct Level, T-Bills Surge, But MBS Fall (WS)
Turkey Demands Greece “Demilitarize” 16 Aegean Islands (ZH)
Assange May Not Get First Amendment Protection (AAP)
Go to Gaza and Cry ‘Never Again’ (Haaretz)
America’s Radioactive Secret (Rolling Stone)

 

 

Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year. 450 million Chinese plan to travel to see family. 41 million are now under lockdown. 850 cases of “coronavirus” have been confirmed. 26 people have died, the elderly and vulnerable. But there are many reports of actual numbers being much higher.

Only 23.8% of Chinese doctors have a bachelor degree or higher. There are 60,000 licensed general practitioners in a country of 1.3 billion people.

Meanwhile, the Chinese “eat everything on four legs except for the table”.

“..the race to build a new 1,000-bed hospital in just six days began on Thursday night..”

Chinese Hospitals In Chaos As Lockdown Spreads To Affect 33m People (G.)

Hospitals in the Chinese city of Wuhan have been thrown into chaos and the movement of about 33 million people has been restricted by an unprecedented and indefinite lockdown imposed to halt the spread of the deadly new coronavirus. At least ten cities in central Hubei province have been shut down in an effort to stop the virus, which by Friday had killed 26 people across China and affected more than 800. The World Health Organisation described the outbreak as an emergency for China, but stopped short of declaring it to be a public health emergency of international concern.

In the city of Wuhan, where most cases have occurred, the race to build a new 1,000-bed hospital in just six days began on Thursday night. Diggers and bulldozers beginning work on the site of a holiday complex once intended for local workers, according to Chinese media. The hospital, which is due to open next week, is similar to those established in Beijing in 2003, when the city faced a Sars outbreak that killed almost 800 people and reached nearly 30 countries. During that crisis, 7,000 workers in Beijing built the Xiaotangshan hospital in its northern suburbs in just a week. Within two months, it treated one-seventh of all the country’s Sars patients, the Changjiang Daily said.

“It created a miracle in the history of medical science,” the paper added. It said the new Wuhan hospital “is to solve the shortage of existing medical resources”. People who sought treatment in Wuhan this week told the Guardian they had been turned away from hospitals, which have been inundated with patients. Facilities are reportedly running out of beds and diagnostic kits for patients who present with fever-like symptoms. [..] A series of additional measures were announced on Friday to prevent the spread of the virus, including a call from The People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist party’s main newspaper, for people who have recently been to Wuhan to isolate themselves at home, even if they don’t have symptoms. The cities of Wuhan, Ezhou, Huanggang, Chibi, Qianjiang, Zhijiang, Jingmen and Xiantao have all been placed under lockdown.

Read more …

It’s advanced up to a point where it can no longer be ignored. That’s China for you.

Four ‘Generations’ Of Spread Seen With Virus In China (STAT)

Emerging data on the new virus circulating in China adds to evidence there is sustained human-to-human transmission in the city of Wuhan, and that a single case was able to ignite a chain of other infections. The World Health Organization reported Thursday that there have been at least four generations of spread of the new virus, provisionally called 2019-nCoV, meaning a person who contracted the virus from a non-human source — presumably an animal — has infected a person, who infected another person, who then infected another person. It’s not clear from a WHO statement whether transmission petered out after that point, or whether further generations of cases from those chains are still to come.

The WHO said the current estimate of the reproductive rate of the virus — the number of people, on average, that each infected person infects — is between 1.4 and 2.5. To stop an outbreak, the reproduction number has to be brought below one. “That gives me no comfort at all that anything that’s happening right now is going to bring this under control any time soon,” Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said of the data the WHO released. “And I think that as long as the virus is circulating in China as it appears to be, the rest of the world is going to be constantly pinged with it, as a result of people traveling to and from China in the near future,” he said.

To date, nine other countries, including the United States, have diagnosed cases of this new illness in tourists who traveled to Wuhan or residents who returned from there. Dr. Allison McGeer, who has firsthand experience with outbreaks caused by coronaviruses — the family to which 2019-nCoV belongs — also expressed concern about prospects for containing the outbreak. McGeer, a researcher at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, noted that the city’s SARS outbreak took off when fourth-generation cases were infected in the city’s hospitals. McGeer contracted SARS during that outbreak.

Read more …

No place in the hospital.

