Posted 22 July 2021 - 09:41 AM
"In a follow-up to a March House-wide survey and interviews with members, CNN confirmed that 312 of the 431 members of the House -- just over 72% of the 431-member body -- have now received a Covid-19 vaccination. Of that, all 219 House Democrats have reported being vaccinated. Among the Republican conference, 95 of the 212 members -- 44.8% -- have said they are vaccinated."
https://www.cnn.com/...ules/index.html
Posted 22 July 2021 - 03:44 PM
The numbers seem to be on the rise again.
Old White Man On A Canadian Island
Posted 22 July 2021 - 03:47 PM
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 July 2021 - 03:48 PM.
BUILD
Posted 23 July 2021 - 07:52 AM
A new study has been published on the bioRxiv* preprint server, which has identified and characterized two RBD-targeting neutralizing nanobodies, namely, DL4 and DL28. These nanobodies were isolated from immunized alpaca, a South American camelid mammal. This study has revealed that RBM-antibodies tend to escape mutants and has discovered nanobodies that can be used to develop potent therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2 variants.
https://www.news-med...SARS-CoV-2.aspx
In a new study, published recently in the journal Circulation Research, scientists discover how the production of protective molecules known as specialised pro-resolving mediators (SPM) is altered in patients with COVID-19.
The results suggest that treatments which increase SPM production, such as dexamethasone or SPM based drugs, could play a key role in limiting inflammation in these patients.
Currently there is little understanding around the mechanisms that lead to uncontrolled inflammation in patients with COVID-19.
The study found a link between decreased SPM blood levels and disrupted white blood cell responses in patients with a higher disease burden. The findings also revealed that dexamethasone, the first drug approved for treatment of patients with COVID-19, increased the levels of these protective molecules in these patients. Furthermore, treatment of white blood cells with SPM improved their function and reduced the expression of molecules linked to the spread of inflammation. Understanding these mechanisms will help provide new leads into the development of treatments to limit disease severity in patients with COVID-19.
This study offers a new insight into the disrupted biological processes that contribute to increased disease severity in COVID-19 patients. Results suggest that treatments which increase SPM production, such as dexamethasone or SPM based drugs, could play a key role in limiting inflammation in this patient group.
https://www.eurekale...o-nii072221.php
Receiving the WHO’s blessing means the vaccine can now be used to supply Covax, the initiative set up to share vaccine doses across the world. This is on top of it being approved for use by 37 countries. Millions are in line to receive the vaccine, and millions already have.
However, CoronaVac’s clinical trial results have painted a mixed picture. And, as with the western COVID-19 vaccines, it’s only now that plenty of doses have been deployed that we’re beginning to get a sense of how effective the vaccine is in real-world conditions.
A traditional approach
Like the other notable Chinese COVID-19 vaccine, manufactured by Sinopharm, CoronaVac is an inactivated vaccine. This means it contains whole versions of the coronavirus that have been treated so that they can’t replicate inside the body. These dead viruses are what the body mounts an immune response to.
This is a very different approach to that used by the main western vaccines, which instead deliver some of the coronavirus’s genetic material into the body in order to get it to build specific, recognisable parts of the coronavirus for the immune system to train itself against.
The inactivated vaccine method is a much more well-established way of designing a vaccine. Inactivated vaccines are typically easy to manufacture at large scale and have an excellent safety record. However, they tend to produce a weaker immune response than vaccines that use other designs.
To some extent this is borne out in the results of CoronaVac’s phase 3 clinical trials, which were run across several countries. In a trial run in Brazil, the vaccine prevented people developing symptomatic COVID-19 with 51% efficacy. In another trial in Indonesia, the vaccine showed 65% efficacy. For comparison, the efficacy of the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines exceeded 90% in their trials.
However, CoronaVac showed very high protection against being hospitalised with COVID-19 in these trials, and almost 100% protection against dying from the disease, and it was on the basis of these findings that the WHO recommended its use. Since then, results of a further phase 3 trial run in Turkey have been published, suggesting that CoronaVac is safe and has an efficacy of 83%.
*snip*
Therefore, in the context of a pandemic that shows no signs of abating, what does the future hold for CoronaVac? Well, in short, the world needs all the vaccines it can get, and we cannot afford to pick and choose between them. There’s good evidence that all the vaccines approved by the WHO protect against symptomatic disease, and also evidence that they in turn reduce onward transmission.
While vaccine demand continues to greatly outstrip supply and there’s huge inequity in the global vaccine rollout, there remains a big role for CoronaVac to play – even if it is slightly less effective than some other vaccines. Populations remain unprotected. Until that changes, the pandemic won’t end.
https://theconversat...efulness-164577
People in low- and middle-income countries tend to be much more willing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine than are those in the United States, according to an analysis that included poll results from a dozen countries.
