A tall tale about vaccine-crazed military members hunting Indigenous women and children in the freezing Canadian North began to spread earlier this week, forcing an Indigenous community in Saskatchewan to urgently disprove the story.
Pat King, a man well known in the COVID conspiracy movement, and two Indigenous women posted a video on Facebook on Sunday night that told the (false) story of a northern Saskatchewan community—Black Lake Denesuline First Nation—where the military has set up base and are forcing unvaccinated women and children to “get the jab.” Those who didn’t want to get vaccinated were instead forced to flee their homes into the freezing wilderness, King claimed.
“I need you to share this out everywhere as far and wide as you can. We have military personnel chasing women and children through the bush in Black Lake, Saskatchewan, on the border of the Northwest Territories,” says a bearded King in the video. “They are chasing them into the bush and it is cold, it is friggin’ cold.”
“Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it ain’t happening. Stop turning a freaking blind eye to this.”
The thing is, it is not happening—in any way—but the video was shared far and wide; it had more than 180,000 views on Facebook before it was deleted on Tuesday evening. Despite being removed from King’s page, many ripped versions can be easily found on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, *****ute, and elsewhere. The quick spread of the video shows just how easy it is for popular conspiracy accounts to quickly affect the lives of people hundreds of kilometres away.
https://www.vice.com...k-lake-pat-king
Ladysmith Light Up celebrations cancelled again this year due to COVID-19
https://www.victoria...ue-to-covid-19/
Ottawa to reveal details about international COVID-19 vaccine passport today
https://www.cbc.ca/n...nment-1.6218945
Newswise — Future vaccine delivery may rely on everyday items like BBQ lighters and microneedles, thanks to the ingenuity of a team of Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University researchers.
The researchers, led by Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, have developed and tested an innovative method that may simplify the complexity of delivering vaccines, including those for Covid-19, through a handheld electroporator.
While electroporation is commonly employed in the research lab using short electric pulses to drive molecules into cells, the technique currently requires large, complex, and costly equipment, severely limiting its use for vaccine delivery. Georgia Tech’s approach does the job using a novel pen-size device that requires no batteries and can be mass produced at low cost.
The team’s findings are reported in the Oct. 20 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Aha Moment
The inspiration for their breakthrough came from an everyday device that people use to start a grill: the electronic barbecue lighter.
“My lab figured out that you could use something all of us are familiar with on the Fourth of July when we do a barbecue — a barbecue lighter,” recalled Saad Bhamla, assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, explaining that every time one clicks the lighter, it generates a brief pulse of electricity to ignite the flame.
His team took the innards of a lighter and reengineered them into a tiny spring-latch mechanism. The device creates the same electric field in the skin as the large bulky electroporation machines already in use, but using widely available, low-cost components that require no battery to operate.
“Our aha moment was the fact that it doesn't have a battery or plug into the wall, unlike conventional electroporation equipment,” he explained. “And these lighter components cost just pennies, while currently available electroporators cost thousands of dollars each.”
Pairing the reimagined lighter device with microneedle technology from Georgia Tech’s Laboratory for Drug Delivery has resulted in a new ultra-low-cost electroporation system, or “ePatch.”
https://www.newswise...ccine-delivery/
study(?) of the day
The Oregon Poison Center is a telephone consultative center staffed by specialty-trained nurses, pharmacists, and physicians who provide treatment advice for the public and comprehensive treatment consultation for health care workers caring for patients in Oregon, Alaska, and Guam. The center has recently received an increasing number of calls regarding ivermectin exposure related to Covid-19. The rate of calls regarding ivermectin had been 0.25 calls per month in 2020 and had increased to 0.86 calls per month from January through July 2021; in August 2021, the center received 21 calls. Monthly total call volumes for all poison exposures were stable throughout 2020 and 2021.
Of the 21 persons who called in August, 11 were men, and most were older than 60 years of age (median age, 64; range, 20 to 81). Approximately half (11 persons) were reported to have used ivermectin to prevent Covid-19, and the remaining persons had been using the drug to treat Covid-19 symptoms. Three persons had received prescriptions from physicians or veterinarians, and 17 had purchased veterinary formulations; the source of ivermectin for the remaining person was not confirmed. Symptoms had developed in most persons within 2 hours after a large, single, first-time dose. In 6 persons, symptoms had developed gradually after several days to weeks of repeated doses taken every other day or twice weekly. One person had also been taking vitamin D to treat or prevent Covid-19. Reported doses ingested by the persons who had been using veterinary products ranged from 6.8 mg to 125 mg of 1.87% paste and 20 to 50 mg of the 1% solution. The dose of the human-use tablets was 21 mg per dose twice weekly for prevention.
