Wuhan virus 2020

[Rockstar]

Blame von der Leyen

Responsibility for Europe’s vaccine debacle lies with the European Commission president.

https://www.politico.eu/article/blame-ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-vaccine-debacle/

Her most critical error occurred over the summer during negotiations with pharmaceutical companies.

In contrast to the U.S., which showed up with a $10 billion checkbook, von der Leyen resolved to nickel-and-dime the drugmakers.

If ever there was a moment for the EU to throw money (and a degree of caution) out the window, this was it. Millions of lives were literally on the line. Instead, von der Leyen approached the discussion with drugmakers like a trade deal, even putting a seasoned EU trade negotiator in charge. In addition to a low price, Europe insisted that the drug companies assume legal liability for any screw-ups.

As a result, it took months to reach an agreement, putting Europe behind the U.S., the U.K. and Israel in the line for vaccines. The Commission didn’t manage to sign a deal with BioNTech/Pfizer, the first Big Pharma player to develop a vaccine, until after the German-American alliance announced its success in November.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urQUM81lq-g

[ikalugin]

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-sputnik/astrazeneca-exec-says-sputnik-v-efficacy-data-welcome-need-data-on-dose-mixing-idUSKBN2A31QB

Some information on Sputnik-V.

[Skybird]

Blame von der Leyen

Responsibility for Europe’s vaccine debacle lies with the European Commission president.

https://www.politico.eu/article/blame-ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-vaccine-debacle/

True, but also blame Merkel, and EU health commissioner Kyriakides. These three women are three desaster uniting forces to maximise damage.

Two of them also are responsible for the planned climate policy design. Everybody: if you still can run away , run. Now.

[Jimbuna]

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi says the government has no plans for a "vaccine passport", saying it would be "discriminatory"

An annual booster jab, in the same way the flu vaccination is organised, is being planned for future years, he says.

The Scottish Government aims to vaccinate all adults "in the summer", the nation's health secretary Jeane Freeman says.

Early trials suggest the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine offers limited protection against mild disease caused by the South Africa variant.

The firm said it could not yet properly establish if the jab would stop severe disease caused by the variant as most in the study were young and healthy.

A vaccine for the South African strain should be ready by the autumn, says Prof Sarah Gilbert, the Oxford vaccine lead researcher.

Workplace Covid testing is being offered to more companies in England, for staff who cannot work from home during lockdown.

Tributes are paid in China to Li Wenliang, a doctor who raised the alarm about the country's coronavirus outbreak and died a year ago today.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/SNfXHYLg/577a7478-55be-4c0a-86ac-236bf64bb025.jpg (https://postimg.cc/HVjsyxhM)

[Skybird]

Tell that ^ a German...! :haha:

[Jimbuna]

I'm currently in the 1.8m tier group as is the wife.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn9NZKlEt2g

[ikalugin]

https://www.rnd.de/politik/320000-ffp2-masken-fur-deutschland-russland-liefert-an-deutschen-grosshandler-AKH5YNQUOFDCFNL2O7Z2LZOYTY.html

Apparently Germany is buying Russian FFP-2 masks.

[Jimbuna]

Testing has identified 147 cases of the South Africa variant of the coronavirus in the UK, minister says.

Early trials suggest the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine offers "minimal protection" against mild disease from the variant.

But PM Boris Johnson says the vaccines in use in the UK are "effective in combating serious death and illness in all variants"

South Africa has paused its roll-out of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

Portugal advises against AstraZeneca vaccine for over-65s unless there is no other option available.

Snow has forced some vaccine centres to close in Suffolk, Norfolk, Surrey and Essex.

Labour is challenging the UK government to "clean up" how it awards contracts for Covid work - saying it has been "rife with conflicts of interest"

Healthwatch England says dentistry is in crisis - with waits for NHS treatment now as long as two years.

[Jimbuna]

Schools in Denmark have reopened for the youngest children, although it's unclear when older year groups will resume in-person teaching.

Similar rules have been announced in Slovakia, with pupils in year four and below returning from today. Students in the finals years of secondary school are also coming back to class.

Austria has allowed hairdressers, museums and zoos to reopen, although some restrictions have been announced to prevent the spread of the virus.

France has banned home-made masks in school from today in response to the rise of new coronavirus variants around the world. Children will now be required to use medical-grade masks.

The government in France is also expected to change its labour laws to allow employees to have lunch at their desks in the coming days to prevent the spread of the virus. Workers have been banned for several years from eating in their work space.

Portugal has become to latest country to advise against using the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine for people aged over 65 unless no alternative is available.

Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis has been heavily criticised across the political spectrum for a lunch he had on Saturday with dozens of people, despite the government's Covid restrictions.

Cats and dogs will be tested for Covid-19 if they display symptoms, the city government of South Korea’s capital says.

[Rockstar]

All good information. But probably the best advice for all of us is at @10:00



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13qT7wLxkvU

[Skybird]

South Africa has stopped the use of the AZ vaccine, saying it does not protect against the south african variation and does not provide protection against any form of "just" mild cases.



Not sure what I want to make of this.

[Skybird]

https://www.rnd.de/politik/320000-ffp2-masken-fur-deutschland-russland-liefert-an-deutschen-grosshandler-AKH5YNQUOFDCFNL2O7Z2LZOYTY.html

Apparently Germany is buying Russian FFP-2 masks.
If true, and CE- certificated, why not. I would also not mind using the Sputnik-V. It looks damn fine to me.

Just the political irony. :haha: Nawalny. Krim. Sputnik-V. Nord Stream 2. Masks. :har:

[Jimbuna]

Any over-70s in UK who haven't yet had a jab urged to contact NHS to get their vaccine - Matt Hancock.

Almost one in four adults in the UK has now received at least one dose of vaccine, Hancock says.

A further 333 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test have been announced in the UK

This brings the total number of people to have died within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test to 112,798

The number of coronavirus cases recorded in the UK has risen by 14,104 in the last 24 hours,the figures show.

There have been 12,294,006 people vaccinated with their first dose and 512,581 with a second.

[mapuc]

This is too hilarious.

Since some weeks back the Danish government has decided that everyone who enter Denmark, so even Danish citizens, shall show a paper where it says they are negative. This test must not be older than 2/3 days. And they should stay in quarantine for 10 days. There are more to this.

But here comes this hilarious part.

A Danish news channel installed a camera near the Danish - German border and between 23-something hour 3th Aug. and until 06-something hour 4th Aug. 222 cars, truck and other vehicle crossed the border during this time, without being tested or checked.

I shake my head.

Markus

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgm5n0pfQzY

[Jimbuna]

And not before time.

All travellers arriving in the UK are to face mandatory coronavirus tests - paid for by themselves - from next week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock is poised to announce to MPs.

In a Commons statement, Mr Hancock will say that from next Monday, 15 February, all passengers arriving in the UK will be required to take a PCR test, which currently cost around £100 per test, on days two and eight after they arrive.

The new rules, which will cause further dismay in the already-reeling airline industry, will apply to arrivals not just from 33 so-called Red Zone countries heading into hotel quarantine, but also those isolating at home.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/all-travellers-arriving-in-uk-to-have-to-pay-for-%c2%a3100-covid-tests-while-in-quarantine/ar-BB1dvEJO?ocid=mailsignout&li=BBoPWjQ

[Jimbuna]

Everyone arriving in the UK will be required to test for coronavirus on days two and eight of their quarantine.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock is due to set out more details in the House of Commons shortly.

A theory that coronavirus leaked from a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan is discredited as "extremely unlikely" by a team of investigators.

The WHO-led team have been probing the origins of the virus in Wuhan and have spent four weeks there.

The NHS Covid-19 app has told 1.7 million people to isolate since its launch in England and Wales.

Local surge testing will begin in parts of Greater Manchester after the discovery of a new mutation of the Kent virus variant.

A report by MPs has found the government's Covid support has been "repeatedly skewed towards men"

[Jimbuna]

German health officials say the Covid incidence rate in the past week has fallen below 75 for the first time in three months to 72.8. State and federal leaders will discuss the lockdown tomorrow - but the target for relaxing measures is a seven-day average of 50. A group of film and cinema companies has written to Chancellor Angela Merkel, appealing for the reopening of cinemas at Easter.

French museums are still shut, along with restaurants and cinemas, but now a far-right mayor in the south of France has tried to open four museums in the city of Perpignan. That's prompted a last-minute court move by the local prefect to prevent it happening. Italy has partially reopened its culture sector, and French museum leaders are now talking to the culture minister Roselyne Bachelot about strict rules on opening and safe distancing.

Russia’s statistics agency has revealed a 17.9% rise in mortality from 2019 to 2020, raising further questions over the official Covid death toll. Some 162,000 of the deaths are being linked to Covid. Moscow's health department says 16,546 people died in December, an increase of 5,988 fatalities on the previous year.

Greece could be facing a third Covid wave and Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias says an increasing number of intensive care beds are being filled. It could mean a new lockdown for Athens area, which is worst affected.

The Dutch overnight curfew has been extended to early March because it's too early to say if it’s working. Infections are slightly down but the winter cold snap has hit some of the country’s vaccination centres.

People living near a British military training camp in Kenya say they are concerned after 11 cases of coronavirus were confirmed among troops.
In total, 320 troops - who recently arrived from the UK - have been placed in isolation at the base in Nanyuki, north of Nairobi.

Iran has begun a nationwide vaccination programme to combat the deadliest Covid-19 outbreak in the Middle East.

[Skybird]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQyhjQUjHjU

Revealing, what he says from 09:30 on. Simply bad, incompetent science (ecotrophology - the science of foods and nutrition - for example is brimming with this). And if intentionally done so: abusive, maniukative propaganda, not science at all. Again, ecotrophology is drowning in a swamp of this kind of abuse nowadays.

The problem is not science itself. The problem is dilettanism, and underhanded, abusive intentions. This is what leads to abuse. Its like a sharp, good knife. You can use it constructively as a tool, a kitchen gadget, a scalpel - or for murdering someone. The purpos eit is beeing used for says nothign about the quality of the blade - but a lot about the someone using the knife.

[Jimbuna]

Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirms the new "enhanced testing" regime for international travellers.

From Monday in England, anyone arriving into the country must book two PCR tests to take on days two and eight of their quarantine.

Any positive result will undergo genomic sequencing to confirm whether they have a variant of concern.

Returning residents from "red list countries" will have to pay up to £1,750 for hotel quarantine, transport and testing.

There will be fines of up to £10,000 and 10-year jail sentences for those who break travel rules.

All international arrivals into Scotland from Monday will have to enter "managed" quarantine facilities such as hotels.

Local surge testing is beginning in parts of Greater Manchester after the discovery of a new mutation of the Kent virus variant.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/C5Xd57z0/111.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/jqFDMxv1/222.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/pLNptswY/333.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/Jzbt7bmw/444.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/0NPjzb2z/555.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Moonlight]

I see the leadership of the WHO are still covering up for China, I wonder why, what is going on behind the scenes, this organisation is beginning to stink like a skunks tea party. :o

There is no evidence whatsoever that the WHO are receiving any backhanders from China and plenty of 'em. :haha:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13991711/china-wuhan-covid-origin-wet-market/

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnnLZAMH_ho

[Jimbuna]

Covid-19 doesn't discriminate and does not care about people's skin colour, England's deputy chief medical officer Prof Jonathan Van-Tam says.

South African is not "our major threat now" - the Kent variant is "going to kill people in the next one to two months in the UK", says Van-Tam.

No vaccine is 100% effective, Van-Tam says, adding the government has done a great deal to make sure the vaccines are safe.

It is likely vaccines will be given annually to match variants, he adds.

Ten-year jail sentences for travellers who try to conceal journeys to high-risk countries have been branded "extraordinarily high"

Former Supreme Court justice Lord Sumption and former attorney general Dominic Grieve both criticised the measure, announced on Tuesday by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

Beer and pub sector leaders are pressing the government to give them a reopening date and a "roadmap to recovery"

A French nun who is Europe's oldest person has survived Covid-19, just days before her 117th birthday.

[Jimbuna]

The Greek capital Athens is to go into hard lockdown tomorrow, with most shops shut and all schooling going online. Kindergartens and primary and secondary schools only reopened a couple of weeks ago, but Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis says higher hospital admissions are putting a strain on the Greek health service.

Spain has recorded another 766 deaths in 24 hours – the highest number since April – and the number of infections since the pandemic began has passed three million. The spike has been blamed on restrictions being eased over Christmas, but the weekly incidence rate has started to fall and more than two million Spaniards have been vaccinated. Key workers will start getting the Oxford-AstraZeneca drug, which Spain won’t be giving to over-55s, even though it’s been approved by the EU’s medical agency.

German state leaders get together on video with Chancellor Angela Merkel with full expectation that they’ll prolong the country’s lockdown beyond 14 February. Infections are down to just over 8,000 a day but Baden-Württemberg state premier Winfried Kretschmann says no-one should expect “an orgy of opening”. Intensive care expert Gernot Marx says schools and daycare centres should remain shut because he says they’re a big channel for spreading infection.

As soon as Italy gets a new government it’ll have to decide whether to extend a ban on travel between different regions, in place since December. Ministers will also have to decide whether to allow ski resorts to open. The regional travel ban expires on Monday and the man expected to lead the government, Mario Draghi, may not have been given parliamentary backing in time.

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, has been speaking to MEPs about the EU's vaccine rollout at the start of a debate on the bloc's vaccination strategy.
"We’re going to work as hard as we possibly can to reach our objective so that by the end of the summer at least 70% of the population will be vaccinated," she says.
But Von der Leyen admits that right now “we’re still not where we want to be".
"We were late to authorise. We were too optimistic when it came to massive production, and perhaps too confident that what we ordered would actually be delivered on time.
"We need to ask ourselves why that is the case and what lessons we can draw.”

The South African government has outlined its amended coronavirus immunisation plans. They were put on hold when a trial suggested the AstraZeneca jabs that were due to be distributed were less effective against a local variant of the virus. Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said a Johnson and Johnson vaccine would be used to immunise health workers, even though it has yet to be approved in South Africa.

Ghana's parliament will suspend sittings for three weeks due to increasing coronavirus cases among lawmakers and staff.
The number of MPs who have contracted the virus has risen to 17 while cases among staff have passed 150.

[3catcircus]

At what point do governments across the globe stop and assess things rather than continue to react with disastrous impacts?