The analysis, reported on 16 July in Nature Medicine, found that 80% of individuals surveyed in ten low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Asia, Africa and South America were willing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 65% in the United States. Upper-middle-income Russia is an outlier: only 30% of people there were willing to have the jab.
The study authors say the results suggest that ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines worldwide is not only a moral imperative, but also a powerful way to stem the spread of the virus: lower levels of hesitancy make widespread vaccination easier.
“Beyond the equity concerns, sharing vaccines is also the most efficient thing to do,” says Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, an economist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and a co-author of the study. “You want to give vaccines to people who are eager to take them.”
https://www.nature.c...586-021-01987-9
Nineteen new COVID-19 cases reported at Tokyo Olympics
Overall, 110 cases of the coronavirus have been reported so far at the Olympics in Tokyo
https://tass.com/sport/1316859
Eric Clapton refuses to play venues that "discriminate" by requiring COVID vaccine proof
"I will not perform on any stage where there is a discriminated audience present"
https://www.salon.co...-vaccine-proof/
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who for much of the pandemic resisted public health measures, criticized her state's unvaccinated population in comments on Thursday.
Ivey, a Republican, once feuded with her own lieutenant governor over what he warned was a weak coronavirus response, told reporters on Thursday that she's "done all that I know how to do."
"I don't know, you tell me," she said when asked what it would take to get more people vaccinated. "Folks supposed to have common sense. But it's time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It's the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down."
Alabama currently has the fourth lowest vaccination rate nationwide, according to The New York Times tracker.
https://www.business...ed-video-2021-7
(CNN) Sunny worked as a nurse on a Covid-19 floor of a hospital at the height of the pandemic. The work was hard, but what made it surreal was doing it while living in small town Arkansas, where many people, even some in her own family, said the virus was overblown -- "just the flu."
"It's extremely difficult to watch so many people die, and then have people tell you on Facebook or in Walmart that you're a liar," Sunny said. Sometimes that would come from the loved ones of the patients she was taking care of.
"We had people accuse us of giving their loved one something else so that they would die and we could report it as Covid. We heard it more than once that we were fudging the numbers, or we were killing people on purpose to make Covid look like it was worse than it was, or to make it look real when it wasn't," she said.
Sunny asked CNN not to use her real name, because some dedicated Covid-19 deniers have harassed health care workers, or tried to get outspoken ones fired.
*snip*
Sunny, the other Arkansas nurse, got on TikTok last year to vent and has used her account to spread awareness of what nurses were going through. She has since racked up nearly 140,000 followers with a mix of nurse-related comedy and searing stories about life on the Covid floor.
Other nurses sent her messages, thanking her for speaking out. But her videos were not always well received.
"I get called a crisis actor all the time," she said, referring to the conspiracy theory that victims of mass casualty events are actually actors paid by the government. "It's my thing now to respond to hate comments with, 'For just $10 into my Venmo account, I'll tell you the truth about Covid-19 and crisis acting.'"
So far she says she's made about $100. "I'm just like, 'Crisis acting isn't it real. And Covid is real. Surprise! I said I'd tell you the truth, not the truth you wanted to hear.'"
When Sunny meets Covid deniers in real life, she says she usually tears up and then awkwardly walks away. She even saw it within her own family.
"My own dad -- who I love, and is a great person -- I had to show him, like, no, this is real," she said. He was slowly convinced by "watching what it did to me personally -- getting phone calls from me during work where I'm just broken down crying ... There was so much death."
He got the vaccine.
https://www.cnn.com/...cine/index.html
The Fox News host Sean Hannity walked back his enthusiasm for COVID-19 vaccines after winning approval from President Joe Biden for praising vaccinations on his show earlier in the week.
Hannity told viewers on his show Thursday that he had "never told anyone to get a vaccine."
"I've been very clear," he said. "I am simply not qualified. I am not a medical doctor. I know nothing about your medical history or your current medical condition."
https://www.business...approves-2021-7
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) said on Thursday that Dr. Anthony Fauci should be prosecuted for allegedly lying to Congress.
During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Fauci was involved in an explosive exchange with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) about whether the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded a grant for gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the Covid-19 virus may have originated. Paul began his questioning by saying, “Dr. Fauci, as you are aware, it is a crime to lie to Congress.”
Fauci insisted the NIH had not funded gain-of-function research at the lab, which Paul vehemently disputed. Each man accused the other of lying, and Fauci emphatically told Paul, “You do not know what you’re talking about!”
Later that day, Paul said he would write to the Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking a criminal referral for Fauci for allegedly lying to Congress.
“His referral to the DOJ I think is well-founded,” said Cawthorn. “You can tell, he has directly lied to Congress.”
Cawthorn said Fauci’s hands were shaking during his back-and-forth with Paul not out of rage, but fear.
