26251 replies to this topic

[LJ]

they had the stampede. we passed on the PNE.

No we didn't, there was actually quite a successful but scaled down PNE.

[On the Level]

 

B.C. says it can't take patients from Alberta's overwhelmed ICUs

"However, we have told Alberta that if there are things we can do to support them, we will. And if we can take patients on in the future, we will.

 

Whether you feel the government should pay for you (Together Victoria) or think your freedom is threatened by government society orders (extremist right wing antivaxxers).  There are consequences, reality and eventually personal responsibility will rear it's ugly head.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...ction-1.6179099

[Midnightly]

Will there be an effort now to get everyone aged 12-17 vaccinated?

there has been a number of efforts to reach out to that age group, in areas where there are lower vaccine rates for that age group they are going to do in school vaccine clinics to help reach the youth (there are huge areas in northern health and smaller towns which could really use the school push to reach the youth) Victoria youth seem to be doing fairly well with what i've been hearing

[Victoria Watcher]

While Daly confirmed his knowledge of a current COVID outbreak within the community that uses Our Place, he wasn’t at liberty to speak to the numbers. Black Press Media has reached out to Island Health for more information on the situation, but has not received a response.

But Paul Stevens, who has actively volunteered and been an advocate for those experiencing homelessness over the past six years, estimated there are 50 to 80 positive cases of COVID-19 among residents of housing facilities at Our Place, at 844 Johnson St., Soleil (formerly Paul’s Motor Inn) and the Comfort Inn on Blanshard Street.


https://www.vicnews....ntre-for-a-day/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 September 2021 - 02:57 AM.

[Mike K.]

50 to 80? So it could just as well be 80-110?

[amor de cosmos]

Goodbye Pfizer, hello Comirnaty: Top COVID-19 vaccines given brand names in Canada
Canada will still receive vials labelled Pfizer-BioNTech for next several months
https://www.cbc.ca/n...anada-1.6178484

Canadian physio grads have waited 18 months to get licensed. Now exams are cancelled for the 5th time
Candidates and professionals are calling on physiotherapy colleges to step up in light of licensing failures
https://www.cbc.ca/n...-time-1.6177324
 

Typically, data scientists use deep learning to pick out drug combinations with large existing datasets for things like cancer and cardiovascular disease, but, understandably, they can't be used for new illnesses with limited data.
 
Without the necessary facts and figures, the team needed a new approach: a neural network that wears two hats. Since drug synergy often occurs through inhibition of biological targets, (like proteins or nucleic acids), the model jointly learns drug-target interaction and drug-drug synergy to mine new combinations. The drug-target predictor models the interaction between a drug and a set of known biological targets that are related to the chosen disease. The target-disease association predictor learns to understand a drug's antiviral activity, which means determining the virus yield in infected tissue cultures. Together, they can predict the synergy of two drugs.
 
Two new drug combinations were found: remdesivir (currently approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19), and reserpine, as well as remdesivir and IQ-1S, which, in biological assays, proved powerful against the virus.
 
"By modeling interactions between drugs and biological targets, we can significantly decrease the dependence on combination synergy data," says Wengong Jin, CSAIL Ph.D. and MIT Broad Institute postdoc, the lead author on a new paper about the research. "In contrast to previous approaches using drug-target interaction as fixed descriptors, our method learns to predict drug-target interaction from molecular structures. This is advantageous since a large proportion of compounds have incomplete drug-target interaction information."

https://medicalxpres...ons-covid-.html

A 100% French nasal vaccine against COVID-19 yields positive pre-clinical results
https://www.alphagal...y/ItemId/212675

IOC urges Olympic teams to ask for Chinese vaccines ahead of Beijing Games
Vaccination is encouraged but not mandatory for 2022 Olympics, which open Feb. 4
https://www.cbc.ca/s...games-1.6179415

В Москве у Музея истории медицины открыли памятник врачам, борющимся с COVID-19
A monument to doctors fighting COVID-19 was unveiled at the Museum of the History of Medicine in Moscow
https://ria.ru/20210...1750542086.html

Seattle area to require COVID-19 vaccine to enter indoor venues
https://thehill.com/...r-indoor-venues
 
longish history of the flccc

Yet two men want you to think that ivermectin could be all we need to treat, or even prevent, any COVID-19 case: Dr. Pierre Kory, a former critical-care specialist at the University of Wisconsin medical center, and Dr. Paul Marik, the chief of critical care at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
 
Together, Kory and Marik lead the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, a nonprofit organization founded by fringe doctors and former media pros that has led an increasingly concerted campaign, hinged on twisted science, to promote ivermectin as a cure-all for COVID-19.
 
