Omicron Now The Majority Of New Cases

thehill |  The omicron variant now makes up a majority of COVID-19 cases in the United States, at 73.2 percent, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in updated figures released on Monday.

The statistics are for the week ending Dec. 18 and show the rapid spread of the variant in the U.S. That spike is a significant increase from just 12.6 percent of cases one week earlier.

The omicron variant is highly transmissible, and officials are bracing for a large wave of infections in the coming weeks. However, people who are vaccinated, and especially those with booster shots, are well protected against severe disease from the variant, experts say, meaning the greatest risk is for the unvaccinated.

Brandon's Verbatim Covid Foolishness And Phukkery...,

• One mention of Ventilation.
• One mention that further variants will emerge.
• Multiple claims that “We are prepared”.
• Multiple claims that the Unvaxxed are the only ones at risk and that they risk others.
• Several mentions of masking.
• Several boasts that “Access To” testing is available to all Americans.
• The Q&A at the end is worth paying attention to. Brandon's mind (?) wandered off-script when he was unable to use the teleprompter.
  

Whitehouse  |  The longer the virus is around, the more likely variants form that may be deadlier than the ones that have come before.THE PRESIDENT:  Good afternoon.  I promised when I got elected that I’d always give it to you straight from the shoulder — the good, the bad, the truth.

So, as we head into Christmas weekend, I want to answer your questions about the rising number of COVID cases — COVID-19 cases.

And I want to start by acknowledging how tired, worried, and frustrated I know you are.  I know how you’re feeling.

For many of you, this will be the first or even the second Christmas where you look — across the table will be an empty kitchen chair there.

Tens of millions have gotten sick, and we’ve all experienced an upheaval in our lives.

But while COVID has been a tough adversary, we’ve shown that we’re tougher — tougher because we have the power of science and vaccines that prevent illness and save lives, and tougher because of our resolve.

So, that — let me answer some questions that lay out the steps the Vice President and I are taking to prepare for the rising number of cases experts tell us we could expect in the weeks ahead.

First, how concerned should you be about Omicron, which is now the dominant variant in this country and it happened so quickly?

The answer is straightforward: If you are not fully vaccinated, you have good reason to be concerned.  You’re at a high risk of getting sick.  And if you get sick, you’re likely to spread it to others, including friends and family.  And the unvaccinated have a significantly higher risk of ending up in a hospital or even dying. 

Almost everyone who has died from COVID-19 in the past many months has been unvaccinated.  Unvaccinated.

But if you’re among the majority of Americans who are fully vaccinated, and especially if you’ve gotten the booster shot — that third shot — you’re much — you have much, much less reason to worry.  You have a high degree of protection against severe illness. 

And because Omicron spreads so easily, we’ll see some fully vaccinated people get COVID, potentially in large numbers.  There will be positive cases in every office, even here in the White House, among the unv- — among the vaccinated — among the vaccinated — from Omicron.

But these cases are highly unlikely to lead to serious illness.

Vaccinated people who get COVID may get ill, but they’re protected from severe illness and death.  That’s why you should still remain vigilant.

According to our doctors, even if you’re fully vaccinated, you should wear a mask when indoors in public settings.

Wearing a mask provides extra protection for you and those around you.  And I know some Americans are wondering if you can safely celebrate the holidays with your family and friends. 

The answer is yes, you can, if you and those you celebrate with are vaccinated, particularly if you’ve gotten your booster shot.

If you are vaccinated and follow the precautions that we all know well, you should feel comfortable celebrating Christmas and the holidays as you planned it.

You know, you’ve done the right thing.  You could enjoy the holiday season.

Realizing He Is Sincerely Hated - Brandon Dials Back The Jab Fascism

WaPo  | President Biden on Tuesday outlined plans to expand coronavirus testing sites across the country, distribute a half-billion free at-home tests and deploy more federal health resources to aid strained hospitals, as the omicron variant drives a fresh wave of infections.

At the White House, Biden acknowledged that Americans are “tired, worried and frustrated” with covid-19, which he described as a “tough adversary.” But he stressed in remarks at the White House that “we’ve shown that we’re tougher; tougher because we have the power of science and vaccines that prevent illness and save lives.”

The president said Americans have an obligation to get vaccinated, calling it a “patriotic duty,” and pointed to former president Donald Trump’s comment that he got his vaccine booster shot.

Biden stressed that while the number of covid cases have soared to levels not seen since 2020, the outlook was far different with vaccines and other treatment.

“This is not March of 2020. Two hundred million people are fully vaccinated. We’re prepared. We know more,” he said.

Speaking directly to parents, Biden said, “We don’t have to shut down schools because of covid-19. We can keep our K-12 schools open. That’s exactly what we should be doing.”

The Biden administration will start delivering a half-billion free rapid tests to homes next month, according to the statement, and health officials will set up a website where Americans can order them. New federal testing sites will also be established across the country, starting with one in New York City this week.

The Biden administration has emphasized increased testing as one of the pillars of its pandemic response, but it has been criticized for failing to provide at-home tests at low cost. Americans are paying $25 for a pack of two tests, if they can find any at a pharmacy.

