Sep 242021
 
 September 24, 2021  Posted by at 8:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  78 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh A Restaurant at Asnieres 1887

 

Why Are We Vaccinating Children Against Covid-19? (Elsevier)
Full Covid Genome Found In Stools – Meaning For Prevention And Treatments (VC)
Directed Evolution I – When Applied To People Is Eugenics (Anandamide)
Directed Evolution II – Gates Got Your Tongue? (Anandamide)
‘Covid-19 Will Become Like Common Cold’ By Next Spring, Say Experts (INews)
Covid-19 Pandemic Will Be Over In A Year – Moderna CEO (RT)
You, In Fact, Have ALL The Power. Use It (Denninger)
Scientists Slam Chris Whitty For Scare-mongering Over Unjabbed Children (DM)
Americans Have No Clue What the True COVID Numbers Are (Mercola)
DeSantis Acquires New Monoclonal Antibodies From UK Drug Firm (JTN)
YouTube Promises Pullback On Covid Censorship (JTN)
Arizona Audit for Dummies (Ivory Hecker)
Agustín Carstens: Would You Buy A Dieting Régime From This Man? (Ward)

 

 

Perth nurses

 

 

Rebel News Melbourne

 

 

 

 

Toronto
https://twitter.com/i/status/1441015146609094659

 

 

Israel

 

 

The second narrative-damning report published by Science Direct in a week.

Robert W Malone, MD: “In summary, the value of these COVID-19 inoculations is not obvious from a cost-benefit perspective for the most vulnerable age demographic, and is not obvious from any perspective for the least vulnerable age demographic.”

“Thus, our extremely conservative estimate for risk-benefit ratio is about 5/1. In plain English, people in the 65+ demographic are five times as likely to die from the inoculation as from COVID-19 under the most favorable assumptions!

Why Are We Vaccinating Children Against Covid-19? (Elsevier)

Adequate safety testing of the COVID-19 inoculations would have provided a distribution of the outcomes to be expected from ‘lighting the match’. Since adequate testing was not performed, we have no idea how many combustible materials are on the floor, and what the expected outcomes will be from ‘lighting the match’. The injection goes two steps further than the wild virus because 1) it contains the instructions for making the spike protein, which several experiments are showing can cause vascular and other forms of damage, and 2) it bypasses many front-line defenses of the innate immune system to enter the bloodstream directly in part. Unlike the virus example, the injection ensures there will always be some combustible materials on the floor, even if there are no other toxic exposures or behaviors.

In other words, the spike protein and the surrounding LNP are toxins with the potential to cause myriad short-, mid-, and long-term adverse health effects even in the absence of other contributing factors! Where and when these effects occur will depend on the biodistribution of the injected material. Pfizer’s own biodistribution studies have shown the injected material can be found in myriad critical organs throughout the body, leading to the possibility of multi-organ failure. And these studies were from a single injection. Multiple injections and booster shots may have cumulative effects on organ distributions of inoculant! The COVID-19 reported deaths are people who died with COVID-19, not necessarily from COVID-19. Likewise, the VAERS deaths are people who have died following inoculation, not necessarily from inoculation.

As stated before, CDC showed that 94 % of the reported deaths had multiple comorbidities, thereby reducing the CDC’s numbers attributed strictly to COVID-19 to about 35,000 for all age groups. Given the number of high false positives from the high amplification cycle PCR tests, and the willingness of healthcare professionals to attribute death to COVID-19 in the absence of tests or sometimes even with negative PCR tests, this 35,000 number is probably highly inflated as well. On the latter issue, both Virginia Stoner [85] and Jessica Rose [86] have shown independently that the deaths following inoculation are not coincidental and are strongly related to inoculation through strong clustering around the time of injection. Our independent analyses of the VAERS database reported in Appendix 1 confirmed these clustering findings.

Additionally, VAERS historically has under-reported adverse events by about two orders-of-magnitude, so COVID-19 inoculation deaths in the short-term could be in the hundreds of thousands for the USA for the period mid-December 2020 to the end of May 2021, potentially swamping the real COVID-19 deaths. Finally, the VAERS deaths reported so far are for the very short term. We have no idea what the death numbers will be in the intermediate and long-term; the clinical trials did not test for those. The clinical trials used a non-representative younger and healthier sample to get EUA for the injection. Following EUA, the mass inoculations were administered to the very sick (and first responders) initially, and many died quite rapidly. However, because the elderly who died following COVID-19 inoculation were very frail with multiple comorbidities, their deaths could easily be attributed to causes other than the injection (as should have been the case for COVID-19 deaths as well).

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HCQ and IVM.

Full Covid Genome Found In Stools – Meaning For Prevention And Treatments (VC)

“You heard it here first, COVID-20,” said Dr. Sabine Hazan on Sept. 16 during a discussion with the Ventura County Reporter at the offices of Ventura Clinical Trials and ProgenaBiome in Ventura. “We are already starting to see COVID-20-associated diarrhea and rectal bleeding.” She agreed to talk about findings in a ProgenaBiome report currently undergoing peer review. It is the first study she is aware of that finds the entire genome — along with 33 different mutations — in the stools of those with SARS-CoV-2. The paper, “Detection of SARS-CoV-2 from Patient Fecal Samples by Whole Genome Sequencing,” authored by Dr. Andreas Papaoutis, Jordan Daniels, Skylar Steinberg, Dr. Brad Barrows and Dr. Sabine Hazan (all with ProgenaBiome) and Dr. Thomas Borody and Dr. Siba Dolai of the Center for Digestive Diseases. (1)

That paper reports on the existence of hundreds of thousands of replicas of the complete genome of the virus in the stool samples of people who tested positive by nasal swab PCR testing, both symptomatic and asymptomatic. By using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) the researchers identified 33 unique variations of the virus, indicating a high propensity for mutations, potentially making treatment by something as fine-tuned as a vaccine extremely challenging. The report also shows the initial findings of the clinical trial studying whether a combination treatment protocol called HAZDPaC (which includes hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, zinc and Vitamins C and D) or high dosages of Vitamin C, D and Zinc alone (the placebo in the trial) may prove effective in eradicating the virus from the gut, where it could potentially cause long-lasting problems if left to “percolate.”

Eleven of 14 trial participants were positive (nasal swab PCR) for the virus. Eight of those people were not treated and the full virus genome was found in each of their stool samples. A total of 33 unique mutations of the virus were identified in those eight participants. The remaining three people who had the virus were treated for 10 days with HAZDPaC or high dosages of Vitamin C; when retested, they had no trace of the virus in their stools. Three additional trial participants served as the “control.” Two were negative (nasal swab PCR); one was not tested. None were treated and no virus was detected in stools. Until the report is printed as a peer reviewed paper (currently in process) it cannot be relied upon for other clinical study or purposes. But Hazan is confident of the findings’ ultimate confirmation through peer review.

[..] The initial protocols used in the FDA trial were formulated as a hypothesis to reach the ACE-2 receptors but also to destroy the virus. The treatment ProgenaBiome is using occupies those spots. Zinc fills up the ACE-2 receptors so there is nowhere for the virus to “park,” helping to maintain the gut barrier. Vitamins C and D boost the good gut bacteria. Hydroxychloroquine’s role is to raise the pH of the lysosome, or stomach of the cells. “If you change the pH in lysosome with medication, you change the pH…to 9 or 9.5. It’s a super alkaline environment and the virus disappears, it cannot replicate on the next cell. And so you stop the reproduction.” (2) With nowhere to go and unable to replicate, the virus is quickly evacuated by the bowel.

“At least that’s the hypothesis from the mechanism of action of all these products brought together as one formula. It’s not a one-pill solution,” said Hazan. She thinks earlier studies involving hydroxychloroquine were flawed because they were only using that one drug approach.

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“To supercharge such a narrow directed evolution experiment, it is best to lower the defenses of the host. Tie all of their foot soldiers boots together.”

Directed Evolution I – When Applied To People Is Eugenics (Anandamide)

Is there Spike Escape? This is hot debate stimulated by Geert Vanden Bossche. The critiques levied against his hypothesis (March 15th) are not completely compelling as more evidence matures demonstrating the waning protection of the vaccines and frequent transmission of the virus in Israel, Iceland and many other highly vaccinated countries. The premise of the argument against Geert appear to be rooted in a technophiles desire to always change the treatment. This is a desire to obtain the ultimate ring of power: A vax platform one can continually update (with no liability) and mandate to return freedom to its subjugates. I am more optimistic than Geert in that I believe many jurisdictions have enough natural immunity to thwart this experiment and the pandemic will cool down once all the vaccinated experience and develop immunity to the full 29kb virus.

So do we have Spike Escape? A frequent question these days but more akin to a retrospective “Oh Shit” inquiry. While it is deserving of its own captain obvious meme, it is important to explain why this is not only the expected outcome but how re-applying the same selective agent will only accelerate the escape. The more parsimonious response: If you can’t detect selection against the spike RNA sequence, you have no basis upon which to claim your vaccine has influence over this evolutionary experiment we have engaged in. This isn’t a small experiment. This is the grandest medical experiment ever imagined so it is important we reflect on the type of selection being applied.

These are non-sterilizing vaccines. There is a difference between being infected (RNA+) and being infectious (Virus+ and shedding). Non-Sterilizing vaccines leave the breakthrough patients as both. They can be PCR positive with a new virus. It can be replicative and have similar Ct scores as the unvaccinated control and the vaccinated can still transmit the virus. There are suggested benefits of these vaccines ( and risks) but one such benefit is not the reduction of RNA polymerase activity and evolution of the virus. The selection being applied is very narrow compared to how our bodies traditionally fight viruses and how most vaccines prior to 2020 fight viruses. 4,284 bases of this ~29,500 base pair virus (14% of the virus) encode the spike protein of a spike-only vaccine. This is a very narrow pressure point and is akin to using low dose antibiotics across the whole population… all at the same time.