Going into lockdowns *after* a new wave is already on the downswing just shows how completely incompetent they all are.

[Skybird]

The problem is more that lockdown is exited too early and case numbers explode with the new mutated virus forms. That is what has happened in several countries and that is what Merkel wants to avoid. Austria on the other hand already opens up again, and now has set sail for a third wave already. We saw it in Ireland as well, and other places.

However, the strategy must be changed, we cannot maintain and susta8n locked-down societies and economies endlessly, but Corona will not go away, we also see hints that even mass vaccination like in Israel will not acchieve herd immunity. We must learn ways to live with the virus. I have no complete answers to how to do that, but part of the strategy imo is a massive immune system-boosting health campaign, which must be focussed on public eating places like factory and company canteens, hospital and caretaking facility foods, schools and university canteen, plus encouraging private supplenmentaiton - of, you can guess it by now, Vitamin-D plus co-factors. All that green and evgetable eating is nice and well if you like it, but it doe snot brign effect to bear quick enough, and not strongly enough, since our fields are eroded of nutrient value: evcen our vegetable is no ,ogjne rwhat it once was, a hunbdred years ago, the loss of nutrients in parts is up to 90%! . Flourid and Bromid out of the water and food (who gets such idiotic ideas in the first - the aluminium industry...) , Vitamin-D, Magnesium, K2 in. You get the base concept. The correlations between vitamin D deficiency and severity of cases, are monumental, stellar, and got collected in overwhelming quantity over the past 12 months. Politicians still ignore it. That is no longer just a scandal - that is a serious crime against humanity. I want to see heads chopped off and falling for this - its malice to protect pharmaceutical money interests and the fame and glory of the conventional medical paradigm and claim for absolute authority - and paying with the economic costs of lockdowns, and the many people suffering dearly, and dying needlessly. It is not science - it is the deliberate bypassing and ignoring of science.

We could already have pulled the dragon's teeth and claws months ago, I am certain by now, we already could have been out of the worst, clearly so. For the costs of an apple and and egg - and here-in lies the reason why the industry hates it and ignores it: no money in it. you cannot call patents for elements and base nutrients like vitamins and minerals. You cannot cash big.

People would get sick with better immune status, still, but the ratio of severe cases and the death numbers would be massively, substantially cut down. This way, we could force Covid into being nothing bigger than the seasonal flu. Deniars and conspiracy theoresticists claim it is just a flu. Obviously, it is not, but it is much more thna that only because it met a population with terribly bad nutrition values and thus bad immune system status.

So-called civilizational deseases have gone pandemic long time agao already. Chronical deseases. Silent inflammations. Corona heart desease. Diabetes-2. Auto-immune desease. These all run at pandmeic prorptions now,m and the numbers sitll explode and become higher and higher - despite all that "healthy" food they tell us to eat! More precise, the case number explosions started when they called out these new food regimes. A result of the industrial garbage people accept to take as "food", they gte ill in scores. Cheap industrial garbage it is. Cheap it must be, because we are so wonderfully many people, so many hungry mouths that must be fed. And so, the quality of food went down, it gets produced in monocultures that are precondition to feed them all, and they tell us all the lies like that vegan ways are good, that meat is evil, that seed oils are healthy, and too much salt is of the devil's, and bla and bla and blablabla.

The homo sapiens probably became homo sapiens, because he started to eat fish, sea fruits, seaweed in big quantities - the omega-3 in it boosted the brain size, and the iodine also worked its wonders. Tribes and groups of hominide ancestors of ours who lived by rivers and near the sea coasts, are seen by paleontologists to have had an advantage over tribes living in places that had no access to such foods. The latter got "outsmarted" by the superor brain evolution of the first, after some time. There was no war of extinction, there was just evolution of the the fittest - and the better fed sample survived, became better in design (brain), and so started to dominate. Animal fats is what we can digest better than most vegetarian oils. Seed oils are an absolutely new invention in human evolution, our biochemistry does not really know how to process them in a way that the many Omega-6 in it does not make us ill.

We get taught to eat unhealthy and to eat bad stuff - for ideological reasons only, and because nobody dares to talk about what the reason for monoculteres in agriculture are: that we are so freaking damn many people and food production cannot keep up with the demand if the quality is not accepted to get worse and worse.

In principle, our troubles began when we changed from being hunters and gatherers, and settled down and started agriculture and eating corns. Here is where we most likely planted the seeds of our modern medical problems with nutrition and civilization diseases. Because homo sapiens is no vegetarian-only extremeist, he is carnivore and omnivore, eating all.

We. Are. Too. Many. Preaching this since years. And Covid-19 tells us this. The pandemic is what it is because we are so many, and live in too crowded places as well.

We reap what we have sown.


Industrially processed food is comfortable, and can taste great, ther eis plenty of thigns I like to to taste. But that food is not what it is like because it is good for us, but because it is good for the industry, its interests and needs. This alone already should keep you on your toes. I am still learning to say No to things I used to accept, but do not accept anymore. At least, I can reduce the bad stuff, and increase better stuff.

[Buddahaid]

At what point do governments across the globe stop and assess things rather than continue to react with disastrous impacts?

Going into lockdowns *after* a new wave is already on the downswing just shows how completely incompetent they all are.

The plan is to get out of this expected winter wave and get most people vaccinated. That has been the goal for most of a year and you shouldn't be surprised about it.

[Onkel Neal]

Still waiting for the vac. I'm going to the doc today, will see what he says about adding me to his staff :)

[3catcircus]

The plan is to get out of this expected winter wave and get most people vaccinated. That has been the goal for most of a year and you shouldn't be surprised about it.

Here's the problem: it's not a vaccine - none of them are (most vaccines for many diseases don't actually prevent infection). It's a symptom preventer. If it were a vaccine that prevents you from catching the virus, there wouldn't be any need for masks and social distancing for those who are vaccinated. Yet governments are telling people they still need to wear masks and social distance after they are vaccinated.

If it were a true vaccine, you'd encourage the vaccinated to go out and mingle because the more of them you have who can't get infected, the faster you 'd reach herd immunity.

Until you could potentially vaccinate 90+% of the world against all strsins, you'll still have people who can potentially suffer severe illness. Given that like many other coronaviruses, this has mutated several thousand times already (and is why we don't have a vaccine against the common cold and why yearly flu vaccines are a guess regarding which strains to include), it might be that the best way to protect us all is to actually infect as many people as possible.

[Buddahaid]

The point is to kill as few people as possible while getting the vaccination numbers high enough to gain herd immunity.

[Jimbuna]

The point is to kill as few people as possible while getting the vaccination numbers high enough to gain herd immunity.

And not bringing around economic ruin at the same time.

Can't be easy trying to juggle all those balls at the same time.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc9apjRpbgg

[3catcircus]

The point is to kill as few people as possible while getting the vaccination numbers high enough to gain herd immunity.

Let's be clear - there will *never* be herd immunity using these. There will only be herd *symptom suppression*.

[Buddahaid]

The point is to built up antibodies. Why do you get a flu shot every year?

[3catcircus]

The point is to built up antibodies. Why do you get a flu shot every year?

I don't get a flu shot every year - and I've never gotten the flu.

[Skybird]

I don't get a flu shot every year - and I've never gotten the flu.
To be fair, that gets negotiated between exposition opportunities of yours, and strength of your immune response - may the latter come from antibodies froman earlier infection, a successful immune fight during first exposition, or vaccination.

It is possible that the immune system successfully fights off (=mild case) a first met germ or virus on the first meeting ever, it depends on whether the infectous attack leaves the immune system enough time to learn, adapt and build defences before the attack turns into a serious case, or not. 1 in 3 Covid-19 infections or so runs undiscovered and symptom-free, British radio runs a campaign saying that, I heared it on Smooth Radio. The infected person is not aware of it. The person still infects others, however.

In Covid-19, there is a correlation between virus load during exposition (reducing the time for the immune system to adapt before the virus replication overwhelms the body), and case seriousness.

Thats why even inferior mask technology (cotton masks for example) are better than nothing: they may not prevent virus particles being inhaled (FFP masks do not completely prevent that either, btw), but they still reduce the virus load. A cotton maks may redcue it by 40-60%, depending on mesh size. an FFP2/KN95 mask reduces it by 95%. A FFP3/KN100 mask reduces it by 98-99%. A plastic face shield reduces it by no percent at all.

A fisherman with a net with wide loops, catches less small fishes than a fisherman using a net with narrower loops.

[Skybird]

Let's be clear - there will *never* be herd immunity using these. There will only be herd *symptom suppression*.
Asymptomatic people do not bog down the ICUs in hospital and do not overwhelm the health service. ;)

You are splitting hairs for nothing.

[Moonlight]

A SCIENTIST involved in the World Health Organisation's investigation into the origins of Covid has thrown its controversial findings into chaos by claiming the virus DID start in China. :haha:
Tell me something I didn't already know, perhaps those scientists and journalists who mysteriously disappeared in China last year might know Exactly Where and When it began, I'll wager there's no chance of seeing them again until China have been finally let off the hook. :o

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14011130/who-covid-chaos-investigator-insists-virus-started-china/

[Onkel Neal]

I don't get a flu shot every year - and I've never gotten the flu.

Consider yourself lucky, then. I've never gotten a flu shot either.

I see the leadership of the WHO are still covering up for China, I wonder why, what is going on behind the scenes, this organisation is beginning to stink like a skunks tea party. :o



Agreed, there's no question that the WHO is being very subordinate to the Chinese govt.

Also, I was wondering, I have seen a lot of people all over the web and in the news mention UK strain and South African strain ... isn't that racist? ie, Chinese virus?

[ET2SN]

I get flu shots each year and got the Pneumonia booster two or three years ago. I was thanking my lucky stars for that booster last Spring. :yep:

One week to my first dose of Moderna. :yeah:

[Jimbuna]

The number of people waiting more than 12 months to start hospital treatment in England was 224,205 in December.

It's the highest for any calendar month since April 2008, and compares with 1,467 in December 2019

An arthritis drug can be a life-saver for some of the sickest hospital patients with Covid, research shows.

The coronavirus variant first detected in Kent will be the world's dominant strain, the head of the UK's genetic sequencing programme predicts.

Prof Sharon Peacock also says her programme will still be doing research into strains '10 years down the line'

But Covid-19 case rates are continuing to fall in all regions of England, public health figures show.

The government has set out more details of when people with asthma will get the vaccine.

A further 1,001 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test, new government figures show.

In Italy, winter ski resorts in Lombardy will reopen next Monday - but at 30% capacity.

Germany's lockdown is to continue until 7 March, but hairdressers will be allowed to reopen from 1 March.

[Jimbuna]

Germany’s lockdown is to continue until 7 March but hairdressers will be allowed to reopen from 1 March. There's no national agreement on reopening schools so the 16 German states will make their own plans. Several states want to reopen on 22 February and Saxony in the east plans to start opening primary schools and daycare next Monday.

Belgian hairdressers reopen on Saturday and the Belgian Beauty Federation, which represents 700 hairdressers, has appealed to Dutch people living north of the border not to come looking for a hair-cut. The group’s leader Mario Blokken says: "We want to stop population groups who don’t usually come into contact mingling together."

A big French project to build a fourth terminal at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris has been scrapped, partly for environmental reasons but also because the pandemic has dramatically reduced air traffic. Environmental transition minister Barbara Pompili says the plan, which would have cost at least €7bn (£6bn), was obsolete.

For the first time this winter ski resorts in Italy’s northern province of Lombardy will reopen next Monday, but at 30% capacity. Lombardy was at the centre of the start of the pandemic in Europe and Italy's infection rate is still high - with 12,956 new cases reported yesterday.

The Portuguese parliament is set to approve a decree from President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to renew the country’s state of emergency for another 15 days from Monday. The president cites continuing pressure on hospitals despite a lockdown in place since mid-January.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/Y2X9FhcV/111.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Skybird]

The eU's Super-Uschi apologized to the EU parliament - not the people of the European states - for the vaccination buying mess. She said that maybe they were late (what did she mean with "maybe"?), and that they overestimated production capacities, and that maybe they were naive (good bet!) to assume that what was signed in treaty would be delivered (in case of AZ she hid that they had negotiated a treaty to whose wording they did not pay the attention it deserved).


No word from her on her attempt to mess with the Ireland issue in a bid to hide her respjnsibility, and her atempt to blame her guilt on others.

In Germany, we are used to this behaviour of her. Its an established pattern that follows a red line throughout her "career".

Strangely, or not, she also said that the EU plan was great. Well, what else to expect from a planned economy theoreticist. Its never the state plan that is the problem. Its always the fault of the others. Its always a wicked reality not complying with abstract theory.


Of course no word on that originally it all was not a case for the EU to stick its nose into in the first. Health policy is respnsibility of the Euzrppean nations themsleves. Not the EU. It were Nanny Merkel and Super-Uschi who wanted to abuse the crisis for pushing more power to the EU.


-----

The Germans meanwhile repeat a mistake they already made once. When they started to suck more than five dosis out of the ampullas by Pfizer, they did not pay attention to the fact that the treaty with Pfizer talked of "dosis", not of ampulles. What egts dleivered, si counte din dosis, not in ampulles. Pfizer increased the price for delievering ampulles, and started to deliver less ampulles, too, so that the word of the treaty was matched again. Since you need special needles for doing the trick and many places do not have them, also some pratcical experiences (many doctors fail to draw the sixth dosis) this led to the absurd situation that in fact Germany lost around 19% of avisalable jabs in this "coup". Has anyone elarned anythign from this? Judge yourself. The treaties are the sdame, are unchanged. Germany now starts to draw a seventh dosis out of one ampulla. Guess what will happen next! Pfizer will deliver less ampullas, so that the agreed doses match agaiubnl and will raise th eprice per ampulla. Germany will have less jabs avialable again becasue it wil become veen harder to draw that seventh shot from one ampulla.

Nothing beats the entertainment value of a good plan going over board! :yeah:

Moral of the story: there are no shortcuts for escape from a badly negotiated treaty to whose important details not sufficient attention was paid.

[AVGWarhawk]

Consider yourself lucky, then. I've never gotten a flu shot either.



Agreed, there's no question that the WHO is being very subordinate to the Chinese govt.