Health officials say they fear that the emergence of the quickly spreading omicron variant could overwhelm health-care facilities nationwide. The variant accounted for 73 percent of new coronavirus cases in the United States between Dec. 12 and 18, according to modeled projections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Beta Male Karen Calls For Corporate-Enforced Booster Mandates

WaPo  | To many Americans, entering 2022 feels too much like entering 2021. We are coming to grips with what is sure to be an onslaught of cases from omicron and a holiday season marred with outbreaks, full hospitals and canceled plans.

But 2022 is a far cry from 2021, as we now have something we didn’t have then: an arsenal to fight back. To fully engage that arsenal, private actors should require people who use their services to receive a booster shot.

Three doses of an mRNA coronavirus vaccine (either the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech shots) are proving highly effective at keeping the vast majority of people healthy and out of the hospital. The third shot increases the antibody response by approximately 20-fold or more, enough to beat back even the many troubling mutations of the omicron variant. Yet to date, less than 30 percent of Americans have received that third shot.

Businesses, sports leagues, colleges, hospitals and schools should require anyone who risks exposing others to have that third shot. Protocols such as this that keep up with the latest evolving science should be routine and without much controversy at this point in the pandemic.

Already we can see how easily and rapidly omicron spreads. Quick, informal gatherings can turn into major superspreader events. And about a quarter of the public isn’t yet eligible for a booster because they are not old enough to receive them, meaning they must rely on others for protection. Same goes for the millions of people who have compromised immune systems that make the vaccines far less effective. Vaccine requirements aren’t in place solely to help prevent vaccinated people from getting sick; they also help others avoid infection.

Even with the vast majority of cases not requiring hospitalizations, the sheer number of hospitalizations resulting from omicron — on top of many hospitals that are full because of the delta variant — could simply be too much for health-care systems to handle. Standards of care will diminish; cases will be triaged; doctors and nurses will go without sleep, space and protective equipment and will run thin; and people with other dire needs will put off care. Omicron is deadly. No matter if it ends up less deadly than delta, at the level of spread we will see, the only question is whom it will kill, not if.

If you are in a position to decide whether to create a vaccination requirement, you do not need to wait for definitive data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A decade from now, you won’t look back on the temporary disruption the same way you would if there was a superspreader event that was in your control to stop.

 

What's Brandon Gonna Mumble, Fumble, And Take No Questions On Later Today?

off-guardian |  As Arnold Schwarzenegger succinctly put it, the message is, “screw your freedom.” 

The message is, shut up and toe the fucking line.

The message is, show me your fucking papers. Use the fucking pronouns. Eat the fucking bugs. Get the fucking “vaccinations.” Do not fucking ask us “how many.” The answer is, “as many as we fucking tell you.”

The message is, there will be no more unauthorized presidents, no more leaving the European Union, no more “populist” rebellions against the global hegemony of global-capitalism and its soul-crushing, valueless “woke” ideology. GloboCap is done playing grab-ass. They announced that back in March of 2020.

They informed us in unmistakable terms that our lives were about to change, forever. They branded and advertised this change as “the New Normal,” in case we were … you know, cognitively challenged. They did not hide it. They wanted us to understand exactly what was coming, a global-capitalist version of totalitarianism, in which we will all be happy little fascist “consumers” showing each other our “compliance certificates” in order to be allowed to live our lives.

I don’t need to review the entire year in detail. You remember the highlights…the roll-out of the “safe and effective” miracle “vaccines” that don’t keep you from catching or spreading the virus, and which have killed and injured thousands of people, but which you now have to get every three or four months to be allowed to work or go to a restaurant; the roll-out of the global social-segregation/digital compliance-certificate system that makes absolutely no medical sense, but which the “vaccines” were designed to force us into; The Criminalization of Dissent; The Manufacturing of “Reality”; The Propaganda War; The Covidian Cult; the launch of The Great New Normal Purge; the whole Pathologized Totalitarianism package.

THE Science Caught Conspiring Politically Against His Critics

aier |   “Francis,” Fauci wrote, “I am pasting in below a piece from Wired that debunks [the GBD].” There, science reporter Matt Reynolds told us there was no “scientific divide” over herd immunity, but that’s not the funny part. The funny part came when Reynolds declared quite confidently that we no longer had anything to worry about, as lockdowns were – as of October 2020 – a thing of the past.

“The problem [with the GBD] is that we aren’t in lockdown,” Reynolds explained. “[I]t’s hard to find people who are advocating for a return to the lockdown we saw in March. When the Great Barrington Declaration authors declare their opposition to lockdowns, they are quite literally arguing with the past.” 

This Fauci-endorsed passage may be one of the worst takes of the entire pandemic. Less than a month later, lockdowns came roaring back with a vengeance.

Fauci wrote to Collins again the next day, this time referencing a breathless op-ed by Gregg Gonsalves, a public health professor at Yale, in The Nation. And here we arrive at yet another funny part. Gonsalves’ article was not exactly a critique of the Great Barrington Declaration. Instead, Gonsalves went after Martin Kulldorff, who in an interview with the leftist magazine Jacobin quite reasonably pointed out that the lockdowns hurt the poor more than most talking heads were willing to admit. Gonsalves’s grievance was that by interviewing Kulldorff, Jacobin had broken the lockdown “solidarity” of other far-left websites including the Nation and the Boston Review.

