Coronavirus: we separate myths from facts and give advice

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Lifting of restrictions in Scotland

Restrictions brought in before Christmas to stem the Omicron surge across Scotland are to be lifted from next Monday, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has said

Nightclubs will reopen, there will be an end to social distancing and to a three-household limit indoors, Sturgeon said, adding that the country had “turned the corner on the Omicron wave”.

But Sturgeon urged the public to remain “cautious” about socialising in larger groups, while government guidance remains to work from home wherever possible and use face coverings, with vaccine passports still in place for large-scale events.

Sturgeon said in her regular statement at Holyrood that the data suggested Omicron peaked in Scotland in the first week of January and that “we are now on the downward slope of this wave of cases” as hospital and intensive care admissions were falling.

Cases were down from 36,526 new cases on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of last week to 20,268 cases reported this Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

She said that, after discussion with her cabinet, the remaining statutory measures introduced in response to Omicron – limits on indoor public events; the requirement for one-metre physical distancing between different groups in indoor public places; the requirement for table service in hospitality premises serving alcohol on the premises; and the closure of nightclubs – would be lifted from next Monday, 24 January.

From that day, the guidance asking people to stick to a three-household limit on indoor gatherings will also be lifted.

Before the statement, opposition parties and business groups called on Sturgeon to ease restrictions quickly. The Scottish Hospitality Group pointed to Scottish government research which suggested that the number of people visiting bars and restaurants has fallen while the number mixing in each other’s homes has risen.

The Scottish Conservative MSP Dr Sandesh Gulhane, the shadow cabinet secretary for health, said the statement marked “a sea change in the government’s policy, starting to shift from a rules-based approach more towards trusting the Scottish public”, but argued that the controversial vaccine passport scheme should also be scrapped.

Sturgeon said the cabinet’s decision on vaccine passports was “finely balanced”, but that if case numbers were to rise again then extending the scheme to all hospitality venues “may well be a more proportionate alternative to other, more restrictive measures”.

The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, said that, despite the optimism contained in the statement, “too many businesses are still teetering on the brink” and called for a clearer framework of support: “We need a system that sets clear trigger points on what people can expect when cases rise – which lays out what support people will be entitled to and when.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... n-scotland

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Mouthwashes Might Stop COVID

A Rutgers study shows two types of mouthwash disrupt SARS-CoV-2 in laboratory

Researchers at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine have found evidence that two types of mouthwash disrupt the COVID-19 virus under laboratory conditions, preventing it from replicating in a human cell.

The study, published in the journal Pathogens, found that Listerine and the prescription mouthwash Chlorhexidine disrupted the virus within seconds after being diluted to concentrations that would mimic actual use. Further studies are needed to test real-life efficacy in humans.

The study was conducted in a lab using concentrations of the mouthwash and the time it would take to contact tissues to replicate conditions found in the mouth, said Daniel H. Fine, the paper’s senior author and chair of the school’s Department of Oral Biology.

The study found two other mouthwashes showed promise in potentially providing some protection in preventing viral transmission: Betadine, which contains Povidone-iodine, and Peroxal, which contains hydrogen peroxide.

However, only Listerine and Chlorhexidine disrupted the virus with little impact on skin cells inside the mouth that provide a protective barrier against the virus.

“Both Povidone-iodine and Peroxal caused significant skin cell death in our studies, while both Listerine and Chlorhexidine had minimal skin-cell killing at concentrations that simulated what would be found in daily use,” said Fine.

The team studied the efficacy of mouthwash potential for preventing viral transmission to better understand how dental providers can be protected from aerosols exhaled by patients. “As dentists, we’re right there in a patient’s face. We wanted to know if there’s something that might lower the viral load,’’ said coauthor Eileen Hoskin, an assistant professor at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine.

Fine cautions the public against relying on mouthwash as a way to slow the spread until it is proven in clinical trials on humans.

“The ultimate goal would be to determine whether rinsing two or three times a day with an antiseptic agent with active anti-viral activity would have the potential to reduce the ability to transmit the disease. But this needs to be investigated in a real-world situation,’’ he said.

Previous research has shown various types of antiseptic mouthwashes can disrupt the novel coronavirus and temporarily prevent transmission, but this was one of the first studies that examined antiseptic rinse concentrations, time of contact and the skin-cell killing properties that simulated oral conditions. The study was conducted by a team of dental school scientists and virologists at the Public Health Research Institute.

“Since the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID-19 enters primarily through the oral and nasal cavity, oral biologists should be included in these studies because they have an in-depth understanding of oral infectious diseases,” said Fine.

Other Rutgers authors included Theresa Chang and Chuan Xu at the Public Health Research Institute based at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and Kenneth Markowitz and Carla Cugini at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine.

https://www.rutgers.edu/news/certain-mo ... ansmission

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UK restrictions to end

Mr Johnson, speaking to the House of Commons after a tumultuous PMQS, said that working from guidance, a requirement to wear face masks and the use of Covid passports in some settings would be dropped

He said more than 90 per cent of over-60s across the UK had now had booster vaccines to protect them, and scientists believed the Omicron wave had peaked.

He said the Government had taken a "different path" to much of Europe and the "data are showing that, time and again, this Government got the toughest decisions right".

People will no longer be told to work from home and, from Thursday next week when Plan B measures lapse, mandatory Covid certification will end, Mr Johnson said.

“Organisations can of course choose to use the NHS Covid pass voluntarily but we will end the compulsory use of Covid safety certification in England,” Mr Johnson said.

The Government’s guidance to work from home will end immediately, he said. “From now on the Government is no longer asking people to work from home. People should now speak to their employers about arrangements for returning to the office,” Mr Johnson said.

The Government will also no longer mandate the wearing of face masks anywhere from next Thursday and they will be scrapped in classrooms from this Thursday.

On face coverings, the Prime Minister said: “Having looked at the data carefully the Cabinet concluded that once regulations lapse, the Government will no longer mandate the wearing of face masks.”

Mr Johnson said the Government will also further ease restrictions on visiting care homes, adding that Health Secretary Sajid Javid will set out further details in the coming days.

People will still be required to self isolate if they test positive for Covid, Mr Johnson added. The rules were changed on Monday shortening the period of isolation to five from seven days, providing they can produce two negative tests. Mr Johnson added: “There will soon come a time when we remove the legal requirement to isolate altogether.”

The news comes as Covid infection levels are falling in most parts of the UK for the first time since early December.

The changes are as follows:

WFH guidance dropped from today
Covid passports no longer required from next Thursday
Face masks in schools dropped tomorrow
Face masks in the wider community dropped from next Thursday
Covid self-isolation stays although likely to go from March 24

Mr Johnson said the Government would set out its "long-term strategy for living with Covid-19", adding: "Explaining how we hope and intend to protect our liberty and avoid restrictions in future by relying instead on medical advances, especially the vaccines which have already saved so many lives.

"But to make that possible we must all remain cautious during these last weeks of winter. There are still over 16,000 people in hospital in England alone. The pandemic is not over."