Cases of China’s Viral Pneumonia Surge Exponentially (ET)

It started with a light cough. He burped constantly, and complained of shortness of breath. Family members thought it was no big deal. The doctor said he seemed to have heart problems and suggested him to stay in the hospital. He appeared healthy except for a minor infection in one lung area. Two weeks later, he was dead, with both lungs infected and organ failure. His doctors at the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital determined the cause of death as “unknown pneumonia.” It was days before Chinese health authorities identified the cause of the new viral pneumonia as 2019-nCoV, a coronavirus that first emerged in December in the commercial city of Wuhan, his home city.

As of press time, the virus has since sickened more than 540 people across China and around the world, with confirmed cases in South Korea, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. Much remains unclear about the virus that has sparked fear around the world and cast a cloud over the upcoming Lunar New Year festivities, a major traditional holiday when millions of Chinese travel to their hometowns or go on vacations abroad. Experts say the mass movement of people could accelerate the disease’s spread. The virus has already spread across the country to 17 provinces and regions.

To the man’s family, his death is far from the end of their sorrows. Among his relatives, five have fallen ill: one is under emergency rescue at a Wuhan hospital; his niece and nephew-in-law also have lung infections but doctors turned them away, saying there’s no space for them at the hospital; two others are also experiencing pneumonia-like symptoms. Buying one dose of medicine means waiting for hours in line. His sister, currently in Norway, told The Epoch Times that she was being “silenced” by Chinese authorities and not allowed to post anything about his death. The man is not listed on the authorities’ official death toll, because he did not show any signs of fever, his sister said. She has requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Read more …

Never let a good crisis go to waste. Surveillance is good for you!

Wuhan Virus Will Shape China’s Smart City Vision (R.)

An epidemic will shape China’s vision of intelligent cities. The metropolis of Wuhan, with a population of 11 million, is under unprecedented quarantine as a deadly virus, believed to have originated there, spreads around the world ahead of the Lunar New Year when hundreds of millions of Chinese travel. Big investments in healthcare, artificial intelligence, and even surveillance could help curb future pandemics and cushion some institutional weaknesses. [..] The future may be less grim: President Xi Jinping has pushed to upgrade the country’s rickety healthcare system, enlisting technology giants including $474 billion Tencent and insurance group Ping An.

A unit of the latter has partnered with local governments in Shenzhen and Chongqing to develop an algorithm it claims can predict the transmission of influenza and other infectious diseases with 90%-plus accuracy. Elsewhere, the likes of $50 billion video-surveillance specialist, Hikvision, are helping Beijing develop high-tech, digitally-connected urban areas. More than 500 so-called smart cities are already being built across China, according to government figures, equipped with sensors, cameras, and other gadgets that can crunch data on everything from traffic and pollution, to public health and security.

That market could top 103 billion yuan ($15 billion) in revenue by 2023, according to research commissioned by facial-recognition startup Megvii. Until now the push has focused on automating political surveillance, including ugly applications in restive ethnic minority regions like Xinjiang, with little regard to human rights or privacy concerns. But there’s a potential public good if the tech can be re-deployed to detect unusual numbers of feverish people in train stations, for example, while simultaneously cross-referencing healthcare history, travel records and weather patterns. After Wuhan, the pressure to deliver health security, not just political security, will be higher.

Read more …

Meat for sale in China (without the bats used for soup):



Doesn’t feel like that for me.

Doomsday Clock Moves Within 100 Seconds Of Midnight (NPR)

In 1953, months after the U.S. tested its first hydrogen bomb and as the Soviet Union was about to do the same, the Doomsday Clock was also set within two minutes of midnight. The minute hand was moved back gradually as nuclear arms control agreements reduced the threat of global catastrophe. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended in 1991, the clock was set at an unprecedented 17 minutes to midnight. It has moved closer ever since. “What you’re hearing,” said former California Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who appeared at the event as the Bulletin’s new executive chairman, “is really the voices of the prophets of doom. Speaking of danger and destruction is never very easy — if you speak the truth, people will not want to listen, because it’s too awful and it makes you sound like a crackpot.”

The clock’s minute hand was moved forward after the August 2019 collapse of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and Russia. The demise of the pact frees both nations to deploy land-based missiles over ranges that leave little time for a response. There were also growing signs in 2019 that the Trump administration was aiming to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty, which allows the U.S. and Russia to observe one another’s military installations through closely monitored overflights. And Iran increased its stockpile of low-enriched uranium and added new and improved centrifuges last year in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawing from a multination nuclear pact with Iran that was forged during the Obama administration.