By October 10, the lines were well drawn, and Fauci thrust himself into the middle of the media hootenanny that was clearly emerging. Collins emailed again to boast about calling the three scientists “fringe” in the Washington Post, although he told Fauci that their ongoing campaign to take down the GBD “will not be appreciated in the W[hite] H[ouse}.” The White House, Fauci retorted, was “too busy with other things to worry about” the GBD. There was an election to deal with, after all.

As the bedfellows became more strange, Gregg Gonsalves wrote directly to Collins, thanking him for his undiplomatic approach. For his part, Gonsalves became ever more hostile and profane, in his remarks on the GBD. “This f*****g Great Barrington Declaration is like a bad rash that won’t go away,” Gonsalves tweeted, shortly before reaching out to Collins. A day earlier, the Yale professor also began promoting unhinged conspiracy theories about the GBD and AIER that traced to the blog of a former 9/11 Truther movement activist. 

Some of the emails between Collins and Fauci sent in response to AIER’s FOIA request have been redacted, but surrounding context makes it pretty clear that they were looking for a way to impugn the GBD further if it came up at the White House Covid Task Force meeting on October 16. That morning, Fauci emailed Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator. He pressed the need for her to oppose the GBD, and set the stage for an attack on Scott Atlas, who was the most friendly champion of the GBD on the Task Force.

Fauci, it turns out, had to miss the October 16 task force meeting, though he likely breathed a sigh of relief when Collins emailed him two days later. “Atlas did not take part in the [task force] meeting on Friday,” Collins wrote, “and the Great Barrington Declaration did not come up.” Another partially-redacted email hints that Fauci celebrated this outcome. Atlas’s opposition to the lockdown faction on the task force “is driving Deb [Birx] crazy,” he continued.

Fauci and Collins were not done, though, in their campaign to “take down” the GBD scientists.

Our story picks up again in earnest on November 2, when Fauci’s chief of staff Greg Folkers replied to an email that was not made public in pursuance to AIER’s FOIA request. It seems pretty clear, though, that Fauci asked Folkers for a list of sources that would allow him to argue effectively against the GBD. The email’s subject line references a previous correspondence from Fauci “as discussed,” noting that Folkers had “highlighted the three i found most useful” (sic).

Multiple sources, and particularly Scott Atlas’s recently-published account of his time on the task force, have noted that Fauci often relies on aides to curate lists of sources in advance of his many media appearances. He seldom reads the scientific literature on Covid-19 himself, and instead arrives at meetings with staff-prepared talking points. It appears that Folker’s email was an answer to one such request for talking points to attack the GBD scientists.

New York Legislators In A New Zealand State Of Mind...,

trendingpolitics |  In a brazen attempt to punish those who choose to resist the edicts coming from the state legislature and governor’s office, a proposed bill by the New York state legislature would allow the government to forcibly detain anyone without trial if they’re deemed a public health threat.

The bill, A.416, is among a trove of new draconian Covid restrictions and vaccine mandate bills set to be voted on during the next legislative session starting on January 5th.

According to the bill’s text, A.416 would “allow the governor or the appropriate health official to order the removal and detention of any person afflicted with a communicable disease in the event that there is a state of health emergency declared by the governor in relation to such disease.”

NY’ers: Pay ATTENTION! This is the plan Democrats have for the entire country. pic.twitter.com/hbgeGeG8x4

— Sunnyday (@Sunnyda04530056) December 13, 2021

“[A]ny person or group removed or detained by order of the governor or his or her delegate shall be detained for as long as the department may direct,” subdivision 3 of the bill further states.

As if this draconian legislation wasn’t enough, New Yorkers on Twitter are also highlighting several more bills up for a vote next session that is would empower the government to forcibly make state residents comply, using mental and physical duress as they deem fit.

Exposing What Elites Wish To Conceal Is An Unpardonable Offense...,

BAR  |  As you know, the U.S. incarcerates its share of political prisoners , with many having been affiliated with the Black Liberation Army and targeted by COINTELPRO . Why won’t the mainstream media cover the trials, appeals, demands, and resistance efforts of these political prisoners? Since they have been deemed “enemies of the state,” are they, as a result, enemies of the U.S. corporate media as well?

I’m not sure if most Americans have heard of COINTELPRO, but it was a very frightening, elaborate effort by the United States government to suppress, fracture and destroy Black liberation groups, anti-racist, anti-imperialist, Marxist, and feminist movements in the U.S.

This includes groups like the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA). The FBI used covert means to attack these groups e.g. create infighting, sew discord among its members, attack them in the media, label them as terrorists, and give them lengthy jail sentences of decades behind bars. Divide and conquer, like they do overseas.

Just a few days ago on December 4th, was the anniversary of Fred Hampton’s assassination in 1969. The FBI infiltrated his security detail and spied on him, before one night he was drugged and then murdered in his bed by government agents – all for the crime of combatting poverty, racism and uniting people under one banner irrespective of race and class.

Hampton is just one example, but others come to mind, such as Mutulu Shakur from the BLA, which you mentioned. The government either killed these activists and revolutionaries or gave them sentences such as 60 years imprisonment— essentially a life sentence— in order to decapitate these movements. There was a concerted effort to take out people in positions of leadership and incapacitate Black liberation groups.