Mr Johnson insisted Omicron is "not a mild disease for everyone", including the unvaccinated, and advised people to continue washing their hands, letting fresh air in, testing and self-isolating if positive.

The Prime Minister went on: "This week the World Health Organisation said that while the global situation remains challenging, the United Kingdom can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is no accident of history.

"Confronted by the nation's biggest challenge since the Second World War, and the worst pandemic since 1918, any government would get some things wrong - but this Government got the big things right."

But the announcement sparked warnings from health groups.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the council of the British Medical Association, which represents doctors, said it "risks creating a false sense of security" while infections remain high and the NHS is "still under crippling pressure".

"Removing all restrictions risks a rebound in the number of infections across society, would inevitably increase hospitalisation rates, further destabilise patient care and drive up the rate of staff absences and the number of people with long Covid," he added.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation representing health bodies, said now "is not the time for complacency about this virus" as he warned the NHS is "under significant pressure".

"We will have greater freedoms but the cost - at least in the short term - will be that more people are likely to get sick with Covid, and that the health service will continue to have to deal with the extra burdens that this creates," he said.

Downing Street later said the Government's scientific advisers had "no objection to the approach taken" in ditching England's Plan B.

Asked if the Sage panel had advised the Government to maintain mandatory mask-wearing, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "No, we are not receiving advice from the CMO (chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty) and CSA (chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance) to keep that in place."

Dr Susan Hopkins, the UK Health Security Agency's chief medical adviser, told a press conference in No 10 that case rates will largely decline but "may plateau at some point", explaining that how quickly people change their behaviour will "determine how fast infection can spread in the population".

"The biggest response that we all have as individuals is to take our personal behaviour seriously and that really is driving towards vaccination uptake, as well as remembering to wear our face coverings when you're in closed spaces with people that you don't know," she added.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/plan ... 77573.html

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7 Things That Destroys

Your Immune System

Covid, cold and flu are still around, and people everywhere are terrified of being brought down by an illness spread by their families, co-workers, casual contacts in shops etc.

While these bipedal germ factories often spread illness by touching us or public items that we then touch after them, they’re not always to blame for your aches, sniffles or sore throat.

Lifestyle and diet choices often determine whether you get sick more than your germ-y acquaintances.

Keep reading to discover several ways your habits could be putting you at risk.

1. Smoking

It boggles the mind to think that with all the known health consequences associated with tobacco use, some people still do it. But if you’re smoking this cold and flu season, know that the nicotine exposure is making your immune system a sitting duck for illness. Yes, even if you’re smoking e-cigarettes.

Nicotine increases cortisol levels, while reducing B cell antibody formation and T cells’ response to antigens. A study published in PLOS One last February also found that vapor from e-cigarettes may damage the lungs and make them more susceptible to infection. If you hate wasting PTO days because you’re sick, now’s the time to quit smoking for good.

2. Excessive Drinking

Drinking too much is a one-two punch for your immune system. First, it deprives the body of valuable immune-boosting nutrients. Second, “alcohol, like sugar, consumed in excess can reduce the ability of white cells to kill germs.

High doses of alcohol suppress the ability of the white blood cells to multiply, inhibit the action of killer white cells on cancer cells, and lessen the ability of macrophages to produce tumor necrosis factors,” explains Dr. Sears.

“Damage to the immune system increases in proportion to the quantity of alcohol consumed. Amounts of alcohol that are enough to cause intoxication are also enough to suppress immunity.” Remember that at all your holiday parties.

3. Lack Of Sleep

Sleep is the time when your body recharges and heals. If you’re not getting enough sleep, your body is denied the downtime that’s necessary to stay on top of invading pathogens.

“Previous studies have associated sleep restriction and sleep deprivation with the development of diseases like obesity, diabetes and hypertension. Others have shown that sleep helps sustain the functioning of the immune system, and that chronic sleep loss is a risk factor for immune system impairment,” reports The Sleep Foundation.

4. Stress

Ultimately, a lack of sleep triggers the same response as chronic stress. Although we might not realize it, the physical and emotional demands of our everyday responsibilities can indeed drain our immune system’s ability to fight off bacteria and viruses.

When your body is constantly fighting to repair the damage caused by stress, it has fewer resources available to address invading pathogens.

5. Eating Junk Food

Added sugars lurk in almost every single processed food available to us, even the savory ones. “Eating or drinking 100 grams (8 tbsp.) of sugar, the equivalent of about two cans of soda, can reduce the ability of white blood cells to kill germs by forty percent,” explains Dr. Sears.

The negative effects of sugar on the immune system start less than thirty minutes after consumption and may last for five hours. So you might want to rethink eating that morning donut while sitting next to your sniffling coworker.

6. Exercising Too Much

So far most of the things on this list were obviously negative, but exercise?! That’s right, overdoing it at the gym can be just as bad for your immune system as not exercising enough.

Too much strenuous exercise can be debilitating for the body and make it more vulnerable to infection, according to a December 2012 review in Acta Clinica Croatica.

But a 2014 study suggests that regular, moderate physical activity can make you less susceptible to viruses. So keep exercising during the winter, but be careful not to overdo it.

7. Being A Loner

All this talk of contagious people might make you want to become a hermit but isolating yourself can be detrimental to your immune system.

Researched published in the Journal of Neuroimmunology found that anxiety caused by loneliness actually suppresses the immune system and triggers more oxidative stress, or damage caused by free radicals.

https://www.lispine.com/blog/7-habits-d ... ne-system/

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4th shot of COVID vaccine

JERUSALEM, Jan 17 (Reuters) - A fourth shot of COVID-19 vaccine boosts antibodies to even higher levels than the third jab but it is not enough to prevent Omicron infections, according to a preliminary study in Israel

Israel's Sheba Medical Center has given second booster shots in a trial among its staff and is studying the effect of the Pfizer booster in 154 people after two weeks and the Moderna booster in 120 people after one week, said Gili Regev-Yochay, director of the Infectious Diseases Unit.

These were compared to a control group that did not receive the fourth shot. Those in the Moderna group had previously received three shots of Pfizer's vaccine, the hospital said.

The vaccines led to a increase in the number of antibodies "even a little bit higher than what we had after the third dose", said Regev-Yochay.

"Yet, this is probably not enough for the Omicron," she told reporters. "We know by now that the level of antibodies needed to protect and not to got infected from Omicron is probably too high for the vaccine, even if it's a good vaccine."

The findings, which the hospital said were the first of its kind in the world, were preliminary and not yet published.