In other evolutionary fights in medicine, narrow is naive. We fight sepsis with broad scale antibiotics. We fight cancer with cocktails that attack multiple pathways to prevent mutagensis. These are genomic diseases and one trick pony solutions are a hubristic trainwreck. To supercharge such a narrow directed evolution experiment, it is best to lower the defenses of the host. Tie all of their foot soldiers boots together. Get a good head start for your RdRp polymerase to kick into high gear. Promiscuous copying of viral genomes with low fidelity and a pinpointed selective pressure on a narrow region of the genome.

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“More than one way to skin a cat…. but dont skin cats!! We kill bats.”

Directed Evolution II – Gates Got Your Tongue? (Anandamide)

This is an excellent presentation on the evolutionary trajectory of SARs-CoVs-2 and just as fascinating as the genomics, is the content that is explicitly not spoken about. You see, NextStrain and GISAID all have alot of uncle Bills grant money and he loves vaccines so much, that he has over $100M in BioNtech stock and CureVac stock tucked away in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As a result, many people in the Epi space we affectionately refer to as the Nerd Sweater Mafia…. they know to never speak ill of vaccines. See if you can find the word vaccine anywhere in the first 24 minutes of this very well done analysis on the directed evolution of this virus. The fascinating aspect of this presentation is that it highlights the mutational spectrum of C19 during 2021 and it is as clear as day that there is a massive enrichment for mutations in the spike protein compared to other parts of the genome.

There is also a lot of squid ink diverting the viewers attention as to the cause of this. Let’s look at the running hypothesis they float to explain such an enrichment of mutagenesis in spike. 1.Natural selection against Host immunity. Note the language.. not vaccine immunity.. host immunity. Blame the victim some more and redirect attention from the obvious selective pressure going on with “Spike only vaccination” to those immunocompromised people (the ones you need to get vaccinated to save). Note at 8:52 he mentions this is speculative as they didn’t see any of this happening in the Spring 2020 during the ‘first’ pandemic wave. Remember this point as the emergence date of C19 continues to back into October 2019 with WIV employees losing their sense of smell. The first wave (in Trevor’s eyes) is only the wave he could see with qPCR but he forgets that viruses with R0 this high are unlikely to be at their first rodeo when we wise up and point our sequencers at them.

They begin to see spike mutagenesis in the fall of 2020 but it really takes off in 2021. This is where they will play their magic tricks. They will claim this was witnessed before the vax roll out therefore the vax is innocent. Watch them like a hawk. A fly in their ointment: You will also see them speak about convergent evolution being evident (min 20+) in the data which refutes their own chronological argument that attempts to blame this on pre-vax “partially immune” people. Convergent evolution is where the same mutations appear to evolve independently over and over again around the world as similar selective pressures are applied. The polymerase doesn’t make random errors. It has propensity to make some of the same errors due to the sequence context of the virus.

This means an ORF8 deletion can occur in Africa and Australia independently without anyone traveling between the two continents to spread it there. There are also similar selective pressures being applied in geographically distant places. In some of these cases, we can see different RNA variants emerge across the globe which may differ at a RNA sequence level but code for the same amino acid change. Let’s take the UUC codon for Phenylalanine. You can mutate it to UUA or UUG and still code for the same alternative amino acid Leucine. More than one way to skin a cat…. but dont skin cats!! We kill bats.

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6 more months of misery.

“If you look at the trajectory we’re on, we’re a lot better off than we were six months ago… I think we’re over the worst of it now.”

‘Covid-19 Will Become Like Common Cold’ By Next Spring, Say Experts (INews)

Covid-19 could soon resemble the common cold as the virus weakens and people’s immunity is boosted by vaccines and exposure, two leading experts have said. Professor Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, has claimed the coronavirus could become like a cold by as soon as next spring. He also claimed the UK “is over the worst” of the pandemic and things “should be fine” once winter has passed. Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, the co-creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, has made similar claims and said Covid-19 will become like a cold as it is unlikely to mutate into a dangerous variant. Speaking to a Royal Society of Medicine webinar last night, she said that viruses tend to become weaker as they spread.


She said: “We normally see that viruses become less virulent as they circulate more easily and there is no reason to think we will have a more virulent version of Sars-CoV-2 [Covid-19]. “We tend to see slow genetic drift of the virus and there will be gradual immunity developing in the population as there is to all the other seasonal coronaviruses.” Seasonal coronaviruses cause colds, and Dame Sarah said: “Eventually Sars-CoV-2 will become one of those.” Sir John was asked about the experts comments on Times Radio this morning, where he said the country’s position is much more promising than it was just six months ago. He said: “If you look at the trajectory we’re on, we’re a lot better off than we were six months ago… I think we’re over the worst of it now.” Sir John added that because cause numbers are currently high, immunity to Covid will increase substantially.

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This guy is a salesman, not a scientist.

Covid-19 Pandemic Will Be Over In A Year – Moderna CEO (RT)

The CEO of US pharma giant Moderna, Stephane Bancel, has come up with a reassuring forecast, suggesting that increasing vaccine production could see the coronavirus pandemic finally coming to an end in mid-2022. “If you look at the industry-wide expansion of production capacities over the past six months, enough doses should be available by the middle of next year so that everyone on this Earth can be vaccinated,” Bancel said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung. There’ll be jabs available even for infants soon as well as booster doses for those who would require them, he said. “Those who don’t get vaccinated will immunize themselves naturally because the Delta variant is so contagious,” the chief executive pointed out.

According to Bancel, the situation with Covid-19 will become similar to the one with flu. “You can either get vaccinated and have a good winter. Or you don’t do it and risk getting sick and possibly even ending up in hospital.” When asked when humanity will be able to exit the pandemic, which already saw over 219 million people infected and more than 4.5 million dead, and return to normal life, he replied: “As of today, in a year, I assume.” Moderna’s two-dose Covid-19 vaccine is approved in some 100 countries, while also being one of three drugs used in the immunization campaign in the US. The jab boasts a high efficacy rate of 93% six months after the administration of its second shot, barely waning from the 94.5% reported during its phase-three clinical trials.

However, Bancel insisted that those vaccinated would “undoubtedly” need a refresher at some point to stay protected from the virus. He said he expects younger people to get a booster shot once every three years and older people – once a year. Moderna’s booster contains half a dose of the active ingredient compared to the original injection, which provides the company with a further opportunity to increase production, he said. “The volume of vaccine is the biggest limiting factor. With half the dose, we would have three billion doses available worldwide for the coming year instead of just two billion,” the CEO explained.

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“So let’s say your really don’t like the idea of a vexxing mandate on employers in your state or county. Fine. Find the appropriate legislators and picket their house.

That’s legal. It’ll******them off but so what?”

You, In Fact, Have ALL The Power. Use It (Denninger)

You think OSHA has the power? Biden? Wrong. The Founders gave us a government structure intentionally designed to give the people the tools necessary to prevent what is being done right now. The closer to the people – that is, the smaller the division of government – the less-likely it is that anyone serving in said government in a legislative role is doing that on an exclusive, or nearly-so, basis. Most State Legislatures are part-time; that is, they meet for a couple months out of the year, plus the rare special session here and there. Essentially all County Commissions and City Alderman (or whatever they call them in your town) are. Every one of those people is utterly reliant on either a job or a business they own or control to put food on their table, keep their house and feed their family — just like you are. They’re just as vulnerable to attack on that means of earning a living as you are as well so why don’t you use it and go after them when they threaten to or actually do it to you?

Every single place I have ever lived required any business to obtain a county license, most business require state registration (even if only for sales tax) and a large percentage require licensing of either the firm, certain people in it, or both. The County or State can pass an ordinance requiring any non-discriminatory code of conduct they choose on said firms as a condition of that license. Refuse to comply, you’re closed right here, right now. Period. It doesn’t matter who you are — a hospital, a car dealer, a grocery store, a restaurant, etc. Done through regular legislative order these ordinances (or in the case of a state, laws) are presumptively valid and enforceable. So let’s say your really don’t like the idea of a vexxing mandate on employers in your state or county. Fine. Find the appropriate legislators and picket their house.

That’s legal. It’ll******them off but so what? There’s not a damned thing they can do about it. That’s personal pressure and it won’t be long before their spouse and kids start getting really unhappy. Which, of course, is the point — to make them unhappy enough that they fold. But the best pressure that can be applied through legal means is economic, which is exactly what they’re trying to do to you. So to really **** them up find the business or businesses they and their spouse, if any own, control or are part of — all this is public record and trivial to discover — and picket those, especially if they transact with the general public. Be targeted about it. Get 10, 20 or 100 other people in your local area and pick on one of them. Let’s say one of your County Commissioners owns a very popular tourist location in your town.

Picket it with the intent of destroying the customer volume he does at his business until and unless he, along with the rest of the Commission, do what you want. In this case, specifically, as a condition of a County Business License “no license holder or their agent may inquire of employee or customer personal medical status nor demand any medical treatment, prophylaxis or personal health record, effective immediately.” That eliminates the firm’s ability to put in place a vaccine mandate and arguably bars mask mandates too; they either comply or they’re done. You can’t operate without a business license; the Sheriff can and will come and chain the doors closed! Oh, they don’t want to pass that? Fine — put the first Commissioner’s business in the dirt and then move to the next one. Keep going until you get what you want.

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‘It is true that schoolchildren will mostly catch Covid, if unvaccinated. But it is a poor reason to vaccinate them.’

Scientists Slam Chris Whitty For Scare-mongering Over Unjabbed Children (DM)

Unvaccinated children getting infected with Covid isn’t an issue because they face such a vanishingly rare chance of falling seriously ill, a scientist said today. England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, yesterday told MPs ‘virtually all’ unjabbed youngsters would eventually catch the virus. He revealed about half of youngsters have already had the virus but insisted others would get it ‘sooner or later’. Justifying the decision to roll-out jabs to millions of 12-15 year olds, Professor Whitty added: ‘Vaccination will reduce that risk’. But one academic today criticised the CMO’s reasoning, arguing the majority would probably still get infected even if they were inoculated.