"Ivermectin is effectively a 'miracle drug' against COVID-19," Kory told members of the Senate homeland-security committee last December, saying data showed "profound efficacy" of the drug "in all stages of the disease."
 
He concluded that if everyone were to have access to the antiparasitic, "the pandemic will end, the economy can reopen, social interactions and activity can resume, and life can normalize."
 
That is not true. But Kory and Marik, through the FLCCC, have led millions of people (including the podcast host Joe Rogan and many of his followers) to believe that hard data from around the world supports the treatment of COVID-19 with ivermectin. Some of it comes from studies that cite data that has been found not to exist. In other instances, they cherry-pick information or jump to conclusions about ivermectin's role in ending illnesses in a way that makes ivermectin sound more effective against COVID-19 than it is.
 
The truth of this pandemic is that there is no single, surefire treatment for COVID-19 patients.
 
By suggesting that a prophylactic miracle alternative to vaccines exists, Kory, Marik, and the FLCCC are giving people false hope that can have grave consequences.

 

*snip*

 

One small group of scientists has essentially made a mission of taking on the studies the FLCCC cites in a one-by-one fashion, exposing their inherent flaws. Among its members are the Australian epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz from the University of Wollongong and the independent data scientist Nick Brown in Spain. After being tipped off by a graduate student completing a school assignment, they found that one of the largest ivermectin studies yet (conducted in Egypt) used "data" that didn't exist.

 

Another ivermectin study based in Argentina suggested the deworming pill might've prevented 100% of COVID-19 cases. That is, until a recent BuzzFeed News investigation revealed that at least some of the hospitals named in that study never participated.

 

"This would be an absolutely unheard-of level of efficacy," Brown said, discussing the literature the FLCCC used to promote ivermectin. He pointed out that if the data to support ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment were really as good as suggested by the touted studies, it'd be "better than antibiotics on bacteria."

 

None of the larger, more controlled and sophisticated trials of ivermectin are finding evidence that the drug helps COVID-19 patients much.

https://www.business...g-charge-2021-9
 

“I felt joy and elation when I got my first two doses of Pfizer,” Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, told me. But he is a lot more wary of the pharmaceutical company’s next project: boosters. “I would feel very, very uncomfortable, given the data today, taking a booster myself at the age of 42, because I have not been shown what the benefit is,” Faust said.
 
Days before the Biden administration plans to roll out boosters, the scientific community is embroiled in debate over whether they are even needed for most people. And a recent spate of new publications only adds to the growing turmoil. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s advisory committee on vaccines is set to discuss the divisive issue on Friday. But for some, Pfizer’s 23-page application on 300 adults who received booster shots created more questions than answers.
 
Some countries are forging ahead to offer third shots despite scant data, even though vaccinating unvaccinated people around the world would be an effective strategy for stopping the emergence of new variants that could respond worse to vaccines. Vaccine inequity is already stunning, with only 2 percent of people in low-income countries receiving first shots. It could get even worse if rich countries focus on giving third and fourth shots to the vaccinated rather than giving first and second shots to those with no protection.
 
“Reading this document, I felt like I was getting gaslit,” Faust said. The document says both that immunity is waning and that the vaccines are holding up well; it says there is data to support these decisions, and then it says there’s not enough data to make a decision now, he said. “Unfortunately, it’s reminiscent of the usual shenanigans that pharmaceutical companies engage in, as opposed to last year, where it was just so straightforward,” he said. Looking at a sample size of 300 adults, he said, is not enough to make a decision like this. (The data from the original trials, which led to the emergency use authorizations and full FDA approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, was much clearer and more robust.)
 