Israel was the fastest country to roll out initial vaccinations against COVID-19 a year ago and last month started offering a fourth shot, or a second booster, to the most vulnerable and high-risk groups.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 022-01-17/

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How to boost your immune system

Do not smoke

Do not drink alcohol

Eat a diet high in fruits and vegetables

Exercise regularly

Maintain a healthy weight

Get adequate sleep

Try to minimize stress

Take steps to avoid infection


washing your hands properly

cooking meats thoroughly

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Vaccine Made 9 New Billionaires

As many of the world’s wealthiest people wrap up virtual talks today at the World Economic Forum based in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam reports the incomes of 99% of the world’s population dropped during the pandemic while the world’s 10 richest men saw their wealth double

Meanwhile, vaccine profits have minted at least nine new billionaires at Moderna, BioNTech and China’s CanSino, amassing a combined new wealth of over $19 billion. To discuss the rise of billionaires and the policies that got us here, we speak with New York Times global correspondent Peter Goodman, author of the new book Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World. Goodman says billionaires’ championing of “stakeholder capitalism” is ruining U.S. democracy, and attributes the Omicron variant to “our unwillingness to challenge patents.”

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form:

AMY GOODMAN: The World Economic Forum is wrapping up today. Many of the world’s wealthiest people and world leaders have been gathering virtually this week for the annual event that normally takes place in Davos, Switzerland. The forum was held online for the second consecutive year due to the pandemic. Earlier this week, Dr. Michael Ryan of the World Health Organization warned participants of the growing vaccine inequity crisis.

DR. MICHAEL RYAN: If we look at the population of the world in total, over half of the world’s population has received two doses of vaccine. But if we look at in Africa, our African regional office states only 7%. So the reality is that the world is moving towards a 70% goal; the problem is we are leaving huge swathes of the world behind.

AMY GOODMAN: John Nkengasong, the director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also spoke at the virtual World Economic Forum.

JOHN NKENGASONG: So, what we have seen over the last two years is really total collapse of global cooperation and solidarity, period. I think there is absolutely, absolutely no reason why the continent of Africa should be lagging behind and having 7% of the population fully immunized, a continent of 1.2 billion people. It’s totally unacceptable.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Oxfam reports the world’s 10 richest men saw their wealth double during the pandemic, from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion, while the incomes of 99% of the world’s population dropped. Oxfam declared, “Widening economic, gender, and racial inequalities — as well as the inequality that exists between countries — are tearing our world apart,” unquote. This has led to growing calls for a wealth tax on the world’s billionaires.

Well, to look at some of the billionaires taking part in the World Economic Forum, we’re joined by New York Times correspondent Peter Goodman, author of the new book Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World.

Talk about what inspired this book, Peter. And talk about who was in Davos and the effect that they have on the world.

PETER GOODMAN: Yeah, you bet. Thanks for having me.

So, what inspired the book is the reality that, as you quite correctly report, we are in the middle of a global emergency. And it’s an emergency — I’m of course referring to the pandemic — that has been extended, worsened, intensified by the reality that a handful of people, the billionaire class — the people I refer to in the book as “Davos Man,” which comes from attendees of the World Economic Forum, you know, this glittering gathering of the most powerful, wealthy people on Earth — these are the people who have rigged our system so that most of the wealth flows in their direction, at the direct expense everyone else.

And I think vaccines are a perfect example. I mean, it’s well and good that in Davos they’re talking about vaccine inequity, just like they talk about climate change and gender imbalance and systematic racism and voting rights and all sorts of other super important issues about which they not only do very little — I mean, they put out some great reports — but then they go home, these participants, and they commence the battle to protect their privileges, to prevent actual redistribution of wealth.

You know, the forum convenes under the mantra “committed to improving the state of the world,” which is a handy phrase that connotes change. These are the ultimate beneficiaries of the status quo.

And if you look at the fact that we have frontline medical workers going to treat COVID patients in places like South Asia and Africa while we’re boosting children in the United States, you know, that sort of tells you everything we need to know, because we’ve accepted one of the key talking points of Davos Man, that we either affirm the system we’ve got, where pharmaceutical executives get to sell their vaccines to the highest bidder.

They monopolize the gains of publicly financed research for their own benefit, and the result is this gaping, lopsided distribution — that is not only a humanitarian catastrophe, it’s a catastrophe even for people in wealthy countries, because it’s an open invitation to the Omicron variant.

We are paying the monopoly royalties for vaccines to companies like Pfizer through our closed schools and disruption to our children’s education, through death, fear and hits to economic livelihood. That’s why I wrote the book.

AMY GOODMAN: So, why don’t you lay out who these men are?

PETER GOODMAN: Well, so, my book focuses on five key Davos Men, but I could have picked, you know, 20 others and would have ended up with the same story.

I focus on Marc Benioff, who’s the CEO of Salesforce, the Silicon Valley software company. He’s actually a member of the board of trustees at Davos, and he really encapsulates the Davos Man view.

He said last year, the last time they convened virtually at the forum, that CEOs are the real heroes of the pandemic — not, mind you, frontline medical workers; CEOs — because they gave us vaccines, because financiers kept credit flowing, preventing bankruptcies.

He talks about how he personally pulled strings in China to locate 50 million pieces of PPE — face masks, hand sanitizer, medical gowns — and he distributes them to frontline medical workers in the U.S. Well, that’s good. That probably actually saved people’s lives.

But it’s fair to ask: Why are we dependent upon a tech bro in Silicon Valley, in the richest, most powerful country on Earth, to outfit our frontline medical workers?

And part of the explanation is that people like Marc Benioff, who does give to philanthropic pursuits, who kicked in 10 million bucks of his own money to fund a ballot initiative in San Francisco to increase services for homeless people — his company, Salesforce, has paid the modest sum of zero in federal taxes, a couple of times, on billions in revenue.

And that makes everything else a rounding error. I mean, how are we supposed to deal with homelessness, with the lack of affordable housing; how do we pay for the infrastructure that allows entrepreneurs like Marc Benioff to run their companies, if people don’t pay their taxes? I also quote this —

AMY GOODMAN: Let me go to Marc Benioff —

PETER GOODMAN: Oh yeah, go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: — CEO of Salesforce, speaking at the World Economic Forum virtually last year.

MARC BENIOFF: In the pandemic, it was CEOs, in many, many cases, all over the world, who were the heroes. They are the ones who stepped forward with their financial resources, their corporate resources, their employees, their factories, and pivoted rapidly, not for profit but to save the world.

And just look at the many examples that we have, whether it was the aggregation of PPE, building of contact tracing systems, the development of the vaccines themselves, the development of liquidity into the system to keep the financial systems floating, development of mental health systems to give — let people have mental health capabilities at critical times.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce. According to your book, Davos Man, between late March and the middle of August 2020, Salesforce doubled in value, making the business worth more than $225 billion, Peter.

PETER GOODMAN: Yeah, that’s right. And, you know, look, it’s great that CEOs are talking about doing good. And some of them are doing good. And that’s terrific. But this idea that Benioff champions, along with Larry Fink, another guy I profile in my book — he’s the world’s largest asset manager.

He now controls $10 trillion in investments worldwide. That’s pension funds. That’s university endowments. Both of these guys champion this idea that Milton Friedmanism is over, this idea that we just maximize shareholder value, and then the wealth trickles down throughout the economy, and everything is rosy.

