BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Fan since a Fetus]

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Edited October 24, 2023 by Fan since a Fetus

[The Evil Genius]

Sorry man. Hope your parents luck out into better health and low covid symptoms. 

[Fan since a Fetus]

On 10/14/2022 at 9:55 AM, The Evil Genius said:

Sorry man. Hope your parents luck out into better health and low covid symptoms. 

.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Fan since a Fetus

[The Evil Genius]

 

[China]

'This is playing with fire - it could spark a lab-generated pandemic': Experts slam Boston lab where scientists have created a new deadly Covid strain with an 80% kill rate

 

Boston University scientists were today condemned for 'playing with fire' after it emerged they had created a lethal new Covid strain in a laboratory.

 

DailyMail.com revealed the team had made a hybrid virus — combining Omicron and the original Wuhan strain — that killed 80 per cent of mice in a study.

 

The revelation exposes how dangerous virus manipulation research continues to go on even in the US, despite fears similar practices may have started the pandemic.

 

Professor Shmuel Shapira, a leading scientist in the Israeli Government, said: 'This should be totally forbidden, it's playing with fire.'

 

Gain of function research - when viruses are purposefully manipulated to be more infectious or deadly - is thought to be at the center of Covid's origin.

 

A Chinese laboratory located just miles from the first cluster of cases carried out similar research on bat coronaviruses.

 

But the practice has been largely restricted in the US since 2017. 

 

Dr Richard Ebright, a chemist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, told DailyMail.com that: 'The research is a clear example of gain of function research.

 

He added: 'If we are to avoid a next lab-generated pandemic, it is imperative that oversight of enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research be strengthened.'

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories is one of 13 biosafety level 4 labs in the US

 

^^^^This pic from the article reminds me of my first job out of college where I was working in a BSL3 lab growing live HTLV1 and HIV1.  Good times.  Especially when we were harvesting liters of it and a hose clamp blew and I got sprayed with live HTLV1 culture.  At least the PPE worked.

 

[Fergasun]

I am re-posting this article/tweet from writer Alisa Lynn Valdes ("at"AlisaValdesRod1).  I pretty much mostly agree with this.  I formatted it beyond the Twitter limit and made it family friendly clean. 

Quote

The mechanism of SARS2? Endothelial damage. In plain English? Covid-19 [effs] up the lining of your blood vessels. All 60,000 miles of it. Blood vessels lack nerves. You feel OK as it eats your arteries. Doesn't mean it's "mild." It means the endothelium isn't innervated.  So, what happens when the endothelium is damaged? Well, the first thing to go are your capillaries and arterioles. They're the smallest blood vessels. One endothelial cell thick. If the endothelium is damaged, they can disappear, get clogged, leak. This won't show up on Xray.  What happens when your microvessels get [effed] up? Microvessels are where all the exchanges that keep you alive take place. Oxygen gets from your lungs to your blood there. Nutrients get from your intestines to your blood there. The bad stuff is filtered out there. 

Quote

So now imagine that those processes can't happen. Or can't happen like they used to. Your skin starves. Your kidneys get polluted. Your labs look normal. Your brain dies a little. Your eyes go bad. You don't die. Your government tells you you're fine. It was mild!  But you'll notice: Your heart beats too hard now. You feel things you didn't used to. If that capillaries die in your inner ear, you might not hear as well. You might hear ringing. People will say this is Long Covid. But here's a secret: It's just covid. This is what it does.

Quote

Your overlords have misled you, and you have lapped it up because you like authority and dislike being scared. You want to trust them. It's easier than realizing the people who are supposed to care, don't. They don't care if you die. They don't care if you're sick.  Everyone is in on the lie. If you send your kids into the world to get this artery-killing virus over and over, you're in on the lie. You'd never let them smoke and drink, because you care about their hearts. But Covid is worse. We tell you this. Show you studies. You don't care. 

Quote

Your doctors? Most don't care, either. They are automatons. Med school weeded out the creative thinkers. They'll give you inadequate tests because the AMA hasn't come up with adequate tests yet. No one is thinking. They follow lists someone else wrote.  Using a CRP test to look for microvascular damage is like using the naked eye to look for distant galaxies. Won't work. Your doctor will say this means you're fine. Men like your doctor threw Galileo in a tower without ever looking in his telescope.

Quote

The president said covid is over, and you believed him. Many of you thought it never existed. Many of you who thought that have died of covid. Or will. You cannot express your regrets for being that stupid once you're already dead, so you are very quiet about this now.  It's not over. Americans are lazy as [eff]. Easily bored. Attention span shorter than that of a goldfish, according to science. Whiny. Tired of playing covid, so let's just stop playing covid now. Let's do a laugh emoji when you try to warn us, because covid is boring.