Also, I was wondering, I have seen a lot of people all over the web and in the news mention UK strain and South African strain ... isn't that racist? ie, Chinese virus?

I have never gotten a flu shot. I do know a few that have but still got the flu.

Using South African and UK strain in the news is of course racist. No wait, the one we can not name is in FL now. So using South African and UK strain is descriptive and acceptable. :doh:

[Buddahaid]

I have never gotten a flu shot. I do know a few that have but still got the flu.

Using South African and UK strain in the news is of course racist. No wait, the one we can not name is in FL now. So using South African and UK strain is descriptive and acceptable. :doh:

It's all about building antibodies to limit the severity. Each season the flu shot is tailored to what strains are determined to pose the greatest threat. I'm required to get the shots for work and I still get slightly ill at some point, but not this past season. I think that is entirely due to masks and hand hygiene measures that Covid-19 has brought among us.

[AVGWarhawk]

It's all about building antibodies to limit the severity. Each season the flu shot is tailored to what strains are determined to pose the greatest threat. I'm required to get the shots for work and I still get slightly ill at some point, but not this past season. I think that is entirely due to masks and hand hygiene measures that Covid-19 has brought among us.

Not say I do not get the cold and cough every now and then. Full blown flu? Not that I recall. No doubt that people are now washing hands and wearing masks with regularity has reduced many would be cases of flu. I guess if there is any silver lining with flu/Covid it is people realizing that cleaning hands and surfaces do help in keeping one free of a virus.

[Jimbuna]

A further 678 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test, with a further 13,494 cases reported.

It means the weekly average number of deaths is now under 800, compared with more than 1,200 a few weeks ago.

Scotland's vaccination programme is likely to slow down later this month because of supply problems.

[Rockstar]

Interesting. Thank god for those old Soviet era east German connections eh? I'm thinking the old guard is also pushing for stronger political and economic ties to Putin as well.

Germany open to Chinese and Russian vaccines amid delays

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germany-open-to-chinese-and-russian-vaccines-amid-delays/a-56396510

[Catfish]

Why should there be any restraints to where vaccines come from? Is this a nationalist thing?
After all "there is no obstacle to the use of the Sputnik V and Sinopharm vaccines if they receive EU approval."
So why not? Biontech is a german company founded by a turkish immigrant, the US Pfizer company is the distributor (nothing to do with inventing in this case). I do not quite understand what was negotiated in the shades but hey, whatever.
Almost all companies have declared they are not able to produce the numbers agreed on by treaties, so whatever vaccine used, if it works take it.

[Skybird]

Interesting. Thank god for those old Soviet era east German connections eh? I'm thinking the old guard is also pushing for stronger political and economic ties to Putin as well.

Germany open to Chinese and Russian vaccines amid delays

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germany-open-to-chinese-and-russian-vaccines-amid-delays/a-56396510
Older news, I reported it days ago. The Chinese vaccine I am cautious with, but the Russian one, if the Lancet study is correct, is excellent - very high efficiency rate of 92%, that makes it ranking amongst the mRNA vaccines, but being of the Astrazeneca-tehcnology-kind, and can be stored at much easier to handle temperatures, and costing less than half as much as the Biontech/Pfizer one. Only advantages. In fact, it currently would be my first choice, if I had a choice.

The Russians meanwhile said they cannot or will not deliver before end of May.

What has a special dubious taste on it, is that Pfizer doses meant for Europe and beign produced in Europe, by treaty demand (the EU again was stupid enough to sign) must be delivered to the US for filling it into ampulles and then b ringing it back to Europe. Hopefully. Nobody in Brussels had any imaigination of why the Ameiocans demanded this. Why could the yhave wanted it this way, lets sit down a while and thinlk really hard. Why coulöd they have wanted it... Hmmmm...

It means the US can decide differently once it has its hands on it, and keep it. America first. And the EU signed into this arrangement :har: . If you want to laugh, feel free. I mock and laugh, too. The mask wars should have taught lessons to the Europeans, but they didn't. Naive, endlessly well-meaning Trottel.

[Skybird]

Opinion piece/comment in Der Tagesspiegel:

The Chancellor could legally disregard the countries. Instead, she prefers to rely on consensus. But why? A comment. Stephan-Andreas Casdorff

It's like this: every time after her conferences with the heads of federal state governments, Angela Merkel gives the impression that she actually knows better. Knows better what should be done in the corona crisis. All right, then she should finally go out into the open on her last few meters, as her physicist colleague Michael Schindhelm advised her decades ago; then she should take responsibility and finally stand up for what she thinks is right. The Chancellor can override the countries and assert herself if she wants. That would work legally. Says not just anybody, but THE German constitutional lawyer, the Berlin professor Christoph Möllers, who represents the national government in major cases before the upper courts.

This Möllers therefore takes the view (in “Spiegel”) that Merkel can determine everything in the event of a lockdown: requirements, content, length, details. By federal law without an agreement with the Prime Ministers of the states. Or the Chancellor creates a basis in the Infection Protection Act that empowers her government to order the lockdown nationwide by ordinance. Not even the Federal Council (second chamber of German parliament) would have to agree. Lawsuit of the countries? Pointless, thinks Möllers. Especially since the committee “Merkel and the Prime Ministers” does not exist in the Basic Law.

By the way: Even with schools - where Merkel laments that the easing is going too fast - she would have a handle.

Merkel prefers moderation, consensus, they say. That's true. But why? Because that also means shared responsibility; because if things don't go as planned, it is not her sole fault. Because then FDP leader Christian Lindner cannot attach the extension of the lockdown to her alone. The fact that, after more than a hundred days, Germany is still lagging behind in the use of air purifiers, systematic tests and the widespread use of FFP2 masks, has no opening perspective for the economy via a step-by-step plan that allows relaxation in regions with low infection rates - it wasn't Merkel.

But it could be her: the one who says where to go. Who makes herself vulnerable. Who wrestles with the Bundestag and fights for a majority. In any case, constitutional lawyer Möllers wonders "how seldom the responsibility of the national government and its majority in the Bundestag is acknowledged when representatives of the federal government complain about the reluctance of the states".
------

Its typical. I call it cowardice. The Merkel way, although behind locked doors she is quite authoritarian. Think of it, in Europe and Germany this endless desire for harmony and consensus and unity and no disagreement, this utmost and complete shyness of conflict, this everlasting desire for getting loved by all others, this is what has brought the EU and Germany nothing but troubles. And when considering the German policies beyond Corona and in the past one and a half decade: its a label of Merkel's whole reign. Or better: a stigma. As I often said in past years: push them long enough, in the end the Germans always fall back. Absolutely obvious when it comes to the Euro, as just one obvious exmaple.
And in Paris they giggle. Its Paris where the biggest danger lies for the Europoean nations and people. Not Germany - France. Saying this since years, too.

[Skybird]

Biden finalized deal with Pfizer for an additional 200 doses. That gives the US 600 million doses in summer, practically enoguh to double-jab all its citizens.

Huhu EU, Huhu Germany - watch and learn! Still think its a good idea to allow those Pfizer vaccines from European factories and for European consummation being transported to the US "just for filling" it into ampullas?

I think that is like hoping to ever get back all gold stored by Germany in the New York bank's safes. Fact is the Americans do not even allow the Germans to physically control that all those gold bars are still there, physically - and that of the other nations. They kindly allowed us to bring back just a tiny fraction in recent years, to silence public doubt. More they rejected to give out. And so the germans did not demand more. Moral of the story: the gold physically is no more there. The US cannot give back what it does no logner has. Too bad for Germany. But it helps to be naive and stupid, then the pain is not that much felt.

Emergency directives forbidding that exporting-for-filling of the Eurpopean propcued Pfizer jabs that are meant for Euzropean customers. We can fill them into ampullas riught here, ther eis no need at all to do that in the US and then transport the ampullas back to Europe. that is ABSURD. State intervention there is covered by nations' emergency and pandemic plans allowing options for extraordinary lawmaking steps and measurements. Better it would have been to not even accept this obvious clause, but now that one has - break it. Usually I say pacta sund servanda, but the EU has already killed now and in the forseeable future so many people with its stupdity, I do not accept to let it commit this folly as well. The vaccine doses for European customers must be filled where they get produced, here in Europe, that is, not allowing the US to get hand on them.

There is no practical reason at all why doses made in European factories and already bought by European customerts must be delivered to the US for filling them into flasks. There is no practical need for this. Except the US plans to confiscate these doses, if it wishes to do so and sees an interest in it.

Will Super-Uschi and Nanny Merkel ever wake up from their endless daydreamings? Its not as if they do not alrready wade in a sea of blood they caused flowing needlessly with their idealistic dilettantism.

[Skybird]

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/mangel-am-corona-impfstoff-grosse-krisen-ueberfordern-die-eu-17192990.html


The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung FAZ is usually described as being centrist-conservative.

[3catcircus]

Biden finalized deal with Pfizer for an additional 200 doses. That gives the US 600 million doses in summer, practically enoguh to double-jab all its citizens.

Huhu EU, Huhu Germany - watch and learn! Still think its a good idea to allow those Pfizer vaccines from European factories and for European consummation being transported to the US "just for filling" it into ampullas?

I think that is like hoping to ever get back all gold stored by Germany in the New York bank's safes. Fact is the Americans do not even allow the Germans to physically control that all those gold bars are still there, physically - and that of the other nations. They kindly allowed us to bring back just a tiny fraction in recent years, to silence public doubt. More they rejected to give out. And so the germans did not demand more. Moral of the story: the gold physically is no more there. The US cannot give back what it does no logner has. Too bad for Germany. But it helps to be naive and stupid, then the pain is not that much felt.

Emergency directives forbidding that exporting-for-filling of the Eurpopean propcued Pfizer jabs that are meant for Euzropean customers. We can fill them into ampullas riught here, ther eis no need at all to do that in the US and then transport the ampullas back to Europe. that is ABSURD. State intervention there is covered by nations' emergency and pandemic plans allowing options for extraordinary lawmaking steps and measurements. Better it would have been to not even accept this obvious clause, but now that one has - break it. Usually I say pacta sund servanda, but the EU has already killed now and in the forseeable future so many people with its stupdity, I do not accept to let it commit this folly as well. The vaccine doses for European customers must be filled where they get produced, here in Europe, that is, not allowing the US to get hand on them.

There is no practical reason at all why doses made in European factories and already bought by European customerts must be delivered to the US for filling them into flasks. There is no practical need for this. Except the US plans to confiscate these doses, if it wishes to do so and sees an interest in it.

Will Super-Uschi and Nanny Merkel ever wake up from their endless daydreamings? Its not as if they do not alrready wade in a sea of blood they caused flowing needlessly with their idealistic dilettantism.

What's the rate of serious complications with these vaccines vs the rate of recovery of those who contract covid-19?

I'd be happy to send them back to Europe and let someone else be the human trials subjects...

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-9Bj-T0Dtc

[Jimbuna]

Latest estimates for the R number across the UK put it at between 0.7 and 0.9, suggesting the epidemic is shrinking.

The Office for National Statistics says infection levels are going down in all four UK nations, but experts warn infection levels still remain high.

The figures suggest one in 80 people in England has the virus, with one in 150 in Scotland, one in 85 in Wales and one in 75 in Northern Ireland.

Home Office minister Victoria Atkins says England's hotel quarantine system, which starts on Monday, will be "amongst the strongest in the world"

More police will be deployed at travel hubs next week to ensure the new quarantine rules are enforced, Home Secretary Priti Patel says.

The UK economy "experienced a significant shock" last year, Chancellor Rishi Sunak says, after figures show it shrank by a record 9.9%

Wales is the first UK nation to have offered the top four priority groups a Covid jab, First Minister Mark Drakeford says.

A five-day lockdown has been imposed in the Australian state of Victoria, following a cluster of coronavirus cases linked to a quarantine hotel.

[Jimbuna]

UK cases continue to decrease

This time last week, the UK reported 1,014 coronavirus deaths, so today’s figure is a drop of 256.

Last Friday there were 19,144 daily cases – compared to the 15,144 reported today.

Cases have remained under 20,000 for the last eight days in a row.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/d0FZ2L1P/111.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/cJcgX0gK/222.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/63j7xcht/333.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

Germany is to ban travel from Austria’s Tyrol region as well as Czech border areas from Sunday without a negative test, but commercial links will continue. Austrian police halted travel out of the Tyrol last night without a negative test, because of a surge in cases of the South African coronavirus variant. But Czech MPs have refused to back an extension of a state of emergency so it will end at midnight on Sunday.

France is worried about an outbreak of South African and Brazilian variants in the north-east Moselle region. Health minister Olivier Véran says the situation is worrying and he’s heading there today.

Poland is reopening swimming pools and ski slopes today and allowing hotels, cinemas and theatres to start up again at 50% capacity. Authorities already reopened museums and shopping centres on 1 February and they want to give the new relaxation two weeks to assess its effect. Another 7,008 infections were reported yesterday.

Dutch policing unions are worried about a potential surge of skaters this weekend on the country’s frozen lakes and canals. Crowds were reported around some lakes yesterday – attracted by the big freeze - and some 500 people were told to leave a park in the eastern city of Nijmegen.

But Portugal’s state of emergency is to stay until 1 March. And the lockdown will carry on at least until the end of next month, according to Prime Minister António Costa. He says the situation is extremely serious and it’s "premature" to talk about easing restrictions.

[Skybird]

What's the rate of serious complications with these vaccines vs the rate of recovery of those who contract covid-19?

I'd be happy to send them back to Europe and let someone else be the human trials subjects...


Only as long as you have not become one of the happy winners of getting hospitalised due to Covid-19. Because then you find yourself in hell'S kitchen.



Don't be dumb. Get the jab when getting an offer.



OIne in three infected has no symptoms. The horror trip you are saved from yourself if you get infected but are asymptomatic, you still can bring onto sombody else whom you infect without even ever knowing it. Even multiple others.

[Skybird]

The German RKI has calculated how many years victims of hospitalised Covid-19 cases have lost on average in life expectancy, and found it to be 9.6 years. If differentiating both genders, males tend to loose around three years more than women.

Early last year, the London analysts have done similiar calculations with the data available to them at that time, i think it was around April, and they came to comparable statements back then already. The effect is stronger in younger people (it shortens your life expectancy the more the younger you are).