It’s been replaced, they tell us, by this thing that they called stakeholder capitalism. We’re catering to stakeholders now, to labor, to local communities, to society in general, to the environment. Well, that’s all well and good, but it’s always unilateral. There’s no labor unions in stakeholder capitalism.

Government does not really exist in stakeholder capitalism. It’s not a talking point. It’s all about us depending upon the goodness, the innate goodness, of people like Benioff and Fink and the other CEOs to run their companies so that everybody wins. And central to that is this idea, that is pervasive at Davos, that all solutions to problems can be found if people just earnestly debate them and find win-win solutions.

They love win-win solutions, because then that obviates sacrifice. It’s all an elaborate prophylactic against the actual exercise of democracy toward the redistribution of wealth so that we can tax wealthy people and finance the things that we actually want, like expanded healthcare and affordable housing.

I focus on the book on Steve Schwarzman, who’s the world’s largest private equity magnate, worth about $35 billion, made a fortune on the foreclosure crisis in the U.S., and then around the world.

He’s now vacuuming up homes again at distressed prices. He’s buying heavily in Florida. He’s turning homeowners into renters. And, you know, Davos Man style, the thing about these guys is they present themselves to us like they’re our saviors.

They’re not content to just make the money; they want us to give them adulation for being the good guys and taking care of our problems — again, a preventative against policies that will hold them to account. Schwarzman invested heavily in healthcare in the run-up to the pandemic.

He owns a company called TeamHealth, which is a huge staffing company that puts people in emergency rooms, where there’s just an epidemic of surprise billing — patients wheeled in, not knowing the terms of their insurance policies, discovering later that they’ve been treated by an out-of-network provider, with huge bills, collection agents hassling them. And Schwarzman has taken the opportunity of the pandemic to buy more healthcare assets.

AMY GOODMAN: According to the Financial Times, in November 2020, BlackStone founder Stephen Schwarzman defended Donald Trump’s response to the U.S. poll results during an emergency meeting of senior business leaders alarmed by the president’s claims that the election is being stolen. Financial Times describes Schwarzman as “one of Mr. Trump’s most energetic supporters on Wall Street.” Peter?

PETER GOODMAN: Oh, I mean, he funneled tens of millions of dollars into the campaigns of Trump, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Party in general. I mean, he saw in Trump the ultimate vessel for what Davos Man cares about most, and that’s tax cuts and deregulation.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s go to the world’s richest man, who completed a 10-minute suborbital flight aboard his —

PETER GOODMAN: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — Blue Origin spacecraft last summer. Jeff Bezos spoke at a news conference after his crew landed.

JEFF BEZOS: I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all of this. So, seriously, for every Amazon customer out there and every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my heart very much.

AMY GOODMAN: Very revealing, as Jeff Bezos thanks the workers for paying for this flight into space, that unforgettable image of the richest man on Earth leaving Earth as the pandemic was at its height, that we saw last year.

PETER GOODMAN: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. Some people point to quotes like that, or, you know, like what Benioff said about CEOs being the heroes, “Oh, this is a gaffe.” It’s not — these are not gaffes. These are direct insights into the worldviews of the richest people in the world, who are writing the rules for all of us.

And it was especially interesting that Bezos singled out for thanks his employees, because, you know, it would be a problem, but a smaller problem, if Bezos was worth $200 billion, and his workers at the same time weren’t doing nearly as well, but his wealth is coming because his workers are not doing well.

He did have a lot to thank them for. He kept them in harm’s way during the first wave of the pandemic, knowingly, without PPE, without protection, as COVID, we now know, was working its way through Amazon warehouses.

When Christian Smalls — who I know you’ve covered quite a bit on your program — led a labor strike in Staten Island at a major Amazon warehouse to protest the lack of protection and the lack of paid sick leave — something that did not happen by accident:

Amazon has lobbied aggressively to prevent paid sick leave from becoming the law in the United States — he was fired. Christian Smalls was fired and actually accused of violating quarantine — incredible irony given that he wanted everyone to be quarantined with pay.

And then, of course, Bezos doubles down and sends out this letter, “Dear Amazonians,” where he thanks them for their sacrifice, the warehouse workers. He applauds them for saving other people’s grandmothers, says Amazon is prioritizing the shipment of all the things that his workers don’t have, like PPE. Well, Christian Smalls tells me this is just made up. They know what’s going in the boxes.

The way he said it to me was, you know, it’s baking goods, it’s gaming consoles, it’s sex toys — it’s all the stuff people are buying while they’re stuck in their houses. And we are adding to Jeff Bezos’s fortune while his workers have to choose between their lives or their paychecks.

AMY GOODMAN: As these CEOs talk about their workers as stakeholders, maybe they are redefining the term “stakeholders,” as in they’re driving stakes into the workers’ and unions’ hearts. The effect that they have had on organizing in this country?

For example, you have the horror that happened in Illinois in December, an Amazon warehouse partially collapsing, killing at least six people, labor and rights advocates blasting Amazon following the news. Union leader Stuart Appelbaum said, “Requiring workers to work through such a major tornado warning event as this was inexcusable.”

PETER GOODMAN: Yeah, that’s right. And, you know, there’s a lot of focus now on the supposed increase in labor power through the Great Resignation, the fact that there are labor shortages.

Most of these shortages aren’t really shortages; they’re just workers deciding that they don’t accept the terms any longer — you know, the shortages of nurses, shortages of truck drivers. If you dig deep, you discover there are plenty of people who can be nurses and plenty of people who can drive trucks.

We’ve just run out of people who are willing to fall for the cons that these companies employ to try to draw people in to these impossible circumstances. And we need to remember that this current shift in the balance of power between labor and management, it could be — it could disappear as quickly as it’s materialized, because unless it turns into collective bargaining, unless it turns into rules that workers can use to actually get their fair share of the bounty of global capitalism, you know, the next crisis just very easily takes it away.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Goodman, very quickly, Jamie Dimon, you also focus on. Explain his significance.

PETER GOODMAN: Yeah. So, Jamie Dimon is significant on multiple levels. He, of course, is the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank. He heads the Business Roundtable at a time when it plays a critical role in engineering Trump’s tax cuts, a $1.5 trillion package of tax cuts, lavished on people like Jamie Dimon. He’s also running the Business Roundtable as they trot out this statement of a purpose of a corporation, which embraces stakeholder capitalism. This pledge is signed by Jeff Bezos — doesn’t seem to have stopped him from mistreating his warehouse workers.

AMY GOODMAN: And one of your chapters in your book, Davos Man, “Taxes, Taxes, Taxes. The Rest is [B.S.]”

PETER GOODMAN: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Where did the quote come from?

PETER GOODMAN: Well, that quote comes from Rutger Bregman, who is this young Dutch academic, showing up at Davos for his first time, horrified that everyone is talking about philanthropy, they’re talking about win-win solutions, they’re talking about how workers have to train themselves to realize the new opportunities.