“Dr. Fauci knows he has been working as a pawn of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Cawthorn. He then baselessly alleged that the NIH has funded “militaristic research on how to make an animal virus more transmissible to humans.”
https://www.mediaite...ecute-this-guy/
is there any bigger loser in congress
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is being haunted by a previous prediction he made about the future of the COVID-19 pandemic if President Joe Biden were to win the election. As Delta variant cases of COVID-19 continue to rise across the country at alarming rates, Cruz is being reminded of how he envisioned the pandemic ending if Democrats managed to win in November 2020.
Speaking to The Hill last July exactly one year ago, the Texas lawmaker claimed the pandemic might magically disappear if Democrats won the presidential election.
"If it ends up that Biden wins in November -- I hope he doesn't, I don't think he will -- but if he does, I guarantee you the week after the election, suddenly all those Democratic governors, all those Democratic mayors, will say, 'Everything's magically better. Go back to work. Go back to school. Suddenly all the problems are solved.' You won't to have to wait for Biden to be sworn in. All they'll need is Election Day and suddenly their willingness to just destroy people's lives and livelihoods, they will have accomplished their task. That's wrong. It's cynical. And we shouldn't be a part of it."
https://www.alternet...led-prediction/
They are two sisters in two states. Both are dedicated health care professionals who watched in horror as COVID-19 swept through the nation’s nursing homes, killing a staggering number of residents and staff alike.
One sister is now vaccinated. The other is not.
“Dude. Get vaccinated!” Heidi Lucas texted her sister Ashley in May from her home in Jefferson City, Missouri.
“Nope lol,” Ashley Lucas texted back from Orbisonia, Pennsylvania.
“Don’t you work with old people?”
“Yeah”
“What if you killed one of them? Get vaccinated,” Heidi wrote.
Neither sister is budging as the Delta variant brings a new spike in coronavirus numbers across the nation.
Their divide mirrors America’s larger one, where the vaccine to combat COVID-19 is eagerly embraced by some, yet eyed with suspicion and rejected by others.
It is the refusal group, including a significant percentage who work in the nation’s nursing homes, that has confounded and alarmed health care officials who are at a loss as to how to sway them.
Nursing homes faced a shocking mortality rate during the pandemic. In the U.S., COVID-19 killed more than 133,000 residents and nearly 2,000 staff members between May 31, 2020 and this July 4, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports. The true toll is thought to be even higher as data gathering lagged in the early months of the crisis, health experts say.
Working in a nursing home became one of the “most dangerous jobs” in America in 2020, according to an analysis of work-related deaths by Scientific American.
long & thorough as always
https://www.propubli...ovid-19-vaccine
we are nowhere near the end of this pandemic
美国单日新增新冠肺炎病例超5万例 死亡人数超61万
There are more than 50,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the United States in a single day, and the death toll exceeds 610,000
http://www.chinanews...3/9526948.shtml
(Jul 16) LONDON -- The U.K. recorded more than 50,000 new coronavirus cases in one day Friday for the first time in six months, as the British government's top medical adviser warned that the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 could hit “quite scary” levels within weeks.
https://www.ctvnews....eased-1.5511517
remember this major milestone july 2, 2020: U.S. sees 50,000 new cases of COVID-19 reported in a single day, setting record
https://www.ctvnews....ecord-1.5007676
we aren't really any better off now than a year ago
(Bloomberg) -- The pandemic has a new epicenter, with Indonesia taking the lead in the dismal Covid-19 stakes after a recent streak of 50,000 infections a day.
The surge in the world’s fourth-most populous country is being accompanied by what are now tragically familiar stories. Hospitals are short of life-saving oxygen and drugs, and people are dying alone, their loved ones absent or behind protective screens. Indonesia is seeing more than 1,000 virus fatalities every day.
Across the world in the U.K., however, 50,000 cases has an entirely different impact. The nation eased a raft of pandemic restrictions on July 19, dubbed “Freedom Day” by the local press. Revelers jammed nightclubs for the first time in months, commuters can ride the train mask-free and diners are eating out without seating and capacity limits. Despite the jump in infections, around 50 people are dying each day.
The key difference? Vaccination. More than half the population in the U.K. -- 55% -- is fully inoculated against Covid, including most of its elderly and those at high risk, providing protection from serious disease and hospitalization.
In Indonesia, just 6% of people are fully immunized. Shots are scarce and the population is scared and vulnerable, unable to fend off a pathogen that has stalked the world since late 2019.
As richer nations turn back the clock, holding film festivals, fashion weeks and football championships once again, the worst health crisis in a generation continues to sweep the developing world, shuttering economies and dashing livelihoods. It’s the manifestation of what the World Health Organization warned about months ago: a “catastrophic moral failure” from the rich-poor divide in vaccine access. The lack of protection in emerging economies like Indonesia and, earlier, India and parts of Latin America, is not only deadly for individuals and devastating for local communities, it’s imperiling the world.