*snip*
 
Even if some gain can ultimately be obtained from boosting, it will not outweigh the benefits of providing initial protection to the unvaccinated,” the Lancet authors said. If boosters become necessary, they added, studies should focus on the effectiveness of updated shots that may respond better to specific variants.
 
Vaccines play a key role in ending the pandemic, Faust said. But it’s important to study the best use of boosters and updated vaccines before deploying them—such as figuring out the best vaccines against variants and identifying those at high risk of becoming sick or passing the virus on despite being vaccinated. Until then, the best way to slow the spread of the virus and prevent the rise of new variants is to help communities in the U.S. and abroad get their first shots. “The way out of it is through vaccination, actually,” Faust said, “but not necessarily through knee-jerk boosting.”

https://newrepublic....d-booster-shots
 
Over 2.16 bln doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered in China
http://www.ecns.cn/n...wm3128176.shtml

World's first aerosolized inhaled COVID-19 vaccine to debut in Hainan
http://www.ecns.cn/c...wm3127996.shtml
 

A few weeks ago, Callagan was driving the nearly four-hour trek to Oregon Health & Science University in Portland for a bone marrow transplant, a major procedure that would have required him to stay in the hospital for a week and remain in the Portland area for tests for an additional two weeks. On the way, he got a call from his doctor.
 
“They’re like, ‘We were told this morning that we have to cancel the surgeries we had planned,’” he said.
 
Callagan’s surgery was canceled because the hospital was full. That’s the story at many hospitals in Oregon and in other states where they’ve been flooded with covid patients.
 
OHSU spokesperson Erik Robinson said the hospital, which is the state’s only public academic medical center and serves patients from across the region, has had to postpone numerous surgeries and procedures in the wake of the delta surge of the pandemic. “Surgical postponements initially impacted patients who needed an overnight hospital stay, but more recently has impacted all outpatient surgeries and procedures,” Robinson wrote.
 
Callagan said his bone marrow transplant has not yet been rescheduled.
 
*snip*
 
Right now, the vast majority of patients in Oregon hospitals with covid are unvaccinated, about five times as many as those who got the vaccine, according to the Oregon Health Authority. Covid infections are starting to decline from the peak of the delta wave. But even in non-pandemic times, there’s not a lot of extra room in Oregon’s health care system.
 
“If you look at the number of hospital beds per capita, Oregon has 1.7 hospital beds per thousand population. That’s the lowest in the country,” said Becky Hultberg, CEO of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.
 
A new study focused on curtailing nonemergency procedures looked back at how Veterans Health Administration hospitals did during the first pandemic wave. It found that the VA health system was able to reduce elective treatments by 91%.
 
It showed that stopping elective procedures was an effective tool to free up beds in intensive care units to care for covid patients. But the study didn’t look at the consequences for those patients who had to wait.
 
*snip*
 
At his home in southern Oregon, Charlie Callagan said he doesn’t consider his bone-marrow transplant as urgent as what some people are facing right now.
 
“There’s so many other people who are being affected,” he said. “People are dying waiting for a hospital bed. That just angers me. It’s hard to stay quiet now.”
 
He said it’s hard to be sympathetic for the covid patients filling up hospitals, when a simple vaccine could have prevented most of those hospitalizations.

https://khn.org/news...ther-treatment/

Florida fights to block deposition of its own surgeon general in school mask legal battle
https://www.miamiher...e254291238.html
via https://www.rawstory...l-mask-mandate/
 

A doctor in Boise, Idaho, known for his adamant pushback against the COVID-19 vaccine, has been appointed to one of the largest public health boards in the state of Idaho.
 
Dr. Ryan Cole, who previously described the COVID vaccine as "fake" and as "needle rape," now serves on the Central District Board of Health in Idaho, according to The Washington Post. The controversial doctor was appointed to replace Dr. Ted Epperly, a 15-year board member who was ousted for embracing COVID restrictions to mitigate the spread of the virus. Cole, who was supported by the Ada County Republican Party, was selected by Republican county commissioners.
 
