Apocalyptic Virus Or Not?

[mental]

got my covid booster shot today along with my flu shot, I had a problem finding the right one.

My doctors office said they were not giving the booster shots, the county health center only had the Pfizer one, called 3 other pharmacies and they also just had pfizer, finally found the Moderna booster at walmart.

They said i could take a different vaccine as the booster but i wanted to stay with Moderna since that was what my first 2 shots were, Plus they said on the news that 3 shots of Moderna gives the highest level of protection over any combination of vaccines.

[HiTrack99]

LOL just noticed I wrote anti-xav, I actually like the name Xavier.
They're going to have to do something, it's early on in the season and we can't go in with high scores like that.

[alexora]

Brazil senators back criminal charges against Bolsonaro over Covid handling

A Senate committee in Brazil has voted to recommend that President Jair Bolsonaro face charges over his handling of the Covid pandemic.

Seven of the panel's 11 members backed a report calling for nine charges to be filed against Mr Bolsonaro, including crimes against humanity.

The committee chair, Senator Omar Aziz, will send the findings to Brazil's prosecutor-general on Wednesday.

Mr Bolsonaro has maintained he is "guilty of absolutely nothing".

More than 600,000 people in Brazil are confirmed to have died from Covid, second only to the Covid death toll in the United States.

The report accuses the president of misusing public funds and peddling fake news.

There is no guarantee this vote will lead to criminal charges for Mr Bolsonaro, as the report's recommendations must now be assessed by Brazil's prosecutor-general, a Bolsonaro appointee who is expected to protect the president.

The vote concludes a six-month inquiry which has revealed scandals and corruption inside Brazil's government.

Today marked the end of a long process. Six months of hearings, scandals uncovered, a light shone on a government accused of recklessness.

Just before the vote, leading senators delivered impassioned speeches. Renan Calheiros, the man in charge of the final report, said that the inquiry had slowed down the clock of death in Brazil.

The inquiry's vice president Randolfe Rodrigues underlined how important the process had been to put pressure on the government and speed up vaccinations, and he paid tribute to those on the front line of containing the pandemic.

But for many, it's too little, too late - the families of the more than 600,000 people who died from the virus will be wanting to know where this inquiry will lead. Will Bolsonaro have to stand up in court to defend his actions?

The inquiry's president Omar Aziz said the federal prosecutor had a duty to investigate the evidence gathered these past few months - but not everyone thinks justice will be done.
line

Whether charges are brought against him or not, there is little doubt that Mr Bolsonaro's popularity has been dented by his handling of the pandemic.

In March, he caused outrage when he told Brazilians to "stop whining" about Covid, a day after the country saw a record rise in deaths over a 24-hour period.

He has continued to spread misinformation on social media and, on Monday, Facebook removed a video in which the president falsely claimed Covid-19 vaccines were linked to developing Aids.

YouTube blocked the video and suspended Mr Bolsonaro's channel for a week.

Source:

http://bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-59051105

[alexora]

Anti-vaxers in the school playground...

My daughter was bullied at school for having the Covid jab. No wonder UK take-up is low

Last week my 13-year-old daughter “S” was offered the Covid vaccine at her school in England. I consented, as required, but made it clear that the final decision about whether to go ahead was hers. By this age, she is aware and responsible enough to be making decisions about her own body, with support, and crucially, clear information about what will be happening and why.

We are a pro-vaccination family, although we have friends who aren’t – we have chosen to stay off the topic with them. My daughter is at an age where she seeks out a lot of information online, so I directed her to some websites to read up more widely about it, while emphasising the reasons why it was my strong preference for her to have the vaccine. S’s 15-year-old cousin was targeted outside school by anti-vaxxers a few weeks ago. When that happened, both S and her cousin were dismissive of the anti-vax arguments, and they thought gathering outside schools was totally inappropriate. These aren’t isolated incidents, sadly: this week there have been further reports of “sinister” anti-vax protests at schools in Liverpool.

On the day S was due to get her vaccine in school, we had a final discussion about it. “Some of the kids are saying they won’t have it because they can’t see how it helps them,” she told me. “But I think that there’s a benefit to me being able to see grandma without worrying about infecting her. And I can’t face school closing again, so I’m a bit stressed, but I’m going to do it.”

Take-up at the school was low, partly because there was an issue with the consent form being difficult for some parents to access. Ultimately, S was the only child in her class to have the vaccine, with about 20% of her entire year group taking it up. She came home with a sore arm and slight headache, but other than that she was fine. She said that the vaccination team talked her through what was going to happen, and double-checked that she was sure before they went ahead.

All was well until the following day, when another child in her class declared that because S had the vaccine, that meant she had now been injected with Covid – so if anyone went near her she would pass Covid on to them. This resulted in several children moving away from her, and refusing to sit beside her during lessons or at lunchtime.

S came home extremely distressed and confused. Believing, rightly, that having the vaccine means that she’s safer in terms of transmission than the other unvaccinated children in her class, she wondered why she was the one to be singled out by an ill-informed child?

I contacted the school, who quickly assured me that they would sort this out, particularly as they want to encourage more vaccine take-up. But it’s not hard to imagine that other children in the class, having seen what happened to my daughter, will now be wary of getting the vaccine for fear of being singled out.

I very much doubt that my daughter is the only child in the country to have received this kind of reaction from schoolmates. On top of that, there are the pressures some children will be facing from their families not to have the vaccine, often because of concerns that it may not be safe for young people.