“It’s a toxic cocktail for disaster, and it’s going to be very hard to avoid,” said Joanne Liu, professor of global health at McGill University in Montreal and the former international president of Doctors Without Borders. “It’s like climate change. We see it coming, we don’t know how we’re going to stop it -- it needs a huge collective effort.”
https://www.bnnbloom...ffers-1.1632014
Edited by amor de cosmos, 23 July 2021 - 12:41 PM.
Posted 24 July 2021 - 04:44 AM
While hospitalizations have not yet spiked, the number of cases seems to be increasing at a disturbing rate.
Old White Man On A Canadian Island
Posted 24 July 2021 - 04:49 AM
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 July 2021 - 04:51 AM.
Old White Man On A Canadian Island
Posted 24 July 2021 - 05:15 AM
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 July 2021 - 05:17 AM.
BUILD
Posted 24 July 2021 - 07:11 AM
Beginning today, Island Health is bringing a custom “Vax Van” to popular parks, beaches, shopping destinations, and events across Vancouver Island.
The Vax Van will provide first-dose COVID-19 vaccines to ensure eligible individuals have the opportunity to receive their first dose — no appointment required.
https://www.victoria...d-destinations/
In a new poll of 2,040 Canadians from the Angus Reid Institute, data suggests how people with and/or without COVID-19 vaccinations may be affected in their day-to-day interactions.
According to the poll, 46 per cent say they are unlikely to spend time around those who have not received their jabs.
https://www.victoria...e-unvaccinated/
COVID-19 cases in B.C. are up — but 78 per cent of new cases are among unvaccinated people
https://www.cbc.ca/n...-july-1.6114731
Richmond Night Market reopens after 16-month closure due to COVID-19
The market is back after 16 months with safety measures and a smaller setup
https://www.cbc.ca/n...opens-1.6115033
Canada will likely face a fourth wave of the pandemic as the highly contagious delta variant continues to spread ahead of borders and schools reopening, but there's growing optimism another surge won't bring the country back to a crisis point.
Canadian immunologists, virologists and infectious disease specialists say we could fare better than in previous waves, with a lower rate of serious infections, due to the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and the willingness of Canadians to get vaccinated.
But our rollout is plateauing and there are still huge swaths of the population that are unvaccinated — either by choice or due to a lack of access or eligibility — including millions of Canadian kids who are heading back to school in just over a month.
"We're going to see rises in case counts at some point again," said Matthew Miller, an associate professor of infectious diseases and immunology at McMaster University in Hamilton.
"Probably similar to last year, as we head into the fall and the cold weather arrives. But those bumps are hopefully just that — tiny hills, and not mountains like the earlier waves."
How bad will Canada's 4th wave be?
The severity of Canada's fourth wave will largely be determined by levels of COVID-19 immunity in the population from vaccines or prior infection, which can prevent community transmission from rising and stop severe cases from overwhelming hospitals.
Canada has had more than 1.4 million cases of COVID-19 so far, yet only 2.6 per cent of Canadians were found to have antibodies due to prior coronavirus infection in early 2021.
"The question is — is there sufficient population immunity? No," said Raywat Deonandan, a global health epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa.
"And the reason for that is because we measure population immunity by recovered cases and vaccinations."
https://www.cbc.ca/n...riant-1.6115434
People infected with the delta variant of the novel coronavirus may be carrying more than a thousand times more virus particles and may test positive two days earlier than those infected with the original SARS-CoV-2, according to an early new study. The study has not been peer reviewed and looked at only a small number of cases in China, but if the results can be confirmed, they may explain, at least in part, why the delta variant is so much more infectious.
The delta variant has now spread to more than 100 countries and currently makes up 83% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S., with particularly high case numbers in areas with low vaccination rates, Live Science previously reported. This variant is thought to be 60% more transmissible than the previous dominant strain, and twice as infectious as the original strain of SARS-CoV-2.
Though it's clear that delta is very good at spreading quickly, researchers aren't sure why. To understand more, a group of researchers in China studied how the delta variant spread from the first known local transmission identified on May 21. The authors published their findings as a preprint study on Virological on July 7.
https://www.livescie...ansmission.html
Iceland, one of the first nations in the world to lift all COVID restrictions for vaccinated tourists, on Friday announced new curbs following a spate of infections.
At the end of June, Iceland lifted rules around social distancing, mask-wearing, limits on public gatherings and the opening hours of bars and restaurants after introducing virus restrictions in March last year.
Starting from midnight on Sunday until August 13, public gatherings will be restricted to 200, the one-metre social distancing rule will be reimposed and bars and restaurants will have to close at 11:00 pm.
Swimming pools and indoor sports facilities can only operate to 75 percent of capacity and masks will be mandatory indoors.
Although over 85 percent of the population above 16 have received two vaccine doses, Iceland has seen infections spurt with 355 new cases since July 12.
https://medicalxpres...ions-cases.html
HANOI: Vietnam's health ministry reported 7,968 new COVID-19 infections on Saturday (Jul 24), a second record daily increase in a row after the 7,307 cases reported on Friday.
https://www.channeln...-cases-15287088
HANOI: Vietnam announced a 15-day lockdown in the capital Hanoi starting Saturday (Jul 24) as a coronavirus surge spread from the southern Mekong Delta region.