The publication reports that commissioners "liked his 'outsider' perspective and how he 'questioned' medical guidance." An example of Cole's stance on COVID mitigation was highlighted during an August 26th Zoom call when he condemned mask wearing.
 
"There's really statistically no efficacy in masks," Cole stated incorrectly during an August 26th Zoom call with Peace Valley Charter School, which was mulling over COVID-19 mitigation requirements to enforce for the new school year.

https://www.alternet...nti-vax-doctor/

Edited by amor de cosmos, 17 September 2021 - 09:53 AM.

[todd]

^SpikeVax sounds awful

[todd]

“Mom says school notification process too slow after son, 10, diagnosed with COVID”

“…when she went to pick him up from Monterey Middle School on Day 2, he looked awful, was coughing and later developed a fever. She developed similar symptoms the same evening..”

 

 

https://www.timescol...ovid-1.24358526

Edited by todd, 17 September 2021 - 09:32 AM.

[todd]

“FDA panel rejects plan to administer Pfizer's Covid booster doses to general public“: https://www.cnbc.com...ral-public.html

[todd]

“FDA panel recommends Pfizer's Covid booster doses for people 65 and older after rejecting third shots for general population”: https://www.cnbc.com...ral-public.html

Edited by todd, 17 September 2021 - 12:55 PM.

[amor de cosmos]

they should give the 3rd shots to developing countries

[Victoria Watcher]

From Sept. 9-15, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 75.9% of cases and from Sept. 2-15 they accounted for 86.2% of hospitalizations.

Past week cases (Sept. 9-15) – Total 4,804

• Not vaccinated: 3288 (68.4%)
• Partially vaccinated: 358 (7.5%)
• Fully vaccinated: 1,158 (24.1%)

Past two weeks cases hospitalized (Sept. 2-15) – Total 384

• Not vaccinated: 310 (80.7%)
• Partially vaccinated: 21 (5.5%)
• Fully vaccinated: 53 (13.8%)

Past week, cases per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Sept. 9-15)    

• Not vaccinated: 312.9
• Partially vaccinated: 91.5
• Fully vaccinated: 29.5

Past two weeks, cases hospitalized per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Sept. 2-15)

• Not vaccinated: 43.2
• Partially vaccinated: 8.4
• Fully vaccinated: 1.2

After factoring for age, people not vaccinated are 35.1 times more likely to be hospitalized than those fully vaccinated.

 

_________________________________

 

 

B.C. is reporting 768 new cases of COVID-19, including 19 epi-linked cases, for a total of 177,954 cases in the province.

There are currently 6,031 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, and 169,653 people who tested positive have recovered. Of the active cases, 298 individuals are in hospital and 135 are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.

Note: Intensive care numbers are a subset of the total in hospital. They are not in addition to the number of people in hospital.

The new/active cases include:

• 239 new cases in Fraser Health
  • Total active cases: 1,846
• 83 new cases in Vancouver Coastal Health
  • Total active cases: 1,043
• 183 new cases in Interior Health
  • Total active cases: 1,499
• 161 new cases in Northern Health
  • Total active cases: 933
• 102 new cases in Island Health
  • Total active cases: 700
• no new cases of people who reside outside of Canada
  • Total active cases: 10

 

https://news.gov.bc....HLTH0058-001819

[todd]

they should give the 3rd shots to developing countries

beacon hill park?

[todd]

No we didn't, there was actually quite a successful but scaled down PNE.

“239,000 people attending the summertime event in 2021“: https://www.citynews...dance-pandemic/

[thaicobb]

they should give the 3rd shots to developing countries

Given storage requirements, the two possible outcomes for vaccines presently in country are, 1) go into arms, 2) go into the trash

[todd]

“Island Health sets record for new COVID-19 cases: 102”

“Island Health sets record for new COVID-19 cases: 102”

“Island Health sets record for new COVID-19 cases: 102”: https://www.timescol...-102-1.24358723

[todd]

“Mom says school notification process too slow after son, 10, diagnosed with COVID”
“…when she went to pick him up from Monterey Middle School on Day 2, he looked awful, was coughing and later developed a fever. She developed similar symptoms the same evening..”[/size]
https://www.timescol...ovid-1.24358526

This is a polling location. Will it have an impact on the election?