These are the supposed solutions to inequality — everything except for the most obvious thing. And he says, “It’s like I’m at a firefighters conference, and no one’s allowed to talk about water.” And the remarkable thing — you know, that moment went viral. People may have seen that in their Twitter feed.

The remarkable thing was, the guy who’s running that panel, a guy named Edward Felsenthal, who’s the editor of Time magazine — recently purchased by Marc Benioff — he turns to Jane Goodall, who’s a naturalist, and says, “You know, what is it about us as a species that we can’t solve these problems?” — as if it’s some sort of deficiency with our species, while letting off the hook all the people who are actually in the room, who know well and good why this is. It’s because they don’t want to sacrifice. They don’t want to give up their money.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Goodman, we want to thank you for being with us, New York Times global —

PETER GOODMAN: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — economics correspondent. My final question: Do you think billionaires, and now trillionaires, have prolonged the pandemic?

PETER GOODMAN: Oh, I don’t think there’s any question that they’ve prolonged the pandemic. I mean, the fact that we have Omicron is a direct result of our unwillingness to challenge patents, to challenge the monopoly profits of companies like Pfizer and Moderna. We have effectively subsidized those profits through the tune of our own suffering. That has extended this pandemic.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us.

PETER GOODMAN: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Goodman, no relation, New York Times global economics correspondent. His new book, Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World.

https://truthout.org/video/vaccine-prof ... e-omicron/

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UK Covid cases plummeted

Data from the government’s own coronavirus dashboard of confirmed Covid cases suggests the UK has passed the peak of the Omicron wave

In the days and weeks following Christmas, the estimated number of Brits with the virus peaked. According to the ONS’s own Infection Survey, in England it was estimated that one in 15 residents contracted Covid-19. In Scotland, case levels also peaked during the same week at a similar level.

But the number of new cases is now dramatically lower. In the opening days of January, the rate for new Covid cases was more than 180,000. As of 19 January, the number had more than halved to 82,000.

The Omicron wave, which saw more confirmed infections this winter than the last, appears now to be receding.

https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-t ... obal-en-GB

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Covid endgame in Europe

Hans Kluge said it was “plausible” the region is moving towards a “kind of pandemic endgame”.

He said the Omicron variant could infect up to 60 per cent of Europeans by March.

“We anticipate that there will be a period of quiet before Covid may come back towards the end of the year, but not necessarily the pandemic coming back,” he told AFP in an interview.

However, he urged countries not to abandon caution altogether, saying other variants could still emerge.

“There is a lot of talk about endemic but endemic means... that it is possible to predict what’s going to happen. This virus has surprised (us) more than once so we have to be very careful,” Kluge said.

European countries have seen record Covid cases over the winter period as the Omicron wave swept across the continent, but signs seem to suggest this is now slowing.

The WHO’s technical lead on coronavirus, Maria van Kerkhove, also said it would be “premature” to end the requirement to self-isolate when infected.

Boris Johnson suggested last week that isolation could be ended in England from March.

It comes as Mr Johnson lifted Plan B measures in England, including scrapping work from home guidance and mandatory face masks.

Ms Kerkhove said: “I think it’s premature. I think there needs to be a clear reason of why it’s being dropped.

“If you don’t isolate cases then the virus will spread between people.”

When asked whether the end of the pandemic is in sight for the countries in Europe, Dr David Nabarro, the World Health Organisation’s special envoy for Covid-19, said on Monday: “The end is in sight, but how long is it going to take to get there?

“What sort of difficulties will we face on the way? Those are the questions that none of us can answer because this virus continues to give us challenges and surprises.”

He told Sky News: “It’s as though we’re just passing the halfway mark in a marathon and we can see that yes, there is an end and fast runners are getting through ahead of us.

“But we’ve still got a long, long way to trudge and it’s going to be tough.”

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/c ... 78361.html

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Compulsory jabs could be axed

The Government requires all front-line workers including porters, cleaners and receptionists to be double-jabbed by 1 April

This means unvaccinated NHS staff will have to have their first jab by February 3 to comply with the rules, or face redeployment or dismissal.

It has now emerged that Boris Johnson could delay the move after several MPs expressed disagreement with it.

The Prime Minister is reportedly considering “kicking it down the road” to avoid a potential Tory revolt, the Telegraph reported.

Thousands of people took to the streets in London, Birmingham and Manchester yesterday to protest compulsory Covid jabs.

It is part of a national campaign calling on healthcare workers to be given “freedom of choice”.

Hundreds protested outside the offices of the BBC in central London before marching to Trafalgar Square.

Dozens were seen throwing items at police as others laid down their uniforms.

Placards featured slogans including “No NHS mandates”, “nurses against mandates” and “my body my choice”.

One Ambulance worker left their uniform hanging in Regent’s Park emblazoned with the message: “Paramedic 9 years, clapping on Thursday, spat out on Monday.”

More than 80,000 NHS staff – 6 per cent of the total workforce – remain unvaccinated.

However, a number of Conservative MPs have urged the Prime Minister to rethink plans for the vaccine to be made compulsory for NHS staff.

Danny Kruger, Sir Desmond Swayne, and former ministers Esther McVey, Mark Harper and Andrew Murrison have called for the policy to be reviewed.

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Harper, MP for Forest of Dean, said: “We know now that the Secretary of State is being advised by his own officials – due to the lack of protection against transmission – that this needs to be rethought.

“Can I urge the Prime Minister to rethink this policy? We shouldn’t reward our NHS staff for all their dedication with the sack.”

Former minister Esther McVey added: “Over the last two years, these people have worked tirelessly on the front line and we have clapped these key workers. Can the Prime Minister now make sure he doesn’t sack them? It is utterly unjustifiable.”

“The arguments have been made well made by colleagues across the House today”, Mr Johnson replied.

But he said “it is a very difficult point when it comes to patients who have contracted fatal Covid” in hospital.

He said: “I have to think also of those who will be at the bedside of elderly and vulnerable people who are dying of nosocomial-acquired Covid, and their feelings about our failures to get vaccination rates up high enough within the NHS.

“Nobody wants to have compulsory vaccination but, since the policy was announced, rates of vaccination within the NHS have gone up notably.”

Mr Johnson added: “We will reflect on the way ahead. We don’t want to drive people out of the service but it is a professional responsibility of everybody looking after the health of others within our NHS to get vaccinated.”

The Prime Minister said the policy is “supported by the NHS themselves for patient safety”.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/comp ... 78249.html

[Anthea]

Heated testimony:
Fauci, Rand Paul trade 'lying' accusations

"I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement," Fauci said. He added that the research Paul referenced was "judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function." Fauci added: "You do not know what you are talking about quite frankly and I want to say that officially."

Paul's response was that the NIH's judgment "defines… away" work that essentially was gain-of-function." "You're dancing around this because you're trying to obscure responsibility," Paul added

phpBB [video]

Direct Link if video does not show here:

https://youtu.be/rSnqkkLxfR8

[Anthea]

Rand Paul Keeps the Heat on Fauci

Demanding Answers on NIH Gain-of-Function Research Funding

Senator Rand Paul released a list of follow-up questions for Dr. Anthony Fauci two weeks after Fauci’s latest Senate testimony, pushing for more information on U.S. funding of gain-of-function research.