Quote

Mutations are what cause evolution. Most of you don't believe in evolution. You don't believe in covid. So you sure as hell don't care about mutated covid viruses. You believe in bullying. It's what we do, as a people. We puff up our chests. We beat them.  We beat everyone by being brave. So we beat covid by getting bored and saying we weren't afraid of a little cold, while that "cold" ate our arteries.

Quote

I watch all of this and feel...something. What, exactly, I can't say anymore. Used to be despair. Despair that you're this dumb.  Despair that your stupidity will kill us all. It will seem slow. It's not slow. It will be lightning quick, in geologic time. In evolutionary time. Carlin was right. We are a cul de sac. An evolutionary cul de sac. And so it's not despair anymore. I feel this other thing.  I feel a solidarity. Solidarity with all the other people who see what's happening. What's being allowed to happen by people who know and don't care. We are living through a dark time. And you know what? It is quite likely the darkest time in human history. Right now.

Quote

So, how do we do it? How did the enlightened people live through dark times in the past? How is it done? This, I don't know. But I think that's what we need to learn now. There's no one left to be educated. They either know and don't care, or they don't care to know.  I knew the collective delusions before. Lived with the marginalizations and dehumanizations every day. The lack of equity. Not fun. But I could live with that. I can't live with this. How do I avoid the air of this shared atmosphere? How do I avoid the breath of fools?  "But Alisa, this sounds SCARY!" Yeah. No [poop]. Fear is a blessing. Fear exists to warn us about things that CAN HARM US. Covid is [effing] scary. If you aren't afraid of covid you are either misinformed or you're an idiot.

 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

On 10/17/2022 at 7:07 PM, China said:

'This is playing with fire - it could spark a lab-generated pandemic': Experts slam Boston lab where scientists have created a new deadly Covid strain with an 80% kill rate

 

Boston University scientists were today condemned for 'playing with fire' after it emerged they had created a lethal new Covid strain in a laboratory.

 

DailyMail.com revealed the team had made a hybrid virus — combining Omicron and the original Wuhan strain — that killed 80 per cent of mice in a study.

 

The revelation exposes how dangerous virus manipulation research continues to go on even in the US, despite fears similar practices may have started the pandemic.

 

Professor Shmuel Shapira, a leading scientist in the Israeli Government, said: 'This should be totally forbidden, it's playing with fire.'

 

Gain of function research - when viruses are purposefully manipulated to be more infectious or deadly - is thought to be at the center of Covid's origin.

 

A Chinese laboratory located just miles from the first cluster of cases carried out similar research on bat coronaviruses.

 

But the practice has been largely restricted in the US since 2017. 

 

Dr Richard Ebright, a chemist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, told DailyMail.com that: 'The research is a clear example of gain of function research.

 

He added: 'If we are to avoid a next lab-generated pandemic, it is imperative that oversight of enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research be strengthened.'

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories is one of 13 biosafety level 4 labs in the US

 

^^^^This pic from the article reminds me of my first job out of college where I was working in a BSL3 lab growing live HTLV1 and HIV1.  Good times.  Especially when we were harvesting liters of it and a hose clamp blew and I got sprayed with live HTLV1 culture.  At least the PPE worked.

 

Wtf….

[Jabbyrwock]

23 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Wtf….

 

China: 600 million infections, 6 million deaths

 

USA: hold my beer.

[The Evil Genius]

 

Quote

The study set out to examine the spike proteins on the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (BA.1). Researchers were interested in comparing the variant with the original virus strain, known as the Washington strain. They wanted to find out if the virus was truly less virulent, says Corley, “simply because it wasn’t infecting the same cells as the initial strain.” They were “interested in what part of the virus dictates how serious of a disease a person will get.”

But Corley says the news reports pulled one line from the paper’s abstract out of context, with the Daily Mail suggesting in its headline that the researchers had created a “deadly Covid strain with an 80 percent kill rate.” The newspaper went on to make a series of other misleading claims, including that the study was “gain of function research,” alleging researchers set out to make a more deadly virus.

Not true, says Corley. And the University’s statement strongly denied it.

“We want to address the false and inaccurate reporting about Boston University COVID-19 research, which appeared today in the Daily Mail,” said the BU statement. “First, this research is not gain-of-function research, meaning it did not amplify the Washington state SARS-CoV-2 virus strain or make it more dangerous. In fact, this research made the virus replicate less dangerous.”

Corley says the line pulled out of context actually had nothing to do with the virus’ effect on humans. The study began in a tissue culture, then moved to an animal model.

