Pandemic 2020

Biosecurity experts questioned whether it was a deliberate attack, and international security analysts and biodefense experts deliberated how to read the situation—acutely aware that biosafety breaches in a similar facility 40 years ago had caused a large and deadly anthrax outbreak that eventually exposed the Soviet Union’s prohibited biowarfare activities.


https://thebulletin.org/2019/11/what-happened-after-an-explosion-at-a-russian-disease-research-lab-called-vector/

DIY-HP-LED said:

Someone calling in sick with covid a second time? Time off work or new variants? Perhaps you could ask them to come in and see Karen to make sure they are really sick? Just give her a private office to conduct the interview. I wonder how the office will react to mandatory vaccinations by your employer? Could be a useful strategy for shedding morons and those in management who can't think logically!

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We have had two people test positive for Covid about six months after they tested positive originally (we demand documentation in order to qualify for the two week disability pay).

Mask wearing rate is down to about 30% and social distancing, difficult at best considering the physical layout of the operation, is pretty much non existent despite corporate's entreaties.

Just putting it out there for anybody that may think they are invulnerable.

captainmorgan said:

Since early on I've had the belief that covid leaked from the lab accidentally. The wet market story doesn't hold water, if it spread from there why wasn't there any outbreaks at the wildlife farms supplying the Wuhan market?

Origin of Covid — Following the Clues

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted lives the world over for more than a year. Its death toll will soon reach three million people. Yet the origin of pandemic remains uncertain: the political agendas…

nicholaswade.medium.com

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An interesting essay and convincing, it's sure to rock some boats in the scientific community, there should be a split emerging between virologists and epidemiologist. There are a lot of pissed off people in the medical world and scientific community and I doubt if this will be suppressed, if other qualified people see any validity to it. I'd look for funding in this problematic area of viral research to be quietly curtailed as an initial move and more tightly regulated in the future. As for a public scientific shit storm, we will see, you'd have to have your ducks lined up real good to start destroying careers and reputations. This guy is a science reporter so he has little skin to lose, but this work could spark a deeper dive by others.

Those aren't wild animals sold at the wet markets, China set up a farm system to raise those animals. There were never any reports of covid at the farms early on. China has since shut down that system claiming it was the source but there was never any reports coming from it, I think the shut down was to take attention away from the lab.

captainmorgan said:

The wet market story doesn't hold water,

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That was pretty much debunked nearly a year ago.

What they believe happened is the virus jumped from animal to human somewhere in a western province, that it spread to several people there, and that it was brought into Wuhan by people dealing in that wet market where it started spreading there very rapidly in the more heavily populated area.

It's not that the wet market caused it, it's that the travel from the animal farmers in the west brought it there while they were sick and probably didn't even know it yet.

"This was surprising because both the SARS1 and MERS viruses had left copious traces in the environment. The intermediary host species of SARS1 was identified within four months of the epidemic’s outbreak, and the host of MERS within nine months. Yet some 15 months after the SARS2 pandemic began, and a presumably intensive search, Chinese researchers had failed to find either the original bat population, or the intermediate species to which SARS2 might have jumped, or any serological evidence that any Chinese population, including that of Wuhan, had ever been exposed to the virus prior to December 2019. Natural emergence remained a conjecture which, however plausible to begin with, had gained not a shred of supporting evidence in over a year"

I looked it up. Yes they found the intermediate host, civets in the wet markets, as they tested the animal and it had the virus. So it is not a question of they found it so easy why have they not found the host this time? Basically it was right under their nosed, no reason it has to be. It took them years of sampling bat viruses until they found the bat that carried the original virus. In the author's language in the article he shows his bias. Even he says his is just conjecture.

'every stain has a story'


hell, they'll make reality tv out of anything these days..they literally want you to pay $4.99 for access to this.

Let em die!, at least the republicans are consistently sociopathic, they seem to be allergic to decency and integrity.
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House Republicans urge opposition to vaccine patent waiver | TheHill

House Republicans urge opposition to vaccine patent waiver
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday urged the U.S. trade representative to continue opposing a waiver to loosen patent and intellectual property protections on coronavirus vaccines.

The Biden administration is facing pressure from the international community, drug pricing advocates and congressional Democrats to back a move that would waive an international intellectual property agreement that protects pharmaceutical trade secrets.

The waiver proposal is being spearheaded by India and South Africa, which argue it would enable lower-income countries to manufacture the vaccines themselves, especially in light of the record-breaking wave of COVID-19 infections in India.

The Biden administration is expected to set its position clearly at a World Trade Organization meeting on Wednesday.

In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, the Republicans, led by Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Darrell Issa (Calif.), said the waiver would do little to improve public health.
....