Paul sent eleven “yes or no” questions to Fauci on the subject of potential American funding of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in a letter to Senate HELP Committee chairwoman Patty Murray first reported by Fox News. Gain-of-function research involves making viruses more infectious or deadly for study in a laboratory.

Paul’s questions pertain to a roughly $600,000 National Institutes of Health grant to non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, which funneled the funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for research on bat coronaviruses.

The letter demands that Fauci confirm whether the NIH did indeed fund such research at the WIV and asks about how much the agency knew about how the funding was being used at the time.

While the Chinese government has insisted the coronavirus pandemic began as a natural occurrence, politicians and scientists from around the world have called to investigate whether Covid, first detected in the city of Wuhan, could have leaked from the WIV or another laboratory in the city.

“The American people deserve to know how this pandemic started, to know if the NIH funded dangerous gain-of-function research that may have caused this pandemic, and to remove from office anyone, such as Dr. Fauci, who let this happen,” Paul told Fox News in an email.

The NIH admitted in October that EcoHealth had funded research at WIV that enhanced a bat coronavirus to be more infectious. The NIH said the increased infectiousness was an “unexpected result” of the research, and a spokesman for Fauci told Vanity Fair at the time that the experiments did not constitute gain-of-function research because they “were not reasonably expected to increase transmissibility or virulence in humans.”

Fauci and Paul have regularly sparred in Senate hearings over the subject of gain-of-function research and whether or not the NIH funded such research in Wuhan through grants to EcoHealth. Fauci claimed in January 11 Senate testimony that the research conducted by EcoHealth did not fall under the definition of gain-of-function, while Paul accused Fauci of playing semantic games to avoid taking responsibility for green-lighting research that may have led to the pandemic.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ran ... h-funding/

[Anthea]

Meet the Novastans:

How Novavax vaccine’s cultlike following could alter the course of COVID

Novavax first published clinical trial results in January 2021 showing that its vaccine was up to 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 infections, putting it on par with the efficaciousness of Pfizer and Moderna. But in following months, Novavax struggled with manufacturing and regulatory delays that hampered the firm’s ability to bring the drug to market despite its proven efficacy.

In October, Politico reported that Novavax suffered purity problems at manufacturing plants and that Novavax had failed to prove to regulators that it could produce high-quality vaccines. Novavax said the delays were the result of a “highly complex” process, after previously attributing regulatory delays to issues with its manufacturing partners.

But regulatory tides are now turning in Novavax’s favor

The small, Maryland-based biotech firm has won approval for its protein-based COVID-19 vaccine from the World Health Organization, the European Commission, Australia, India, and several other countries since last November, even as its approval in the U.S. remains weeks or months away.

There are also promising signs that Novavax’s vaccine may hold up against Omicron, though it may be too early for conclusive data. In late December, Novavax claimed that initial studies showed its vaccine generated an effective immune response against Omicron, especially among those who receive three doses.

The approvals mark the first time in Novavax’s 35-year history that the firm has brought a drug to market. Founded in 1987 in Gaithersburg, Md., Novavax initially pursued vaccine and women’s health projects that did not pan out before focusing on developing vaccines for the flu and other respiratory illnesses in the mid-2000s. In 2013,

Novavax purchased rights to the Matrix-M adjuvant, a tree-based ingredient that helps boost the efficacy of protein-based vaccines, which it has used to develop experimental vaccines for diseases like SARS and Ebola. Novavax uses Matrix-M in its COVID-19 vaccine.

"Novavax’s vaccine offers something different; it is based on well-understood, protein-based technology that has been used for decades in vaccinations like flu, HPV and shingles," Silvia Taylor, Novavax's senior vice president of global corporate affairs, tells Fortune.

The firm’s inexperience in bringing vaccines—or any other product—to market hasn’t discouraged Novavax fans from eagerly anticipating the rollout of its jab.

Professor John Skerritt, the head of Australia’s drug regulator, told reporters last week that Novavax had become uniquely popular among Australians.

“I have [received] several hundred emails from individuals and groups who have said, for whatever reason, ‘We would like to have [this] particular vaccine’…[Australia’s approval] just gives them further choice,” Skerritt noted.

Novavax’s vaccine fan club is a diverse group, representing a mix of vaccine skeptics—from the cautious to the conspiratorial—as well as a group of meme-stock retail investors who hope the jab’s approvals will boost the firm’s flagging share price. At least some followers say they will only get vaccinated if it’s with Novavax’s shot, and at this point in the pandemic the Novavax-or-bust community represents an important constituency in countries like the U.S. that have run out of ways to win over vaccine holdouts.

The Novastans

When Novavax released its clinical trial data in January 2021, the positive results launched the little-known firm into an exclusive club of COVID-19 vaccine makers that had crafted a cocktail to neutralize the wily pathogen.

Emmet, a 24-year-old college student in New York, says he had not been paying much attention to vaccine-maker names at the time; he was just happy that the COVID-19 jabs were coming. “I was just like, ‘Thank God, finally a miracle has come,’” he recalls.

Emmet, who asked to use a pseudonym for fear of being labeled an anti-vaxxer, says he had been as cautious as possible to avoid catching the virus. He’s skipped most social interactions. If he did go to indoor settings, he was conscious of the ventilation.

“I’ve been completely trapped at home, just doing emergency remote learning” since the beginning of the pandemic, he says. “I rarely step out of the house.”
Dr. Stephaun Wallace, who leads global external relations for the COVID-19 Prevention Network at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, receives his second injection from Dr. Tia Babu during the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine Phase III clinical trial at UW Virology Research Clinic on Feb. 12, 2021, in Seattle.

When Novavax released its clinical results, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had already granted emergency authorizations to mRNA COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. Millions of Americans had received a first dose. Emmet’s doctor advised him to get a jab, but Emmet balked.

He had started to hear about the side effects of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines from friends and on social media. He was also worried that an mRNA jab might exacerbate his epilepsy, a condition that causes seizures, even though his doctor assured him of its safety.

Later in the summer, Emmet joined Novavax_vaccine_talk, a Reddit forum created last August that now has over 2,000 users. The group celebrates the jab and dissects every piece of company news. He says he was attracted to Novavax because it uses a traditional, protein-based technology similar to hepatitis B and other vaccines he’s received.

“I started to feel very uncomfortable” about the mRNA jabs, he says. And he doesn’t want Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine since U.S. authorities briefly paused its rollout last April owing to rare instances of blood clots in some recipients. (U.S. regulators allowed the administration of J&J jabs to resume within 10 days after deeming the vaccine safe.) Emmet isn’t afraid of Novavax’s vaccine because he feels his body is “kind of already used to” taking similar jabs.