Professor David Livermore, a medical microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, said the virus has evolved to be extremely transmissible — and that vaccines aren’t perfect at blocking the pathogen. And he said natural infection would be preferable to jabs for children because the virus poses little-to-no-threat of causing serious illness in youngsters, whereas the vaccines aren’t risk-free. Some studies even suggest immunity from infection is stronger than that produced by the vaccines. Despite the chief medical officers who advised the Government to extend the rollout claiming they did so after assessing the benefits to children themselves, critics view the move as one intended to protect adults by reducing the risk of transmission.

But a host of scientists are now suggesting the virus now amounts to little more than a common cold for the vast majority of vaccinated adults. Dame Sarah Gilbert, one of the chief scientists behind the AstraZeneca vaccine, last night claimed viruses tend to ‘become less virulent as they circulate’ through the population. And Professor Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King’s College London, today said jabs had already drastically changed Covid’s tell-tale symptoms, effectively turning it into a bad cold for most who catch it. He said other warning signs like a sore throat, runny nose and sneezing should be added to the official list of symptoms.

Professor Livermore told MailOnline: ‘It is true that schoolchildren will mostly catch Covid, if unvaccinated. But it is a poor reason to vaccinate them. ‘First, vaccines provide only limited protection against infection and transmission, so children are going to be infected over time anyway regardless of whether they have been vaccinated. At most, vaccinating them will only delay this. ‘Secondly, Covid infection does healthy children little harm. They suffer mild disease and recover swiftly. The hazard from Covid is largely for the elderly, not children. ‘Thirdly, evidence from Israel shows natural immunity — which children will acquire from infection — is 13-fold more protective than vaccination.’

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What you get when the MSM spread misinformation:

“..for people aged 18–24, the share of those worried about serious health consequences is 400 times higher than the share of total COVID deaths..”

Americans Have No Clue What the True COVID Numbers Are (Mercola)

Six months after the start of the pandemic, investment management organization Franklin Templeton Investments, in collaboration with Gallup,2 released a report about Americans’ understanding of the COVID-19 infection. The research focused on fundamental and undisputed facts of the risk for individuals and did not address any information that might be seen as controversial, such as treatment options and lockdown policies. In the report, the firm wrote:“Six months into this pandemic, Americans still dramatically misunderstand the risk of dying from COVID-19 … These results are nothing short of stunning. Mortality data have shown from the very beginning that the COVID-19 virus age-discriminates, with deaths overwhelmingly concentrated in people who are older and suffer comorbidities.


This is perhaps the only uncontroversial piece of evidence we have about this virus. Nearly all US fatalities have been among people older than 55; and yet a large number of Americans are still convinced that the risk to those younger than 55 is almost the same as to those who are older.” The Franklin Templeton-Gallup Economics of Recovery Study of Americans found there were misconceptions in the general population about the risks associated with infection. The analysts then separated the beliefs and compared those to the actual data. This is from the report: “On average, Americans believe that people aged 55 and older account for just over half of total COVID-19 deaths; the actual figure is 92%. Americans believe that people aged 44 and younger account for about 30% of total deaths; the actual figure is 2.7%. Americans overestimate the risk of death from COVID-19 for people aged 24 and younger by a factor of 50; and they think the risk for people aged 65 and older is half of what it actually is (40% vs 80%).

When the data were broken down by age groups they found that most people under age 65 really had no concept of the actual number of deaths for their age group. “The discrepancy with the actual mortality data is staggering: for people aged 18–24, the share of those worried about serious health consequences is 400 times higher than the share of total COVID deaths; for those age 25–34 it is 90 times higher.” Writing in Wirepoints, Mark Glennon commented on the findings saying, “The only good news there is that folks 65 and older are much more aware of the heightened risk for their own age group.” The report identified two major culprits of the fundamental misunderstanding of basic facts from a COVID-19 infection. Those culprits were misinformation predominantly shared on social media and the partisan bias for Democrats to “mistakenly overstate the risk of death from COVID-19 for younger people.”

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Best part:

“..the treatment is covered by the federal government. The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization to the drug back in May..”

DeSantis Acquires New Monoclonal Antibodies From UK Drug Firm (JTN)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has arranged a shipment of a new monoclonal antibody medication to help treat those sick with COVID-19. The Republican governor on Thursday announced the shipment of 3,000 doses of the drug produced by U.K.-based GlaxoSmithKline, a direct response to the Biden administration’s abrupt rationing of other antibody drugs, like Regeneron. “That’s showing that we’re going to leave no stone unturned. And, if there’s somebody that needs a monoclonal antibody treatment, we’re going to work hard to get it to them,” DeSantis told a press conference in Tampa. According to the Epoch Times, one dose of the drug by GSK, known as Sotrovimab, costs approximately $2,100. However, the treatment is covered by the federal government.


The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization to the drug back in May. During the press conference announcing the shipment of Sotrovimab, DeSantis blasted the Biden administration for withholding other antibody treatments that could potentially save the lives of thousands of Floridians. “We’re going to be able to use that Sotrovimab to bridge some of the gaps that are gonna be developing as a result of the Biden administration dramatically cutting medications to the state of Florida,” DeSantis said. According to the New York Times, Florida, alongside six other southern states, was consuming 70% of the federal government’s supply of the antibody drug, Regeneron. In response, the Biden administration began rationing the treatments due to a national shortage.

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“It has successfully appealed four removals, including the Sept. 14 meeting, but the county is tired of dealing with YouTube’s censorship..”

YouTube Promises Pullback On Covid Censorship (JTN)

Speaking your mind about COVID-19 policies at a public meeting can trigger YouTube into holding your local government hostage until it deplatforms your voice. The Google-owned video platform removed an Illinois school board meeting for “medical misinformation,” the latest example of tech giants policing what is permissible to say on the ever-evolving debate over pandemic research, restrictions and treatments. Springfield District 186 said it assumed YouTube objected to the public comment portion of the June 21 meeting, according to The Center Square. As a result, board president Anthony Mares said its YouTube videos will exclude public comments going forward. A parent in the district claimed partial credit for the removal, citing his own public comment.

Ryan Jugan said that “witnessing censorship, suppression of medical professionals, science and data is appalling.” District spokesperson Bree Hankins told Just the News it never got specifics on the purported misinformation in the video and that YouTube denied the district’s appeal. While YouTube said it restored the video following The Center Square report — conducting a third review prompted by the media organization — Hankins said the company has yet to inform the district the video has been reinstated. The video platform has a contentious history with COVID-19 contrarians, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. It pulled down a healthcare roundtable he hosted with former White House COVID advisor Scott Atlas, Harvard Medical School’s Martin Kulldorff, Stanford Med’s Jay Bhattacharya and Oxford’s Sunetra Gupta. DeSantis defiantly hosted another.

Reclaim the Net, which tracks digital censorship, shared several similar incidents that involve public meetings upon request. The St. Louis County Council is dumping YouTube completely after four removals in less than two months due to public comments against mask and vaccine mandates. It has successfully appealed four removals, including the Sept. 14 meeting, but the county is tired of dealing with YouTube’s censorship, information technology director Charles Henderson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It’s planning to sign a contract with BoxCast.

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Today. Open hearing.

Arizona Audit for Dummies (Ivory Hecker)

It’s hard to keep up with it all! Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers gives a preview ahead of Friday’s release of the report documenting results of an audit of the Presidential Election in Maricopa County, Arizona.

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“..the aim is to abolish physical cash within 27 months of right now.”

Agustín Carstens: Would You Buy A Dieting Régime From This Man? (Ward)

The somewhat bulky gentleman to your left is the boss of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Agustín Guillermo Carstens Carstens. Clearly, one Carstens wasn’t enough for him…judging by his build, in fact, one of anything is never quite enough for Agustín. It’s the sort of build that could be Built Back Better…unless the aim is to Build Better Billy Bunter Backs & Bottoms. In 2018, he was demanding more BIS control over Central Banks, whom he accused of ‘piggy-backing’…I suppose if you have a piggy back yourself, that’s something about which you’re entitled to opinionate. In the last two days, he’s been pushing hard for complete digital control over all money. Many suggest that in calling for this, Aggy is punching above his weight; but if the bloke was any heavier, in the absence of 180 centimetre arms he’d be punching himself.

Carstens Carstens has been a regular feature of Davos meetings since 2010. Let’s face it, as a physical feature, il gran Mexicano is a topological man mountain worthy of his own personal contour lines: he’s a hard guy to miss, and impossible to mark absent. As a result of climbing his own mountain, he has become the 4th richest politician in Mexican history, with a personal wealth estimated at $27 million. If and when Agustín finally achieves his goal of “resetting” who gets what in the Brave New Normal, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that his sharing methodology might be “83 for me, 1 for you” and so forth. Take in this second shot of Senor Carstens: I met Robert Maxwell several times, and trust me – the bouncing Czech was borderline anorexic compared to this guy.

When not busy having doors widened in advance of his meetings outside the BIS, he’s a big wheel in The Innovation BIS 2025 project – a scheme that would be dear to the hearts of the Davos élite if they had such organs factory-fitted. By 2025, the BIS hopes to complete the digitalisation of all payment systems in the UK, the U.S, the EU and every nation State in their orbit. Note the use of the pronoun ‘by’ there, and work backwards: the aim is to abolish physical cash within 27 months of right now. In every context (especially those of France, Italy and Greece) that timetable is about as practical as the idea of picking a locked toilet door with a blade of grass when stricken with diarrhoea.

The BIS refers to electronic cash as central bank digital currency (CBDC), but even this is immensely misleading: the organisation’s project is nothing less than the establishment of a New World Order-valued virtual coinage without reference to any criteria beyond, um, well, er…what the Bank for International Settlements says it is – the clue’s in the name, and all that. But there’s a more than slightly concerning two-tier nature to CBDC. Carstens-Carstens “explains” as follows: “Like cash, a CBDC could and would be available 24/7, 365 days a year. At first glance, not much changes for someone, say, stopping off at the supermarket on the way home from work. He or she would no longer have the option of paying cash. All purchases would be electronic.”