Puts claims regarding "recovering from Covid" into relation, doesn't it. Having your life expectancy being shortened by a decade is not really what people usually mean when saying "recovery", eh?

[3catcircus]

Only as long as you have not become one of the happy winners of getting hospitalised due to Covid-19. Because then you find yourself in hell'S kitchen.



Don't be dumb. Get the jab when getting an offer.



OIne in three infected has no symptoms. The horror trip you are saved from yourself if you get infected but are asymptomatic, you still can bring onto sombody else whom you infect without even ever knowing it. Even multiple others.

Not to sound cruel, but, so what? People have asymptomatically infected others with flu, RSV, rhinovirus, coronavirus, etc. for centuries - with some of them being hospitalized or dying from pneumonia. They've asymptomatically infected partners with STDs, as well, also leading to deaths. I'm sure some may have asymptomatically infected people with ebola.

Explain to me why this is any different whatsoever to any other virus in history, when covid-19 is acting like every other virus in history?

Rather than scrambling to have the whole world get a shot, the whole world should be using it on the elderly, health workers, and the immune-compromised and let everyone else live their lives without lockdowns, social distancing, or mask mandates and let them decide for themselves their level of risk. Eighty percent of those infected are asymptomatic or varying degrees of sick not requiring hospitalization - most don't even know they had it unless they get tested for antibodies. We need to stop acting like this is airborne ebola - of the 20% that require hospitalization, you eliminate the elderly and immune-compromised and now you are dealing with maybe 5%. Given the much improved treatments based upon a year of experience, there would be no need to ration care or overwhelm hospitals and the availability and efficacy of HCQ, ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies means you can virtually eliminate deaths except for those who were so feeble they would have been killed by something else anyway.

How do you think the very first wave of "standard" rhinovirus or coronavirus went, when it first infected humans? This coronavirus will end up the same way - becoming a nuisance fall/winter illness.

[Skybird]

Oh Mann. :dead:

[Skybird]

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/covid-s-impact-cancer-care-turning-oncologists-worst-fears-reality-ncna1257743

[Skybird]

Trust is eroding: After Corona, Germany expects the next severe crisis


The left has always backed the state. Now we are experiencing in a cruel real-time experiment what is to be kept of the promises that one only has to let the state have its way, then security and prosperity would be ensured.

At the height of the financial crisis, author Charles Moore, known for his conservative views, published a comment in the Daily Telegraph that led to the question of whether the bourgeois camp was right about confidence in the market. "It took more than thirty years for me as a journalist to ask myself this question," he wrote, "but this week I feel that I have to ask it: is n't the left (https://aevs6jem6isi4g6gurt5fba7he--www-focus-de.translate.goog/organisationen/die-linke/) right in the end?"

It is time to re-examine beliefs again. Once again it is evident that the arguments that have just been rejected could be correct, only this time those of the liberals, who have always distrusted the state. If politics and government fail to protect citizens, then one should not have to consider opposing the transfer of ever more powers, one would ask today.

A decade of rampant state belief comes to a crashing end in the pandemic. In a cruel real-time experiment, we experience what is to be kept of the promises of the state representatives that one only has to let them go, then security and prosperity would be ensured.

In truth, it is exactly the opposite: the more the individual citizen is dependent on state protection, the greater the likelihood that he will not reach the end of the year alive. This is not a polemical escalation, it is the description of the situation.

Belief in the state is deeply anchored in the psyche of the nation

The mortality risk in relation to the dependency on state welfare can even be defined quite precisely. All you have to do is take the daily mortality tables from the old people's homes. Those who live in a care facility because they can no longer take care of themselves have an x ​​times higher risk of contracting corona (https://aevs6jem6isi4g6gurt5fba7he--www-focus-de.translate.goog/corona-virus/) than their sprightly peers who do not need any help.

In addition to the health crisis, there is now the crisis of confidence. The latter will still be with us when we have long regained control over our lives. You are certainly not guilty of exaggeration when you predict that this crisis will shake the country more permanently than the fight against the virus.

That it is the state on which one can best aim one's hopes, this belief is deeply anchored in the psyche of the nation. Even two world wars could not change that. From my point of view, it would have been obvious to learn from history to allow a little more state skepticism - after all, the problem of the Germans has never been too much individualism and stubbornness. But Germans cannot think like that.

It is extremely difficult for us to say goodbye to state belief. The majority still say that they think the political measures are right. The phenomenon is known from toxic relationships: even if the victim knows how unhealthy the relationship they are stuck in, it is difficult for them to break free. It is better to deny the situation or to convince itself that things will get better in time. When asked about his misfortune, it blames itself: it was too careless or too selfish.

Protecting life to suspend liberty rights

Isn't that what we're hearing? That we have allowed ourselves too much negligence? That we have disappointed the trust placed in us, which is why we now have to take tougher measures? This is also the case in the comments, in which the government's course is described as having no alternative. Couples therapy would be called “enablers”. What is meant are people who prolong the relationship drama through appeasement or excuses.

There are crises that one cannot arm oneself against. They can only be endured stoically. But the pandemic is not such a crisis, and politics has never appeared so humble. On the contrary. The government's promise was to do everything in its power to save lives. From this she draws the legitimacy to suspend fundamental freedoms to this day.

There is no need to repeat what has been neglected, starting with the armament of the health authorities, which are still unable to separate healthy people from infected people. But if politics does not keep its promises, why should the citizens continue to follow it?

Vaccination miracle follows vaccination disaster

The rulers draw the conclusion from their own inability that one really has to obey them now. Not a word of understanding or apology. Just hold out slogans and new instructions and unreasonable demands. It is precisely because the state has failed that the citizen should build on it. One only has to imagine for a moment that the responsibility for vaccine development would also have been in the Chancellery or in the Palais Berlaymont in Brussels (https://aevs6jem6isi4g6gurt5fba7he--www-focus-de.translate.goog/orte/bruessel/) . Does anyone seriously believe we would have ever got past the first test phase?

Before the federal press conference, the Chancellor stated that she could not understand the complaints about the slow start of vaccination. She phoned the founders of Biontech, Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, to get an idea of ​​the state of research. The two would do great things, so any criticism is out of place. The fact that the Chancellor considers it necessary to hide behind the success of two entrepreneurs is even more devastating than any self-praise could have been. Nobody accused Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci that they weren't working hard enough. Everyone is happy about the German “vaccination miracle”. Most people would have only wished that the private vaccination miracle had not been followed by a state vaccination disaster. If Angela Merkel (https://aevs6jem6isi4g6gurt5fba7he--www-focus-de.translate.goog/personen/angela-merkel/) and Jens Spahn had acted as carefully as the Biontech founders, we would not be facing the third and fourth lockdown today.

Once you've gotten used to curtailing citizens' freedoms, you can't just give up. On Wednesday, the rulers extended the lockdown. The next step will be to limit the financial freedom of movement.

This crisis of confidence will also have its beneficiaries

After the federal election in autumn at the latest, people will be asked to pay for the mistakes they made in Berlin (https://aevs6jem6isi4g6gurt5fba7he--www-focus-de.translate.goog/regional/berlin/) . The fact that the disposal of one's own income is also an essential right to freedom is a thought that has meanwhile been completely lost not only to representatives of the Left Party.

The collapse of the financial markets was preceded by a collapse of terms. Personal responsibility, entrepreneurial risk, the free play of supply and demand - everything that seemed to have made up the economic order turned out to be a farce when the banks were not punished for their colossal failure, but saved with taxpayers' money. We are now experiencing a revaluation of values ​​again. This time it is terms like democracy, fundamental rights, freedom that don't mean what they seem to mean.

The journalist Claudius Seidl recently recalled that the hedge fund people who saw the financial crisis coming and therefore bet against Wall Street were conservatives disaffected by the cynicism of the financial economy: men like Steve Eisman and Michael Burry, who voted for Ronald Reagan and had donated to the Republicans, and their views grew more socialist the deeper they delved into the financial world.

Eisman and Burry made millions betting Wall Street by being the first to see what was coming. The new crisis of confidence will also have its beneficiaries. We just don't know their names yet.

https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/schwarzer-kanal/die-focus-kolumne-von-jan-fleischhauer-haben-die-staatsfeinde-nicht-am-ende-recht_id_12974882.html

[Onkel Neal]

[LEFT][COLOR=#000000]

[B]Belief in the state is deeply anchored in the psyche of the nation



People have a disproportionate belief in the State when they lack belief in themselves.

Weak-minded people want to be ruled and cared for. Like children.

Real conservatives don't want Wall Street bad behavior and excesses to break capitalism.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS2VObw1UeI

[Jimbuna]

Ministers have begun a "final push" to persuade over-70s to get vaccinated.

The government aims to offer the vaccine to 15m people by Monday.

Up to 30 ministers are taking part in the vaccination drive this weekend.

On Friday Wales became the first UK nation to reach its vaccination target.

Covid could be a flu-like illness we have to live with, says the Health Secretary.

The number of UK people who have received their first vaccine dose has now passed 14 million.

Latest figures indicate 116,287 people have died of the virus in the UK

Heathrow airport has expressed concern over the implementation of hotel quarantine plans.

Trials will begin this month to examine the effectiveness of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine on children.

Treatments for Covid-19 will be fast-tracked through the UK's clinical trial system.

Canada's PM Justin Trudeau is under pressure to boost vaccinations.

[August]

People have a disproportionate belief in the State when they lack belief in themselves.

Weak-minded people want to be ruled and cared for. Like children.

Real conservatives don't want Wall Street bad behavior and excesses to break capitalism.




This, so much this ^

[Skybird]

People have a disproportionate belief in the State when they lack belief in themselves.

Weak-minded people want to be ruled and cared for. Like children.

Real conservatives don't want Wall Street bad behavior and excesses to break capitalism.
Three statements, three winners. I full-heartly agree. :yeah:

[Skybird]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS2VObw1UeI
Assuming the test result is correct. 20 ng/mil is dangerously low indeed. Below 20 is said to command immediate action, whereas 20-30 ng/ml is desecirbed as seriously deficient. Orthodox medicine wants levels to be between 40 and 60, I see nothign wrong having them at 70-90. Caution I would recomemnd fi you approach the 100 barrier, plus there are indices that the body cannot makje use of such hugh levels anyway. Alsom , the body is not prepared to process more than 20.000 IE per day. He simply refuses to do that. Thats why I think flooding of short time but hugher dosis, lets say 50.000 for one week, has less benefit than doing 20.000 for 2 weeks.

I am not surprised by his lower than expected levels. He has taken it since spring last year, I remember the videu when he held up a package of Vitamine-D for the first time. Initially I think he started with 1000 IEs, then 2000 some months later, and then 2500 and 3000. He never mentioned to have done a flooding phase, as I call it.

Here is the rub: Vitamine-D, may it come from sunlight and ksin production or by throwing in a pill, runs thorugh a complex chain of chemical prcesses and does am lot of travelling ij the body, inclduignmliver and kidneys, to get chnaged and processed again and again. Its a fat-solvent pro-hormone in fact, does not concentrate in the blood from all beginning on of your vimaine intake, but gets stored in the body's fat-depot's cells first, until they are saturated. The ammount you need, is an individual dosis, therefore, it depends on your weight, and on the ratio between your individual fat mass and body mass. Filling the fat depots up first can take months and months! The lower a dosis you take, the longer it takes. That is time in which you take vitamine-D pills and think you already benefit from it - but you don't yet!

Thats why I recommend, and many experts for Vitamine-D do recommend that as well, to have that flooding phase. In hospitals and with a patient in emergency they even may work with one-time doses of 100.000 IE for that reason, and even 200.000 and 300.000 IE.

Thats why I started with 20.000 IE a day, for around two weeks, and then halved that to 10.000 IE a day for another two weeks, and then halved it again to the planned maintenance dose of 5.000 IE per day. Actually, due to new information input from new literature I gained on Vitamine-D, I meanwhile have re-raised that level again, my daily maitenance dose since months now is 10.000 IE.

Its surprising, and shocking a bit, that even doctors open for these things like Campbell no doubt is, do not know these things!

As a reminder, but I think one cannot tell it often enough: a well-founded, amongst experts widely agreed dosis estimation from where on you may get yourself into troubles due to reaching "toxic" levels, is 40.000 IE a day, the risk there is that after doing that for some months without further support (Vit-K2 and Magnesium), you form out a hypercalcemia, which is not wanted. I am pretty confident by now to say that if you do not get close to this daily limit and over severla months, you are very, very unlikely to get troubles with your calcium levels. Even if you do not take K2. But we know no toxic level for K2 anyway, so why not being safe and instead being sorry. Why not accepting K2 then. It does no harm whatever.

The risk for a one-dose toxiticy of D3 is somewhere in the range of 100.000 to 150.000 IE in one day. You can expect things like diziness, headaches, migraine, psychotic episodes, hallucinations, sensoric misperceptions, over some hours. After the Vit-D is no longer taken, the symptoms will end after some hours, and thats it, chapter closed. Go home, live your life again, be happy.

So, do not allow others to scare you with horror stories about how risky and dangerous it is to take supplements like this, and that it is a bad idea because it is "artifical" and is not not eating a plant or fruit or vegetable. Thats all unedcuated bolocks, flavonides and food-related co-factors in case of Vit-D are not that much relevant anyway. You need a solid Magnesium level to "activate" Vitamine D, and you need, to be sure and safe in any case, Vitamine K2 to activate two proteins that will collect any Calcium in the blood stream and put it where it belongs: into the bones and teeth. But for D3 levels below 20-40 thousand IE per day, K2 may not even be relevant, because the risk for hypercalcemia in these doses is practically still not existent, and becomes only beyond that a concern. I am confident to say that you are safe if not exceeding 20.000 And I think that is a conservative estimation. Mind you: I take 10.000 every day, and do not think about it anymore.

There are supplements that you should and must know some things about, and where you must watch out limits because a toxic overall amount in your body can be reached relatively fast. Zinc must be taken care of, other examples are selenium, iron, and iodine (if taking it in high doses of high two-digit milligrams) should be well supported with Zinc, B2, B3, Q10, Vit-C, Vit-D, Omega-3, ancient salt, not so much because a feared toxicity of iodine (iodine itself isn't toxic, full stop!), but because of dealing with possible raised demands in ATP production by your mitochondrias and because of possible detoxification effects when the much iodine you take "loosens up" all that chloride, flouride and bromide that have docked to the receptors that originally were meant by nature to allow the docking of iodine.

