BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic

[China]

AG tells judge COVID-19 reports should be withheld to avoid ‘Monday-morning quarterbacking’

 

The deputy attorney general for Tennessee argued in court this week that reports by consultant McKinsey and Co. regarding the re-opening of Tennessee and other government responses during the COVID-19 pandemic are exempt from the public records law because revealing them would open up the executive branch to second-guessing by the public.

 

Nashville Post journalist Stephen Elliott filed the public records lawsuit after 20 months of trying to obtain the reports.  The reports were commissioned by state government in a multi-million contract and, among other things, outline facts and potential scenarios for the COVID-19 response, such as re-opening government and workforce management.

 

Janet Kleinfelter, deputy attorney general for Tennessee, said that the withheld McKinsey reports and redacted material from McKinsey reports that the state did release to Elliott were confidential under a “deliberative process privilege.” She said the privilege exists to prevent “Monday-morning quarterbacking” of state decisions.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[China]

 

[China]

I guess we should just abolish the FDA then...

 

OK lawmaker pushes to make unproven COVID treatments accessible despite doctor's warnings

 

A state senator from Broken Arrow is pushing to make unproven COVID-19 treatments available over the counter.

 

Sen. Nathan Dahm told NewsChannel 8 he's heard from several of his constituents that their prescriptions of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were not being filled.

 

The FDA has warned against the use of the drugs to treat COVID-19, but Dahm said Oklahoman's have the right to choose how to manage their own health.

 

"Yes, I believe that the people of Oklahoma should have a choice and be able to make their healthcare decisions without big pharma or government bureaucrats a thousand miles away determining the sole method by which they can have those choices," he said.

 

Dahm's bill would give Oklahomans the choice to buy the drugs over the counter.

 

It's an option Dr. Dale Bratzler with OU Health doesn't think is necessary.

 

"I certainly at this point in time, do not think we need to put ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine available over the counter for COVID-19," he said. "I'm not aware of any evidence strong, good randomized clinical trials that showed that it makes any difference in either preventing or treating the disease."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

U.S. has far higher COVID death rate than other wealthy countries

 

Two years into the pandemic, the coronavirus is killing Americans at far higher rates than people in other wealthy nations, a sobering distinction to bear as the country charts a course through the next stages of the pandemic.

 

The ballooning death toll has defied the hopes of many Americans that the less severe omicron variant would spare the United States the pain of past waves. Deaths have now surpassed the worst days of the autumn surge of the delta variant, and are more than two-thirds as high as the record tolls of last winter, when vaccines were largely unavailable.

 

With American lawmakers desperate to turn the page on the pandemic, as some European leaders have already begun to, the number of dead has clouded a sense of optimism, even as omicron cases recede. And it has laid bare weaknesses in the country’s response, scientists said.

 

“Death rates are so high in the States — eye-wateringly high,” said Devi Sridhar, head of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who has supported loosening coronavirus rules in parts of Britain. “The United States is lagging.”

 

Some of the reasons for America’s difficulties are well known. Despite having one of the world’s most powerful arsenals of vaccines, the country has failed to vaccinate as many people as other large, wealthy nations. Crucially, vaccination rates in older people also lag behind certain European nations.

 

The United States has fallen even further behind in administering booster shots, leaving large numbers of vulnerable people with fading protection as omicron sweeps across the country.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[mojo]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/lockdowns-didnt-stop-covid-11620596906

[Captain Wiggles]

No **** the lockdowns didn't stop covid. It was half assed like everything else in this ****hole of a country. 🤣

[CousinsCowgirl84]

1 hour ago, clietas said:

No **** the lockdowns didn't stop covid. It was half assed like everything else in this ****hole of a country. 🤣

Even half assed, It did save a lot of lives though. We should imagine what life would haven like if everyone who has caught and died of COVID got if they got it when in the first six months. And even more people would have died because we didn’t have the treatments.

 

I don’t think anyone thought the lockdowns were going to stop COVID; it was to slow COVID. Mission accomplished.

 

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by CousinsCowgirl84

[Elessar78]

On 1/31/2022 at 4:40 PM, China said:

I guess we should just abolish the FDA then...

 

OK lawmaker pushes to make unproven COVID treatments accessible despite doctor's warnings

 

A state senator from Broken Arrow is pushing to make unproven COVID-19 treatments available over the counter.

 

Sen. Nathan Dahm told NewsChannel 8 he's heard from several of his constituents that their prescriptions of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were not being filled.

 

The FDA has warned against the use of the drugs to treat COVID-19, but Dahm said Oklahoman's have the right to choose how to manage their own health.

 

"Yes, I believe that the people of Oklahoma should have a choice and be able to make their healthcare decisions without big pharma or government bureaucrats a thousand miles away determining the sole method by which they can have those choices," he said.