“I have to admit [that] we set the clock in November,” said George Washington University research professor Sharon Squassoni. “This was before recent military actions by the U.S. and Iran, Iran’s statement or threat that it might leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and North Korea’s abandonment of talks with the United States.” A growing number of disasters linked to global climate change resulting from the continued consumption of fossil fuels was another factor cited for moving the clock even closer to midnight. “We’re in it, it’s dire, but we’re not there yet,” said Brown. “We can still pull back from the brink, but we have to do what we’re not doing. Whatever we’ve done to date, it is totally inadequate.”

Read more …

Close to thought crime.

The House Impeachment Case Vs The Law of Attempts (Turley)

With the start of the impeachment trial, the Senate (and the country) will soon be faced with what the late Yale professor Arthur Leff described as one of the law’s most “lovely, knotty problems.” Leff was speaking of what is loosely called “the law of attempts,” a category of crimes where someone is accused of contemplating, but not actually carrying out, an unlawful act. The Trump trial could be the first time the Senate considers charges that amount to allegedly conceiving, but then abandoning, an abuse of power. While it is certainly true that there was a temporary act of “nonfeasance” in withholding the aid to Ukraine, it was ultimately released over two weeks before the deadline under federal law.

The Trump administration will argue that there was no quid pro quo between the president of the United States and the president of Ukraine; that the military aid to Kyiv, though authorized by Congress, was never withheld; and that the White House always intended to release the aid by the end of September. (It was released on Sept. 11, two days after a whistleblower complaint about the alleged bargain sparked congressional inquiries and, according to critics, was the reason that Trump decided to release the aid.) The question for the Senate is whether an attempt to cut the deal qualifies as a high crime or misdemeanor. The law of attempts has long been debated, and has often favored defendants in securing lesser punishments or outright acquittals.

When, in 1879, an Alaska man sent an order for 100 gallons of whiskey from California, he was charged with illegally attempting to “introduce spirituous liquors” into Alaska. A court dismissed the charge, writing, “There are a class of acts which may be fairly said to be done in pursuance of or in combination with an intent to commit a crime, but are not, in a legal sense, a part of it, and therefore do not, with such intent, constitute an indictable attempt.” That helps explain why such attempted crimes are generally punished less severely. The California Penal Code Section 664 stipulates, for example, that most attempted offenses are punishable, at most, at a level half that for a completed offense. Of course, the Senate cannot “half-remove” a president. But one of the more knotty problems facing the Senate is whether a president can be saved by what Leff called the “luck” of an alleged plan that never actually played out.

Read more …

Can be restarted in a heartbeat. By killing the markets, the Fed has made itself a prisoner.

Fed’s Repos Drop to Oct Level, T-Bills Surge, But MBS Fall (WS)

The Fed had doused the market with $410 billion in liquidity between September and January 1 through its repo operations and its T-bill purchases. Market hype had expected this blistering pace of money-printing to continue, but wait… While T-bill purchases continue, the repos on the Fed’s balance sheet are getting unwound, its mortgage-backed securities (MBS) continue to fall, and total assets on its balance sheet fell to the lowest level since mid-December. Under these repurchase agreements, the Fed offers to buy Treasury securities, MBS, and agency securities from counterparties with an agreement to sell those securities back to the counterparties at a set price on a specific date, such as the next day (overnight repos) or in 14 days or some other period (term repos).

When a repurchase agreement matures, the Fed takes back the money it had handed out and returns the securities to the counterparties. This zeros out that particular repo on the Fed’s balance sheet. When the Fed buys securities under a repurchase agreement, the amount it pays adds liquidity to the market. When that repo unwinds, and the Fed gets its cash back and returns the securities, it drains this liquidity from the market. Every day, old repos unwind. And every day, the Fed offers new repos. This is a constant in-and-out. The balance changes every day, but it has been on an uneven decline since the peak on January 1.

The total amount of repos on the Fed’s weekly balance sheet as of January 22, released this afternoon, has now fallen by $70 billion from the peak on January 1 ($256 billion), to $186 billion. This is below where it had first been on October 16. The $43-billion drop in repos over the past seven days was largely due to a 32-day $50-billion repo, dating from December 16, that unwound on January 17. It was not replaced by another 30-day repo, and there are no more 30-day repos on the Fed’s repo schedule or balance sheet.

Read more …

Erdogan wants to redo the 1923 Lausanne Treaty. He has little to lose, and much to gain domestically. But he has Putin against him.