We probably won't reach herd immunity against COVID-19 any time soon, but it's OK, experts say

Herd immunity looks like an increasingly high bar, and it may be out of reach. But that's no reason to despair. It's not herd immunity or bust. The closer we get, the more we can return to normal life.

Read in CBC News: https://apple.news/AMKkjpVwZStejSORqVCJWCw

CunningCanuk said:

We probably won't reach herd immunity against COVID-19 any time soon, but it's OK, experts say

Herd immunity looks like an increasingly high bar, and it may be out of reach. But that's no reason to despair. It's not herd immunity or bust. The closer we get, the more we can return to normal life.

Read in CBC News: https://apple.news/AMKkjpVwZStejSORqVCJWCw

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I think for now, we should be talking about the vaccination rate of adults over 18, in Canada kids 12-18 might be protected by fall, if we are lucky. Vaccine supplies should be rolling in at a much higher rate moving forward than they've been. I've seen more optimistic figures than those quoted in the article of 80 to as high as 90% of Canadian adults getting the jab. If you factor in incentives to younger people like cash payments for vaccination and disincentives like travel restrictions, educational and employment requirements we should achieve high rates of immunization. I can see just the hardcore religious lunatics and antisocial assholes left among the adult population. We don't have a rightwing sucker collection and disposal system like they have in the states, but do get influenced by their doings.

I think by fall we should be up near the 80% inoculation rate among adults over 18, but these people do this shit for a living. I think mask wearing is a good predicter of vaccine acceptance, many of those who eschew a mask will probably do the same for a vaccine. I also think that the adult vaccination rate will vary quite a bit from province to province for cultural reasons, ditto for the states. Some provinces on the east coast may get as high as 90% among adults by fall and Alberta will most likely be at less than 70%.

Great news. The pandemic has been cancelled in Florida.

injinji said:

Great news. The pandemic has been cancelled in Florida.

Florida Gov. DeSantis suspends all remaining Covid restrictions: 'We are no longer in a state of emergency'

Private businesses can still require masks and enforce social distancing and other protective measures.

www.cnbc.com

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So has the right to vote if you're black and peacefully protest. They're on a roll!

Great news for us single shot Canadians and Americans too, but perhaps it might make some hesitant about the second jab and they might think they don't need it or the pain in the arm that goes with it.
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S.Korea says AstraZeneca, Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines 87% effective after first shot | Reuters

S.Korea says AstraZeneca, Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines 87% effective after first shot

One dose of COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) and Pfizer (PFE.N) was 86.6% effective in preventing infections among people aged 60 and older, real world data released by South Korea showed on Wednesday.

Data by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) showed the Pfizer vaccine, jointly developed by BioNTech , was 89.7% effective in preventing infection at least two weeks after a first dose was given, while the AstraZeneca shot was 86.0% effective.

Its analysis is based on more than 3.5 million people in South Korea aged 60 and older for two months from Feb. 26 and included 521,133 people who received a first dose of either Pfizer or AstraZeneca shot.

There were 1,237 COVID-19 cases in the data and only 29 were from the vaccinated group, the KDCA said.

"It is shown that both vaccines provide a high protection against the disease after the first dose. (People) should get full vaccinations according to recommended schedule, as the protection rate will go up further after a second dose," it said.

The findings come as South Korea seeks to drum up participation in its immunisation drive after reports about potential safety issues discouraged some people from getting vaccinated. read more

"Around 95% of people who died from the coronavirus in our country were senior citizens aged 60 or older, and the vaccines will sharply lower risks for those people," health ministry official Yoon Tae-ho told a briefing on Wednesday.

Yoon said the possibility of side effects including blood clotting are "extremely low" and they are mostly curable.

South Korea has so far vaccinated 6.7% of its 52 million strong population, but has set an ambitious target of giving shots to 70% of its people by September and reaching herd immunity by November.

Starting on Wednesday, South Koreans who are fully vaccinated and show a negative COVID-19 test and no symptoms will be exempted from the two-week mandatory quarantine upon their return from overseas travel, to encourages more vaccinations.

The KDCA reported 676 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight on Tuesday, bringing the country's total infections to 124,945, with 1,847 deaths.

The India variant B1617 is now surging in the UK pushing out the highly contagious B117.

And since we didn't bother restricting any flights from India until yesterday, you can bet it's already here and already spreading like wildfire.

There are some claims that B1617 is much more infectious but less deadly. That may mean milder cases but is there any difference in long term damage and long covid?

captainmorgan said:

There are some claims that B1617 is much more infectious but less deadly. That may mean milder cases but is there any difference in long term damage and long covid?

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Let's hope so on the former.