Months after joining the forum, Emmet now says he is unwilling to take any other vaccine and is contemplating flying to Europe to receive the Novavax jab if the U.S. does not approve it soon. “It looks like I probably have no choice but to go,” he says.

Emmet’s Novavax-or-nothing stance is not universally held among the vaccine’s supporters in the Reddit forum. Others say they have received mRNA or other vaccines that were readily available despite their preference for the Novavax shot.

Still, many Novavax fans appear to share Emmet’s concerns about side effects related to the mRNA jabs, even though experts say Novavax’s side effects may not be much different.

“[Side effects] are not always bad. Sometimes they’re actually a sign of having a good immune response,” says Ashley St. John, an immunology professor at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. She expects the side effects of the Novavax vaccine to be similar to what people experience after mRNA jabs. “But certainly we need to wait for the data,” she says.

In trials, Novavax did not report any rare or serious side effects in people injected with the vaccine, but patients commonly reported mild symptoms like headaches, muscle pain, and fatigue, especially after the second jab of the two-dose regime.

Many forum users cite the danger of a rare side effect, myocarditis or inflammation of the heart muscle, that’s popped up in recipients of the mRNA and Johnson & Johnson jabs. St. John says the risk of myocarditis from Pfizer’s vaccine or Johnson & Johnson’s jab is extremely low.

The European Medicines Agency says there is less than a one-in-10,000 chance that patients develop myocarditis after receiving the mRNA jabs. The U.S. CDC says myocarditis cases in patients who got mRNA jabs are mostly mild and temporary.

“If you’re not vaccinated, it is much more likely [that you will develop myocarditis] from getting COVID,” St. John says.

Emmet says he tries to avoid content on the Reddit forum that appears to be blatantly false and acknowledges that there are users who deliberately spread misinformation.

“There are some people in support of Novavax that have been spewing misinformation,” he says. “I just have to be mindful of that.”

A search through the forum reveals several comments and posts promoting widely debunked theories about mRNA jabs, like the idea that the spike proteins induced by mRNA vaccines are somehow toxic to the human body. “There’s no scientific evidence for that…It’s not plausible,” says St. John. Some of the posts promoting the theory have not been taken down.

Reddit told Fortune that its content policy prohibits “many kinds of harmful content, including health-related disinformation such as falsified medical studies, manipulated videos, and coordinated campaigns.” Reddit says that in addition to moderators who police forums, it has “experienced teams that enforce our policies across the platform and remove 99% of policy-breaking content before anyone sees it.”

Kieran O’Doherty, a psychology professor at the University of Guelph in Canada who researches vaccine hesitancy, says mRNA vaccines have sparked especially intense vitriol and skepticism, perhaps owing to fear of the new technology and the power of anti-vax narratives.

“Many individuals who have expressed strong opposition to the mRNA vaccines have not been against vaccines previously,” he says. “For them, it is important to express that their opposition is specifically to mRNA vaccines, not to vaccination in principle.”

Still, more traditional anti-vaxxers are fanning the flames of anti-mRNA sentiment, which may be drawing even more people to the Novavax jab, he says. “These different groups are now coming together in their opposition to the mRNA vaccines” and coalescing around Novavax, he notes.

He says the anti-mRNA crowd may be attracted to Novavax because several scientists who have spoken out against COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna have recommended the Novavax jab. For example, Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist, regularly appears on outlets like Fox News and Joe Rogan’s Spotify podcast and makes unproven claims about the potential dangers of mRNA vaccines. He’s repeatedly touted the Novavax jab on his own podcast.

Waiting for Novavax is a risky strategy, but those holding out for the jab offer hope to public officials that some unvaccinated individuals can still be convinced.

In Australia, Skerritt, the health official, said the government expects Novavax’s approval to boost the nation’s vaccination rate by 1% or more. Australia has fully vaccinated 93% of its population above the age of 16. Skerritt hopes that the rate soon rises above 95% now that Novavax is approved, which would help Australia “continue [its] journey towards mastering COVID,” Skerritt recently told Australian media.

Novavax may hold even more potential to boost vaccination campaigns in places like the U.S., where 62.7% of the population is fully vaccinated. (Australia has fully vaccinated 78.3% of its population when accounting for people under the age of 16.)

It’s unclear how many unvaccinated people in the U.S. would take Novavax’s jab. Half of unvaccinated individuals in the U.S. say that nothing could persuade them to get jabbed, according to surveys. But Novavax’s own executives believe their jab can make inroads with the vaccine-hesitant.

Novavax CEO Stanley Erck told CNN late last year that he views Novavax’s “primary market” as “people who have been hesitant to get other vaccines” rather than supplying booster shots to the already vaccinated.

"We know additional [COVID vaccine] options are needed given the percentage of people who remain unvaccinated and the increasingly important role boosters and annual revaccination may play in this pandemic," Novavax's Taylor tells Fortune.

O’Doherty says it’s difficult to speculate on how Novavax’s approval in the U.S. would alter vaccine uptake. “If [vaccine] mandates become stronger, people would probably go for the Novavax shot,” he says. “But in places where there are no strong vaccine mandates, it is questionable how many people would actually get Novavax if it is approved.”

Globally, Novavax’s vaccine promises to boost vaccine drives in lower- and middle-income countries. The WHO’s approval last month means Novavax, via its manufacturing partner the Serum Institute of India, may make good on its pledge to supply 1.1 billion doses to COVAX, the global vaccine sharing facility. Novavax has already delivered tens of millions of doses to countries like the Philippines and Indonesia, but COVAX’s distribution campaign is now in jeopardy owing to a shortage of funds.

There are fans who have flocked to Novavax for health reasons, and then there are supporters who view Novavax’s vaccine as an investment opportunity akin to GameStop, the video game retailer that starred in last spring’s meme-stock trading frenzy. Often, the two clubs overlap.

On Reddit, users on the wallstreetbets forum, which helped propel the rise of meme stocks like GameStop and AMC, have long promoted Novavax, which trades as NVAX on the Nasdaq. In March 2021, a Reddit forum solely dedicated to NVAX stock popped up. It has over 4,200 followers today.

Retail investors bullish on Novavax are betting on its vaccine technology, its positive trial results, and the combined $2 billion investment it received from the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine development initiative and CEPI, a Bill Gates–backed vaccine funding organization.

“I’m liking NVAX. And the shorts should be getting nervous,” one user wrote in December, referencing the short-sellers betting against the stock that NVAX investors hope to squeeze. “HODL folks this is going to be big,” another user recently posted alongside a picture of a vaccine syringe blasting off like a spaceship, leaving wads of cash in its wake.

So far, the stock has taken them on a wild ride

At the beginning of 2020, Novavax’s stock price hovered around $4. Shares shot up on news that the company was developing a COVID-19 vaccine and peaked at $290 in February 2021 shortly after it released its positive clinical data. But after nearly a year of approval delays, NVAX’s share price has dropped 70% from its high to trade at roughly $90.