The lockdown order, issued late Friday night, bans the gathering of more than two people in public. Only government offices, hospitals and essential businesses are allowed to stay open.
Earlier in the week, the city had suspended all outdoor activities and ordered non-essential businesses to close following an increase in cases. On Friday, Hanoi reported 70 confirmed infections, the city's highest, part of a record 7,295 cases in the country in the last 24 hours.
https://www.channeln...s-rise-15283902
Everyone in a county in China's southwest near Myanmar will be tested for the coronavirus following a spike in infections, the government announced Saturday.
Businesses, schools and markets in Jiangcheng County in Yunnan province will close Monday and Tuesday while nucleic acid testing is carried out, the government said. Travel into and out of the county will be prohibited.
https://medicalxpres...mass-virus.html
Patients in intensive care units (ICUs) with COVID-19 at a Florida hospital are "begging" to be vaccinated, a nurse told CNN.
The unnamed nurse, who works at the Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville, Florida, said that patients, the overwhelming majority of whom are unvaccinated, are "at a loss" for what they can do to stay alive.
"Every single day... you're getting ready to incubate the patient in ICU, which means putting them on a ventilator, and they say, 'If I get the vaccine now, can I not go on the ventilator?'" the nurse told CNN's Randi Kaye.
She said that she has to repeatedly point out that the right time to get a COVID-19 vaccine is before they get sick.
"They're desperate because they're gasping for air, they can't breathe, they're scared, they feel like they're going to pass away," the nurse continued. "They're just asking for whatever they can do to possibly keep them from being put on a ventilator because once a patient gets on a ventilator, it's really hard to wean them off."
The number of COVID-19 patients at Baptist Medical Center is rapidly rising, according to CNN. There are 349 patients with coronavirus at the moment, and 74 are in the ICU, the media outlet reported.
Around 44 percent of the patients at the hospital are under the age of 40, and are staying at the hospital much longer because they are sicker, Kaye said.
An overwhelming majority (99.6 percent) have not yet received a COVID-19 vaccine, CNN added.
https://www.business...rse-says-2021-7
About 5,300 Floridians are now hospitalized with COVID, a 65% jump since last week and nearly a tripling since June 14 when 1,845 were hospitalized, the Florida Hospital Association said. Officials have said more than 95% of those hospitalized were not vaccinated.
About 60% of residents 12 and older are vaccinated, according to the state, equal to the national rate. But the percentage of vaccinated adults remains low in the state's rural, strongly conservative north, where some counties are at about 30% as residents don't trust the vaccination program but have high infection rates.
More than 73,000 new coronavirus cases were reported statewide over the past week, according to the state health department, nearly seven times the 12,000 reported a month ago. Florida's numbers had been falling since mid-January when 100,000 new cases per week were reported and 8,200 were hospitalized just as the vaccination program began.
"This thing got politicized nationally, and we're paying the price," said Jared Moskowitz, the state's former emergency management director. "This is mostly now a pandemic amongst the unvaccinated."
https://medicalxpres...nificantly.html
Republican politicians are increasingly speaking out this week in an effort to persuade people who are skeptical about COVID-19 vaccines to take the shots as a new, more contagious variant sends caseloads soaring.
At recent news conferences and statements, some prominent Republicans have been imploring constituents to lay lingering doubts aside.
In Washington, the so-called Doctors Caucus gathered at the Capitol for an event to combat vaccine hesitancy. And in Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis this week pointed to data showing the vast majority of hospitalized COVID-19 patients hadn't received shots.
*snip*
For months, many conservative lawmakers and pundits have been stoking vaccine hesitancy, refusing to take the shots or downplaying the severity of the virus, following the lead of former president Donald Trump. Republican governors have signed bills protecting the unvaccinated from having to disclose their status and tried to roll back mask mandates.
"I think they've finally realized that if their people aren't vaccinated, they're going to get sick, and if their people aren't vaccinated, they're going to get blamed for COVID outbreaks in the future," said Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who has been working with President Joe Biden's administration and public health experts to craft messaging to bring the vaccine hesitant off the fence.
In his focus groups, Luntz said many skeptics have struggled to assess the veracity of the things they read and hear.
"There is so much misinformation out there, and they can't tell the difference between what is accurate and what is fake," he said. "So it makes it virtually impossible to communicate when they don't know what to believe."
The outreach comes as COVID-19 cases have nearly tripled in the U.S. over the last two weeks, with hospitalizations up 32 per cent since last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Public health officials cite the new delta variant, especially in pockets of the country where vaccination rates are low.
Just 56.2 per cent of Americans have received at least one vaccine dose, according to the CDC.