 

Dahm's bill would give Oklahomans the choice to buy the drugs over the counter.

 

It's an option Dr. Dale Bratzler with OU Health doesn't think is necessary.

 

"I certainly at this point in time, do not think we need to put ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine available over the counter for COVID-19," he said. "I'm not aware of any evidence strong, good randomized clinical trials that showed that it makes any difference in either preventing or treating the disease."

 

Click on the link for the full article

Can we PLEASE just let them get what they want???

2 hours ago, mojo said:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/lockdowns-didnt-stop-covid-11620596906

Lockdowns in March 2020? When we knew nothing about this virus?

[PeterMP]

3 hours ago, mojo said:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/lockdowns-didnt-stop-covid-11620596906

 

The title is misleading.  People were more likely to get covid at home than work. That's the finding.

 

But that isn't surprising because people don't generally wear masks at home.  But if people don't leave the house, then they can't bring it home from somewhere else for the other people in the home to get.

 

The NCAA shutting down the tournament affected people and prevented people from getting Covid other than work.

Edited February 3, 2022 by PeterMP

[Fergasun]

I am so done with our leaders, my fellow citizens and the media.  USA has an insane deathrate and we are still arguing lockdowns.  Nothing works because our policy is sabotaged...

 

[China]

In New York City Sewage, a Mysterious Coronavirus Signal

 

Last January, a team of researchers searching for the coronavirus in New York City’s wastewater spotted something strange in their samples. The viral fragments they found had a unique constellation of mutations that had never been reported before in human patients — a potential sign of a new, previously undetected variant.

 

For the past year, these oddball sequences, or what the scientists call “cryptic lineages,” have continued to pop up in the city’s wastewater.

 

There is no evidence that the lineages, which have been circulating for at least a year without overtaking delta or omicron, pose an elevated health risk to humans. But the researchers, whose findings were to be published in Nature Communications on Thursday, still have no idea where they came from.

 

“At this point, what we can say is that we haven’t found the cryptic lineages in human databases, and we have looked all over,” said Monica Trujillo, a microbiologist at Queensborough Community College and an author of the new paper.

 

The researchers themselves are torn about the lineages’ origins. Some lean toward the explanation that the virus is coming from people whose infections aren’t being captured by sequencing. But others suspect that the lineages may be coming from virus-infected animals, possibly the city’s enormous population of rats. Even then, the favored theory can change from day-to-day or hour-to-hour.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[LD0506]

9 hours ago, China said:

In New York City Sewage, a Mysterious Coronavirus Signal

[Elessar78]

The rat angle is scary. Black Plague all over again.

[PCS]

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

The Youngkin video was really good. Kudos to that woman.

 

I sent that to a buddy of mine who's fed up with wearing masks, vaxx's, etc.  His response?

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/denmark-covid-restrictions/621482/

 

Quote

Derek Thompson: Denmark just lifted all COVID restrictions. What justifies this decision?

Michael Bang Petersen: Our hospitals are not being overwhelmed. We have excellent data surveillance of our hospital system in Denmark, and when we look at the number of people in ICUs, it’s dropping. We have a lot of people in hospitals with positive tests, but most of them are testing positive with COVID rather than being there because of COVID. They’re also in the hospital for a much shorter duration than previous waves. The number of people being treated for pneumonia is a critical indicator, and that’s going down as well.

The decoupling of cases and hospitalizations comes from two things. First, Denmark has very high vaccine uptake, with 81 percent of the adult population having two doses and 61 percent having received a booster shot. Second, Omicron is a milder variant. That combination of high vaccine coverage plus a milder variant means this wave isn’t stressing our hospital systems as much.

Derek Thompson: Is Omicron milder?

Thompson: Why lift restrictions now? Why not wait until the Omicron wave is over in a few weeks or a month?

Petersen: In order for the Danish government to keep restrictions in place, the disease has to be classified as a threat to the critical functions of society. That is a temporary classification. It only lasts for a few months at a time. The government must purposefully decide to extend the classification every time.

 

[China]

900,000 Americans have died of COVID in 2 years of the global pandemic

 

The U.S. has crossed yet another tragic landmark in the battle against COVID-19. On Friday, the country surpassed 900,000 deaths from the disease, two years after the first COVID-19 cluster was reported in Wuhan, China. Public health experts say coming close to the 1 million death mark from the coronavirus is "inevitable."

 

"It's absolutely staggering," said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, which has tracked the number of COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic. "It's unreal, frankly. And what makes it an even ... greater heartbreak — as if the loss of 900,000 souls weren't enough of a heartbreak — is the fact that it's probably an undercount of the number of people that we've lost."