The United States and its European allies love pretending they are civilized, “true democracies,” and that everyone else is barbaric. But if any of these things happened in another country, you’d hear the U.S. media howling about “repression by a brutal dictatorship”— but when the Americans or Europeans do it, it’s fine, apparently. This is why they portray activists and revolutionaries as violent, disturbers of the peace who must be penalized. That’s their excuse for repressing change in America.

These are political prisoners in the true sense of the word: imprisoned because their ideas and actions challenge the power structures of the United States. And once they are deemed enemies of the state, who is going to stand up for them? Certainly not the media. The media is an arm of the same corporations that control the government. The media is not interested in standing up for true revolutionaries. They would rather herald someone like the Facebook whistleblower for helping liberals advocate more censorship through Big Tech.

It’s not fashionable in America to be a real revolutionary, to really challenge racism and capitalism. The most “solidarity” you’ll see from the media and corporations is changing their logos to black and white, or adopting some marketing gimmicks— things that don’t require them to actually support anti-racism movements, but just give the appearance that they do.

The fact that the state invested so much energy and resources into destroying these groups shows you how effective they are, and how afraid they make the power structures of the white, capitalist, Western elites that rule America.

America claims to stand for justice, equality; it claims to fight for the underdog and prides itself in being a nation born out of revolution – but this is what happens to real revolutionaries in the United States: they are jailed or murdered by the state.

Kamala Harris May Be The Least Talented Lawyer And Politician OF ALL TIME!!!!

LATimes |  Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday that the administration failed to anticipate the variants that have prolonged and worsened the COVID-19 pandemic and that she underestimated the role misinformation would play in prolonging the disease that has killed 800,000 Americans.

“We didn’t see Delta coming. I think most scientists did not — upon whose advice and direction we have relied — didn’t see Delta coming,” she said. “We didn’t see Omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this, this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants.”

Harris made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with The Times in her ceremonial office, touching on immigration, women’s health, the criticism she has received for her management style and her role as a history-making leader. But the vice president returned repeatedly to the chief challenge of the Biden administration: battling a pandemic that — thanks to a new fast-spreading variant, Omicron — has led many Americans to put travel plans on hold, cancel holiday parties and stock up again on masks.

“I get it. I get it. I totally get it,” she said. “I mean, you know, one of the concerns that I have is the undiagnosed and untreated trauma at various degrees that everyone has experienced.”

I've been thinking a lot about why the latest surge has hit me so hard and I think it's because I have been fooling myself -- to some extent -- for the last 18 months 🧵

— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) December 17, 2021

President Biden celebrated “independence” from the virus in an upbeat July 4 speech, saying, “While the virus hasn’t been vanquished, we know this: It no longer controls our lives. It no longer paralyzes our nation. And it’s within our power to make sure it never does again.”

At the time, some public health experts warned that his optimism was premature, given that the Delta variant was already a significant threat.

Harris denied that the administration declared victory prematurely, or ever.

“We have not been victorious over it,” she said. “I don’t think that in any regard anyone can claim victory when, you know, there are 800,000 people who are dead because of this virus.”

Many Americans, particularly conservatives, resisted Biden’s call to get vaccinated against COVID-19, a measure public health officials say is critical to avoid hospitalization and death from the disease. Harris cited as a singular regret her failure to appreciate the power of misinformation in dissuading people to trust the vaccine.

“I would take that more seriously,” she said of the misinformation. “The biggest threat still to the American people is the threat to the unvaccinated. And most people who believe in the efficacy of the vaccine and the seriousness of the virus have been vaccinated. That troubles me deeply.”

 

 

Why Is The CDC Overcounting And Exagerating Vaccination Numbers?

axios |  The U.S. government has overcounted the number of Americans who are at least partly vaccinated against the coronavirus, Bloomberg reports.

Why it matters: Millions more people than initially thought are unprotected as coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths are rising across the country.

The big picture: Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was revised last weekend for the number of people 65 and older who have received at least one shot, according to Bloomberg.

• The CDC lowered the percentage vaccinated from 99.9%, where it had been for weeks, to 95%, without changing the raw shot totals.
• The agency has not returned Axios' request for comment.

What it means: The change in data indicates that the U.S. has counted too many shots as first doses when they are instead second doses or booster shots.

By the numbers: CDC data indicated that 240 million people — or about 72.5% of the population — had at least one shot and that 203 million — 61.3% — were fully vaccinated.

• But state and local officials reported that it was improbable for there to be such a huge disparity in vaccination numbers, Bloomberg reports.

The state of play: Three states — Illinois, Pennsylvania and West Virginia — found enough over-counting of first shots to indicate millions of unvaccinated people had mistakenly been counted as having received a dose.

• Pennsylvania had one of the biggest gaps identified, according to Bloomberg, where the CDC's estimates of first doses for people 65 and older exceeded state estimates by about 850,000.
• Illinois had more than 500,000 completely unvaccinated people ages 12 and up than initially thought. But the audit also found 730,000 people who were fully vaccinated and hadn’t been counted.

What they're saying: James Garrow, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, which has worked with the state to blend data sets for a more accurate view of vaccination trends, said "we don’t have any faith in the numbers on the CDC website, and we never refer to them."

Kyrie Irving Hands The NBA Its Karen-Ass - Stephen A's Cooning Will Be Priceless...,

WSJ  |   “Kyrie has made a personal choice, and we respect his individual right to choose,” Nets general manager Sean Marks said in October. “Currently the choice restricts his ability to be a full-time member of the team, and we will not permit any member of our team to participate with part-time availability.” 