Six of the 21 persons were hospitalized for toxic effects from ivermectin use; all 6 reported preventive use, including the 3 who had obtained the drug by prescription. Four received care in an intensive care unit, and none died. Symptoms were gastrointestinal distress in 4 persons, confusion in 3, ataxia and weakness in 2, hypotension in 2, and seizures in 1. Of the persons who were not admitted to a hospital, most had gastrointestinal distress, dizziness, confusion, vision symptoms, or rash.
These cases illustrate the potential toxic effects of ivermectin, including severe episodes of confusion, ataxia, seizures, and hypotension, and the increasing frequency of inappropriate use. There is insufficient evidence to support the use of ivermectin to treat or prevent Covid-19, and improper use, as well as the possible occurrence of medication interactions, may result in serious side effects requiring hospitalization.
https://www.nejm.org...56/NEJMc2114907
Hundreds of studies in social psychology laboratories have shown that subtle reminders of death (known as “death primes”) lead participants to vigorously defend their religious and cultural beliefs, and their freedoms.
When reminded of death, participants even show aggression towards those with different political or religious ideologies. We cling to our “rightness” and “specialness”, to help assuage our terror of death.
In the process, we may defy the warnings of modern medicine, convinced of our own superiority. Researchers at the University of Chicago Divinity School reported half of their participants, all of whom indicated some religious affiliation, agreed with the statement “God will protect me from being infected”. To cope with our dread of death, we delude ourselves into thinking we are invincible: death might happen to other people, but not to me.
This effect will be magnified even further if the social groups to which we belong also endorse similar views. Reminders of death lead people to fiercely defend the values and beliefs of their group. In the context of COVID, this means we may become more individualistic, more distrustful of science or government, or more trusting in our god’s ability to protect us, if these attitudes are valued and shared by our culture or subgroup.
Living in the times of COVID has made us all participants in a social psychology experiment. Daily death counts and case numbers are regular reminders of death that have produced all the behaviours we see in the laboratory.
These include denial of risk and aggression against those who are different from us. For example, the racism against people of Asian appearance when the pandemic began.
Early deaths associated with the vaccines themselves became another “death prime” that drove additional caution and avoidance.
Vaccine hesitancy will remain an urgent problem globally while we refuse to see ourselves for who we really are.
https://theconversat...of-death-168485
A Brazilian congressional panel has recommended that President Jair Bolsonaro be charged with “crimes against humanity” over his alleged bungling of the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The near-1,200 page report, formally presented on Oct. 20, 2021, holds Bolsonaro culpable for worsening a crisis that has to date killed some 600,000 Brazilians, outlining how his failed policies allowed the virus to spread among the population. The president denies any wrongdoing.
An earlier draft had called for Bolsonaro to be indicted for homicide and genocide as well, given how the ravages of the coronavirus have disproportionately hit Brazil’s Indigenous groups. But those charges were dropped from the final report.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, The Conversation’s authors have been chronicling the crisis in Brazil – and Bolsonaro’s role in letting it happen.
*snip*
“Bolsonaro used his constitutional powers to interfere in the Health Ministry’s administrative matters, such as clinical protocols, data disclosure and vaccine procurement. He vetoed legislation that would have both mandated the use of masks in religious sites and compensated health professionals permanently harmed by the pandemic, for example. And he obstructed state government efforts to promote social distancing and used his decree power to allow many businesses to remain open as ‘essential,’ including spas and gyms,” Massard da Fonseca and Greer write. But it doesn’t end there: “Bolsonaro also aggressively promoted unproven medicines, notably hydroxychloroquine, to treat COVID-19 patients.”
*snip*
As Nadia Rubaii, co-director of the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention and a professor at Binghamton University, and Julio José Araujo Junior of Rio de Janeiro State University, note: “Most of Brazil’s roughly 896,000 Indigenous people live in the Amazon region, where the nearest hospital may be days away by boat and offer limited care.”
Indigenous Brazilians also suffer from higher rates of malnutrition, anemia and obesity – all of which puts them at a higher risk of death from COVID-19.
And in prescient words, given the discussion of charges against Bolsonaro, Rubaii and Araujo Junior lay out the argument that the right-wing leader’s policies – which had led to deforestation and the curtailment of Native land rights – had already amounted to “inciting genocide” against Indigenous Brazilians.