Its good that Campbell posted that video. Learn from it! :salute: All these nutrition suppements, are no drugs, are no artificial chemistry. They are FOOD. They are what should be part of your food, but isn'T anymore. When you fill your pillbox for the week with vitamines and minerals and trace elements, think of it as preparing food for lunch and dinner. The problem with pills like these is not that they are pills, as long as the chemical geometry of the molucules is identical to that of the same substance contained in "natural" food. The problem only is if you think because you swallowed pills you can stop eating normal food, because all the many thousand of other additional materials and ingredients and nutrients, secondary things, flavonides, fibres then go amiss, and they are like stage workers in a theatre, where as minerals and vitamines are stars on stage. The audience does not come because of the backstage crew, but because of the performing stars. But the stars cannot shine without a good backstage crew. So eat normally - AND supplement! I take 3x 1000mg Vitamine-C over the day - and still i also have every day a glass of fresh lemon juice: but the latter certainly not for the small amount of Vitamine-C in it...

And do not trust the WHO, CDC, RKI, DGE, all these institutions with close ties to the food and pharmaceutical industry. They all represent very political and very money-heavy interests, and none of these interests are to your benefit. They are power- and profit interests. Read, get books, educate yourself - and then do your own thing. Just get your homework done well! Listen what a doctor has to say, always listen - but do not trust it blindly, he can only tell you what he has learned himself, and the university courses in medicine are heavily porked by the established paradigms. Western medicine has a lot of good things to show up with regarding surgery techniques and emergency intervention, but it knows surprisingly little about actually healing instead of just doctoring on symptoms, and about prevention. And the pharmaceuticla idnistry cnanot have a real interest in healing at all: because who would buy their expensive drugs if all people were not ill but healthy...? A doctor not havign learned about that after university, cannot know it, because his university studiyng will not have taught it to him. You cannot even be angry at him for that. But you can tlel him that he is off track with something. Precondition is that you have made your homework before doing that. And so: get books to read, get yourself educated on things. Never has it been easier than in our present times to get informed (or misinformed). Do not blindly depend on others, and experts: experts may be experts indeed - or sometimes not! ;)


Quote of the day!!

16:00 I want to promote my health as optimal as I possibly can, not just eliminate deficiency desease.Unfortunately, many official recommendations for "optimal" doses of nutritions do exactly that: they take the minimum doses needed to to reliably prevent deficiency deseases, and claim these to be the optimum,

slightly overstepping these has already the dangerous risks of toxicity, organ failure, and gates of all hells opening wide. 70-100mg for Vitmaine C (prevents scabies). 150mcgr iodine (prevents struma). 800-1400 IE Vitmaine D (prevents mental retardation in child developement). The absolute minimums are sold to the poublic as the diela optimizusms that should, under no circumstances, be overstepped. Thats why I see: do not trust DGE, RKI (Germany), WHO, CDC, national food associations and government recomemndations. DO NOT TRUST THEM. Its lobbying for pharmaceutical industry interests.

Add to this many criminal recommendations by these "authorities". That you should consume flourid and accept bromide supplemented in your food (both are cellular toxines). That you should have 6-12% of your daily calories eaten in form of "healthy" seed oils with plenty of inflammatory Omega-6 (the ratio in the West between inflammatory O-6 and non-imflammatory O-3 ranges from 15:1 to 30:1, even 50:1 in regions). That you need calories for life (you don't, what is essential is fats, ask keton diat followers). That corn syrup does no harm (its practically toxic). That there is a risk differrence between fructose and glucose (there isn't) . That you should eliminate your salt consummation as much as you can (only few health reocmmendaitons have caused so much illness and death in the world, like this capital crime of an advise). That vegan eating is natural and healthy (its hopelessly deficitary and more an idoleogical obsession that a "natural" thing). That full corn is good (a paleontological and metabological discussion would be needed here to go into that, but I have fully reversed from my former belief in full corn diat, and already many years ago). That fats from animals are bad (they are the ones our bodies can deal with better than with any other). That iodine is toxic (it is not). That HDL and LDL are different in their goodness and evilnedss (its the size of the LDL particles that make a difference, the small LDL particles are dangerous, the big ones are almost not). That now it was flound that Omega-3 is just not good, as previously assumed (they underdosed O-3 in those studies and left the monumental levels of O-6 untackled - what did they expect then...? Very serious methodological flaws, the counfounding variables were not controlled!!) That - I stop here. The list of uncrupolous dumbness goes on and on and on.

Its physical assault, else I would laugh.

[Skybird]

Ah, correction, my fault, I apologize to Dr. Campbell - he knows it. The fat depot thing, he mentions it at around 25:00. I paused the video at 20:00 and started my posting, then, after finishing it, saw the rest, and heard him now mentioning it.



My fault, all is good. I just wondered why he did not acted accordingly and flooded himself? Must be this omnipresent fear of "over-dosing". I disagree with his recmemndaitons on doses, they are over-cautious, imo. Or he focusses only on obesity/adipositas (he himself oviously is not), and ignored that the same principle applies to EVERY fatty tissue, even just healthy ammounts of it. The fat reserves must be flooded first before you benefit form Vit-D - no matter how much fat there is in the body. The more fta there is, the longer it takes with same doses used.

[ET2SN]

We, all of us, are still up to our ### in alligators thanks to this global pandemic. Let's hold off on making it into another "left vs right" issue, at least until everyone gets vaccinated and we're sure the species is going to survive. :yep:

Until then, don't be a D Bag, wear your mask in public. It isn't about you, its about not killing your neighbors. Practice at least some healthy behaviors so it doesn't look like you're being a D Bag.

Then, once its all over, we can ague about all the trivial stuff until the cows come home.

:Kaleun_Cheers:

[Jimbuna]

Boris Johnson has said he is "optimistic" he will be able to set out plans later this month for a "cautious" easing of England's lockdown.

The prime minister said "huge progress" had been made with the rollout of vaccines, with ministers hopeful that schools can reopen from 8 March.

After this, the government would look to open non-essential shops and then later the hospitality sector, he said.

It comes as scientists warned against easing lockdown measures too quickly.

Mr Johnson will set out his "road map" out of lockdown on 22 February.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56054637

I just hope he doesn't let his mouth write cheques his backside cannot cash because the public are getting a bit sick now.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYK9-zvJF_k

[Jimbuna]

All coronavirus legal restrictions must be permanently lifted by the end of April, say a group of Tory backbench MPs

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says there will be no "arbitrary commitment" to reopen without reviewing the impact of the virus on hospital admissions.

Mr Raab says ministers have not ruled out the idea of "vaccine passports"

The children's commissioner says one in six children "will never catch up" lost school days.

Auckland in New Zealand is to go into lockdown after the discovery of three new local cases of Covid-19

The ban on evictions in England is to be extended until the end of March.

People aged 65 to 69 in England are among those being invited to book their Covid-19 jab from Monday.

Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden has said she is "devastated" at breaking lockdown rules.

South Africa says on Monday it will reopen 20 of its land border crossings.

Latest figures indicate 116,908. people have died with the virus in the UK

[Jimbuna]

Wales will reopen primary schools to the youngest pupils from 22 February, but the First Minister said their approach remained "careful and cautious".

In Europe, Germany partially closed its borders with the Czech Republic and Austria's Tyrol region. It said both places were now classed as coronavirus "mutation areas"

A strain of coronavirus detected at a mink fur farm in Poland can spread to humans, the country's ministry of agriculture has confirmed.

Japan approved its first vaccine, clearing the way for its inoculation programme to begin. It is expected to provide the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to thousands of medical workers from as early as Wednesday.

[3catcircus]

We, all of us, are still up to our ### in alligators thanks to this global pandemic. Let's hold off on making it into another "left vs right" issue, at least until everyone gets vaccinated and we're sure the species is going to survive. :yep:

Until then, don't be a D Bag, wear your mask in public. It isn't about you, its about not killing your neighbors. Practice at least some healthy behaviors so it doesn't look like you're being a D Bag.

Then, once its all over, we can ague about all the trivial stuff until the cows come home.

:Kaleun_Cheers:

Except it's *never* going to be over. Politicians will continue never letting a crisis go to waste, pharma will continue lining their pockets, and people will continue dying due to untreated illnesses, depression, and lack of physical fitness due to lockdowns.

The whole world needs to come to its senses, recognize that this needs to be treated like every other seasonal cold/flu season and move on.

Yes, give shots to the elderly and immune-compromised first before giving them to others. Yes, wash your hands. Yes, cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze. But lockdowns and mask mandates are all health theater when the latest studies show that the majority of infections occur from direct contact with an infected person's cough and sneeze aerosol exhalate, when the studies show the vast majority of people who aren't elderly or immune-compromised (who you've just vaccinated) have mild to no symptoms, and when you have mild to no symptoms, you don't overwhelm hospitals. Sure, there will be a number of people who get really sick still - just like with any annual cold and flu season. But when you've vaccinated the most at-risk and the vast majority of the remainder get the sniffles, there is no existential threat to us.

What no one seems to be seriously considering is the risk to everyone once lockdowns end in regards to *other* illnesses. A year of peoples' immune systems essentially being dormant due to not coming in contact with other peoples' germs will likely lead to a swarm of non-covid hospitalizations. Best evidence I have of this occurring? My own experience in boot camp years ago. *Everyone* got sick right around the 2nd week in when everyone's germs mingled and people got sick with "the crud" - a random assortment of flu, cold, bronchitis, pink eye, ear infections, skin infections, etc.

The covid-19 shots are going to be like the flu shot - an annual best guess (usually wrong) as to which strain will be prevalent next year.

I can't say for the entire world, but the CDC has a flu vaccine effectiveness estimate going back to 2004 - the vaccine has never been greater than 60% effective in that time. Average effectiveness? Barely 40%. Again - best given to those most at risk. I've (until the lockdown craziness) traveled extensively around the world and have never gotten a flu shot, nor have I gotten the flu. When I get a little bit older, I'll get the flu shot and covid shot. But I'm smart. I carry disinfecting wipes and wipe down airplane seat trays, for example. I wash my hands all the time. If I get sick, I'm the one wearing the mask, not the healthy people around me - and I go to the doctor straightaway instead of going to the office sick.

Nope, just like the common cold and the flu, covid is here to stay.

[Moonlight]

I wish the WHO would make their minds up and stick to it. :o

A WHO scientist has admitted the Covid lab leak theory has NOT been ruled out as the team comes under fire over its "whitewash" investigation in China.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14047467/who-scientist-wuhan-covid-lab-leak/

[3catcircus]

I wish the WHO would make their minds up and stick to it. :o

A WHO scientist has admitted the Covid lab leak theory has NOT been ruled out as the team comes under fire over its "whitewash" investigation in China.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14047467/who-scientist-wuhan-covid-lab-leak/

Why would you trust a political organization to do the right thing? You'd be better off listening to your 75-yr old local GP who delivered you as a baby then to those charlatans. You have to drop down past the administration layer to the worker-bee scientists toiling in anonymity and privately seething at their management to get the real truth.

[Skybird]

In some months, in some countries earlier, in others later, the number of vaccinated people will be approaching that magical 50% range and higher, and then the discussions will start in all hottness how it can be justified any longer that the majority of people being vaccinated should still be stripped of their rights because the minority is still not vaccinated and - with growing vaccination numbers - the relative share of vaccination-rejecters amongst the non-vaccinated people will grow bigger and bigger. How will they defend that the majority must still obey the rejection of the few? Will they call it "solidarity", as they already do in Germany? Enforced solidarity is no solidarity, but force, blackmailing, violence.

Sooner or later the vaccinated group must get "privileges", its a thing of reasonability, and justice. And these privileges are nothign else but the giving back of former civil rights.

But where to set the treshhold? 51%? Two thirds?

They must also end the lockdown, no matter how the medical situation then is, like even the best sub sooner or later must come back to the surface again, it cannto stay submerged forever. Even in Germany, where the economy and shop businesses so far came relativley well through the crisis, but that is about to come to an end. According associations representing the various shop and business branches say that if their members do not get further support for the next months, two thirds of the shops and businesses in city centres will be gone, and a significant number of these already are threatened by insolvence before Easter. That means practically dead city centres then. And an explosion of social erosion that destroys the cohesion of society. A lack of income for city administrations. Further communal erosion. A vicious circle.

So they will inflate more circulating currency and by that devaluing it further. With the to be expected consequences of that.

So far we have just seen the medical dimension of the crisis. The financial and economic and communal dimension of it have not even started to show in full.

And the justice debates then , if the shortages of doses and slowness of the campaign at least in countries like Germany does not get overcome! Have your popcorn ready!

What I say what could be done? Build a time machine, go back by fifty, sixty years, and with the knowledge of today do better eocnomic andf ifscal polcies fromt hen on. Build reserves so to be prepared for times of need and desaster.

Because Corona strikes us so hard for one reason only: not mentally and not economcially and and not pltlcially wer were prepared. although various experts told us it is only a quesaiton of time until. theis scenario wopuld one day pop uop. And here it is.

One region in the world will loose trmeedlously in potlial ifnpoeunce due to this crisis, andn that is the EU. It has illustrated as intense as never before its impotence and incapability to put its acts where its mouth is. The damage to its reputation and trustworthiness is bigger than the damage done by 2007 and following years. Many nations will be far more hesitent to hand over further responsibilities" to Brussels - not after this debacle of a performance.

Which actually is good in my book. Cutting back the reach of central superplanners limits the range of desastrous consequences when their next superplan is blowing up. The EU's green deal for example.

[Buddahaid]

...The whole world needs to come to its senses, recognize that this needs to be treated like every other seasonal cold/flu season and move on....

And I believe it will be if the vaccination thresholds are achieved this year. People need to hold fast for a few more months to get there, I see that but you apparently don't, or won't, allow for that to happen and thereby confound the problem in impatience to be over it.

If that fails then I'll admit to being wrong and we'll just have to get on however that plays out.

Has it been an overreaction? The 2009 swine flu didn't even come close to this corona virus in deaths.

[3catcircus]

And I believe it will be if the vaccination thresholds are achieved this year. People need to hold fast for a few more months to get there, I see that but you apparently don't, or won't, allow for that to happen and thereby confound the problem in impatience to be over it.

If that fails then I'll admit to being wrong and we'll just have to get on however that plays out.