The Nets changed their mind about Irving’s availability with Covid ripping through their locker room in a spike that coincides with a sharp increase in cases across the league and the Omicron variant’s arrival in New York. Brooklyn executives cited a roster that has been depleted by the coronavirus to explain the unexpected backtracking by a team sitting in first place in the Eastern Conference even without Irving. As coach Steve Nash expressed misgivings about pushing the workload of Durant, who nearly leads the league in minutes after rupturing his Achilles’ tendon in 2019, the Nets softened their position. 

“We believe that the addition of Kyrie will not only make us a better team, but allow us to more optimally balance the physical demand on the entire roster,” Marks said. “We look forward to Kyrie’s return to the lineup.” 

They are likely to be waiting even longer now. The Nets have 53 games left in the regular season. Irving is currently eligible to play in 24 of them outside of New York and Canada, but that number will shrink to 21 after the new year. 

The whiplash of Irving’s availability wasn’t the only Covid-related turn of events for the Nets on Saturday. They had managed to win two straight games while extremely shorthanded this week—they fielded eight players in one win, the minimum required by the league—in large part because Durant was sublime. Then he, too, was sidelined. Durant has said that he is vaccinated and was one of the first public figures to share that he had Covid in March 2020. 

Irving, who has declined to comment on his vaccination status, remained mostly silent during his absence with the exception of cryptic messages on social media, including an Instagram video this week that showed him lacing up his sneakers. He was also spotted at high-school and college games in New Jersey and Los Angeles while his NBA team was playing in Brooklyn. 

The league’s Covid rules were significantly more onerous for the tiny minority of unvaccinated players even before the NBA issued a stricter round of guidance this week in response to the uptick of cases: There are nearly 60 players out now, including more than a dozen on the Nets and Knicks alone.

Making Up Shit: When mRNA Gets Broken Through - They Now Call It "Super Immunity"

Forbes |  A breakthrough Covid-19 coronavirus infection may not be “super” to have. But can it actually give you what’s being called “super immunity” on social media? In other words, can a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection after being fully vaccinated against Covid-19 bring you even greater protection? Well, a research letter just published in JAMA offered a small window into this “super” possibility.

If you search for “super immunity” on social media you will find plenty of posts such as the following:

My husband and I were boosted almost a month ago. We (unfortunately) did not gain any superpowers but we DO have super immunity against Omicron which does sound like a supervillain name so I feel like it counts. Get boosted if you are able to prevent major illness <3 https://t.co/HbzYWL2z1M

— Surena Marie 🍓 (@SurenaXMarie) December 17, 2021

You’ll also find mention of the study described by the JAMA research letter. For example, Monica Gandhi MD, MPH, a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and HIV researcher, used the terms “hybrid immunity” and “super immunity” when tweeting about the study:

This study shows this too in delta breakthrough infections from Provincetown. Of note, this study also looks at T cells; JAMA study specifically showed increase in IgA levels which are the mucosal antibodyhttps://t.co/StZ5neUFVc

— Monica Gandhi MD, MPH (@MonicaGandhi9) December 16, 2021

She called it “hybrid immunity,” because the potentially boosted immune protection may come from a combination of vaccination and then subsequent infection. Gandhi also referenced another study described in a pre-print uploaded to MedRxiv that drew blood from 35 vaccinated individuals in Provincetown, Massachusetts, 14 of whom had had subsequent breakthrough infections. This pre-print described how the blood of the breakthrough infection group had 28-fold higher levels of binding antibodies and 34-fold higher levels of neutralizing antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant than the blood of the rest. This study also looked at another measure of immune protection, how the individual’s T cells responded to the virus, a measure that I described previously for Forbes. Those with breakthrough infections had a 4.4-fold higher Spike protein-specific CD8+ T cell responses against the Delta variant than the rest of the study participants. Take all the results from this pre-print with a Ugg boot full of salt though. Anyone with a laptop, an Internet connection, and opposable thumbs can upload a pre-print. It is not the same as a peer-reviewed study published in a reputable scientific journal.

Elites Getting Nervous About Their Deliberate Suppression Of Treatment Protocols

 covid19criticalcare | Science marches on!

We are a group of expert clinicians who are driven only by our desire to save lives.  We continually update our protocols based on clinical observations as well as the best studies of modes of prevention and treatment therapies for COVID-19.   For our latest, most comprehensive clinical guide to the management of COVID-19, please click the following text, or the box below the logos, to read and download  “An Overview of the MATH+, I-MASK+ and I-RECOVER Protocols, A Guide to the Management of COVID-19”, by Dr. Paul Marik.

Studies recently affecting our protocols:

• Ivermectin: a multifaceted drug of Nobel prize-honored distinction with indicated efficacy against a new global scourge, COVID-19
• Gender‐based disparities in COVID-19 patient outcomes
• Effect of nitazoxanide in adults and adolescents with acute uncomplicated influenza: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, phase 2b/3 trial

In October of 2020, ivermectin was adopted as a core medication in our protocols for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. For more information on ivermectin please go to our new Ivermectin in COVID-19 page. You can also read our review paper, which was published in the May 1, 2021, edition of the American Journal of Therapeutics as the “Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin in the Prophylaxis and Treatment of COVID-19”.

Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic medicine that is on the WHO’s list of essential medicines, has been given 3.7 billion times around the globe, and has won the Nobel prize in 2015 for its global and historic impacts in eradicating endemic parasitic infections in many parts of the world. Ivermectin has proven to be highly potent against COVID-19. It has shown antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties in observational and randomized controlled studies conducted throughout the world. Practitioners and Health Ministries who have adopted Ivermectin in treatment protocols report significant reductions in time to recovery, hospitalizations, and death. The use of Ivermectin as prophylaxis and prevention has also been proven in studies to reduce the spread of infection and offer protection to high-risk individuals.

Support for Ivermectin in the use of prophylaxis can be found here: https://scivisionpub.com/pdfs/ivermectin-as-prophylaxis-against-covid19-retrospective-cases-evaluati…

San Francisco Elites Must've Taken London Breed To The Woodshed...,

NYTimes |  The mayor of San Francisco on Friday made a sharp break with the liberal conventions that have guided her city for decades, declaring a state of emergency in one of its most crime-infested neighborhoods.

Mayor London Breed’s announcement came just days after she emphasized the need for the police to clean up what she has described as “nasty streets.” At a news conference at City Hall, steps away from where drug dealers openly peddle fentanyl and methamphetamines, she said, “We are in a crisis and we need to respond accordingly.” She added, “Too many people are dying in this city, too many people are sprawled on our streets.”

The neighborhood, the Tenderloin, has been ground zero for drug dealing, overdose deaths and homelessness for years. But Ms. Breed said in an interview that she reached her “breaking point” in recent weeks after meeting with families with children who live in the Tenderloin and said they felt constantly threatened.

Her actions and startlingly blunt language were a marked change in tone and policy in a city that has been polarized over homeless encampments and open-air drug use. Elected as a liberal Democrat, she spoke this week about “a reign of criminals,” trash strewn across neighborhoods full of “feces and urine,” and shoplifting at high-end stores that she called “mass looting events.”

Joe D’Alessandro, president and chief executive of the San Francisco tourism bureau, said the city had an image problem and praised the mayor for addressing it.

“We are excited and enthusiastic to see some significant steps to make San Francisco a safer city,” he said. “People are just fed up with some of the stuff they’ve seen and want to see some action.”

The announcement of a state of emergency specifically targeted the drug overdose crisis: More than twice as many people died of drug overdoses in San Francisco last year as died from the coronavirus. But Friday’s announcement is part of a broader, aggressive push to crack down on drug dealing and improve conditions. In practical terms, Ms. Breed said the city would no longer tolerate illicit drug users in the streets — giving them a choice between treatment or arrest.

Biden Administration Under Fire For Ignoring "The Science"

WaPo |  The U.S. government, over the past few weeks, has made three important decisions on vaccines without consulting independent panels of experts. On Nov. 19, the Food and Drug Administration authorized boosters for all adults — regardless of their job or any underlying health conditions. On Nov. 29, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that everyone 18 and above should get a booster shot, a revision of previous guidance that strongly recommended boosters only for those 50 and older. Then, on Dec. 9, the FDA authorized booster shots (of Pfizer) for 16- and 17-year-olds, moving the age of eligibility down from 18.

Before last month, the standard practice was for the agencies to convene standing outside advisory committees, whose members inspect the relevant data, debate it and vote. That did not happen in these cases, meaning that the costs and benefits of these policy moves, from a medical perspective, were not fully aired publicly and discussed in advance.

One of us is the former deputy director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review; the other is a former acting chief scientist at the FDA. We believe that much is lost when decisions like these are made without consulting outside experts — whatever one believes about the merits of the policies in question.

At this point in the pandemic, the world faces a host of new questions related to vaccines and boosting. The recommendations of experts on the outside advisory committees are needed more than ever — so the scientific community can understand the empirical bases for decisions, and so the public can be assured that science, not politics, is driving vaccine policy.

Facing omicron feels like when a patient has relapsed

In each of the recent decisions we’ve mentioned, at least some experts would probably have voiced opposition (based on earlier scientific debates and votes the two committees had taken, which supported different conclusions). That these experts were not given a chance to make their cases could hurt the credibility of these agencies. (In a poll published in May, conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 75 percent of American adults said they trusted the FDA a great deal or somewhat, with 24 percent saying they felt not much trust or none.)

This area of research is fast-moving, and much changed between the most recent meetings of the expert committees (on the booster question) and the FDA’s decision to authorize boosters for 16- and 17-year-olds — notably the emergence of the omicron variant. Still, the lack of involvement of the FDA’s expert panel on that question was striking, and observers noticed. Helen Branswell, a senior writer for the health and science publication STAT News, tweeted that the FDA had “authorized Pfizer booster shots for 16- & 17-years olds, without asking its vax expert panel for advice.” She added, “This approach sidesteps what would likely have been lengthy discussion about myocarditis” — an uncommon side effect of the mRNA vaccines, which had drawn careful study in earlier steps of the approval process.

In a news release, the FDA explained that it didn’t convene the outside committee because approving boosters for 16- and 17-year-olds “does not raise questions that would benefit from additional discussion by committee members.” But that is unpersuasive, given the previously expressed views of panel members. The CDC has not explained why it did not convene its own panel of vaccine experts for its recent decision.