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Sep 172021
 
 September 17, 2021  Posted by at 8:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  42 Responses »


Henri Matisse The painter and his model1916-17

 

Interview with Dr. Vanessa Schmidt-Kruger (Enformt)
Biden Seizes And Rations Supply Of Life-Saving Monoclonal Antibodies (RT)
Delta Poised To Acquire Full Resistance To Wild-type Spike Vaccines (Biorxiv)
Israeli Study Claims Covid Vaccine Boosters Reduce Infection Risk TENFOLD (RT)
Pfizer, Moderna Release Data Supporting Booster Shot (Claus)
UK Study To Test Mixed Covid Vaccines On Children & Teens (RT)
The Plot Against Ivermectin (Bonvie)
France Suspends 3,000 Unvaccinated Health Workers (F24)
China Fully Vaccinates More Than 1 Billion People (RFI)
Clinton Lawyer Michael Sussmann Indicted For Lying to FBI (CTH)
Powell, Juggling Policy And Renomination, Now Faces An Ethics Blowup (R.)
Powell Orders Ethics Review Of Federal Reserve (JTN)
China Braces For “Nightmare Scenario” As Evergrande Collapses (ZH)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember a lot of these people died because early treatment and prophylaxis was forbidden. And what’s with the white flags? We surrendered?

 

 

Been reading up on this a little. This is from January, but interesting. About the consistency (integrity) of the vaccines. Which changed a lot from clinical trials to mass production. Who knew? They’re not the same substance at all.

Hearing # 37 of German Corona Extra-Parliamentary Inquiry Committee. 30 January, 2021

Interview with Dr. Vanessa Schmidt-Kruger (Enformt)

We know that normally vaccine development takes a very long time. It’s not just the clinical phase: with this vaccine, it’s set at three times two and a half years, i.e., three phases of 2.5 years each plus the evaluation phase, which makes 7 1/2 years in total. And then one shouldn’t forget that the production optimisation is also important, at least a year would surely be needed for that. That hasn’t taken place at all. The vaccine is already being sold and used, but the production optimisation isn’t yet by any means completed. And there are considerable deficiencies. One issue I would like to discuss are the deficiencies relating to the active substance: by that, I mean the modified RNA that they are synthesising.

As a second issue there are deficiencies in the consistency of the various production batches: they need to always be consistent so that one always obtains the same vaccine volume and quality. The problem that BioNTech had is that in the clinical phase the product, i.e. the RNA, was produced with completely different techniques to how it is being produced now. During the clinical phase they only needed small volumes of vaccine, they were able to use very expensive techniques that delivered highly purified end products. Now that they have entered mass production, that is no longer possible, they have had to switch to lower-cost processes, e.g. using huge quantities of DNA that functions as the substrate to be able to produce the RNA in an in-vitro transcription reaction.

This is done via bacteria, via the fermentation of transformed bacteria that contain this DNA. The bacteria multiply the DNA in huge amounts, and this leads to new dangers or risks, particularly contamination. At the moment for instance the situation is that the DNA is transformed in the bacteria, it is multiplied, next the bacteria are opened and the DNA is extracted, then it is linearised via enzymes, and after that the linearised DNA undergoes in-vitro transcription to produce the RNA using various procedures. The EMA Committee made various requirements of the vaccine manufacturer, i.e. BioNTech. The applicant needs to now develop and introduce various analysis processes to ensure that the substrate is free of microbiological contaminants – they probably mean E Coli bacteria for example.

There don’t seem to be any processes to ensure or monitor for that. They also need to ensure that all the buffers – those are the solvents that are used – are free of RNAses. RNAses are enzymes that degrade RNA. If there are any contaminants of these RNAse solvents, then RNA in the vaccine will be degraded and the vaccine won’t have any effect anymore. They also have to analyse how strong the activity of the enzymes is; that is very important because I explained that after that the RNA is transcribed from the DNA and then the DNA has to be eliminated, it is digested by enzymes: by DNAses. And if this DNA is not digested well enough, if residues are left, this harbours risks – I’ll come back to the risks from DNA residues, but the activity of the enzymes has to be monitored well and at the end you need to have a pure RNA without any more DNA. And that is not the case. BioNTech has admitted that there are DNA contaminants.

[..] It was found that the integrity of the RNA always varies in the batches that had been made. I will come back to that again. There needs to be a standard that is always the same for each batch. This should be used as the reference to measure the standard. And they only have this of course for the processes of the clinical phase. Now we have to generate a new standard for the new manufacturing processes, i.e., for the commercial sales. That hasn’t been done yet, they are in the process of doing that now.

So – the integrity of the RNA means of course the RNA quality. They have found that this is not very high: it was higher for the processes during the clinical phase. In this report they don’t say how high it is, but I have other information that says 78% of the RNA was good [translator: this refers to the integrity], the remainder was not, but now they have found new batches with only 55% RNA integrity, i.e., half of it is basically unviable.

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Politics kills. The only shortages here are those that are created. “The manufacturer has confirmed supplies are ample..”

Biden Seizes And Rations Supply Of Life-Saving Monoclonal Antibodies (RT)

Seven southern US states, mostly led by Republican governors, say they are now facing shortages of monoclonal antibody treatments for Covid-19 after the federal government took over the distribution, citing the need for “equity.” Monoclonal antibodies (MAB) are lab-created proteins that help those already infected deal with the virus. They have been intensively deployed in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas – states dealing with the recent surge of Delta-variant cases. With the exception of Louisiana, they are all run by Republicans. On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced it would take over the distribution of these treatments using the Defense Production Act and would be centralizing them under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). A HHS spokesperson said this was being done to avoid shortages, as the seven states account for 70% of all orders.

“Given this reality, we must work to ensure our supply of these life-saving therapies remains available for all states and territories, not just some,” the spokesperson told CNN. “HHS will determine the amount of product each state and territory receives on a weekly basis. State and territorial health departments will subsequently identify sites that will receive product and how much,” the spokesperson said. “This system will help maintain equitable distribution, both geographically and temporally, across the country – providing states and territories with consistent, fairly-distributed supply over the coming weeks.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican who has clashed with President Joe Biden on Covid policies – from mask mandates to compulsory vaccination – said that the move has resulted in cutting the supply to his state by more than 50%.

The federal government has allocated fewer than 31,000 doses to Florida this week, while the average need for hospitals and state clinics is 72,000, his office said. DeSantis said on Thursday that he has reached out to GlaxoSmithKline, another pharmaceutical company, to purchase their MAB treatment in order to make up the shortfall. In Texas, the Biden administration told the state “to reduce its use of the therapeutic treatment that has literally been saving lives and reducing hospitalizations,” Mark Keough, a judge in charge of Montgomery County, just north of Houston, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday. “The manufacturer has confirmed supplies are ample but due to the Defense Production Act, the White House and it’s agencies are the only entities who can purchase and distribute this treatment,” Keough added.

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“.. it is necessary to develop vaccines that protect against such complete breakthrough variants..”

There has never been a vaccine against a coronavirus, but this is all you can take away from this?

Delta Poised To Acquire Full Resistance To Wild-type Spike Vaccines (Biorxiv)

mRNA-based vaccines provide effective protection against most common SARS-CoV-2 variants. However, identifying likely breakthrough variants is critical for future vaccine development. Here, we found that the Delta variant completely escaped from anti-N-terminal domain (NTD) neutralizing antibodies, while increasing responsiveness to anti-NTD infectivity-enhancing antibodies. Although Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2-immune sera neutralized the Delta variant, when four common mutations were introduced into the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the Delta variant (Delta 4+), some BNT162b2-immune sera lost neutralizing activity and enhanced the infectivity.


Unique mutations in the Delta NTD were involved in the enhanced infectivity by the BNT162b2-immune sera. Sera of mice immunized by Delta spike, but not wild-type spike, consistently neutralized the Delta 4+ variant without enhancing infectivity. Given the fact that a Delta variant with three similar RBD mutations has already emerged according to the GISAID database, it is necessary to develop vaccines that protect against such complete breakthrough variants.

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Wait, where is that graph?

Israeli Study Claims Covid Vaccine Boosters Reduce Infection Risk TENFOLD (RT)

A third dose of Pfizer’s vaccine could cut the risk of Covid infection by more than 10 times in elderly patients, according to an Israeli study, which was peer-reviewed just ahead of a key FDA meeting on boosters for Americans. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday night, the newly peer-reviewed study found that infections and severe Covid cases “were substantially lower among those who received a booster (third) dose of the [Pfizer-BioNTech] vaccine” compared to those who took only two. “The rate of confirmed infection was lower in the booster group than in the nonbooster group by a factor of 11.3,” the study said, also finding the rate of severe illness was slashed by nearly twentyfold, or by a factor of 19.5.


The findings are based on a review of official data for some 1.1 million Israelis over the age of 60, who were divided into two groups: those who received a booster within 5 months of their second dose, and those who did not. Citing ‘other recent research’, the study noted that vaccine-induced immunity could drop significantly in just six months after a recipient’s second dose – providing only twice the protection compared to non-vaccinated individuals. After a third shot, however, effectiveness was pushed back up to 95%, “a value similar to the original vaccine efficacy reported against the alpha variant,” the study said. While the researchers said they did their best to correct for any potential biases in the data, they acknowledged that their findings could reflect “behavioral changes after vaccination” rather than improved immunity alone, as the study did not attempt to measure antibody levels and instead relied on official case counts.

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Brave New Bizarro World.

Note that this is based on research from before mass vaccination.

“88 known breakthrough cases out of 11,431 individuals who had been vaccinated between December of 2020 and March of 2021, compared with 162 such cases out of a total of 14,746 trial subjects who had received their inoculations in July through October of 2020.”

Pfizer, Moderna Release Data Supporting Booster Shot (Claus)

Late on Wednesday, the pharmaceutical firm Moderna released new data regarding breakthrough cases of the coronavirus that it says supports the need for a third booster shot of its coronavirus vaccine. Earlier the Pfizer Corporation had announced that evidence from Israel shows a third coronavirus vaccine shot restores protection back up to the original effectiveness rate of 95% as it made the case to the US Food and Drug Administration for boosters. Pfizer stated that the need for the authorization of a booster shot is in response to what it called an “urgent emerging public health issue” as the much more contagious Delta variant of the virus races across the globe.