Has it been an overreaction? The 2009 swine flu didn't even come close to this corona virus in deaths.

The 2009 flu? Of course it didn't - Obama-Biden admin told the CDC to just stop counting, it disproportionately affected the young, and nobody actually knows how many because flu statistics include lots of estimating rather than lab testing.

Explain the much higher ILI cases and deaths in 2017, 2018, and 2019. WHO is now reporting that covid was all over Wuhan in December 2019 in multiple strains. For all we know, this has been around a year or more longer than has officially been reported and the cases and deaths have only been as high as they are *because* we're specifically looking and testing a vastly larger number of people than we ever tested for flu.

I don't have a problem with the fact that covid is real. I have a problem with the dataset and the lack of basic science knowledge or common sense in using the data. *None* of the numbers can be trusted to be accurate. Modeling has been completely wrong from the beginning and that modeling has been used for public health decisions with disastrous results. The criteria for reporting cases has changed multiple times. Multiple positive tests of the same person have, in many instances, been reported as separate cases. Data dumps which includes old cases being reported as new cases, skewing the curves being published. The use of PCR as a diagnostic tool is, was, and will be stupid. It's a lab manufacturing tool - it'll amplify *any* corona viral particles, whether viable covid 19, some other coronavirus, or covid 19 viral debris from someone who had it and is over it - all it takes is not using the exact right starters or having a cycle time selected that is ridiculously high and you'll have a significant number of false positives. Flu cases were way down - because everyone was a covid case other than lab-confirmed flu. The data coming out of China was never right to begin with because they covered it up, skewing what people thought to be the CFR and IFR.

When all is said and done, we'll find, if we're honest with ourselves, that the number of actually infected is around 20x as many as have been counted, which makes it on par with a really bad flu season - it's only *because* we're looking for covid-19 that we're finding so many cases - which doesn't include all the people who never knew they had it and didn't get tested.

The best source of unbiased info are guys like The Ethical Skeptic and Kyle Lamb who report the data they pull, analyze the data and break it down - such as "1000 cases reported in today's dump, 200 deletions, 300 older than a month" and then do a bunch of statistical testing of the data.

I don't know that there are similar people doing that kind of data crunching throughout the world.

[Buddahaid]

Well then obviously the entire world must be too stupid to see through the charade two guys can so easily punch holes in. Not buying it.

[skidman]

The use of PCR as a diagnostic tool is, was, and will be stupid. It's a lab manufacturing tool - it'll amplify *any* corona viral particles, whether viable covid 19, some other coronavirus,

A blatant lie. And another very stupid post.

[Jimbuna]

Received a text from the vaccination centre an hour ago asking me to ring them. It took about ten minutes to get through, the line obviously experiencing heavy traffic.

First jab is 9am tomorrow and the second is the same time on 11th May.

Feeling lucky in more ways than one, the jab is being given at the medical centre where my doctors are based and the wife is going for breast screening at the same venue, booked in for 9.30am.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y2VaJhjhFc

[Jimbuna]

The first British and Irish citizens and UK residents to arrive in England from high-risk Covid countries since rule changes have been taken to their quarantine hotels.

In Scotland, arrivals from all countries by air must quarantine in hotels; there are no international flights into Wales or Northern Ireland.

The rules "will bolster the quarantine system and provide another layer of security against new variants at the border," Health Secretary Matt Hancock says.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson says everybody involved in the vaccination project can be incredibly proud of what has been achieved.

The PM, who will lead a Downing Street briefing later, says it has been an unbelievable effort by the NHS

No decisions have been made on whether year groups across schools in England will return together or be staggered, Johnson says.

Australia has suspended its quarantine-free travel arrangement with New Zealand after the discovery of three new cases in Auckland.

Dealing with the pandemic is "very, very easy" compared to the climate crisis, says Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

[Jimbuna]

Italian ski resorts were preparing to reopen after months of lockdown, but at the weekend the health ministry decided to keep them shut until 5 March. Many businesses in the resorts are in dire straits, having lost the influx of winter tourists. The far-right League - now in the new coalition government - sharply criticised the U-turn.

Germany has reimposed police checks on its borders with the Czech Republic and Austria's Tyrol region. A new Covid surge has hit Tyrol’s ski resorts hard. Meanwhile, long traffic queues have built up at the Czech-German border, including many lorries with goods vital to the German economy. Germany is in lockdown until 7 March and entry is being limited to lorry drivers, medics and those with residence permits.

In Sweden there has been a sharp rise in cases of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) at the Astrid Lindgren hospital in Stockholm. In January it recorded 25 children with the potentially life-threatening condition. The numbers in previous months were below 10. MIS-C has been linked to Covid, but that link is not very clear, as Swedish children are not generally tested for Covid.

The EU has approved vaccine exports to 21 non-EU countries this month, including the US, UK and China - despite continuing vaccine shortages in the EU, German broadcaster ARD reports. The vaccine delays have caused anger in much of Europe, where far fewer people have had the jab than in the UK and US.

[3catcircus]

A blatant lie. And another very stupid post.

You don't have to believe me. Would you believe the guy who invented PCR?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rXm9kAhNj-4

[skidman]

Kary Mullis is known for his strange opinions. He said, for example, AIDS did not exist. Back in 1983, when the PCR method was first established, there were numerous factors that could lead to false positive (and false negative) results. But the procedures have been refined remarkably since then and when used for medical or forensic applications strict protocols have to be followed.

The standard Sars-Cov2 PCR test, at least in the EU, is based on detection of two specific sequences not found in any other Coronaviridae. The number of cycles is standardized as is the extraction time and temperature. For me that's good enough, but OK, I've only carried out hundreds of PCR tests myself between 2000 and 2006. What do I know.

Could you please stop spreading lies. Everyone here has recognized you are trying to downplay COVID19 whatever it takes. I get it. Your mission is to prove the pandemic is sensationalized for political reasons (by the loony left of course, the source of all evil), but I doubt anyone on SS falls for your made up stories and faked evidence.

[3catcircus]

Kary Mullis is known for his strange opinions. He said, for example, AIDS did not exist. Back in 1983, when the PCR method was first established there were numerous factors that could lead to false positive (and false negative) results. But the procedures have been refined remarkably since then and when used for medical or forensic applications strict protocols have to be followed.

The standard Sars-Cov2 PCR test, at least in the EU, is based on detection of two specific sequences not found in any other Coronaviridae. The number of cycles is standardized as is the extraction time and temperature. For me that's good enough, but OK, I've only carried out hundreds of PCR tests myself between 2000 and 2006. What do I know?

Could you please stop spreading lies? Everyone here has recognized you are trying to downplay COVID19 whatever it takes. I get it. Your mission is to prove the pandemic is sensationalized for political reasons (by the loony left of course, the source of all evil), but I doubt anyone on SS falls for your made up stories and faked evidence.

Why are you denying The guy who *invented* PCR?

Not everywhere may be standardized like the EU. Most places aren't and the disparity in testing protocols and resultant reported cases skews the statistics.

[Catfish]

I take it the video which is being shared everywhere among the mask haters and Covid 19 deniers, is now 30 years old, and tests have been developed and improved. I cannot imagine they did not also do so in the US ?

OT in this context:
New report traces the history of conspiracy theories claiming COVID-19 is a bioweapon:

https://medium.com/dfrlab/new-report-traces-the-history-of-conspiracy-theories-claiming-covid-19-is-a-bioweapon-49903924182e




b.t.w. again three empty lines between the paragraphs before reediting two times..

[Rockstar]

COVID isn't the only on going health concern. If I remember correctly from the outset the primary reason for the current response was to prevent overwhelming all ready strained hospital and ICU availability. Is there anyway to tell if COVID had any impact on the availability hospital and ICU beds. Or are hospitals just dealing with the same 'routine' occupancy and ICU bed shortage they've always been known to have?

[3catcircus]

COVID isn't the only on going health concern. If I remember correctly from the outset the primary reason for the current response was to prevent overwhelming all ready strained hospital and ICU availability. Is there anyway to tell if COVID had any impact on the availability hospital and ICU beds. Or are hospitals just dealing with the same 'routine' occupancy and ICU bed shortage they've always been known to have?

Funny. The media in various states and cities breathlessly reported ICU occupancies were in the 90+% range "due to COVID" not expecting people to question the narrative - because most people don't realize that ICUs in most US hospitals normally run them roughly 85% occupied in order to make a profit. The ideal overall hospital occupancy is 75-85% depending upon day of the week - and number of beds is less important than *bed-hours* in determining overload status.

Additionally, in *many* places in the US, the number of available beds is low because you're a rural hospital serving a community that may consist off multiple outlying counties and may only have a few dozen total beds .

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2016/089.pdf

This is only through 2014, but you can clearly see - the larger the number of beds in a hospital, the higher the occupancy - because you need them occupied to bill for services. A large number of empty beds and unoccupied staff = loss of profit.

Here's a current estimate of covid impact on hospital occupancy for 2021:

https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals

[Buddahaid]

They primarily staff nursing based on patient load, not available beds. Also public and not for profit hospitals aren't getting rich. They have to serve whomever comes into the ER whether they have insurance, or not, by law. Also not for profit hospitals have charitable outreach services to serve the poor in the community. Fees are regulated so profits are tight and reducing hospital stay times in one of the ways to stay afloat.

You need to look beyond the excesses of some for profit groups and shady pill mill doctors.

Another thing is it's very expensive to run a hospital, far more so than a typical business because of all the regulation and inspection processes they need to pass in order to get government funding help like Medicare.

[August]

They primarily staff nursing based on patient load, not available beds.


And patient load is determined by the number of beds and other available hospital facilities I would think.

[3catcircus]

They primarily staff nursing based on patient load, not available beds.

I don't doubt it. But the patient load isn't just a simple x number of beds. As I indicated, it's really "bed-hours."

(Population x attack rate x ICU rate x ICU length of stay)/ length of outbreak = number of ICU beds.

And that's still a simplification of what it really is.

Even nonprofits still adhere to a plan for occupancy because, even though they're "nonprofit," they still can't continuously operate in the red and hope to continue serving their communities.

The whole "flatten the curve" was intended to prevent sending a horde of people to every hospital all at once. It was never intended to result in no one getting sick.

As to treating anyone - the reason that insurance payments are so high is because those that have insurance partially end up subsidizing those who don't have insurance.

Every time I've had an ER visit for myself or my family, I pay my copay and my insurance company gets a bill. Without fail, they pay the contracted rate and issue an EOB that clearly states that I'm not responsible for paying the remainder above what they already payed. Without fail, the hospital sends me a bill for the remainder, at which point I have to call the insurance company to get on a 3-way phone call to tell the hospital they're not getting any more money from me or the insurance because that were paid what they agreed to be paid in the contract that signed with the insurance company.

How much time and effort is wasted having administrators to go through this process instead of just writing off the uninsured treatments - that's funding that could've been spent on more hospital supplies or hiring more medical staff? That's the one thing that other countries have an advantage over the US in when it comes to health care - no one is trying to squeeze patients for payment.

[Rockstar]

I was using this, https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map , seems to be updated frequently. It shows some counties at or very near 100% capacity. Would they have been worse off without COVID restrictions or is it just another day in the life for that county? I just dont know. Does seem though the argument for or against restrictions and personal protection has strayed far from what I thought was the original intent. Now the argument has turned once again about believers and unbelievers.

Another thing about these restrictions is I don't feel infringed upon by them at all. I've traveled over 4000 miles from Maryland to outlying states, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina. Been to Florida twice in the last five months, been to restaurants, department stores, highway rest stops, hotels, grocery stores, even used vault toilets at parks. Only thing that's really changed for me is I now keep masks, hand sanitizer in the car and self isolate when I return home before venturing out again. For me life hasn't really changed at all.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fpc5QXfAVQ

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/wxFRsTzr/116950827-uk-card-with-vax-14feb-nc.png (https://postimg.cc/MXMpCwv0)
https://i.postimg.cc/tCTZdQC4/116964901-optimised-vax-trajectory14feb-nc.png (https://postimg.cc/jCpSK17p)
https://i.postimg.cc/ZKM9V7CF/fc358313-81b8-4ba5-bb1a-076f12db1f72.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Buddahaid]

And patient load is determined by the number of beds and other available hospital facilities I would think.

It's how many patients admitted at that time. They don't staff if patients aren't there.

[Skybird]

Brussels' "vaccination socialism".

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.misesde.org/2021/02/impfsozialismus/

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




"The European Commission ordered too late, limited its focus to only a few pharmaceutical companies, agreed on a price in a typically bureaucratic EU manner and completely underestimated the fundamental importance of the situation. We now have a situation where grandchildren in Israel are already vaccinated but the grandparents here are still waiting. That's just completely wrong." — Markus Söder, Bavarian premier and possible future German chancellor.
"I now fear that the European Union will find itself in the impossible situation of having to prolong some of the existing [Covid-19] restrictions beyond the summer, while both Britain and the United States start to normalize. That is the cost of the vaccine delays: a very high cost in lives, prestige and further economic losses." — Bruno Maçães, political scientist and former Portuguese Europe Minister.
"The commission decided to aggrandize its competence and it wasn't up to the job — it didn't have the right people or the right skills." — Adrian Wooldridge, political editor, The Economist.
"In the dispute over the delivery delay of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the EU Commission is currently making the best advertisement for Brexit: It is acting slowly, bureaucratically and protectionist. And if something goes wrong, it's everyone else's fault." — Bettina Schulz, commentator, Die Zeit.



https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17052/eu-vaccination-failure

[Jimbuna]

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is to announce whether more pupils will start to return to Scottish classrooms from next week.

Schools in Wales begin the process of reopening on Monday; in Northern Ireland, schools remain closed to most pupils until at least 8 March.

In England, PM Boris Johnson will set out a roadmap for easing lockdown - including opening schools - on 22 February.

People must be "optimistic but patient" about the coronavirus situation in the UK and the end to restrictions, the PM said on Monday.

The newly-appointed head of the World Trade Organization has told the BBC that vaccine protectionism must be overcome to solve the pandemic.

Lockdown has seen a "disturbing" rise in the number of blind people experiencing distressing hallucinations, according to the RNIB charity.