I’m worried that part of the reason for a slow uptake of the vaccine among 12 to 15-year-olds is that their issues around it are not being addressed adequately: there’s a sense that they are just being tacked on at the end of the successful adult rollout. They need to be addressed directly and clearly, and their concerns listened to. I’ve seen a lot of “what I need to know about my child and the vaccine” articles for parents in recent weeks, but there don’t seem to be many equivalents for 12 to 15-year-olds to read themselves. Reels and videos on social media help, particularly those made by people in the same age group, but surely there needs to be more official – and factchecked – dedicated communications for teens who may have concerns about the vaccine.

We live in the north-west, one of the worst-hit places in the country for Covid, and my daughter remains proud that she has played her part in tackling the virus. However, she still spent the weekend worried about going back into school as she felt that she was now a social pariah – thankfully this didn’t turn out to be the case. She says that she would have had the vaccine anyway if she’d known this was going to happen, but I’m not quite so sure. Social pressure in school can be difficult to handle.

There are reports that the education secretary is considering writing to every individual in this age group to urge them to be vaccinated. That’s a start, but there needs to be a far stronger campaign to ensure that as many young people as possible get vaccinated – and they can do so without misinformation, anti-vax intimidation or fear of bullying.

The writer lives in the north-west of England

Source:

http://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/27/daughter-bullied-school-covid-jab-government-campaign

[dznutz]

so..... is this a biological weapon accidentally let loose? usually there's a stepwise progression. this just came out of nowhere in wuhan. they blame bats and pangolins imported into the wet market but there are no infections outside of wuhan before the known outbreak.

[xiandaniel]

http://themoscowtimes.com/2021/10/08/russias-coronavirus-excess-death-toll-hits-660k-a75254

It seems Russia's real death toll is around 700 thousands...

[xiandaniel]

People who despise vaccines should really read more on what life without vaccinations was like:

http://time.com/6089052/covid-deaths-civil-war/

[alexora]

NHS England now opening walk-in booster jab (3rd dose) centres: no appointment, no prescription, no charge:

Covid booster jabs available
at walk-in sites in England

Booster jabs to protect against Covid are now available at walk-in sites in England as the NHS hopes to bolster uptake ahead of a "challenging" winter.

About 30 million people who had their second vaccination more than six months ago will be able to get a booster without needing to make an appointment.

The NHS online walk-in finder will let people check their nearest centre.

More than six million people have already had a booster jab or a third dose, NHS England said.

A booster is an extra dose to help people who have been double-jabbed retain their immunity.

Separately, a third dose is a top up for those who may not have had a full immune response from the first two doses. These are being given to people with severely weakened immune systems.

Those entitled to a booster jab include people aged 50 and over, care home staff and residents, and frontline health and social care workers.

Also included are people aged 16 to 49 years old with underlying health conditions which put them at greater risk of severe Covid, and adults sharing a home with vulnerable people.

The top-up will be available at hundreds of sites across England, and NHS England said nearly every person registered with a GP practice lives within 10 miles of a fixed vaccination site.

Dr Nikki Kanani, a working GP and also deputy lead for the NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme, said: "The booster is not just nice to have, it is really important protection ahead of what we know will be a challenging winter."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said during his trip to the G20 summit in Rome on Sunday: "I think rather than thinking [about] new restrictions, the best thing everybody can do is get that booster jab as soon as you're offered it."

"I think people don't quite realise that the first two jabs do start to wane," he said.

"How sad, how tragic it would be if people who had other complications, other compromises in their health, got seriously ill because they were overconfident about their level of immunity and didn't get their booster when they needed it."

More than 45 million people in the UK have been double-vaccinated, according to latest government figures., and nearly eight million have received a booster or third dose.

The new drive for booster jabs for certain groups comes as health teams start visiting more than 800 secondary schools in England to offer single doses of the coronavirus vaccine to 12 to 15-year-olds.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the vaccines "will help keep children in the classroom".

The UK's chief medical officers recommended in September that children aged 12 to 15 be offered one dose of a Covid vaccine.

Source:

http://bbc.co.uk/news/health-59116051

[Don-Juan]

Originally Posted by dznutz

so..... is this a biological weapon accidentally let loose? usually there's a stepwise progression. this just came out of nowhere in wuhan. they blame bats and pangolins imported into the wet market but there are no infections outside of wuhan before the known outbreak.

To your question. No, very likely not. Nature is scary, man. It's been pumping out viruses way before our species evolved. No need to blame "Spectre" type groups or plots on everything. What would the purpose of a weaponized flu be anyway? It would certainly backfire.
To your points:

Article from March 18, 2021
"Novel Coronavirus Circulated Undetected Months before First COVID-19 Cases in Wuhan, China Study dates emergence to as early as October 2019; simulations suggest in most cases zoonotic viruses die out naturally before causing a pandemic"

"Numerous efforts have been made to identify when the virus first began spreading among humans, based on investigations of early-diagnosed cases of COVID-19. The first cluster of cases — and the earliest sequenced SARS-CoV-2 genomes — were associated with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, but study authors say the market cluster is unlikely to have marked the beginning of the pandemic because the earliest documented COVID-19 cases had no connection to the market.

Regional newspaper reports suggest COVID-19 diagnoses in Hubei date back to at least November 17, 2019, suggesting the virus was already actively circulating when Chinese authorities enacted public health measures."

You can look up the rest of the article easily. It will take time to find out everything about this new disease. Eventually we will and it will be more fascinating, but less straight forward than "bio weapon from lab".

[alexora]

Originally Posted by dznutz

so..... is this a biological weapon accidentally let loose? usually there's a stepwise progression. this just came out of nowhere in wuhan. they blame bats and pangolins imported into the wet market but there are no infections outside of wuhan before the known outbreak.

Use of Bio weapons is almost unheard of, due to the fact that viruses used as weapons can end up infecting all sides in a conflict: they are way to difficult to control once they have been deployed.

If a nation really wants to break international conventions, nuclear weapons or nerve gas are a far more effective way to became a rogue state...