 

University of Texas at Austin professor and epidemiologist Lauren Ancel Meyers said the "horrible milestone" didn't have to happen.

 

"It was not inevitable. There are things that we could have done and should have done ... to protect those who were most vulnerable," she said. "It's a very sad day."

 

Click on the link for the full article

Edited February 5, 2022 by China

[China]

Mississippi ambulance providers fear a system collapse is near

 

Mississippi’s ambulance system is falling apart, pushing more and more workers from a job that was a hard sell even before the pandemic. 

 

Several of the state’s emergency services leaders told Mississippi Today that while paramedic providers have been troubled for years by an incomplete reimbursement system, low wages and staffing shortages, problems have hit a critical point exacerbated by ongoing hurdles from COVID-19. 

 

They’re not sure how much longer the system can last before swaths of rural Mississippi are left with limited or no access to paramedics’ life-saving care and transportation to hospitals. 

 

“A whole bunch of things are converging at one time that we have never seen before,” said Clyde Deschamp, a licensed paramedic and director at the Mississippi Healthcare Alliance. “A lot of people are of the opinion that the system is going to crash.” 

 

Many in the field are desperate to see the system fixed before it busts, and some worry it’s too late. The root of the problem is a dwindling number of paramedics and emergency medical technicians struggling to get their numbers up in a stress-ridden field known for high turnover. 

 

The shortage nationwide has hit a crisis level, according to the American Ambulance Association. The turnover rate of ambulance workers nationwide was already more than 30% as of July 2021, according to the association. 

 

Mississippi’s rural counties, lower wages, and statistically unhealthy and poor populations have created an especially complex and dire reality for Mississippians. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[GhostofSparta]

Look, if I gotta pay $4k for an ambulance ride, why can't my EMTs make at least $30/hr?

[Renegade7]

Really had trouble understanding this, this helps...

 

 

[China]

The Tragic Story of Mike Lindell’s Quack COVID ‘Cure’

 

It’s an all-too-familiar story at this point: A person pushing an unproven COVID-19 cure—and pushing back against the vaccines—pays the ultimate price for their skepticism.

 

But this time, there’s a new wrinkle. It’s not just one person dabbling in COVID quackery with tragic results; it’s actually a mysterious dark money organization, with ties to influential MAGA figures like Steve Bannon and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

 

This story, which unfolded nearly 18 months ago, would have likely gone untold if it weren’t for one person: Kenneth Happel.

 

Happel claims to have partnered with the group, Propter Strategies, in its secretive work. But eventually, he became another victim of it.

 

To this day, Propter Strategies is a black hole, despite its high-profile connections and multimillion-dollar budget. Aside from Happel’s account, there is no evidence of Propter’s activities anywhere in the public record. And that might be with good reason: Those activities included hawking the snake-oil COVID treatment oleandrin at the highest levels of the government, as the pandemic’s lethal second wave peaked across the country.

 

Happel, as it turns out, currently lies in a Las Vegas hospital bed fending off his second COVID infection. Less than two weeks ago, the disease took his wife’s life.

 

But in a phone interview from his hospital bed, Happel, 72, remained unrepentant and defiant about the numerous baseless theories that quite likely landed him back in the hospital, and killed the wife he loved dearly.

 

Happel still places hope in the pseudoscience that he, Propter Strategies, and Lindell had pushed so hard—a proprietary compound derived from oleander extract, which the pillow tycoon and at least one Propter official had invested in.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[The Evil Genius]

Nm

Edited February 8, 2022 by The Evil Genius

[tshile]

On 2/4/2022 at 3:53 PM, Spaceman Spiff said:

I sent that to a buddy of mine who's fed up with wearing masks, vaxx's, etc.  His response?

Did he understand the nuance of everyone being on the same page, therefore they can do this

 

id love to he in a place where we can put restrictions in place at bad times, and remove them later because we know everyone buys in and will buy in next time. And is getting vaccinated. 
 

i mean that’s the desired state… 

[steve09ru]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fauci-says-full-blown-covid-085959087.html

 

"Fauci told the paper that there is no way to eradicate the virus, but it is his hope that "we are looking at a time when we have enough people vaccinated and enough people with protection from previous infection that the Covid restrictions will soon be a thing of the past."

He also said it may not been needed for all Americans to get boosted in the future.

"It will depend on who you are," he said. "But if you are a normal, healthy 30-year-old person with no underlying conditions, you might need a booster only every four or five years."

 

Hopefully, nothing else comes up though in the near future but seems like even if a new variant does emerge it'll be lighter than omicron given what we've seen with others.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

On 2/2/2022 at 3:08 PM, mojo said:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/lockdowns-didnt-stop-covid-11620596906

 

I thought the lockdowns were supposed to help flatten the curve so that our healthcare system didn't collapse, not stop COVID...