Adding further assurance to those who may shun the third shot for fear of additional side effects, Pfizer officials stated that such occurrences are similar to those observed after receiving the second dose of the vaccine. For its part, Moderna officials offered up a new analysis that showed breakthrough Coronavirus cases were experienced less often in those who were more recently vaccinated, indicating that the effectiveness of the shot does indeed wane over time. The Cambridge, Massachusetts firm noted that analysis gleaned from its phase three study showed the incidence of breakthrough cases in fully vaccinated people, occurred less often in a group of trial volunteers who had been inoculated recently, suggesting that immunity for those who received the coronavirus vaccines has begun to wane. In all, Moderna cited a total of 88 known breakthrough cases out of 11,431 individuals who had been vaccinated between December of 2020 and March of 2021, compared with 162 such cases out of a total of 14,746 trial subjects who had received their inoculations in July through October of 2020.

[..] Meanwhile, FDA officials declined earlier on Wednesday to endorse any position regarding Pfizer’s third shots, saying that there is a lack of verified data at this point. As of now, there has been no peer review of the Moderna analysis. The new flurry of vaccine claims appeared on the scene just two days before an important FDA vaccine advisory committee meeting; this initial panel of outside experts is tasked with debating whether or not there is enough evidence to support the wide distribution of booster shots across the country. This advisory group, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, was also the first body to consider the first coronavirus vaccine to come on the market in November of last year. Now it will debate the administration of a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech product.

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But of course. “Informed consent” from a 12-year old. They should look you people up.

UK Study To Test Mixed Covid Vaccines On Children & Teens (RT)

British researchers are set to study the effects of mixed vaccine schedules on children and teens, hoping to figure out whether second doses have the intended immune response in youths amid concerns of possible side effects. Designed by the Oxford Vaccine Group and dubbed “Com-COV3,” the upcoming trial will recruit 360 volunteers aged 12 to 16 in order to better understand how to distribute second doses to younger age groups. The study comes soon after UK health officials approved Covid vaccinations for kids 12 to 15-years-old, which will begin next week.

“This will provide the [Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation] with information crucial to informing their advice about immunising teenagers in the UK,” Matthew Snape, the trial’s head researcher and an associate professor in pediatrics and vaccinology at Oxford, told reporters on Thursday. While all trial participants will be given an initial dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab, second doses administered eight weeks later will be divided into four different groups: a full or half dose of Pfizer, a full dose of the jab developed by Novavax, or a half dose of Moderna’s immunization.

“As well as looking at the standard two full doses of the Pfizer vaccine, we will look at how well volunteers respond when their second dose of Pfizer is half that of the first dose, or if different vaccines are used altogether, such as the vaccines manufactured by Moderna or Novavax,” Snape added. However, while vaccinations for the 12-15 age group will begin in a matter of days, British health orgs have approved only a single dose for youths so far due to possible adverse reactions from additional shots. Snape explained the “concern here is about the risks of myocarditis, particularly with the second dose with Pfizer vaccine in young men.”

Bhakdi

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About the “horse paste” calls to the Mississippi Department of Health: “..not 70%, as stated by the state epidemiologist, Dr. Paul Byers, but under 2%..”

Q: does the state epidemiologist still have a job?

The Plot Against Ivermectin (Bonvie)

When the Mississippi Department of Health released a “Health Alert Network” bulletin on August 20th stating that “70% of the recent calls (to its state poison control)” were over people taking livestock versions of the human drug ivermectin, the media went wild. Outlets such as The Hill, The New York Times, The Washington Post and scores of local news stations reported on this “crazy Covid” treatment that so many Mississippians were taking. Only, it just wasn’t true. Despite a retraction by the Associated Press on August 25th on this “erroneously reported” information, the Mississippi alert created a media feeding frenzy generating sexy headlines over people taking a “horse dewormer” for Covid-19 that has persisted to this day – one reason perhaps being that the Mississippi Department of Health has kept the uncorrected alert still posted and in public view.

After several freedom-of-information-act requests, it turns out that the actual number of calls during August 2021 to Mississippi Poison Control over animal ivermectin was not 70 percent, as stated by the state epidemiologist, Dr. Paul Byers, but under two percent – representing 11 inquiries related to people taking veterinary versions of the drug. If you include July in the tally, it’s down to around one percent of calls. So why did the Mississippi Department of Health put out such erroneous information, one that still states that media-mesmerizing 70 percent number? At this point, various print and broadcasting outlets, major, minor and even alternative, all have their own spurious slants on the supposedly grave danger ivermectin veterinary drugs pose to a gullible public trying to treat or prevent Covid-19.

These range from a bogus report that doctors can’t treat gunshot victims at an Oklahoma hospital because they’re too busy handling ivermectin overdoses to claims of poison-control centers around the country being overrun with ivermectin calls to the slandering of an Arkansas prison doctor, accused of “cruel and unusual punishment” after prescribing human-grade ivermectin (referred to as “cow dewormer”) to his inmates to treat Covid. From the extensive research I’ve done, it appears that this “horse/cow dewormer” narrative went into full swing with the issuance of that Mississippi alert. Rather than work these facts into a story, I’ve compiled a timeline that begins on August 18.

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Our hospitals are overwhelmed! Let’s make it worse!

France Suspends 3,000 Unvaccinated Health Workers (F24)

Thousands of health workers across France have been suspended without pay for failing to get vaccinated against Covid-19 ahead of a deadline this week, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Thursday. “Some 3,000 suspensions were notified yesterday to employees at health centres and clinics who have not yet been vaccinated,” Veran told RTL radio. He added that “several dozens” had turned in their resignations rather than sign up for the jabs. That compares with 2.7 million health workers overall, Veran said, adding that “continued healthcare is assured”.


President Emmanuel Macron gave staff at hospitals, retirement home workers and the fire service an ultimatum in July to get at least one shot by September 15 or face unpaid suspension. Many nurses in particular have been reluctant to get vaccinated, citing safety or efficacy concerns, posing the risk that France’s inoculation drive could stall. France’s national public health agency estimated last week that roughly 12 percent of hospital staff and around six percent of doctors in private practices have yet to be vaccinated. Overall, 70 percent of the French have received both doses required to be fully vaccinated, which are available to everyone over age 12 — one of the highest rates in the world.

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“..most young children remain unvaccinated in China, sparking fears that the latest Fujian outbreak could hit the most vulnerable people in the country disproportionately.”

China Fully Vaccinates More Than 1 Billion People (RFI)

China has fully vaccinated more than one billion people against the coronavirus — 71 percent of its population — official figures showed Thursday. The country where the virus was first detected has mostly curbed the virus within its borders, but is racing to get the vast majority of its population vaccinated as a new outbreak flickers in the southeast. “As of September 15, 2.16 billion vaccine doses have been administered nationwide,” said National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng at a press briefing. Chinese health authorities said late last month that 890 million people in China had been fully vaccinated and two billion doses administered.


The government has not publicly announced a target for vaccination coverage, but top virologist Zhong Nanshan said last month that the country is likely to have 80 percent of its population inoculated by the end of the year, reaching herd immunity. China is currently battling an outbreak of the Delta variant in the southeastern province of Fujian that has infected almost 200 people so far in three cities, dozens of whom are schoolchildren. The Fujian cluster is the biggest rebound in weeks and comes after the country declared the Delta variant under control, in a test of China’s “zero-case” approach to the pandemic. China reported 49 new domestic transmissions on Thursday, the vast majority in Fujian. Authorities said the cluster’s suspected patient zero was a man who had recently returned from Singapore to the city of Putian, and developed symptoms after completing a 14-day quarantine and initially testing negative for the virus.

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But what role did the FBI play in this?

Clinton Lawyer Michael Sussmann Indicted For Lying to FBI (CTH)

U.S. Special Counsel John Durham has released an indictment of Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann for lying to federal investigators in 2016 about the people and motives behind his FBI contact. He failed to tell them his intent was to spread a false Alfa Bank conspiracy theory on behalf of the Clinton campaign. Working for the Perkins Coie law firm, while under contract with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, partner Michael Sussmann contacted FBI Legal Counsel James Baker to pitch evidence that a Russian bank was in digital communications with servers in Trump Tower. The Alfa Bank allegation was one of the key components for the ridiculous Trump-Russia narrative put together by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Sussmann wanted the FBI to investigate Donald Trump, so that Hillary Clinton could push a political fabrication about Donald Trump working with Russians to steal the presidential election.


According to the indictment, Sussmann failed to tell the FBI that he was giving them this information on behalf of the Clinton campaign. The FBI investigated the claims and found nothing; however, it was the appearance of the investigation that Clinton needed in order to leak/push the Trump-Russia story to the media and stir up the controversy. There had to be something to the “Trump-Russia” story, because the FBI was investigating it. That fabricated smear served its intended purpose, and the media ran with it.

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Do they present it this way so you will think the Fed is accountable to you?

Powell, Juggling Policy And Renomination, Now Faces An Ethics Blowup (R.)

It is perhaps as predictable as it is problematic: Within days of news that two Federal Reserve bank presidents had engaged in controversial stock trades, one of the fiercest critics of the U.S. central bank’s financial system oversight demands new ethics rules that would bar such dealings in the future. For Fed Chair Jerome Powell, however, it is the wrong problem at the wrong time. Under consideration for reappointment as Fed chief while also juggling how to pull off a critical change in U.S. monetary policy, Powell faces a controversy of the Fed’s own making that helps reinforce arguments by progressives for broader change at the central bank.

Powell remains favored for renomination by President Joe Biden, and if history is a guide a decision may come in the weeks between the Fed’s policy meeting next week and its two-day session on Nov. 2-3. That would match a point in the calendar when the last two Fed chair appointments have been announced. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Wednesday letter to the Fed’s 12 regional presidents asking them to “impose strong and enforceable ethics and financial conflicts of interest rules” and send her an action plan “no later than Oct. 15,” is at a minimum a distraction to Powell at a time when he is steering the Fed through complex debate over monetary policy.