Overall, only 51 per cent of Republicans said in mid-June that they had received at least one vaccine dose, versus 83 per cent of Democrats, according to an AP-NORC poll. And 53 per cent who identify as Republicans and hadn't been vaccinated said they definitely wouldn't get the shots.
https://www.cbc.ca/n...ssage-1.6114162
Posted 24 July 2021 - 06:46 PM
Old White Man On A Canadian Island
Old White Man On A Canadian Island
Posted 25 July 2021 - 05:55 AM
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 July 2021 - 05:56 AM.
BUILD
Posted 25 July 2021 - 07:02 AM
https://www.nanaimob...se-of-covid-19/In early May, six residents of Iqaluit’s elders home were put on charter flights leaving the city after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19.
Four were sent to the Embassy West Seniors Living Residence in Ottawa and two others were sent elsewhere in the territory, the Nunavut government said at the time.
Nearly 2 1/2 months later, none of them has returned and the elders home remains closed.
In recent news conferences, Nunavut’s health minister Lorne Kusugaksaid the elders would be able to return once staffing permits.
There is no clear timeline for when that will happen, said Anne Crawford, an Iqaluit lawyer and volunteer with Pairijait Tigumivik, the non-profit group that managed the home for the last 25 years.
https://medicalxpres...ines-cases.htmlLike far too many of Spain's 20-somethings, Sergio Rosado has seen the new, more contagious coronavirus strain strike those too eager to cut loose when authorities rolled back health restrictions with vaccinations picking up pace.
But the 22-year-old student shares the country's widespread public trust in the vaccines, and Rosado plans to get his shots as soon as his turn comes.
"I have friends that have caught COVID-19 at big parties. Lots of people I know have caught it," Rosado said. "I did go out too, but to places without many people and in controlled spaces, and with face masks."
Spain, like its fellow European Union members, got off to a slow start in administering shots compared to Britain and the United States after regulators approved the first vaccines. But once deliveries by drugmakers started flowing to meet demand, the country quickly made up ground.
After only fully vaccinating 10% of its adults from January until the end of April, now nearly 54% of its adults, around 25 million people, have received two vaccine jabs, making Spain one of the inoculation leaders in the 27-nation European Union.
The program is built on Spain's efficient public health care system, a well-ordered vaccination plan that stuck strictly to age groups, and a populace confident in the safety of childhood immunizations and therefore largely resistant to skepticism about COVID-19 jabs.
*snip*
Spain's public health care system, which has suffered budget cuts in the past decade, buckled last year under the first wave of the virus, which has claimed at least 81,000 lives in the country.
But fears that the health system wouldn't be up to the job of managing a massive vaccine rollout proved unfounded. Eligibility information was widely disseminated, and people didn't hesitate to sign up when it was their age group's turn. Vaccination lines generally moved swiftly, and unlike France, there was no paperwork to get in the way when people went to their local clinics or mass vaccination points.
It also helped that no politician, not even on the fringes of the right or left, sowed doubts about the vaccines. The only political issue regarding the vaccines was when they weren't arriving fast enough, and regional health authorities in charge of administering them demanded more quicker.
https://medicalxpres...ital-chief.htmlLebanon's deepening economic crisis has piled pressure on hospitals, leaving them ill-equipped to face any new wave of the coronavirus, a top hospital director has warned.
Already struggling with shortages of medicine and an exodus of staff abroad, the country's health facilities are now also having to contend with almost round-the-clock power cuts.
"All hospitals... are now less prepared than they were during the wave at the start of the year," said Firass Abiad, the manager of the largest public hospital in the country battling COVID.
"Medical and nursing staff have left, medicine that was once available has run out," and ever lengthening cuts to the mains power supply have left hospitals under constant threat.
Even the Rafik Hariri University Hospital he runs has been struggling to cope.
"We only get two to three hours of mains electricity, and for the rest of the time it's up to the generators," Abiad said.
On top of worrying they could burn out, "we have the huge burden of having to constantly be on the hunt for fuel oil."
https://medicalxpres...ases-surge.htmlSeveral states scaled back their reporting of COVID-19 statistics this month just as cases across the country started to skyrocket, depriving the public of real-time information on outbreaks, cases, hospitalizations and deaths in their communities.
The shift to weekly instead of daily reporting in Florida, Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota marked a notable shift during a pandemic in which coronavirus dashboards have become a staple for Americans closely tracking case counts and trends to navigate a crisis that has killed more than 600,000 people in the U.S.
In Nebraska, the state actually stopped reporting on the virus altogether for two weeks after Gov. Pete Ricketts declared an end to the official virus emergency, forcing news reporters to file public records requests or turn to national websites that track state data to learn about COVID statistics. The state backtracked two weeks later and came up with a weekly site that provides some basic numbers.