[amor de cosmos]

Given storage requirements, the two possible outcomes for vaccines presently in country are, 1) go into arms, 2) go into the trash

actually that's probably true

Vancouver Island breaks record for COVID-19 cases
Island Health reported 102 new cases, 700 active cases on Sept. 17
https://www.nanaimob...covid-19-cases/

COVID-19 outbreak at Sunset Lodge has been declared over by Island Health
https://www.victoria...-island-health/
 
Among Israeli adults aged 60 years and older, those receiving a third booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have rates of confirmed COVID-19 and severe illness that are substantially lower than the rates seen for individuals only receiving the two original vaccine doses, according to a study published online Sept. 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
https://medicalxpres...-infection.html
https://www.nejm.org...6/NEJMoa2114255

Allergies to mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines rare, generally mild, Stanford-led study finds
In a study of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine doses given at Stanford Medicine, vaccine allergies were rare, mild and mostly triggered by a vaccine additive, not the mRNA.
https://med.stanford...-allergies.html
https://www.scienced...10917161212.htm

Russia studies possibility to use jabs against COVID-19 and influenza at once
As Russia's health minister mentioned, while the trials are still in progress, the health ministry recommends waiting for a month between the vaccinations
https://tass.com/society/1339249
 

The WHO’s call for a moratorium on boosters is an appeal to fairness: the idea that it’s unfair for richer countries to use up more of the global vaccine supply while 58% of people in the world have not received their first shots.

In some countries, such as Tanzania, Chad and Haiti, fewer than 1% of people have received a vaccine. Meanwhile, in wealthy nations, most citizens are fully vaccinated – 79% of people in the United Arab Emirates, 76% in Spain, 65% in the U.K., and 53% in the U.S.
 
In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended boosters for moderately to severely immunocompromised people. President Biden has publicly endorsed offering boosters to all Americans eight months after they complete their second shots, pending Food and Drug Administration approval. Yet on Sept. 17, the FDA’s advisory panel recommended against a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine for most Americans, though they did endorse boosters for people over age 65 or at higher risk.
 
On Aug. 11, before the CDC had authorized boosters for anyone – including immunocompromised people – it estimated that 1 million Americans had decided not to wait and got a third vaccine. It is unclear whether some of them were advised by doctors to seek a booster shot based on, for example, age or compromised immunity. Some healthy Americans have reportedly lied to gain access to unauthorized shots, telling pharmacists – falsely – that this is their first shot.

In addition to raising concerns about fairness, gross disparities between vaccine haves and have-nots violate an ethical principle of health equity. This principle holds that the world ought to help those who are most in need – people in low-income countries who cannot access a single dose.
 
There’s also a purely utilitarian case to be made for delaying boosters. Even if boosters save lives and prevent severe disease, they benefit people far less than first shots, a notion known as diminishing marginal utility.
 
For example, the original laboratory studies of the Pfizer vaccine showed more than 90% protection for most people against severe disease and death after the primary, two-dose series. Booster shots, even if they boost immunity, give much less protection: perhaps less than 10% protection, according to a preliminary study.
 
As a recent article in a leading medical journal, The Lancet, points out, “Even if boosting were eventually shown to decrease the medium-term risk of serious disease, current vaccine supplies could save more lives if used in previously unvaccinated populations than if used as boosters in vaccinated populations.”
 
Moreover, when scarce vaccines are used as boosters, rather than as first shots for the unvaccinated, that allows the virus to replicate and mutate, potentially creating variants of concern that undercut vaccine protection.

https://theconversat...eighs-in-167606
 

The latest supply forecast for Covax – the programme for sharing COVID-19 vaccines around the world – suggests that accelerating vaccination in low-income countries looks unlikely. Covax estimates it will have distributed 1.425 billion vaccine doses by the end of 2021, significantly less than the 2 billion doses it was aiming for earlier this year.
 