Martin Warner, a 27-year-old IT worker in Philadelphia, says Novavax was one of his first-ever stock trades, and he bought nine shares of the stock for roughly $900 in October and November of 2020 after reading about the vaccine.

“I thought, well, this vaccine seems a little bit different and could potentially be lucrative,” Warner says. Warner, who received the Pfizer vaccine and is mostly interested in Novavax to “make money,” says that at its peak, he had made $1,500 in gains. “I was psyched on the Novavax stock performance,” he says. “Then the stock quite literally plummeted.” If he cashed out today, he would lose money. His NVAX holdings are now worth $200 less than when he first invested.

Emmet says he’s been surprised by the diversity and grass-roots nature of the Novavax fan club, from the NVAX stock promoters to the vaccine technology purists.

“I’ve been blown away” by the number of Novavax supporters, Emmet says. “Honestly, I thought [Novavax supporters] were all like Republican or conservative…but there’s Democratic and independent supporters who actually want this vaccine so badly.”

https://fortune.com/2022/01/27/novavax- ... -approval/

[Anthea]

Ways to catch & avoid Omicron

Japanese researchers have called on those who want to avoid infection ‘to go back to the basics’

A team of Japanese scientists has revealed the perfect ways to catch the Omicron coronavirus variant and to avoid it, concluding that “the basics” still work wonders.

The study, titled ‘Prediction of virus droplet infection in indoor environment and its countermeasures’, was conducted by the Riken Center for Computational Science and Kobe University researchers, using Fugaku supercomputer simulations.

Fugaku is the World's Fastest Supercomputer

The scientists came to the conclusion that the probability of catching Omicron from a maskless person after a 15-minute conversation at a one-meter distance was around 60% on average, but that it could be up to over 90%. The same simulation with the Delta variant (for their projections, the scientists used an estimate that Omicron was 1.5 times more transmissible than Delta) showed lower probabilities, at 50% and 80% respectively.

The research also confirmed that maintaining social distance mattered: A two-meter distance decreased the probability of getting Omicron to 60% at the highest level and over 20% on the average one.

Masks also proved to be unsung heroes. Even at a distance of just 25 centimeters, the highest probability of infection did not exceed 30%. By increasing the distance to one meter, the risk of spreading the infection decreased to almost zero.

“It is important to go back to the basics and to make sure that people take measures against infection, such as keeping a distance from people. Also, in order to reduce the risk of infection to the level of that of the original novel coronavirus, we need more measures,” leader of the team and professor at Kobe University Makoto Tsubokura said, as quoted by the Asahi Shimbun.

https://www.rt.com/news/548236-scientis ... sks-covid/

[Anthea]

My Debate with an ICU Doctor About
Possible Dangers of the COVID-19 Vaccine
Wayne Allyn Root

It's so easy to win a debate with an ignorant liberal. They have no facts. They have no brilliant oratory. Just name-calling. After my national TV interviews last week explaining why I believe the COVID-19 vaccine is killing and injuring thousands of Americans, I received an email from an intensive care unit doctor. He called me a "moron." Below is my reply filled with common sense, logic, facts and most importantly, SCIENCE about the dangers of the COVID-19 vaccine. Needless to say, the doctor never replied.

Dear David,

First, I read and answer all my own emails. I'm answering you personally. I don't engage in ignorant terms like "moron" toward people that disagree with me.

Second, this country (and world) is filled with both unvaccinated and vaccinated who are sick with COVID-19. It's a nasty and contagious flu. At this moment almost every vaccinated person I know is sick with COVID-19. A report released by the Robert Koch Institute stated that in Germany over 96% of those with COVID-19 are vaccinated.

Third, some studies show that the COVID-19 vaccine damages the immune system, thereby making it more likely that the vaccinated will get sick with each successive variant.

Fourth, if the vaccine is so great, why do the deep blue states like New York have massive COVID-19 outbreaks? New York City just set the all-time record for COVID-19 infections in a day. New York right now has almost 30% of all the COVID-19 cases nationwide. How could this happen if vaccines, masks and lockdowns worked?

Fifth, if the vaccine is so great, why are there far more COVID-19 deaths in 2021 with the vaccine than there were in 2020 -- without it?

Sixth, as a M.D., why don't you pay attention to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System? It's been the gold standard for decades to identify if any vaccine is causing more harm than good.

This COVID-19 jab may have killed over 21,000 Americans. That's separate from the cardiac arrests, strokes, blood clots and permanent disabilities that could be associated with the vaccine. And this jab has potentially caused a staggering 1 million "adverse effects." These numbers are from VAERS -- user-reported data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Seventh, are you aware Columbia University researchers found that adverse events associated with vaccines could be vastly underreported? They suggest you must multiply by 20 to approximate the accurate number of deaths and injuries. So according to the math of Columbia researchers, there are actually over 400,000 deaths and millions of injuries that could be tied to the vaccine.

How could you doubt VAERS? Pfizer's own research showed that there were 1,200 deaths during the initial first few weeks of their vaccine rollout. That's Pfizer's reporting.

Anyone who wants the vaccine should get it. It's called choice. They should thank former President Donald Trump for the availability of this vaccine.

The rest of us who are relatively healthy and/or relatively young have a 99.9% recovery rate from COVID-19. No one should be FORCED to vaccinate, mask, endure lockdowns, lose their job or close their business in America. We have choices. We take risks every day.

Certainly, people should agree that no baby, toddler, child or teen should ever be forced to take this jab. As a John Hopkins study proved, the risk of a child dying is basically zero. Out of 48,000 childhood cases of COVID-19 they studied, no healthy child died.

I've had COVID-19. It was gone in 48 hours after I took ivermectin, plus antibiotic (Z Pak), plus megadoses of vitamins C, D3, zinc and quercetin. Plus, I received intravenous vitamin C. Worked like a charm. Gone in 48 hours. Mild.

I now have immunity. No one with immunity needs to vaccinate. I believe the risks far outweigh the benefits. I make healthy lifestyle choices. I'm not anti-vaccine. I'm pro-immune system.

Justus R. Hope, M.D., and others report that in India, the government ended the worst COVID-19 outbreak anywhere in the world by handing out free packets of ivermectin plus vitamins. They report that COVID-19 went away literally overnight, and deaths dropped to virtually zero. That's exactly what America should have done and should be doing right now.

There are dozens of studies around the world that demonstrate the efficacy of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as antivirals versus COVID-19.

I wish you well. I hope I've opened your eyes to the alternatives out there. I know what you see each day in your ICU: the sickest of the sick. It's tragic they have no access to ivermectin or HCQ, plus vitamins like C, D3 and zinc.

Early treatment (in the first three to five days) with this combination would almost guarantee few ever wind up at the ICU -- where you see them and where it may already be too late.

It's important to allow different opinions and questions. If "science" won't respect or allow discussion or debate, it's no longer science; it's just propaganda.

I'm doing my best to keep America healthy. I know you're doing your best.

God bless.

https://townhall.com/columnists/wayneal ... e-n2601582