Turkey Demands Greece “Demilitarize” 16 Aegean Islands (ZH)

At a moment tensions are soaring over Turkey’s expansive East Mediterranean claims, and after starting early last summer it began sending oil and gas exploration and drilling ships off Cyprus’ coast, Ankara is demanding that Greece “demilitarize” its islands in the Aegean Sea, reports Bloomberg. The demand from Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, who formally requested Greece move to withdraw armed forces and weaponry from 16 Aegean islands near Turkey on Wednesday, is rich given it’s Turkey that’s been provocatively sending warships and military jets to accompany illegal gas drilling in the area, something lately condemned by the EU.

“Greece, arming 16 out of 23 islands with non-military status, in violation of agreements in the Aegean sea, should act in accordance with international law,” said Defense Minister Akar, cited in state-run Anadolu Agency. “We expect Greece to act in line with international law and the agreements it has signed,” he added. Though becoming increasingly internationally isolated over the drilling issue in EU-member Cyrpus’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Turkey has remained unmoved and at times is positively boastful about it.

Not shying away from admitting Turkish maritime claims now stretch from Cypriot waters all the way to Libya (based on a controversial recent maritime boundary ‘deal’ signed with the Tripoli Government of National Accord), Akar further had this to say according to state media: In addition to the fight against terrorism, Turkey’s activities are ongoing in the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean, off Cyprus, and Libya, Akar said, adding that they are carried out in accordance with international law and the territorial integrity of the countries. Turkey is a guarantor country for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and is committed to fulfilling its responsibilities, he said.

Read more …

Let’s see a few countries apply this to Americans.

Assange May Not Get First Amendment Protection (AAP)

Julian Assange faces the prospect of being denied press protections under US law if he goes to trial there, WikiLeaks says, citing evidence submitted for his London extradition case. The 48-year-old WikiLeaks founder is set to face trial in the UK next month to determine whether he should be extradited to the US, where he has been charged with 17 counts of spying and one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The charges related to allegations Assange tried to help former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning protect her digital identity as she accessed classified Pentagon files on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. WikiLeaks helped publish thousands of those files, including some that revealed US war crimes in both countries.

His case is widely viewed as a litmus test for the protection of journalists’ sources. WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson says a new affidavit provided by US government lawyers this week for Assange’s upcoming extradition trial states that foreign nationals, like Assange, are not entitled to press protections under the US Constitution’s First Amendment. Mr Hrafnsson revealed the development outside Assange’s case management hearing at London’s Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday. “On the one hand they have decided that they can go after journalists wherever they are residing in the world, they have universal jurisdiction, and demand extradition like they are doing by trying to get an Australian national from the UK for publishing that took place outside US borders,” he told AAP.

“But then at the same time they are not granting any foreign journalist the protection of the First Amendment. “That’s extremely serious. That’s of grave concern to all journalists. “We are seeing this incremental approach, a darkness flowing over journalism from that country, and it’s about time that journalists really united in resisting this.” Assange appeared by video link from prison at Thursday’s hearing, and did not speak except to say his name and birthdate for the court. Judge Vanessa Baraitser reluctantly agreed to split his trial into two segments with the first week to begin on February 24 and the final three weeks to be held from May 18.

Her ruling came after prosecutors flagged timetabling issues and the defence pleaded for more time to deal with an ever-expanding pile of evidence coming from the US. Mr Hrafnsson says the delay may give Assange and his legal team more time to review mounting evidence, as they have only been permitted four hours together since his arrest on April 11. But he admitted it would also further extend Assange’s time behind bars. “A maximum security prison for a non-violent person like Julian, who is a free man basically, who is on remand, is outrageous,” Mr Hrafnsson told AAP. “It’s totally unacceptable.”

Read more …

Commemorations vs political games.

Go to Gaza and Cry ‘Never Again’ (Haaretz)

It’s very important to remember the past; no less important is to be cognizant of the present without shutting one’s eyes. The dozens of statesmen who arrived in Israel yesterday may remember the past, but they’re blurring the present. In their silence, in their disregard of reality while lining up unconditionally alongside Israel, they not only betray their roles, they also betray the memory of the past in the name of which they came here. To be the guests of Israel without mentioning its crimes; to commemorate the Holocaust while ignoring its lessons; to visit Jerusalem without traveling to the Gaza ghetto on International Holocaust Remembrance Day – one can barely think of any greater hypocrisy.