Globally, there have now been more than 109 million confirmed Covid cases and 2.4 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

[Jimbuna]

Arrivals in England who are required to quarantine in a hotel face an additional £1,200 bill if they test positive for coronavirus, the government says. This is on top of the £1,750 cost for the entering the quarantine hotel programme and will apply to guests forced to extend their stay beyond the initial 11 nights.

Poland is witnessing a growth in new coronavirus infections, according to Health Minister Adam Niedzielski.
He says there were over 1,000 more infections on Tuesday than a week earlier, with the average seven-day trend is positive for the first time since mid-November, excluding the post-Christmas anomaly period.
The Health Ministry says there were 5,178 new infections and 196 virus-related deaths in the previous 24 hours.

The Dutch curfew must be lifted immediately, the preliminary relief judge in The Hague concluded.
The curfew has been established on the basis of an emergency law, which states that a cabinet can introduce rules in an emergency without consulting the House of Representatives and the Senate.
But, according to the court, the curfew is not an emergency "as is the case with a dyke breach".
The lifting of the curfew is effective immediately.

France is to hold experimental concerts in Paris and Marseille in the spring to work out how to reopen the culture sector. Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot says she’s very optimistic about seated events but standing events are more complicated. If all goes according to plan, 1,000 people will attend a seated event at the Marseille Dôme venue in the second half of March with the audience having the chance to stand up.

Italy’s last-minute decision to halt the reopening of ski resorts until 5 March has prompted the new government’s first row. Local governors and some ministers are furious and a flash mob staged a protest at the northern resort of Bardonecchia.

The Czech government has approved plans for a “state of danger” to replace a state of emergency rejected last week by MPs. Many but not all the emergency powers will be available. The government in Prague wants to gradually reopen schools from 1 March.

Germany's BDI industry federation has warned of major consequences because of border closures with the Czech Republic and Austria's Tyrol region. Director Joachim Lang says there's a risk of European supply chains breaking down.

An opposition motion of no confidence in Slovenia’s government for its handling of Covid and for alleged undemocratic behaviour has failed by six votes. Opposition MPs accused PM Janez Jansa of trying to turn Slovenia into an “authoritarian democracy”.

[3catcircus]

I continue watching Jimbuna's postings and they all lead to one conclusion - *every* government throughout the world is incompetent or isn't letting this crisis go to waste - or both.

Does anyone have anything good to say about their government's response?

[3catcircus]

It's how many patients admitted at that time. They don't staff if patients aren't there.

So what has your experience been in this regard? Did you have covid-related overwhelming, fewer admitted than normal due to people delaying care, or somewhere in between?

[Moonlight]

I continue watching Jimbuna's postings and they all lead to one conclusion - *every* government throughout the world is incompetent or isn't letting this crisis go to waste - or both.

Does anyone have anything good to say about their government's response?
I've no idea how the rest of the UK assesses the performance of the British government because I've found them to be criminally incompetent, two things spring to mind above all other issues, (1) releasing covid patients into vulnerable care homes and (2) Continued unrestricted immigration for most of the last year, lockdown is supposed to be lockdown you bleeding idiots. :doh:

The alternative to this shambolic government would be the Labour party, that's enough said about those bloody buffoons. :haha:

[Aktungbby]

Article In Today's WSJ: Vaccine Envy::timeout:Couples who vowed to cherish each other in sickness and in health are facing a new challenge—a dose of marital vaccine envy.
Jennifer Baum, a 55-year-old New Yorker, navigated the search online for Covid-19 vaccines to grab an appointment for her 71-year-old husband, Charles. But she is among the last in line for eligibility because of her age, job and medical status.
“I don’t fit in any categories,” she said. “There are a few 3-year-olds after me.”
Ms. Baum, chief executive of Bullfrog + Baum marketing firm, is glad her husband got a precious shot and says it is a privilege to be healthy enough to be low-priority. But she can’t help feeling jealous that he can contemplate an in-person reunion with his poker buddies, while she has to wait, for who knows how long, to visit relatives in California she hasn’t seen in a year.
“I would like to see my family,” she said. “And I would like to get a facial.”
Spouses on different sides of the eligibility divide are dealing with a mix of relief, gratitude and impatience. “Vaccine envy” has become so common it has its own hashtag on Twitter, but for the romantically intertwined, it can hit especially close to home.
Some who have been vaccinated say their behavior hasn’t changed much. The CDC advises those who have been vaccinated to continue basic precautions, such as wearing masks and keeping 6 feet apart. Researchers say it’s possible that even those who have been vaccinated might carry the virus without showing symptoms and pass it onto others.(Indeed people with two vaccinations have tested positive in Calif. ) the stuff ain't foolproof!
Still, those who got shots say they wish they could share the reprieve from stress.
“It’s not exactly a nyah-nyah moment,” said Mr. Baum, who was formerly co-owner of the Rainbow Room and Windows on the World restaurant in New York City. “Once you have the second shot, it’s not as if you get a get-out-of-jail free card.”
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you making post-vaccine plans? Join the conversation below.
Barbara Waters, who is 64-and-a-half years old, just missed the cutoff for vaccines in Santa Rosa, Calif. Her 78-year-old husband got one last week. She said she asked her doctor how she could get a vaccine, and “He said you’re in the SOL group,” for s— outta luck.
Patti Banks, left, and her husband Stuart Schenendorf, and their dog, Mathison. Mr. Schenendorf received a vaccine, but Ms. Banks isn’t yet eligible.

Patti Banks, who is 61, was delighted when her 65-year-old husband, Stuart Schenendorf, texted her a photo of his sticker saying he had been inoculated. As a medical writer in Manhattan, he was extremely cautious and had been driving her crazy with restrictions, she said.
“We’ve been married 19 years, and we fought more from April through now than the entire time we were married,” Ms. Banks said. “I got a cough and he didn’t want me to go down the hallway to empty the garbage. I hugged a neighbor and he got all mad at me.”
Her husband didn’t want her to do her outdoor “boot camp” exercise class but she needs to escape their one-bedroom apartment, she said, so she works out with a video sometimes in a vacant boardroom at JPMorgan Chase, where she has a job in asset management.
Mr. Schenendorf can’t wait for his second dose and dreams of going to Yankee games and maybe a trip to the movies. “I’m dying for a big thing of popcorn,” he said.
He wants his wife to get a shot as soon as she is eligible. Ms. Banks said she “would like to get it because I think he would be more comfortable.”
Brian Rooney, a former correspondent for ABC News who lives in Hyde Park, N.Y., was able to nab a shot in Albany this month because he is 69. He tried to persuade the clinic to vaccinate his 63-year-old wife while they were there, with no luck. “I rue I’m old enough to qualify,” he said. “They keep talking about senior citizens first. I’m really a senior citizen?”
Margery and Robert Quackenbush with their grandchildren.

Margery Quackenbush, an 82-year-old therapist, was thrilled to get an appointment for her 91-year-old husband through the Department of Veterans Affairs. She heard at her senior center that she could get a shot too when she escorted him to the Manhattan VA Medical Center but was dismayed when her request at the clinic was rejected.
“It was very upsetting,” she said. “He couldn’t have gotten there without me. I know how to stage a scene but didn’t.”
Ms. Quackenbush said she was angry at government rule makers and the VA. “Who are they to decide who gets vaccinated and who doesn’t?” she asked.
ichael Drake, a spokesman for the VA NY Harbor Healthcare System, said by email that “to ensure that we preserve our supply of vaccine for our most vulnerable veterans,” the center isn’t authorized to offer shots to the general public at this time.
Ms. Quackenbush finally got her chance when a concerned neighbor went online at 2 a.m. one day to beat the competition. Her first dose was scheduled for Monday at the Javits Center in Manhattan.
Her husband, Robert Quackenbush, a children’s book author, got his second dose on Saturday, so their Valentine’s Day dinner doubled as a vaccination party, with filet mignon wrapped in bacon, baked potato with caviar and chocolate mousse.
Their toast: “To getting through all this.” Jeeze! it helps to B single!:O:

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHH1vWD19Fw

[Skybird]

Some German federal states have stopped vaccinatinng the AstrZeneca vaccine.


In Germany, the vaccine is ot licensed for use in abvove 65 yera old, since not enough data is provided.


So it get used only on younbge rpeopeol with priority, due to thgeir system relevance: fire fighters, policemen, nurses, doctors and such.



Now, in severla jpositals they realsied that the yhad severe shiortages in Covid personell suddenly, after they had AZ vaccination for the personell. Quite a signficant ammount of these people developed so severe vaccination symptoms after the first shot, that they had to report ill and stayed at home. It reaches as far as partial body paraylsis lasting for days. Its not an ifnecitoin, but a storng immune reaciton to an simulated infection, of course, but since it is used in younger people and not the older, their immune system is stronger and has more biting power than that of much older people.



The vaccines of Moderna and Biontech/Pfizer cna show heavy symptoms, too, but in htese two it is usually not after the first but the second shot.



These severe reactions by the immune system are comign fromt hat vaccine that has had severla troubles already during phase 1, 2 and 3 trials, more thna any of the other, AFAIK.



This and the silence of polticians avbout it is beign taken note of in germanby, and I am sur eit will add to thre already not small scepticism here. Many peopoe, especially nurses and staff in hospitals, refused to accept beign avccinated with the AZ jab. They will not get less, but more now.


Some weeks ago it was revealed by a magazine that the German health minister pressed officials from the pharmacists association and a doctors association to straightout lie to customers and patients asking about possible side effects, and to play things down and openly deny that there could be more severe reactions and complications.


Unforgivable stupidity, is you ask me. A lie only works if it doe snto get uncovere.d this one was uncovered very quickly, and it already has seriously backfired. Trust has been further eroded, scepticism has been fostered.



Its a funny coutnerffect, in a way. Imagine a moment my strategy - boosting and modulating my immune system by supplementing it with vitamines, minerals, trace elements in nhig doses - works. I then would maybe have a higher risk of being more seriously affected by the sideffects of the vaccination itself thna many others becasue my immune system is in tipptop shape and easgerly headjumps into the "fight" against the simulated enemy. Granted, its nothing that will kill me, but I planned things slightly differently when I started to execute that strategy... :hmmm:


------


Criticism is mounting in germany on the fact that financing the development of actual meidcaitosn agaiunbst Covid 19 has been so far almnost negklected in faovur of financing vaccine research. A very one-sided, all money on one bet strategy, I realsied that this was stupodi when some weeks ago already I saw a TV report on how little money is being used on developing drugs/medications, and think this is another major failure of the German decision-makers. Because until these few weeks ago, prctically no state aid was paid to the few private developers at all! And even now its just drops of water on a hot stone what there flows in money.



It is risky to assume vaccone alone will get us out of this. Vacicnes will become ineffective, to inor oarts they alreadsy have shown to be impoitent on the mutated forms. We will need medical treatment options for sure - in fact we already increasingly need them right now. Research for a cure.



Vaccines are one sid eof the medal only. the other side is so far ignored. Not wise.

[Rockstar]

Starting to see reports from around the world about how a dramatic fall in COVID cases and hospitalizations has stumped science. Not the all wise and all knowing godlike wizards of science that has to be a mistake :har:


I think I called this several months ago when I said it would be all rainbows and unicorns shortly after Biden took office.

[3catcircus]

Starting to see reports from around the world about how a dramatic fall in COVID cases and hospitalizations has stumped science. Not the all wise and all knowing godlike wizards of science that has to be a mistake :har:


I think I called this several months ago when I said it would be all rainbows and unicorns shortly after Biden took office.
There are two big factors at play.

1. Coronaviruses are strongly seasonal.
2. WHO changed their criteria -yet again- such that PCR CT that were in some cases as high as 45-50 were reduced to an extent that cases reported are a lot less than would have been reported before.

[Skybird]

The measures taken, bite the virus. Its also in parts a seasonal thing, though in the Northern hemisphere this still should not play a role, I mean - we have mid-February. Practically deep winter. Just one week ago we had tempratures deep in the -20s, and I stood in snow banks up to my hips.

In some parts of germany, the case numbers already rise again, not many, but its a warning. Next week, several openings in federal states of schools, haircutters, and some more will take place. That also helps case numbers to rise. Finally, the mutations have not even been close to their climax in Germany.

We cannot endlessly lock down, it destroys us completely, economically. We must open up, virus yes or no. Like a Diesel sub running out of air. We must surface.

Also, I accepted lockdowns only as a way to buy time to get vaccines out. But when I see how incompetently they waste the time by weeks and months, this argument collapses. My mind currently is changing therefore, from pro-lockdown to contra-lockdown.


And I hate inconsequence. I just cannot stand it.

-----

I read in local newspaper that in my hometown, one third of those nurses and doctors who agreed to a vaccination date for themselves with AZ jabs, let their dates forfeit. One in three. Willingness to get a jab by AZ already before were just at 40-55% or so, and even slowly declining.

In some other parts of Germany, they sit on reserves of vaccine that do not get vaccinated because they failed to organise the staff running the show. How dumb is this now? But okay, its been just a few months, so I understand that one can get surprised after such short warning time by how fast things suddenly develope.

I disagree with the prioritizing to vaccinate the elder with the assumed-better mRNA vaccines and first, and the system-relevant nurses, doctors, teachers with the assumed-"inferior" vaccines, and all others with the cheapest available jabs last. And I know a small number of old people here in my street and house who also do not understand why they are given this high a priority. On the weekend, the man living here in the base floor with his wife, both around 80 years, even told me they refuse to take away from younger people the vaccination since "we already have lived our lives", as he put it in his own words. They rejected their invitation. It stings my heart a bit, but my parents say the same, they absolutely disagree with porioritizing the oldest. Germany once again has terribly messed up priorities. And it wants to save on peanut moneys for buying vaccines where it wastes billions and billions and billions every week with incompetent administration, requiring extended lockdowns.

Parents should be prioritized. Nurses, doctors. Firefighters, police officers. Cashiers in supermarkets. Next, school children.

The oldest of the oldest go first, and take the "best" ...? Sorry, no. tjhat is no investement into the future. Its throwing precious ressources out of the window, so to speak.

Note, my defined priorities do not benefit myself, nor my parents. Shall nobody think I set them the way I said for self-benefitting from them. I'll take a jab whenever it is realistically available and whatever brand it will be. But I am not in a desperate hurry. Far from it.

And who knows, until then, as slow as things move in germany, it may be found that newer mutations than the current ones have rendered existing vaccines useless already.