The Fed meets next week and is expected to take a potentially decisive step that flags likely changes to some of its pandemic crisis programs at an upcoming meeting. It is the type of moment that requires deft communication at the Fed chair’s post-meeting press conference – now muddled by likely queries about his colleagues’ investing habits and the possible blow to public trust. “Institutionally, it’s a bad look,” said Tim Duy, chief U.S. economist at SGH Macro Advisors and an economics professor at the University of Oregon. “It’s better to get ahead of this.” Powell has moved to do so, launching a broad review of the Fed’s rules governing investments by senior officials.

But unless change comes quicly, Warren’s direct demands set up a possible clash with a key Democratic lawmaker when Biden’s eventual Fed pick goes for Senate confirmation. Warren, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, which will provide the initial vetting of the nominee, voted against Powell as Fed chair four years ago, has criticized the Fed’s approach to financial regulation on his watch and has yet to state an opinion about his possible renomination. She credited the move by Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren to sell the investments in question, but said a decision “made amidst an ethic firestorm” left no guarantee “that Fed officials are acting solely in the public interest, not based on their own financial interests.”

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Thought I’d add this one because of this line:

“Current Fed regulations forbid the trading of individual stocks by senior officials around the time of policy meetings due to the sharing of information that could have significant influence on the nation’s economy.”

You mean like 15 minutes before and 15 mimues after, but otherwise you’re fine?

Powell Orders Ethics Review Of Federal Reserve (JTN)

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell ordered staff to review ethics guidelines governing the financial dealings by top central bank officials. News of Powell’s inquiry broke after Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent 12 letters to the Fed’s regional banks demanding stricter ethics guidelines be implemented by the Fed’s top officials. The Massachusetts Democrat called on each president to ban the ownership and trading of personal stocks by top officials at each regional bank office. Powell requested the ethics review late last week, a spokesperson said in a statement, following reports that two regional presidents actively invested during 2020. A Fed spokesperson told CNBC that Powell ordered the review “because the trust of the American people is essential for the Federal Reserve to effectively carry out our important mission.”


According to documents released last week, Fed Presidents Robert Kaplan and Eric Rosengren both bought or sold private stocks in excess of $1 million dollars. Other Fed presidents reported little to no trading activity. Amid the public backlash and scrutiny from Congress, both Kaplan and Rosengren said they would sell any individual stock holdings by the end of the month. Current Fed regulations forbid the trading of individual stocks by senior officials around the time of policy meetings due to the sharing of information that could have significant influence on the nation’s economy. Powell emphasized that although it is not illegal for regional presidents to buy or sell stocks, the Fed’s internal rules require officials to avoid even the appearance of conflict or of using their position for personal gain.

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“..unfinished properties with enough floor space to cover three-fourths of Manhattan..”

China Braces For “Nightmare Scenario” As Evergrande Collapses (ZH)

Up until now the collapse of China’s Evergrande was very much a slow motion affair, captured perhaps best by Forte Securities trader Keith Temperton who said that “the Asian banks will get hit hard if there’s a default, but then there will be a 10-year recovery process. The market’s getting a hang of it. The way they’ve managed the news flow seems quite clever. They haven’t let a swathe of bad news at once.” But while Beijing was indeed successful in extending the period of collapse as long as possible, now that Evergrande is effectively insolvent and having suspended its bonds from trading we have finally gotten to the endgame and the realization that hundreds of billions in capital (Evergrande’s total debt was just over $300 billion) is gone for ever.

This realization has already prompted angry protesters at China Evergrande Group offices across the country as the developer has fallen further behind on promises to more than 70,000 investors. Construction of unfinished properties with enough floor space to cover three-fourths of Manhattan grinds to a halt, leaving more than a million homebuyers in limbo. In an effort to appease its angry (and very soon, poor) stakeholders, Evergrande plans to let consumers and staff bid on discounted properties this month to repay them for billions in overdue investment products as the embattled developer seeks to preserve cash, according to people familiar with the matter.

According to Bloomberg, the company will organize an online property event by Sept. 30 for investors who opt for discounted real estate in lieu of cash, said two employees who were briefed on an internal call Thursday and asked not to be identified. The world’s most-indebted property developer is pushing the discounted real estate as the preferred of three options for angry investors seeking repayments. The high-yield “shadow bank” products paying as much as 13% a year have become a lightning rod for cash-strapped Evergrande, with investors and staff protesting losses and delayed payments from investments that were marketed as safe. Indeed, demonstrations that are breaking out across China could sway any bailout decisions by the government, which places a high priority on social stability, although it’s likely too late for that.

More than 70,000 people bought the products, including many Evergrande employees, Bloomberg reported earlier, citing an executive of Evergrande’s wealth division. And with about 40 billion yuan ($6.2 billion) of them are now due according to Caixin, there is about to be a whole lot of angry investors, who will not be swayed by the company’s hail mary plan to offer steep discounts on property assets. Investors can invest in residential housing units at a 28% discount, offices at a 46% discount and stores and parking units at 52%. Discounted rates can’t be lower than price floors designated by local governments. The property discounts are a voluntary repayment option, according to the briefing.

[..] As Bloomberg notes, it’s impossible to know for sure what would happen if Beijing allows Evergrande’s downward spiral to continue unabated, but China watchers are already mapping out worst-case scenarios as they contemplate how much pain the Communist Party is willing to tolerate. Pressure to intervene is growing as signs of financial contagion increase and as more and more popular anger builds. “As a systemically important developer, an Evergrande bankruptcy would cause problems for the entire property sector,” said Shen Meng, director at Beijing investment bank Chanson & Co. “Debt recovery efforts by creditors would lead to fire sales of assets and hit housing prices. Profit margins across the supply chain would be squeezed. It would also lead to panic selling in capital markets.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a Cuomo in there!

 

 

 

 

 

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Jun 042021
 


Pieter Bruegel the Elder Dulle Griet, also known as Mad Meg 1563

 

Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins (Vanity Fair)
How Amateur Sleuths Broke the Wuhan Lab Story and Embarrassed the Media (NW)
Fauci Kept Funding Daszak’s Experiments after Trump Canceled Grant (NF)
Fauci Defends China, Doubles Down On Animal Origins Of Covid (DM)
Ex-CDC Director Threatened For Saying Covid-19 Likely Originated In A Lab (DM)
Where’s The Tar and Feathers? (Denninger)
Covid-19 Cases Hit Lowest Point In US Since Pandemic Began (Axios)
EU Purchases Its First Monoclonal Antibodies Cocktail For Covid-19 (RT)
The Netherlands Used Children As A Weapon In The Fight Against Corona (AD)
Delhi Reports Over 1,000 Cases Of ‘Black Fungus’ Amid Shortage Of Drugs (RT)
Nord Stream 2 To Cost Kiev $3 Billion In Transit Fees A Year – Zelensky (RT)
Russia’s $186 Billion Sovereign Wealth Fund Dumps All Dollar Assets (ZH)

 

 

When both Vanity Fair and Newsweek come out with in-depth articles about the very same topic (in this case how the DRASTIC group reported the lab leak theory), at the very same moment, that makes me nervous.

What also makes me nervous is the one-dimensional attention for Fauci. Much as I dislike the man, it starts to feel as if others are hiding behind him.

 

 

“Ivermectin is an off-patent drug that is one of the most widely used drugs in the world, and we know it is able to reduce Covid-19 symptoms at any stage of the disease by about 90%, so there is no need for vaccines.”

– Michael Yeadon, former CSO of Pfizer

 

 

 

Kory

 

 

“The idea of a lab leak first came to NSC officials not from hawkish Trumpists but from Chinese social media users..”

Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins (Vanity Fair)

The idea of a lab leak first came to NSC officials not from hawkish Trumpists but from Chinese social media users, who began sharing their suspicions as early as January 2020. Then, in February, a research paper coauthored by two Chinese scientists, based at separate Wuhan universities, appeared online as a preprint. It tackled a fundamental question: How did a novel bat coronavirus get to a major metropolis of 11 million people in central China, in the dead of winter when most bats were hibernating, and turn a market where bats weren’t sold into the epicenter of an outbreak? The paper offered an answer: “We screened the area around the seafood market and identified two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus.”

The first was the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which sat just 280 meters from the Huanan market and had been known to collect hundreds of bat samples. The second, the researchers wrote, was the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The paper came to a staggeringly blunt conclusion about COVID-19: “the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan…. Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from city center and other densely populated places.” Almost as soon as the paper appeared on the internet, it disappeared, but not before U.S. government officials took note.

By then, Matthew Pottinger had approved a COVID-19 origins team, run by the NSC directorate that oversaw issues related to weapons of mass destruction. A longtime Asia expert and former journalist, Pottinger purposefully kept the team small, because there were so many people within the government “wholly discounting the possibility of a lab leak, who were predisposed that it was impossible,” said Pottinger. In addition, many leading experts had either received or approved funding for gain-of-function research. Their “conflicted” status, said Pottinger, “played a profound role in muddying the waters and contaminating the shot at having an impartial inquiry.”

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The bat lady returns.

How Amateur Sleuths Broke the Wuhan Lab Story and Embarrassed the Media (NW)

If there is a moment when the DRASTIC team coalesced into something more than its disparate parts, it would be this thread. In real time, for all the world to see, they worked through the data, tested various hypotheses, corrected each other, and scored some direct hits. The key facts quickly came together. The genetic sequence for RaTG13 perfectly matched a small piece of genetic code posted as part of a paper written by Shi Zhengli years earlier, but never mentioned again. The code came from a virus the WIV had found in a Yunnan bat. Connecting key details in the two papers with old news stories, the DRASTIC team determined that RaTG13 had come from a mineshaft in Mojiang County, in Yunnan Province, where six men shoveling bat guano in 2012 had developed pneumonia. Three of them died.

DRASTIC wondered if that event marked the first cases of human beings being infected with a precursor of SARS-CoV-2—perhaps RaTG13 or something like it. In a profile in Scientific American, Shi Zhengli acknowledged working in a mineshaft in Mojiang County where miners had died. But she avoided connecting it to RaTG13 (an omission she had made in her scientific papers as well), claiming that a fungus in the cave had killed the miners.