It’s good that kings, presidents and other notables came here in honor of this remembrance day. It’s deplorable that they’re ignoring what the victims of the Holocaust are inflicting on another nation. The city of Yerevan will never witness such an impressive gathering to commemorate the Armenian holocaust. World leaders will never come to Kigali to mark the genocide that happened in Rwanda. The Holocaust was indeed the greatest crime ever against humanity, but it was not the only one. But Jews and the state of Israel know well how to sanctify its memory as well as using it for their own purposes.

On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, world leaders are the guests of an Israeli prime minister who, on the eve of their visit, called for sanctions – believe it or not – on the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which is a legacy of the courts that were set up to judge the crimes of World War II. On this Remembrance Day, world leaders are coming to a prime minister who is trying to incite them against the court in The Hague. It’s hard to think of a more galling use of the Holocaust, it’s hard to conceive of a bigger betrayal of its memory than the attempt to undermine the court in The Hague only because it wishes to fulfill its role and investigate Jerusalem. The guests will hold their silence on this issue as well. Some of them may be persuaded that the problem is in The Hague, not in Jerusalem. Sanctions on the court instead of on the occupying state.

Read more …

“Ten or 15 years down the road, if I get sick, I want to be able to prove this.”

America’s Radioactive Secret (Rolling Stone)

In 2014, a muscular, middle-aged Ohio man named Peter took a job trucking waste for the oil-and-gas industry. The hours were long — he was out the door by 3 a.m. every morning and not home until well after dark — but the steady $16-an-hour pay was appealing, says Peter, who asked to use a pseudonym. “This is a poverty area,” he says of his home in the state’s rural southeast corner. “Throw a little money at us and by God we’ll jump and take it.” In a squat rig fitted with a 5,000-gallon tank, Peter crisscrosses the expanse of farms and woods near the Ohio/West Virginia/Pennsylvania border, the heart of a region that produces close to one-third of America’s natural gas.

He hauls a salty substance called “brine,” a naturally occurring waste product that gushes out of America’s oil-and-gas wells to the tune of nearly 1 trillion gallons a year, enough to flood Manhattan, almost shin-high, every single day. At most wells, far more brine is produced than oil or gas, as much as 10 times more. It collects in tanks, and like an oil-and-gas garbage man, Peter picks it up and hauls it off to treatment plants or injection wells, where it’s disposed of by being shot back into the earth. One day in 2017, Peter pulled up to an injection well in Cambridge, Ohio. A worker walked around his truck with a hand-held radiation detector, he says, and told him he was carrying one of the “hottest loads” he’d ever seen. It was the first time Peter had heard any mention of the brine being radioactive.

The Earth’s crust is in fact peppered with radioactive elements that concentrate deep underground in oil-and-gas-bearing layers. This radioactivity is often pulled to the surface when oil and gas is extracted — carried largely in the brine. In the popular imagination, radioactivity conjures images of nuclear meltdowns, but radiation is emitted from many common natural substances, usually presenting a fairly minor risk. Many industry representatives like to say the radioactivity in brine is so insignificant as to be on par with what would be found in a banana or a granite countertop, so when Peter demanded his supervisor tell him what he was being exposed to, his concerns were brushed off; the liquid in his truck was no more radioactive than “any room of your home,” he was told. But Peter wasn’t so sure. “A lot of guys are coming up with cancer, or sores and skin lesions that take months to heal,” he says. Peter experiences regular headaches and nausea, numbness in his fingertips and face, and “joint pain like fire.”

He says he wasn’t given any safety instructions on radioactivity, and while he is required to wear steel-toe boots, safety glasses, a hard hat, and clothes with a flash-resistant coating, he isn’t required to wear a respirator or a dosimeter to measure his radioactivity exposure — and the rest of the uniform hardly offers protection from brine. “It’s all over your hands, and inside your boots, and on the cuticles of your toes, and any cuts you have — you’re soaked,” he says. So Peter started quietly taking samples of the brine he hauled, filling up old antifreeze containers or soda bottles. Eventually, he packed a shed in his backyard with more than 40 samples. He worried about further contamination but says, for him, “the damage is already done.” He wanted answers. “I cover my ass,” he says. “Ten or 15 years down the road, if I get sick, I want to be able to prove this.”

Read more …

 

From Suzie Dawson:

 

 

 

Include the Automatic Earth in your 2020 charity list. Support us on Paypal and Patreon.