Only 280.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been given out through Covax as of September 15 2021. With some high-income countries rolling out boosters and vaccinating children before many low-income countries have even given their adults a first dose, vaccine inequality is showing no sign of disappearing.
 
That Covax has fallen short on its initial forecast for 2021 is not a surprise. The CEO of the Serum Institute of India, originally the largest intended supplier to the initiative, cast doubt on the 2 billion figure soon after its release, suggesting that reaching this milestone would take an additional six months.
 
A major problem has been getting a good place in the vaccine queue. While Covax was raising money following its launch in June 2020, many high-income countries were already buying up much of the initial supply from manufacturers. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), argues that despite providing it with financial support, the world’s biggest economies have thus undermined Covax.
 
However, the biggest setback was in late March, when exports of COVID-19 vaccines from India – the world’s biggest COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer – were suspended. India’s output was redirected to domestic supply in light of the country’s devastating second wave. The Serum Institute of India had been due to supply Covax with over a billion doses in 2021. Currently exports have still not resumed, with the country having exported only 20 million doses to Covax.
 
Low-income countries, the main target for the programme, remain drastically behind on COVID-19 vaccination as a result. On average three COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered per 100 people in low-income countries, compared to more than 120 in high-income countries.

https://theconversat...ionalism-167753
 

Pop quiz: What allowed the Nazis to seize and hold on to autocratic power in Germany for more than a decade, and carry out the horrific crimes they’re known for? Was it a police state that trampled on the rights to privacy, protest, and speaking out, enforced by brutal and sometimes secret paramilitary forces with the help of a pervasive surveillance state? Or was it a vaccine mandate?
 
In the topsy-turvy world of right-wing politics in today’s pandemic-riddled United States, it’s not even a question: clearly, the vaccines did it. Since Joe Biden issued a sweeping vaccine mandate last week, right-wing media and politicians wasted no time in deploying the Nazi comparisons, calling the move “fascist,” “totalitarian,” “authoritarian,” and invoking swastikas and the Nuremberg Code.
 
There’s only one problem: the Nazis didn’t actually issue a vaccine mandate. In fact, Republicans would have found much to like in the Third Reich’s vaccine policy, which was very much in line with their current recommendations: above all, it relaxed requirements for compulsory vaccination that had been in place in Germany for decades at that point, and went with a voluntary approach instead. We even have records of private discussions of Adolph Hitler and his Nazi colleagues clearly showing that, far from viewing vaccine mandates as key to their genocidal goals, the opposite was the case: they knew that withholding compulsory vaccination and other German public-health innovations would help kill more of the undesirable and “inferior” people who they wanted to rid from the world.
 
*snip*
 
What’s more, it’s clear from the evidence they left behind that Hitler and other Nazis understood that any policy of mandating vaccines would have worked against their genocidal aims. Here’s Hitler in 1942 telling other high-ranking Nazis his plans for the people of the Russian territories they planned to conquer (emphasis mine):
 

In the field of public health there is no need whatsoever to extend to the subject races the benefits of our own knowledge. This would result only in an enormous increase in local populations, and I absolutely forbid the organization of any sort of hygiene or cleanliness crusades in these territories. Compulsory vaccination will be confined to Germans alone, and the doctors in the German colonies will be there solely for the purpose of looking after the German colonists. It is stupid to thrust happiness upon people against their wishes. Dentistry, too, should remain a closed book to them.

Or see Martin Bormann, Hitler’s chief of staff and the head of the Nazi party, writing in “Eight Principles for the Government of the Eastern Territories,” also in 1942:

The Slavs are to work for us. Insofar as we don’t need them, they may die. Therefore compulsory vaccination and German health services are superfluous. The fertility of the Slavs is undesirable.