[..] One of those scientists was Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard who recognized the value of the information DRASTIC was producing and began to interpret it for scientists and nonscientists alike in crisp explainers on Twitter that made her a star science communicator. Chan acknowledged the group’s accomplishments in a long thread on Twitter. “Without the work done by the DRASTIC team, I don’t really know where we would be today with the origins of covid-19,” she wrote, adding, “The work of these outsiders…has had a measurable impact on the scientific discourse.” That scientific discourse jumped tracks on January 6, 2021, when the University of Washington virologist Jesse Bloom, one of the country’s most respected COVID-19 researchers, became the first major scientific figure to publicly legitimize DRASTIC’s contributions.

“Yes, I follow the work,” he tweeted, sending tremors through the scientific establishment. “I don’t agree [with] all of it, but some parts seem important & correct.” Bloom singled out Mona Rahalkar’s paper on the Mojiang mine, then added that in the early days of the pandemic, “I thought lab escape very unlikely. Based on subsequent work, I now say quite plausible.” Other scientists pressured Bloom to reconsider, but he held his ground, and the wall of silence began to crumble. In May, 17 scientists from Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and other leading institutions, including Chan, joined Bloom in a letter in Science calling for a thorough investigation of the Wuhan lab. On nearly the same day, The Seeker struck again. Visiting a database hosted by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, he searched for all theses supervised by Shi Zhengli. Boom. Three hits. “I got it on my first try,” he says. “Not sure why no one else thought of this before, but I guess no one was looking.”

If there had been any remaining doubt about the WIV’s pattern of deception, these new theses put it to rest. They indicated that the WIV researchers had never believed a fungus had killed the Mojiang miners, contradicting Shi’s remarks in Scientific American and elsewhere. In fact, WIV researchers had been so concerned about a new SARS-like outbreak that they’d tested the blood of neighboring villagers for other cases. And they had known the genetic sequences for the eight other SARS-like viruses from the mine—which could have helped researchers to understand more about SARS-CoV-2 in the early days —long before the pandemic started, and had kept the information to themselves, until DRASTIC called them out.

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THIS should be investigated. Fauci as a state within a state.

Fauci Kept Funding Daszak’s Experiments after Trump Canceled Grant (NF)

Peter Daszak, who studied controversial “gain of function” experiments on coronavirus elements in Wuhan, received $7.5 million from Anthony Fauci after Trump cancelled his grant. Last April, reports emerged that the EcoHealth Alliance, an organization run by one Peter Daszak, was involved in funding and collaborating with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers were examining coronaviruses extremely similar to the one behind the COVID-19 outbreak, and allegedly engaging in “gain of function” research relating to them. In an April 17th press conference, President Trump confirmed that a grant worth around $3.7 million since 2015 given to Daszak’s group by the National Institute for Health would be ended “very quickly” following the reports.

Only one week later on April 24th, all future funding for the EHA was cut, and they were ordered to stop spending the $369,819 remaining from its 2020 grant. “At this time, NIH does not believe that the current project outcomes align with the program goals and agency priorities,” Michael Lauer, the agency’s deputy director for extramural research, wrote in a letter to EcoHealth Alliance officials. From within the treasure trove of 3,200 pages of emails obtained from Anthony Fauci, one email can be found from Daszak, who thanked Fauci for dismissing the lab leak theory as being simply conspiratorial the day after President Trump announced the funding would be cut.

[..] Only a few months later in August, Fauci, who along with being put in charge of America’s response to COVID-19, is the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, which is part of the NIH, helped confirm that Daszak’s organization would receive a new grant of $7.5 million to study coronaviruses as part of a new network. The CREID network, which contains 11 institutions including the EHA, “coincidentally” will continue to study the emergence of coronaviruses in Southeast Asia. Fauci said that the network will help “enable early warnings of emerging diseases wherever they occur, which will be critical to rapid responses,” while Daszak boasted that they will be working in rural hospitals, according to a statement, “in remote parts of Malaysia and Thailand to get to the front line of where the next pandemic is going to start.”

Video of Anthony Fauci announcing “NIH Lifts Funding Pause on Gain-Of-Function Research” at a NIAID Advisory Council meeting on January 29, 2018.

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That train has passed.

Fauci Defends China, Doubles Down On Animal Origins Of Covid (DM)

Dr. Anthony Fauci doubled down on claims that the coronavirus likely originated from an animal then was transmitted to humans in a Thursday morning interview on CNN, despite increasing speculation that it leaked from a China lab. Fauci, who served under former President Trump and President Joe Biden, continues to fight the idea that he downplayed theories that the virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology after a trove of emails exchange at the beginning of the pandemic revealed he was warned about a potential lab leak. ‘I have always said and will say today to you … that I still believe the most likely origin is from an animal species to a human,’ Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday on CNN.

Although he said he’s keeping an open mind about the possibility of a lab leak, Fauci said it was ‘far-fetched’ to think the Chinese would kill their own people. ‘The idea, I think, is quite far-fetched that the Chinese deliberately engineered something so that they could kill themselves, as well as other people. I think that’s a bit far out.’ In a separate Thursday morning interview on MSNBC, Fauci said they want to definitively find the cause of the coronavirus pandemic – whatever that origin is – but pointing the finger at China isn’t going to help. ‘It’s in China’s interest to find out exactly what it is,’ Fauci said. ‘Obviously, you want openness and cooperation. One of the ways to get it is not to be accusatory. Try to get a forensic, scientific and investigational approach. I think the accusatory part about it is only going to make (China) pull back more.’

Fauci was asked during the MSNBC interview if he thought it was in China’s best interest to hide information if the origin was a lab leak or if it was designing a weapon. He sidestepped, saying no matter what he says, ‘it will be taken completely out of context,’ which he said has already happened after more than 3,200 of his emails from January to June 2020 were obtained and published by Buzzfeed on Tuesday. The emails showed leading virus experts warned him COVID-19 may have been created in a lab while he publicly played such claims down.

GoF

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“The former director of the Centers for Disease Control received death threats from fellow scientists..”

Ex-CDC Director Threatened For Saying Covid-19 Likely Originated In A Lab (DM)

The former director of the Centers for Disease Control received death threats from fellow scientists after he said during a TV interview that he believed COVID-19 originated in a lab, according to an interview released Thursday. Robert Redfield, who served as the CDC director under Donald Trump when the pandemic began, told CNN on March 26 that he thought the most likely ‘etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory – you know, escaped.’ He said he wasn’t insinuating that there was ill intent, but that was his opinion. After that 10-second sound bite, he told Vanity Fair he was ‘threatened and ostracized because I proposed another hypothesis.’ At the time, the Wuhan lab leak was widely considered a ‘fringe theory’ at best, in favor of transmission from an animal to a human.

The Vanity Fair article said ‘death threats flooded his inbox’ from strangers who said he was being racist to prominent scientists, even some he considered friends. One told him to ‘wither and die,’ Vanity Fair reported. ‘I expected it from politicians. I didn’t expect it from science,’ Redfield said. Stephen Goldstein, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Utah, wrote an opinion piece on Webpagetoday on April 5 shooting down Redfield’s assertions on CNN. ‘Questions are undoubtedly going to persist about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 until, and if, a definitive answer is uncovered (and perhaps beyond),’ Goldstein wrote. ‘Until then, it’s imperative that leaders in science, public health, and government continue to call for rigorous study and stick to the science of viral evolution and viral ecology in their public commentary. ‘One of the fundamental principles of a life in science is to admit what you don’t know, and never be afraid to look it up. That’s where Redfield falls short, unfortunately on a big stage.’

[..] The magazine outlined the first moments Redfield heard about a mysterious new pneumonia affecting people in a Wuhan market from Dr. George Fu Gao, head of the Chinese CDC, on January 3, 2020. Redfield told Vanity Fair that he thought it was odd that family clusters were getting sick, and Gao later told Redfield that many cases had nothing to do with the market. That’s when it became apparent the virus was jumping from person to person, and Redfield told Vanity Fair he immediately thought of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He wanted to send researchers to the facility to rule it out, but the Chinese didn’t allow it, Vanity Fair reported. ‘A team could rule it out as a source of the outbreak in just a few weeks, by testing researchers there for antibodies,’ according to Vanity Fair.

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“All you need is for an entire profession involved in some very dangerous research to realize that they ****ed up and believe that through their ****up one percent or more of the population in their nation is about to die..”

Where’s The Tar and Feathers? (Denninger)

The so-called “MSM” isn’t even debating these parts of the email dump — they’re playing Ostrich instead, hoping they can bury it by “touting” all the “pressure” that was seen in the trove while ignoring that the archive damns not one man but entire professions including the vaccine/pharma connection. Yes, there is even evidence that the intentional refusal to look at and use existing drugs and the “decision” on how they were going to deal with this goes back that far, before the first American died. Bluntly put these people didn’t just ignore the evidence that accumulated by the summer months they literally ignored it all the way back to the start and thus it can be reasonably argued they are personally responsible for all of the deaths. If you want to know how you generate international hysteria you don’t need some cabal pulling a puppet string.

All you need is for an entire profession involved in some very dangerous research to realize that they ****ed up and believe that through their ****up one percent or more of the population in their nation is about to die with nothing they can do about it, and if it gets pinned on them as it should since they caused it every one of them deserves to be swinging from a rope. Oh, incidentally, Fauci also knew that masks in the general population were worthless. He pointed this out directly; that the virus was too small and would go right though it. His own words folks, as I’ve repeatedly pointed out but cannot say as “it’s against the consensus of experts”, according to Google, Facebook, Twitter and others, without being de-monetized, having videos pulled and risking being banhammered.

Now we know factually that Fauci stated this himself, so now the media and other “tech companies” are enforcing a position that the so-called “expert” generated with an intentional lie and they’ve maintained and forced that intentional lie for a year and are continuing to do so to this day. Now you know how the hysteria, cover-ups and outright lying happened. Now contaminate that with pharma money and you get what we’re doing now.

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This reads like a vaccine ad. “..the virus really is under control, nationwide and in every state, thanks almost entirely to the vaccines.”