*snip*
While COVID-19 spread among the population with devastating effect – especially for Brazil’s poor, Black and Indigenous people – Bolsonaro, it is alleged, ignored the growing evidence on masks, vaccines and other measures that would have slowed infections. Indeed, according to the report released Oct. 20, 2021, his policies can essentially be blamed for more than half of Brazil’s total COVID-19 death toll – some 300,000 people.
https://theconversat...al-reads-170332
Kuwait ends coronavirus restrictions for vaccinated people: PM Al-Sabah
https://english.alar...ccinated-people
For nearly 20 straight months, Yevgeny Ryabov has watched coronavirus patients come through the doors of his hospital in central Moscow. Lately, most are unvaccinated.
The Covid-ward coordinator observes how the virus ravages their bodies and, time after time, he hears the dying say they regret not getting the jab.
"They usually give some excuse — that they wanted to do it tomorrow," Ryabov says. "Unfortunately, tomorrow came today."
And the sick keep coming.
On commutes home, Ryabov witnesses Russia's largest city and the epicentre of the country's outbreak act as if there is nothing to fear, with bars, restaurants and theatres open as usual.
"You drive and see people without masks, people having fun — both old and young — and it's upsetting because you're working for them. Unfortunately they don't understand," he says.
"In those cases I want to scream," adds the 54-year-old, who lost five colleagues to the virus before a vaccine became available.
While the pandemic is receding in many Western countries, Russia's outbreak is worse than ever, with authorities saying the latest surge of the virus has spread at its most rapid pace yet among a population that is only 35-percent fully vaccinated.
*snip*
Besides doctors, Ryzhko said a woman who shared her ICU room over the past month kept her going in the battle against the disease with positivity and encouragement.
But the woman couldn't save herself. On Monday, she succumbed to the disease.
"It's been truly horrible," Ryzhko says.
Anatoly Polyakov, a retired police officer who spent two weeks in the ICU and said he was several days away from leaving hospital, also had not got the vaccine.
He explained he and his wife had been waiting for a "strong" one to come around.
"We waited and waited, and this is what we got," the 76-year-old said.
"I really regret it after everything I lived through," he added. "When I get out I will tell everyone to get vaccinated."
His doctors do not hold out much hope that the tide might turn in any near future.
"The first two waves we thought' just a bit more and that's it, we'll return to normal life," Shakotko said.
"Now we don't even think about it. This is just the new normal."
https://www.themosco...id-rages-a75360
Apple Will Force Unvaccinated Office Workers to Get Tested Daily
https://www.bloomber...et-tested-daily
via https://www.engadget...-093357015.html
The Federal Government Gave Billions to America’s Schools for COVID-19 Relief. Where Did the Money Go?
The Education Department’s limited tracking of $190 billion in pandemic support funds sent to schools has left officials in the dark about how effective the aid has been in helping students.
https://www.propubli...id-the-money-go
US Distributes 200Mln Vaccines to Over 100 Countries, Most Shots Go to Africa
https://sputniknews....1090105286.html
California's In-N-Out burger chain was fined $750 for failing to verify customers' vaccination cards at a location in Contra Costa County, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Wednesday.
https://www.business...-status-2021-10
New York City’s Largest Police Union Sues Over New COVID Vaccine Mandate
https://sputniknews....1090081908.html
The Times quoted one officer's muddled thinking about what constitutes public safety as he argues against the vaccine mandate:
If you decide to move forward with mandating this vaccine, the loss of officers is on you," Josh Carter, an officer in Leesburg, Va., said at a recent meeting where Town Council members considered a vaccine mandate for municipal workers (and decided not to vote on it that day). "I'm going to come back and ask what your plan is to keep my family and my neighbors safe with little to no officers patrolling our streets or our schools," Mr. Carter told the Council.
I guess this fellow doesn't understand that the streets aren't safe with COVID ravaged police departments with maskless, unvaccinated cops breathing all over the public. But it seems to be a common problem, and if I had to guess it's because these particular officers generally get their (dis)information from right-wing media and see mask-wearing and vaccines as some kind of liberal plot.
*snip*
In a way, this is clarifying. Police demand that the public must rely on their judgment to determine when they are in mortal danger and allow them to deploy deadly force with impunity. And yet all over the country some number of them will not accept that COVID-19 is a lethal threat to the public even though there are over 700,000 people dead!
Police reform may be a dead letter in the U.S. Congress but these foolish cops are doing some of the job anyway.
Complaining cops are inadvertently revealing themselves to be among the problem officers in their department — and if they don't quit they should be fired. This lack of logic and poor judgment render them unqualified and they cannot be allowed to carry lethal weapons and operate with impunity among the public. After all, they can't even be trusted to keep themselves and their own families safe, much less the community. These departments are much better off without them.
https://www.salon.co...lain--and-quit/
STAY CONNECTED TO VIBRANTVICTORIA
WHAT'S HAPPENING ON CITIFIED VICTORIA