Or consider the Robert Koch Institute, the country’s disease prevention agency, responding to a request from a Nuremberg engine plant for vaccines for “three thousand Russians.” Vaccinations were “primarily intended for Germans” and not Russians, the institute responded, leading the plant to withdraw its “incorrectly” placed order and reaffirm that vaccinating “foreign workers . . . was not an option.” The Nazis understood that if you wanted to exterminate a lot of people, making sure they were vaccinated against contagious disease was not going to be helpful.

*snip*

The talk of vaccine mandates as fascism is a function of the dumbed-down way Nazism and its legacy are used in political discourse. The Right will happily point to Hitler’s support for birth control and abortion, or the Nazis’ use of public-works programs, business regulation, and social welfare policies, to argue doing anything similar now will lead to totalitarianism; then they’ll be silent on the Nazis’ militarism, mass surveillance, union-busting, and clampdowns on civil liberties, because they enthusiastically pursue and support those policies in the United States. At the same time that GOP-controlled states around the country have weakened public-health powers in the name of securing individual rights and preventing government overreach, those same states have passed or are trying to pass laws criminalizing Americans’ right to protest or to criticize a foreign ally.

Maybe instead of using the Nazis to lazily argue something is good or bad — contraception, for instance, or vegetarianism or mustaches — we can just judge a policy on its own merits. And maybe we can save a little more outrage for the destructive and repressive policies that have reared their heads more and more in the United States, not because the Nazis did them first but because they’ve been objectively alarming and disastrous.

https://jacobinmag.c...ulation-policy/

Great Cats Tested Presumptive Positive For COVID-19 at the Smithsonian's National Zoo
https://nationalzoo....ns-national-zoo
 

Anti-vaxxers continue to resort to violence despite knowing the outcomes are against them. As states nationwide begin requiring proof of vaccination for indoor activities, including dining, anti-vaxxers are refusing to comply. In a recent incident Thursday, a hostess at a New York restaurant was assaulted after asking three tourists from Texas for proof of their vaccination status.
 
According to a statement from the NYPD, the victim, a 24-year-old woman, said she “got into a dispute with three unknown females after she requested to see their COVID-19 vaccine cards. The individuals struck her multiple times with closed fists. During the altercation, the complainant’s necklace broke.” The hostess also “suffered bruises and scratches to her face, chest, and arm.”

https://www.dailykos...r-asking-for-it
vid here https://www.youtube....h?v=dHR2pRKATdc
 

Last year, Loomer expressed a wish that she could catch COVID to show everyone that it was no big deal. She wrote on Parler in December 2020: “I hope I get COVID just so I can prove to people I’ve had bouts of food poisoning that are more serious and life threatening than a hyped up virus. Have you ever eaten bad fajitas? That will kill you faster than COVID.”
 
However, in follow-up messages on her Telegram channel late Thursday, she made it clear that she was suffering severe symptoms. “Just pray for me please,” she wrote. “Can’t even begin to explain how brutal the body aches and nausea that come with COVID are. I am in so much pain.”
 
She then posted more vaccine conspiracy theories, writing that the government “doesn’t want you to know what it really does,” despite the scientific fact that it would have offered her some protection.
Loomer, a far-right activist who was embraced by Trump, lost a U.S. House bid in Florida last year. She has been banned from most mainstream social networks—as well as Uber and Lyft—for blatant Islamophobia.

https://www.thedaily...tested-positive

Edited by amor de cosmos, 18 September 2021 - 08:53 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Australia:

 

 

 

Ten police have been injured, six taken to hospital and 235 demonstrators arrested after authorities used capsicum spray on groups of anti-lockdown protesters who broke through police lines near Richmond early on Saturday afternoon.

 

Protesters hurled projectiles and abuse at authorities before surging through the police line, screaming and being soaked in capsicum spray as they went. One female police officer was trampled in the chaos, with scuffles breaking out along the road.

 

 

 

https://www.theage.c...918-p58srx.html

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 18 September 2021 - 07:45 AM.

[todd]

“Entire B.C. school district to go into lockdown after vaccine protesters enter 3 schools” “..all schools in its zone will be in lockdown mode on Monday…” https://globalnews.c...vid-protesters/

Edited by todd, 18 September 2021 - 09:11 AM.