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by The Evil Genius

[TradeTheBeal!]

Getting your ZOMG virology news from the Daily Mail is basically a test of your gullibility/idiocy.  Not a shock that most folks swallowed the hook on that one…and will continue to swallow the hook going forward.

[China]

The U.S. Just Lost 26 Years’ Worth of Progress on Life Expectancy

 

With a few notable exceptions—such as during the 1918 influenza pandemic, World War II and the HIV crisis—life expectancy in the U.S. has had gradual upward trajectory over the past century. But that progress has steeply reversed in the past two years as COVID and other tragedies have cut millions of lives short.

 

U.S. life expectancy fell by a total of 2.7 years between 2019 and 2021 to 76.1 years—the lowest it has been since 1996, according to provisional data recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The drop was 3.1 years for male individuals and 2.3 years for female ones. Non-Hispanic Native American and Alaska Native peoples saw the biggest decline—a staggering 6.6 years. But every racial and ethnic group suffered: life expectancy decreased by 4.2 years in the Hispanic population, by four years in the non-Hispanic Black population, by 2.4 years in the non-Hispanic white population and by 2.1 years in the non-Hispanic Asian population.

 

 

COVID deaths drove much of the decline as the country grappled with the world’s worst pandemic in a century. But unintentional injuries—largely driven by drug overdoses—also played a significant role, the data show. Increases in deaths from heart disease, chronic liver disease and suicide also contributed.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by China

[Ball Security]

Check the three episode podcast called We Were Three.  It’s a family’s story about anti-vax misinformation and COVID.

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

Quick and stealthy ‘Scrabble variants’ are poised to drive a winter Covid-19 surge

 

A flurry of new Covid-19 variants appears to be gaining traction globally, raising fears of a winter surge.

 

In the United States, these are BQ.1, BQ.1.1, BF.7, BA.4.6, BA.2.75 and BA.2.75.2. In other countries, the recombinant variant XBB has been rising quickly and appears to be fueling a new wave of cases in Singapore. Cases are also rising in Europe and the UK, where these variants have taken hold.

 

Dr. Peter Hotez, who co-directs the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, says he thinks of them collectively as the Scrabble variants because they use letters that get high scores in the board game like Q, X and B.

 

As the US moves into the fall, Covid-19 cases are dropping. Normally, that would be a reason for hope that the nation could escape the surges of the past two pandemic winters. But virus experts fear that the downward trend may soon reverse itself, thanks to this gaggle of new variants.

 

Lumped together, the variants accounted for almost 1 in 3 new Covid-19 infections nationwide last week, according to the latest estimates from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Ivermectin — a drug once touted as a Covid treatment by conservatives — doesn’t improve recovery much, clinical trial finds

 

Ivermectin, a drug once touted by conservatives as a treatment for Covid, does not meaningfully improve the recovery time for people with mild to moderate Covid-19, according a large clinical trial published in a peer-reviewed journal.

 

People who took ivermectin recovered from Covid in 12 days while people who didn’t take the drug recovered in 13 days, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Friday. Ivermectin has been approved to treat parasitic worms in humans, but it’s primarily used as a dewormer for horses.

 

“Among outpatients with mild to moderate COVID-19, treatment with ivermectin, compared with placebo, did not significantly improve time to recovery,” the team of scientists led by Duke University School of Medicine wrote. “These findings do not support the use of ivermectin in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19,” they concluded.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

COVID hospitalizations hit 8-month high, but no Michigan counties at high-risk level

 

COVID hospitalizations are trending upward in Michigan, but overall COVID risk is either “low” or “medium” in every Michigan county this week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

The CDC uses Community Levels to determine COVID risk, putting counties in one of three buckets: low (green), medium (yellow) or high (orange).

 

Michigan has had zero counties at a high level for three weeks in a row.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

---------------------------

 

Cape Elizabeth High School closes for cleaning after illness outbreak

 

School maintenance workers inside Cape Elizabeth High School gave the building a deep-clean Friday.

 

The cleaning came after an outbreak of illnesses from COVID-19, influenza, and other respiratory illnesses. Various illnesses spiked among staff and students where the absentee rate had soared to 26-percent on Thursday.

 

A week ago, the absentee rate was just two percent. School officials made the decision during an emergency meeting to close the high school as a safety precaution.

 

"Before the pandemic we had school close when we had outbreaks for influenza and other respiratory viruses," said Dr. Dora Mills.