But remember this graph, and remember they refused to use HCQ and ivermectin.

Covid-19 Cases Hit Lowest Point In US Since Pandemic Began (Axios)

The U.S. has brought new coronavirus infections down to the lowest level since March 2020, when the pandemic began. Nearly every week for the past 56 weeks, Axios has tracked the change — more often than not, the increase — in new COVID-19 infections. Those case counts are now so low, the virus is so well contained, that this will be our final weekly map. The U.S. averaged roughly 16,500 new cases per day over the past week, a 30% improvement over the week before. New cases declined in 43 states and held steady in the other seven. The official case counts haven’t been this low since Americans went into lockdown in March last year — when the pandemic was still new, no one knew how long this would go on, and inadequate testing meant that cases were undercounted.

Overall, roughly 33 million Americans — about 10% of the population — have tested positive for COVID-19. About 595,000 people have died from the virus in the U.S., making it deadlier for Americans than the past 80 years of wars and other armed military conflicts combined, including World War II. The U.S. largely failed to contain the virus until the vaccines arrived. Cities and businesses began shutting down last March. From there, the virus rolled into a second wave last summer, when cases climbed to over 65,000 per day, on average, and hospitals in many parts of the country said they were overwhelmed. That failure was then eclipsed in the winter, when hundreds of thousands of people per day were contracting the virus and deaths climbed over 3,000 per day for about a month.

But now, the virus really is under control, nationwide and in every state, thanks almost entirely to the vaccines. Just over half of American adults are now fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. Cases and deaths are still soaring around the world, especially in the developing world, and the Biden administration is facing consistently mounting pressure to export more vaccines, now that the U.S. has contained the virus. The U.S. was never able to control the virus without vaccines, and it still can’t. The risk is still about as high as it’s ever been for unvaccinated people, as the Washington Post recently reported. An average of about 500 Americans per day are still dying from COVID-19, almost all of them unvaccinated.

There will still be some localized outbreaks in the U.S., especially in areas where relatively few people are vaccinated. But they will likely be small, and vaccinated people will be protected. Over time, the immunity from vaccines will likely wane, which, together with new variants of the virus, will likely require booster shots to stay ahead of another outbreak. For now, though, the U.S. has finally gotten the virus down to a level that just about every expert agrees is safe. Fewer than 20,000 cases per day, spread across the U.S. population of 331.5 million people, is a relatively low number of cases, and that number continues to improve across the board.

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Why not simply get ivermectin? Too cheap?

EU Purchases Its First Monoclonal Antibodies Cocktail For Covid-19 (RT)

The European Union has announced the purchase of 55,000 doses of the Roche-Regeneron Covid-19 drug, marking its first foray into potential treatments involving a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies. The EU announced it secured the shipment of the doses on Wednesday, as the bloc seeks to expand its portfolio of drugs and explores potentially promising treatments that can help in the fight against the virus. The deal was agreed earlier this year but the details were only confirmed on Thursday by an EU spokesperson, who said 55,000 doses of the single-shot treatment had been purchased. Roche stated that the company’s contract will cover 37 countries in Europe, including the UK and other non-EU nations. The cost of the shipment has not been made public by the EU or the pharmaceutical companies.


While the deal agreed between the companies and the EU is for the drug’s infusion version, there is also a shot that has been tested and developed. The Roche-Regeneron treatment is still awaiting formal approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) before the shipment is dispatched, with formal authorization expected between August and October 2021. The EMA is currently in the process of conducting a rolling review of preliminary data. The Roche-Regeneron Covid-19 treatment has already been granted emergency US approval for patients with mild to moderate symptoms, with Washington ordering 1.5 million doses. The monoclonal antibodies treatment seeks to replicate or boost the body’s natural immune response, helping to support Covid-19 patients who are at high risk of developing severe disease.

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Google translate. Holland closed schools not to protect children, but to make parents stay home. Think about how crazy that is.

The Netherlands Used Children As A Weapon In The Fight Against Corona (AD)

Due to the Dutch corona policy to close schools and thus keep parents at home, children have been used as a means to fight the epidemic. Our cabinet receives that hard slap on the fingers today in the annual worldwide children’s rights report, the KidsRights Index. According to the makers, the Netherlands has set a very bad example internationally, by not even trying to keep schools open safely. With all the consequences that entails for the mental health of our youth. The corona guidelines from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child have also been neglected. Youth has not been given any priority in Dutch policy, it sounds.

Statements by corona minister Hugo de Jonge, dated mid-December 2020, are presented as proof. Then De Jonge indeed mentioned on television as the reason why the cabinet decided to close the schools, that parents with children sitting at home will therefore start working from home more quickly. When parents take their children to school, that is another moment of contact, De Jonge explained at the time. “And we also learned from the first wave, when the schools were also closed, that the fact that primary education does not provide physical education also ensures that parents adhere better to another advice, namely: work from home as much as possible. ”, said the minister at the time.

“Children’s rights have been put in second place by the cabinet during corona time,” Marc Dullaert, founder of the international children’s rights organization KidsRights, now told this site. “They were the ankle bracelet for parents. These had to be kept at home in order to effectively fight the epidemic. At the expense of their mental health.” In the first phase, when everyone was looking for the right approach, this was understandable according to Dullaert. ,,But De Jonge’s statements came at a time when it was really no longer acceptable, in the second phase. And other countries – such as Belgium and Sweden – have done everything they can to keep the schools open, so there were alternatives on the table.”

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“..it has a fatality rate of around 54%..”

Delhi Reports Over 1,000 Cases Of ‘Black Fungus’ Amid Shortage Of Drugs (RT)

The number of cases of so-called black fungus, or mucormycosis, has almost doubled in Delhi over the past seven days, reaching 1,044 infections, the local health minister has said. The disease has particularly affected India’s Covid patients. A further 440 people have been diagnosed in the city since last week, when the number of afflicted patients stood at 600. Health minister Satyendra Jain said on Thursday that 89 people had succumbed to the disease in Delhi to date, while 92 others had recovered. The shortage of drugs to treat mucormycosis still remained a problem for the city of 29 million, the minister added. Cases of black fungus have been on the rise in India during the harsh second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.


As of May 25, the country saw 11,700 infections, which prompted several states to declare mucormycosis an epidemic. It also soon became clear that the health authorities didn’t have sufficient quantities of the antifungal drug Amphotericin B for the number of patients. Capitalizing on the weakened immune system in Covid sufferers, the fungi most commonly enter the human body through the nose and mouth before spreading to the lungs, heart, or brain. Its symptoms include facial swelling and black lesions – hence its name – and it has a fatality rate of around 54%. The spike in black fungus incidences among Indian coronavirus patients has been largely linked to the steroids and anti-inflammatory drugs prescribed during their treatment for Covid-19.

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The US did this to Ukraine.

Nord Stream 2 To Cost Kiev $3 Billion In Transit Fees A Year – Zelensky (RT)

The completion of the controversial Nord Stream 2 project will deprive Ukraine of about $3 billion annually, with the country’s pipelines no longer necessary for the transportation of Russian gas to Western Europe. That’s according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who told a delegation from the US Congress that America should do what it can to prevent Nord Stream 2 from being completed. Once finished, the pipeline will connect Germany directly to Russia via the Baltic Sea. It aims to protect Berlin’s energy security and make the process less reliant on third countries transiting gas, thereby lowering the price. As things stand, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, around 100km remains to be completed, which should be achieved by the end of 2021.


“Only the United States and the administration of President Joe Biden can prevent the completion and commissioning of Nord Stream 2,” Zelensky explained. “Nord Stream 2 will disconnect Ukraine from gas supplies, which means ‘disconnecting’ us from at least $3 billion a year… We will have nothing to pay for the Ukrainian Army.” According to the Ukrainian leader, without this money, the country will no longer have a “powerful and well-supplied army” to continue “defending Europe and European values.” The construction of Nord Stream 2 has been significantly hindered by US sanctions, with Washington imposing numerous packages of measures against companies involved in the building, maintenance, insurance, and certification of the project. The American authorities have claimed that its completion would “undermine Europe’s overall energy security and stability.” However, some have accused the Americans of opposing the pipeline for economic reasons, as the country looks to increase its exports of liquefied natural gas to the continent.

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They’ll move into gold.

Russia’s $186 Billion Sovereign Wealth Fund Dumps All Dollar Assets (ZH)

Following a series of corporate cyberattacks that American intelligence agencies have blamed on Russian actors, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund (officially the National Wellbeing Fund) has decided to dump all of its dollars and dollar-denominated assets in favor of those denominated in euros, yuan – or simply buying precious metals like gold, which Russia’s central bank has increasingly favored for its own reserves. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov made the announcement Thursday morning at the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. “We can make this change rather quickly, within a month,” Siluanov told reporters Thursday.

He explained that the Kremlin is moving to reduce exposure to US assets as President Biden threatens more economic sanctions against Russia following the latest ransomware attacks. The transfer will affect $119 billion in liquid assets, Bloomberg reported, but the sales will largely be executed through the Russian Central bank and its massive reserves, limiting the market impact and reducing visibility on what exactly the sovereign wealth fund will be buying. “The central bank can make these changes to the Wellbeing Fund without resorting to market operations,” said Sofya Donets, economist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow. “This in some sense a technical thing.”

Jordan Rochester, currency strategist at Nomura International PLC, said, “This is a transfer of euros from the central bank to the wealth fund, we’ll then see the central bank the holder of the USDs and it’s up to them to manage it. No initial market impact.” The news isn’t a complete surprise: The Bank of Russia, Russia’s central bank, has steadily reduced its dollar holdings over the last few years amid increasing sanctions pressure from the US and Europe. That trend continued through President Trump’s term. Just a few days ago, we reported that the Russian parliament had just authorized the sovereign wealth fund to buy gold through the central bank. However, the central bank reports its holdings with a six-month lag, making it impossible to determine its current holdings.

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Brilliant Ali on how he wants to be remembered.

 

 


The red train, Landwasserviadukt, Switzerland. Drone photo by Sebastianmzh

 

 

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