Other governments have gone the other direction and released more information, with Washington, D.C., this week adding a dashboard on breakthrough cases to show the number of residents who contracted the virus after getting vaccines. Many states have recently gone to reporting virus numbers only on weekdays.
When Florida changed the frequency of its virus reporting earlier this month, officials said it made sense given the decreasing number of cases and the increasing number of people being vaccinated.
Cases started soaring soon after, and Florida earlier this week made up up one-fifth of the country's new coronavirus infections. As a result, Florida's weekly releases—typically done on Friday afternoons—have consequences for the country's understanding of the current summer surge, with no statewide COVID stats coming out of the virus hotspot for six days a week.
In Florida's last two weekly reports, the number of new cases shot up from 23,000 to 45,000 and then 73,000 on Friday, an average of more than 10,000 day. Hospitals are starting to run out of space in parts of the state.
With cases rising, Democrats and other critics have urged state officials and Gov. Ron DeSantis to resume daily outbreak updates.
"There was absolutely no reason to eliminate the daily updates beyond an effort to pretend like there are no updates," said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from the Orlando area.
Edited by amor de cosmos, 25 July 2021 - 09:47 AM.
Posted 25 July 2021 - 08:39 AM
Rent increases predicted for Metro Vancouver as Canada prepares to reopen its borders
Some areas already starting to see rents rise as international students, immigrants arrive
https://www.cbc.ca/n...ouver-1.6114963
We doubled the number of immigrants we accept without any plan to house them. No wonder we have a supply crunch.
Old White Man On A Canadian Island
Posted 25 July 2021 - 08:46 AM
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 July 2021 - 09:13 AM.
Posted 25 July 2021 - 01:45 PM
we are also bringing in POC as immigrants at a rate of 90% while teaching critical race theory type curriculum.
where we teach that whites are colonialists and oppressors while 90% of current immigrants are non-white.
are current immigrants different than past colonisers?
BUILD
Posted 26 July 2021 - 07:53 AM
After a successful plea to lift Newfoundland and Labrador's ban on dancing in long-term care homes, seniors at Alderwood Retirement Centre in Witless Bay celebrated in a big way: with a flash mob in the street.
Fifty or so residents spilled into Harbour Road Saturday — walkers, wheelchairs and canes in tow — to cut loose as the opening chords of Kenny Loggins's Footloose blared from the speakers.
The song had formed the soundtrack of the video the group sent to Health Minister John Haggie begging him to ease pandemic restrictions on dancing in retirement homes that had been in place for 16 months. Shortly after the video's release, Haggie announced the ban's end on July 21.
Saturday's celebration, which coincided with Alderwood's fourth annual capelin-eating contest, drew a crowd of about 100 residents, staff and family members, most of whom spent the afternoon waltzing and two-stepping to the Celtic sounds of singer-guitarist Ron Harvey.
"I don't know if I can put it into words," said Teresa Bowen, an Alderwood resident of four years, of the day's events.
https://www.cbc.ca/n...shmob-1.6116839
COVID-19 has laid bare many uncomfortable truths regarding society's overall preparedness for low-probability but high-impact events, especially global ones. These range from issues pertaining exclusively to pandemic readiness (like our domestic capacity to produce personal protective equipment, ventilators, sanitizer and vaccines) to matters that are considerably less esoteric, like the ability of global supply chains to operate regardless of the various stresses put upon them.
The latter goes far beyond the toilet paper supply issue experienced early in the pandemic. It expands to include a whole range of products like lumber and other building materials, tools, foodstuffs, seeds, furniture, cleaning supplies, aluminum cans, jars, pools and pool equipment, chemicals, bicycles, camping gear, household appliances and replacement parts of all kinds.
In many cases supply chains have been simultaneously squeezed on both ends—supply and demand.
https://phys.org/new...bal-chains.html
Kate Shemirani, 54 lost her nurse licence and most of social media presence last year for promoting what were dubbed as conspiracy theories against the COVID-19 response, as she compared vaccination programmes with the Nazi war crimes. The ex-nurse also called the UK’s National Health Service "the new Auschwitz".
The Metropolitan police are probing a speech by prominent British anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Kate Shemirani, who referenced the hanging of Nazi doctors at the Nuremberg Trials as she spoke out against the vaccination programme.
Shemirani, a former nurse who was suspended by the Nursing and Midwifery Council in July 2020 in response to the spread of COVID-19 misinformation, took to the stage in Trafalgar Square in London last week to promote her wild theories about the “killing” being done by coronavirus vaccines.
https://sputniknews....-trial-doctors/
The Seemingly Cursed Tokyo Olympics Are Now in the Path of a Tropical Storm
Japan's Meteorological Agency forecasted that Tropical Storm Nepartak could make landfall on Tuesday in the area that includes Tokyo.
https://gizmodo.com/...path-1847359708
More than 10 million residents of Ho Chi Minh City will be placed under a strict overnight curfew beginning Monday, an unprecedented move to curb infections as Vietnam battles a rapid COVID-19 surge.