 

Dr. Mills is MaineHealth's vice president of community health and a former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

"When a school has 15-percent of more absentee rate that's usually considered an outbreak for whatever the outbreak is and the recommendation is you allow that outbreak to simmer down by closing the school for one to three days," said Dr. Mills.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[China]

 

[China]

U.S. set to face third Covid winter, this time without key tools and treatments

 

he country is heading into its third Covid winter without crucial tools we’ve relied on at previous points in the pandemic, both as governments roll back their responses and as the virus outruns some of our most important medicine-cabinet defenses.

 

Free at-home tests are no longer showing up at people’s doorsteps. States are reporting outbreak data less frequently, and globally, testing and surveillance programs have been curtailed. Support for community vaccination campaigns has dwindled. And next year at some point, the U.S. government will stop paying for Covid vaccines and treatments, which could widen gaps in access as the products move to being covered by insurance.

 

Most urgent for some patients, new variants are undercutting the power of the remaining antibody therapies, both bebtelovimab, used as a treatment for high-risk people who are infected, and Evusheld, used as an extra boost of protection for people who have trouble generating their own immune responses after vaccination.

 

Already, some hospitals in New York City are planning to stop giving bebtelovimab, after federal data last week showed resistant variants accounted for more than 50% of local infections, Priya Nori, an infectious disease specialist at Montefiore Medical Center, told STAT. In some cases, they may still give Evusheld, but after warning patients it may not work.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Majestic Princess cruise with 800 COVID-19 patients set to dock in Sydney

 

Hundreds of people with COVID-19 will disembark from a cruise ship in Sydney this morning.

There are an estimated 800 COVID-19 patients among the 3300 guests and 1300 crew on board the Majestic Princess, which ends its journey in Sydney about 6am.

NSW Health last night said the cruise company would be responsible for "assisting passengers with COVID-19 to make safe onward travel arrangements".

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

Quote

For months, AFLDS has been split between its board and Gold, the group’s charismatic founder and convicted Capitol rioter, over an internal audit into Gold’s personal spending. That dispute spilled into the open on Nov. 5, when the board sued Gold to try and force her to stop representing the organization, in a lawsuit first reported by Vice News. Now the lawsuit’s outcome could determine the fate of the group driving much of the medical disinformation on the pro-Trump right. 

 

AFLDS is tearing itself apart in a fight over what Gold’s rivals describe as her extravagant spending using the group’s funds. The alleged purchases include $100,000 on a single private jet trip and $50,000 a month in Gold’s personal expenses. Much of the controversy has centered on AFLDS’s purchase of a $3.6 million mansion in Naples, Florida., where Gold lives with her boyfriend: a much younger underwear model and fellow Capitol rioter.

 

Gold isn’t backing down, penning threatening emails to board members and describing herself, alternately, as a “popular folk hero,” a “rainmaker,” and an avenging “lioness.” 

 

[China]

China zero Covid: Violent protests in Guangzhou put curbs under strain

 

Crowds of residents in southern China's industrial metropolis Guangzhou have escaped a compulsory lockdown and clashed with police, as anger at strict coronavirus curbs boiled over.

 

Dramatic footage shows some overturning a police vehicle and tearing down Covid control barriers. Riot teams have now been deployed in the area.

 

It follows Guangzhou's worst Covid outbreak since the pandemic began.

 

Amid bad economic figures, China's zero Covid policy is under enormous strain.

 

Tensions had been building in the city's Haizhu District, which is under stay-at-home orders.

 

The area is home to many poorer itinerant labourers. They have complained of not being paid if they are unable to turn up for work, and of food shortages and skyrocketing prices while living under Covid control measures.

 

For several nights, they'd been tussling with the white-clad Covid prevention enforcement officials, and then overnight on Monday the anger suddenly exploded onto the streets of Guangzhou with a mass act of defiance.

 

Again, unsubstantiated rumours have played a role. Stories have spread that the testing companies are faking PCR results to artificially boost the number of infections in order to make more money.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[abdcskins]

Got boosted yesterday. Holy Jesus my body is dead , fever, aches, chills, essentially the flu. I don't recall feeling like this the first time around.

[JCB]

I got wrecked too. Almost all of them for me, though the first boost wasn't so bad.

[abdcskins]

Honestly this is the last Covid vaccine/ booster I will be receiving, I don't care how many new variants emerge. Three days later I still feel off and my arm aches horribly, makes me wonder if the damn pharmacist punctured a nerve - I don't even think that's possible, I hope not.

 

I clearly support getting vaccinated for any virus/disease but at this point I am going to trust my immune system and wearing a mask when out in public, washing hands, etc. One of the reasons I don't get up in arms about antivaxxers, it's a personal choice and it affects me in no shape or form. I may think they are stupid and have faulty logic, but it is still their life.