Somebody's Gonna Stick Thiel In An Oven For His Degeneracy...,

thescrum  |   Peter Thiel made his initial fortune by cofounding (and then selling) the electronic-payments service PayPal. Since that time, Thiel has created various other enterprises, ranging from venture-capital firms such as Founders Fund to a data-analysis firm named Palantir. In addition to his success as a venture capitalist, Thiel is member of the steering committee of the Bilderberg Meeting, an annual conference where European and American elites discuss how to maintain and promote free-market capitalism. He supported Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, a highlight of which was Thiel’s delivery of a pro–Trump speech at the Republican National Convention in July 2016. In that speech, Thiel explained Trump’s rise as a response to national decline resulting from the damaging consequences of free trade, out-of-control militarism, increasingly expensive health care, rising student debt, and stagnant wages. Jamie Galbraith, as noted in Part 1 of this essay, shares many of these concerns.

Thiel’s explanation for our national decline has been delivered, with much more detail, in various other formats over recent years. An essay Thiel wrote for the National Review (2011) elaborates his declinist viewpoint. In that essay, “The End of the Future,” Thiel argues that technological and scientific progress, the basis for economic growth, has stalled out. The lack of innovation in energy, agriculture, medicine, and science in general, he contends, has cut into standards of living that can no longer be attenuated by accumulation of consumer debt and cheap goods from free-trade partners, particularly China. Even gains in the digital tech sector, where Thiel made his initial fortune, he explains as having stalled out and now amount to illusory productivity.

So far, Galbraith and Thiel seem to be traversing similar paths, especially as regards the impediments to growth of rising resource costs and increased digitization. However, Thiel diverges from the progressive Galbraith and speculates that the decline in technological innovation has been concealed by battles over identity politics. It is here Thiel begins to bring questions of culture and psychology into his inquiry. As he puts it:

Today’s aged hippies no longer understand that there is a difference between the election of a black president and the creation of cheap solar energy; in their minds, the movement towards greater civil rights parallels general progress everywhere.

Thiel fleshed out his proposal for dealing with this decline in a speech delivered at the first National Conservativism Conference, in July 2019. In “The Star Trek Computer Is Not Enough,” he retraces the ground covered in his earlier National Review essay while also exploring new themes. He assails Silicon Valley for its lack of innovation and its too-close-for-comfort relationship with China, while also attacking China for its unfair trade practices.

Later in the speech, Thiel also delivers a jeremiad against higher education for handing out overrated, grade-inflated educations and saddling students with debt. He claims that, as mentioned in the National Review piece, the American left ignores national decline by obsessing about identity politics, while the right is in a state of denial about national decline as it insists that the U.S. is “exceptional” and immune to such decay. This is Thiel’s argument for registering a psychological component in any effort to achieve the national solidarity necessary to channel government resources into reversing decline. Indeed, Thiel, who is known for his adherence to libertarian philosophy, acknowledges that government in the past was capable of achieving amazing feats, such the Manhattan Project and the Interstate Highway System. Its shambolic response to the Covid–19 pandemic stands as tragic testimony to the lapse of “can-do” America.

What, then, is this psychological factor that can reverse our national decline, so overcoming the hurdles on right and left? This is Thiel’s question. His reply appears to be the use of René Girard’s famous scapegoat mechanism to break a societal bottleneck.

 

Corporate Media Spreads Most Disinformation And Squeals Loudest About Disagreement

greenwald  |  The war on "disinformation” is now one of the highest priorities of the political and media establishment. It has become the foundational justification for imposing a regime of online censorship. Around the world, new laws are being enacted in its name to empower the state to regulate discourse. Exploiting this cause, a small handful of billionaires are working in unison with Western security state agencies — under the guise of neutral-sounding names like The Atlantic Council — to set the limits of permissible thought and decree what is true and false. Corporate media outlets are attempting to rehabilitate their shattered image by depicting themselves as the bulwark against the rising tide of disinformation.

It is an understatement to say that this righteous cause is a scam. That its motive is power and control over speech and thought — to eliminate dissent and discredit competition — rather than a noble quest for truth is almost too self-evident to require explanation. No human institutions should be trusted with the inherently tyrannical power they seek to arrogate unto themselves: to decree truth and falsity with such authoritative power that views they have decreed "false” become prohibited, off-limits, even worthy of punishment. 

On December 10, MSNBC aired a segment on Morning Joe — a purported news report featuring its host Joe Scarborough, the former GOP Congressman from Florida, and its regular paid contributor Claire McCaskill, the former two-term Democratic Senator from Missouri — that packed one lie after the next into two short minutes. The duo was purporting to explain to its audience the implications of last week's ruling by a British court approving the Biden DOJ's request to extradite Julian Assange to the U.S. to stand trial on espionage charges in connection with the 2010 publication by WikiLeaks, in partnership with numerous mainstream media outlets, of a cache of secret documents revealing various war crimes, lies and corruptions on the part of the U.S. and UK governments and their allies.

Within the span of two minutes, these NBC personalities told four blatant lies about the Assange case. I do not mean that they asserted dubious opinions or questionable narratives or even misleading claims. I mean that they outright lied about four separate matters that are crucial to understanding the Biden administration's attempted extradition and prosecution of Assange. These lies were not just misleading but pernicious, as they were designed not merely to mislead the public but to provoke them to believe that one of the gravest attacks on press freedom in years — the imprisonment of a journalist for the crime of reporting true and accurate information about the crimes of power centers — is something viewers should applaud rather than denounce.