After successfully containing limited coronavirus outbreaks last year, the communist country is now recording increasing infections and deaths fuelled by the highly contagious Delta variant.
Hardest-hit are the northern industrial centres and Ho Chi Minh City in the south, which has registered more than 62,000 infections since April—making up the bulk of Vietnam's 101,000 cases.
Authorities have restricted movement in the once-bustling economic hub for more than two months, and imposed a lockdown in early July. Residents are allowed to leave home only for medical emergencies and food.
But beginning Monday, an additional, strict stay-at-home order will be in effect from 6 pm to 6 am local time—though authorities refused to use the word "curfew". No end date was announced for the measure.
"Local law enforcement will need to step up patrols... and issue appropriate penalties for offenders, even detention in cases of resistance," said city mayor Nguyen Thanh Phong, according to state media.
https://medicalxpres...oses-night.html
China reports 76 virus cases, highest daily rise since January
https://medicalxpres...hest-daily.html
A Bronx man allegedly received $1.5 million in just ten months. A California real estate broker raked in more than $500,000 within half a year. A Nigerian government official is accused of pocketing over $350,000 in less than six weeks.
What they all had in common, according to federal prosecutors, was participation in what may turn out to be the biggest fraud wave in U.S. history: filing bogus claims for unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. (The broker has pleaded guilty, while the Bronx man and Nigerian official have pleaded not guilty.)
Fraudsters have filed in high volumes, sometimes obtaining payments from multiple states, despite the fact that a jobless person is barred from getting assistance in more than one state. One person, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, used a single Social Security number to file unemployment insurance claims in 40 states. Twenty-nine states paid up, sending $222,532.
But the problem extends far beyond a plague of solo scammers. A ProPublica investigation reveals that much of the fraud has been organized — both in the U.S. and abroad. Fraudsters have used bots to file online claims in bulk. And others, located as far away as China and West Africa, have organized low-wage teams to file phony claims.
*snip*
The fraud estimates provided by states so far range from high to jaw-dropping. In Vermont, as many as 90% of claims in some months were determined to be fraudulent, state officials said in June. Rhode Island’s labor agency said in March that it suspected fraud in 43% of the claims it had received. The equivalent agency in California has confirmed fraud in about 10% of its payments and said it’s investigating a further 17%. The numbers have tailed off in Texas, whose agency says it now suspects fraud in about 14% of its claims.
“The system was the victim of what is one of the largest internet crimes in history, perpetrated against all 50 states at extraordinary levels,” said James Bernsen, a spokesperson for the Texas Workforce Commission. (Bernsen and officials for other states say the damage could’ve been even worse: They say they’ve been able to stop billions of dollars’ worth of bogus claims before they got paid.)
The U.S. Department of Labor’s inspector general estimates that at least $87 billion in fraudulent and improper payments will have made their way through the system by the time pandemic-linked jobless aid programs expire in September. That estimate is based on a historic assumption that fraud and waste eat up about 10% of unemployment insurance aid. The inspector general acknowledges that figure is likely too conservative in an environment where unemployment insurance fraud has “exploded” to “unprecedented” levels.
extremely long
https://www.propubli...ng-the-pandemic
Enten then showed a chart of adults with at least one covid vaccine dose divvied up by their main news source. “Just 62% of people who use Fox News as their main news source have at least one dose,” he noted, compared to people who get their news from network news (ABC, CBS, NBC) which is 79%. Viewers of CNN and MSNBC came in at 83%. “What we see is about 20 points less of the Fox News audience has been vaccinated compared to the people who get their news from say, some other television outlet,” he added.
https://www.mediaite...cine-hesitancy/
Texas hospital system confirms first case of COVID-19 lambda variant; first detected in Peru
https://bronx.news12...etected-in-peru
The US will not lift its existing travel restrictions due to the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus and increasing COVID-19 cases, Reuters reported.
"Given where we are today with the Delta variant, the United States will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point," an anonymous White House official told the news outlet.
Coronavirus cases are increasing in every US state, especially among the unvaccinated, health officials say. The Delta variant, which was first identified in India, is rapidly spreading across the nation.
"Driven by the Delta variant, cases are rising here at home, particularly among those who are unvaccinated and appear likely continue to increase in the weeks ahead," the official told Reuters.
https://www.business...-variant-2021-7
https://www.reuters....ial-2021-07-26/
Edited by amor de cosmos, 26 July 2021 - 07:53 AM.
Old White Man On A Canadian Island
Posted 26 July 2021 - 08:21 AM
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 26 July 2021 - 08:23 AM.
Old White Man On A Canadian Island
Old White Man On A Canadian Island
Posted 26 July 2021 - 03:10 PM
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 26 July 2021 - 03:10 PM.
Old White Man On A Canadian Island
Posted 26 July 2021 - 05:51 PM
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 26 July 2021 - 05:53 PM.
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