We took the time to dissect this segment and to amass the dispositive proof of their multiple lies not because we think Scarborough and McCaskill will pay any price or will have to retract any of this. Of course they will not. They are doing their job, which is to lie in a way that flatters the ideological preconceptions of NBC viewers, who hate Assange due to the role his reporting played in harming the Democratic Party during the 2016 election, which Hillary Clinton herself claims was one of the two primary reasons she lost.

We did this video report in order to illustrate how easily and reflexively these corporate outlets lie; to demonstrate that the public's view that these outlets are completely untrustworthy and contemptible is valid and correct; and to set the record straight about the Assange case. We realize that not all subscribers here want to watch a one-hour video, and for that reason — as we do with all of the video reports we produce — we will shortly publish a written transcript of the program for our Substack subscribers. But I really hope people will take the time to watch this particular video: since the lies came in the form of video, we therefore concluded that using video to highlight the severity and intentionality of this lying was the most effective way to demonstrate how noxious it really is.

 

Exact Same Words And Patterns Deployed To Describe The Retail Crime Wave...,

THREAD. I noticed something fascinating: many of the reporters concocting the new hysteria over "retail theft" are using the *exact same* words and patterns in each story. It's pretty wild. Let's take a look:

— Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) December 12, 2021

No Time Or Place Or Space For Thee - But Eternity's For Meeee...,

euronews  |  What if you could live forever? It's a question long pondered by fictional supervillains and Silicon Valley billionaires alike.

Now researchers in Japan say they may have taken a step toward boosting human longevity with successful trials of a vaccine against the cells that contribute to the ageing process.

In laboratory trials, a drug targeting a protein contained in senescent cells - those which have naturally stopped reproducing themselves - slowed the progression of frailty in older mice, the researchers from Tokyo's Juntendo University said.

The vaccine also successfully targeted the senescent cells in fatty tissue and blood vessels, suggesting it could have a positive impact on other medical conditions linked to ageing.

"We can expect that (the vaccine) will be applied to the treatment of arterial stiffening, diabetes and other ageing-related diseases," Juntendo professor Toru Minamino told Japan's Jiji news agency.

What is cellular senescence?

Cells become senescent when they stop duplicating themselves, often in response to naturally-occurring damage to their DNA. Cellular senescence is thought to contribute to the ageing process itself, as well as ageing-related diseases like Alzheimer's and some cancers.

"Senescent cells secrete a series of factors that disrupt the function of the tissue," Dr Salvador Macip, head of the University of Leicester's Mechanisms of Cancer and Ageing Lab, told Euronews Next.

"They 'call' cells from the immune system, in theory to be cleared by them (but that eventually fails) and create a chronic low level inflammation, mixed with fibrosis," Macip said.

Macip was part of an international team of academics from universities in the UK, Spain, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia that published research on another method of tackling senescent cells in October this year.

"The biological process of ageing is very complex, therefore it is unlikely that one single strategy will completely stop it or reverse it. However, there are probably many ways to slow it down, and clearing senescent cells seems to be one of the easiest and potentially more effective," he said.

 

 

 

With VR Now Woke-And-Ruined Toyota Keeps Its Eye On Miniaturized Murder

techxplore |  The main objective of the recent study by Ozaki and his colleagues was to power an insect-size flying robot using no-contact, wireless charging technology. The robot created by the researchers is essentially comprised of a flapping, piezoelectric actuator that is powered through a 5 GHz dipole antenna.

"One of our robot's key features is a highly efficient flapping actuation, which is achieved using high-power single-crystal piezoelectric material and a low-loss layout with two wings facing each other, like clapping hands," Ozaki said. "This design enables a power-to-weight efficiency comparable to that of live insects."

A key challenge encountered by engineers who are trying to create miniature size robots is the thermal runaway caused by power losses. To overcome this challenge, Ozaki and his colleagues optimized their robot's circuit design, ensuring that components that generate heat were not placed closely together or next to each other.

In addition, the researchers used a radiofrequency power receiver with a power-to-weight density that is significantly higher than that of off-the-shelf lithium polymer batteries with a similar mass. This significantly improved the robot's efficiency and operating time.

"I think that our most important finding is that a sub-gram circuit can receive and handle high power of over 1 W at a distance via an RF wave," Ozaki said. "This suggests that not only flying robots but also various other applications that require large power in a small size can be realized without batteries."

To evaluate the effectiveness of their design, Ozaki and his colleagues carried out a series of experiments. In these tests, they were able to make the insect-size robot take off seamlessly and without the need for batteries or wires.

The robot created by this team of researchers weighs only 1.8g, thus it is over 25 times lighter than other radiofrequency-powered micro-sized vehicles developed in the past. In the future, it could thus prove to be highly valuable for conducting complex missions that entail entering cracks, pipes or other highly confined spaces.

"In this paper, we have successfully demonstrated takeoff," Ozaki said. "The next step is to combine this power supply technology with attitude control to make this robot hover and move freely in the air. We believe that this is technically possible, as we have already succeeded in controlling the robot's attitude with wired power."