We need cures and drugs to treat Covid-19 successfully.

I often think of Sun Tzu these days: "He who wants to defend everything, will lose everything."

[Rockstar]

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/florida-gov-desantis-free-state-economy-coronavirus-pandemic


Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis argued on Sunday that Florida “focused on lifting people up,” while “lockdown states” are “putting people out of business” amid the coronavirus pandemic.




If you compare California where the predominatley leftist government ruled by edict killing off business and employment. To Florida where business is booming and as the Governeor stated let the people use there own good judgment to prevent the spread. The number of COVID cases and fatalities are roughly the same.

[Catfish]

^ Fatality numbers are not the same. Once more political opinion by Fox business, does not help.
That Florida is faring better than other comparable states with lesser restrictions can imho be related to weather, temperature and following behaviour.

"Florida has more cases per 100,000 residents. More deaths, too.
[In] just the last 90 days [...] California has recorded more cases, but fewer deaths than Florida. Adjust for population and California comes out better on both measures."

[Catfish]

"Taiwan says BioNTech vaccine deal on hold, cites potential Chinese pressure"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-taiwan/taiwan-says-biontech-vaccine-deal-on-hold-cites-potential-chinese-pressure-idUSKBN2AH0HE

[ikalugin]

Received a text from the vaccination centre an hour ago asking me to ring them. It took about ten minutes to get through, the line obviously experiencing heavy traffic.

First jab is 9am tomorrow and the second is the same time on 11th May.

Feeling lucky in more ways than one, the jab is being given at the medical centre where my doctors are based and the wife is going for breast screening at the same venue, booked in for 9.30am.


Congrats!

I got both of my Sputnik-V shots ofc, but great to hear that people are getting vaccinated as well.

[Jimbuna]

Congrats!

I got both of my Sputnik-V shots ofc, but great to hear that people are getting vaccinated as well.

Cheers....a little soreness where the needle went in but I'm totally not bothered.

[Jimbuna]

World's first human trials given green light in UK

Healthy, young volunteers will be infected with coronavirus to test vaccines and treatments in the world's first Covid-19 "human challenge" study, which will take place in the UK.

The study, which has received ethics approval, will start in the next few weeks and recruit 90 people aged 18-30.

They will be exposed to the virus in a safe and controlled environment while medics monitor their health.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56097088

[Jimbuna]

England is still “some way away” from being able to start relaxing lockdown restrictions, the chief executive of NHS Providers says.

Chris Hopson says a “logical point” to start lifting restrictions would be once the top nine priority groups have had a coronavirus vaccine.

The easing of England's lockdown will be based on a "cautious and prudent approach", Prime Minister Boris Johnson says.

The UK will expose a group of volunteers to Covid-19 in a bid to establish which vaccines and treatments work best.

Up to 90 healthy volunteers aged 18-30 will be involved in the study, aiming to find out the smallest amount of virus needed to cause infection.

Vulnerable young people should be prioritised when the UK rebuilds after coronavirus, England's outgoing children's commissioner Anne Longfield says.

Research by the think tank Reform suggests hospital waiting lists in England could more than double and hit 10 million by April.

The Australian state of Victoria and the New Zealand city of Auckland will both exit snap lockdowns on Thursday.

Captain Sir Tom Moore, who died this month after raising almost £33m for NHS charities, left "a legacy he could never have imagined", his daughter says.

[Jimbuna]

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will try to head off criticism of EU vaccine delays and shortages, with a plan to adapt vaccines to new mutations quickly. The aim is to set up a European testing network and approve "second generation" vaccines against future strains.
Dutch appeal judges last night temporarily allowed a nationwide Covid curfew to stay in place 15 minutes before it was due to be lifted. A court had earlier ruled the government was wrong to use emergency laws to impose it. A new curfew law is being rushed before MPs today so it can come into force before the case returns to the appeal court on Friday.
Italy’s new prime minister Mario Draghi presents his Covid recovery plan to the Senate this morning. He’s then set to survive a vote of confidence.
There are no plans to tighten health measures in France when the current winter holidays come to an end, according to media reports. President Emmanuel Macron chairs France’s defence council today with infections gradually in decline, and just under 20,000 new cases reported last night. Local elections planned for next month have been postponed until June.
Slovakia has tightened its border controls as the country continues to see a high Covid death rate.
The country registered 23 coronavirus-related deaths per 100,000 people in the last 14 days - the second highest rate in the world after Portugal, according to AFP news agency.
US President Joe Biden says all Americans will have access to a vaccine before August.
Today, in a hundred hospitals across Japan, front-line health workers began getting their first shots of the Pfizer vaccine.
The numbers are still tiny – 40,000 in this first tranche. Japan is far, far behind Europe and America in rolling out Covid vaccinations.
The first batches of the coronavirus vaccine are due to enter the Gaza strip.
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa says he will take the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to demonstrate his confidence in the jab.
Maalim Seif Sharif Hamad, the first vice-president of Tanzania’s semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar, has died at the age of 77 - a few weeks after contracting coronavirus.
Former Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra requested and received an early vaccination against Covid-19 out of turn, a doctor has told lawmakers.

[Skybird]

Der Tagesspiegel.



Then release Astrazeneca for everyone!

Astrazeneca cans collect dust in the warehouse, hardly anyone wants them. We cannot afford luxury: if you want, you should get it right away. A comment.

An employee at the vaccination center in Berlin-Tegel recently said in disbelief: "We would like to vaccinate a lot more people." You could too. Problem: There is no demand.

At least not when it comes to Astrazeneca's vaccine. In Berlin alone (https://aromwyu2vdifm2a6pw4gr52zui--www-tagesspiegel-de.translate.goog/berlin/coronakrise-in-der-hauptstadtregion-rki-weist-berlin-als-drittes-bundesland-mit-inzidenz-unter-50-aus/25655678.html) , 29,000 doses of Astrazeneca's corona vaccine are lying around unused. More than 650,000 cans across Germany. As of April, more than five million cans of the substance should be available, which apparently nobody wants. Astrazeneca has an image problem. And Germany has a problem with that, because people's skepticism towards the drug is delaying the already sluggish vaccinations. This raises the question of whether the carefully devised plan of who will be vaccinated where and when can be adhered to.

The vaccine from Astrazeneca has fallen into disrepute because, in contrast to the vaccine from Biontech / Pfizer, its effectiveness is only given at almost 60 percent instead of 95 percent. Studies also raised doubts that the vaccine would help against the mutants of the virus. Astrazeneca is already only vaccinated against people under 65 because there is a lack of data on whether the vaccine is safe for older people. The result: just two percent of Germans would currently choose Astrazeneca if they had the choice. Only: the vast majority of Germans do not have a choice. They have no access to any vaccine.

This is also due to the vaccination sequence, which is sensible in itself, which the Standing Vaccination Commission has determined. According to this, the elderly and high-risk patients who are particularly at risk are first vaccinated, along with nurses and doctors because they are particularly exposed. What makes sense in theory, practically fails because of the acceptance of those who would be eligible for vaccination. There is not enough highly effective vaccine from Biontech, Astrazeneca especially (https://aromwyu2vdifm2a6pw4gr52zui--www-tagesspiegel-de.translate.goog/politik/impfung-mit-astrazeneca-haelfte-der-personen-laesst-impftermin-sausen/26917000.html) do not want the carers (https://aromwyu2vdifm2a6pw4gr52zui--www-tagesspiegel-de.translate.goog/politik/impfung-mit-astrazeneca-haelfte-der-personen-laesst-impftermin-sausen/26917000.html) - for the elderly, as mentioned, it is out of the question anyway.

Instead of offering the material to other professional groups to be determined individually - perhaps daycare or teachers - the sequence of vaccinations should be fundamentally reconsidered.

It would be nice, but it's not the case that Germany can afford the luxury of being picky. Neither when choosing the vaccine, nor when choosing the vaccinated. And don't forget: everyone who is vaccinated is a step forward, and that is far too few.

In the list of the 20 countries with the highest vaccination rate, Germany, where the first vaccine approved in the western world was developed, does not even appear. Less than four percent of people in this country have received their first vaccination. If this speed is maintained, a 30-year-old without previous illnesses who does not work in sensitive or allegedly system-critical professions, for example, can hope for the first injection at the end of the year. It is more likely: sometime in 2022.

And an effective vaccine collects dust in some camps. Who should understand that?

Astrazeneca is much better than its reputation anyway, reliably protects against severe processes, even if the risk reduction may not be as high as with Biontech. But even the virologist Christian Drosten, who says he sees no signs that the active ingredient does not help the mutants of the virus, does not (https://aromwyu2vdifm2a6pw4gr52zui--www-tagesspiegel-de.translate.goog/wissen/gibt-immer-irgendwo-ein-haar-in-der-suppe-drosten-wirbt-fuer-einsatz-von-astrazeneca-impfstoff/26922990.html) penetrate the question. So what speaks against the fact that everyone in the federal states can register in a central database who wants the vaccine that others disdain?

Instead of assuring that Astrazeneca is working, one could show it - and give hope to young people who would otherwise be excluded from the vaccine for a long time. This should also increase the willingness of those who are still skeptical. Vaccine works both ways.
Superclever superplanners with superclever superplans do not like to be told that their superclever superplan does not superwork. Thats why they do not vaccinate "wildly" those volunteers who want it.

Occasionally there were reports when at the end of the day of a vaccination mission in soem place, say a care taking home, some doeses were left, and then instea dof throwing them away any volunteers and workers preset in the location were allowed to get the jab so that it does not get wasted. So far every time this was the case it ended in a moral uproar in the evening news. I recall to ahve sene this now three or four tijmes at least, on the main news. "How dare they!?"

Germany, 2021 A.D.
https://banner2.cleanpng.com/20190305/jvz/kisspng-shrug-emoji-emoticon-gesture-clip-art-5c7e3645864ba5.8723260815517753015501.jpg

[3catcircus]

^ Fatality numbers are not the same. Once more political opinion by Fox business, does not help.
That Florida is faring better than other comparable states with lesser restrictions can imho be related to weather, temperature and following behaviour.

"Florida has more cases per 100,000 residents. More deaths, too.
[In] just the last 90 days [...] California has recorded more cases, but fewer deaths than Florida. Adjust for population and California comes out better on both measures."

So what? We really need to stop thinking in terms of what-if fatalities to impose restrictions on entire populations when the majority are not in an at-risk group. Probabilistic risk assessment yields a result that shows the majority of people don't even know they have covid and of those that do, the vast majority of them have mild symptoms.

Florida, for example, has a very large population of the elderly who are more susceptible, in comparison to California, as indicated in the article you quoted from:

https://www.theledger.com/story/opinion/editorials/2020/12/15/analysis-florida-better-than-california-containing-covid/6541090002/

Anecdotally, everyone's experience will be different.

I know three people who got covid. Parents of my daughter's BFF got it last spring and only found out after the fact when they decided to get tested for antibodies after their bout was done and over. Two weeks of flu symptoms. Three mother of my son's friend got it this fall - 3 days of a migraine. My wife suspects she had it last year - but who knows?

I've seen an article about a whole family in rural Northern California who got it with many of them hospitalized, including an 18-yr old. Add it's only when you get to the *end* of the article when you find out the 18-yr old is medically severely obese, which is a risk factor. But most people only read the headline or the first couple of paragraphs and are then susceptible to the fear-mongering...

Are there severely ill people who died from covid? Yep - and they make up less than 1% of those affected.

Wear a mask in crowded spaces if you have risk factors. Vaccinate the elderly. But stop banning people from sitting on a park bench in the outdoors...

[ikalugin]

Cheers....a little soreness where the needle went in but I'm totally not bothered.

That is nice. We get some fever and headaches as sideeffects :(

[Onkel Neal]

Congrats!

I got both of my Sputnik-V shots ofc, but great to hear that people are getting vaccinated as well.

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=247850 :yep:

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApiGENgkcm0

[Gorpet]

^ Fatality numbers are not the same. Once more political opinion by Fox business, does not help.
That Florida is faring better than other comparable states with lesser restrictions can imho be related to weather, temperature and following behaviour.

"Florida has more cases per 100,000 residents. More deaths, too.
[In] just the last 90 days [...] California has recorded more cases, but fewer deaths than Florida. Adjust for population and California comes out better on both measures."

It's none of the above.The truth is loose lips sink careers here. I live here and i will tell you whatever you hear about florida is tourist propaganda we have the new strain from the UK. And its spreading like throwing a match in a field of dry hay.

Those of us that live here know how our politicians have performed since the start of this Pandemic and they have made it clear loose lips sink careers. We do not know what is going on in our state. The media is Political and they can not or will not tell us the truth. Everything we hear from them you take with a grain of salt.

The truth is we are a Tourist state we need people from around the globe to come here to feed the economy. Since our local people don't make a living wage and can't afford the attractions any more. Everybody in Florida knows if you want to live in the Sunshine state you bring money with you. Or you work for those that have it. Any way come to Florida we are doing great and were just waiting to breath on ya.

[Reece]

Der Tagesspiegel.

Quote:
At least not when it comes to Astrazeneca's vaccine. In Berlin alone (https://aromwyu2vdifm2a6pw4gr52zui--www-tagesspiegel-de.translate.goog/berlin/coronakrise-in-der-hauptstadtregion-rki-weist-berlin-als-drittes-bundesland-mit-inzidenz-unter-50-aus/25655678.html) , 29,000 doses of Astrazeneca's corona vaccine are lying around unused. More than 650,000 cans across Germany. As of April, more than five million cans of the substance should be available, which apparently nobody wants. Astrazeneca has an image problem. And Germany has a problem with that, because people's skepticism towards the drug is delaying the already sluggish vaccinations. This raises the question of whether the carefully devised plan of who will be vaccinated where and when can be adhered to.

The vaccine from Astrazeneca has fallen into disrepute because, in contrast to the vaccine from Biontech / Pfizer, its effectiveness is only given at almost 60 percent instead of 95 percent. Studies also raised doubts that the vaccine would help against the mutants of the virus. Astrazeneca is already only vaccinated against people under 65 because there is a lack of data on whether the vaccine is safe for older people. The result: just two percent of Germans would currently choose Astrazeneca if they had the choice. Only: the vast majority of Germans do not have a choice. They have no access to any vaccine.

The Astrazeneca's vaccine is now the only vaccine being offered here in Australia, should I be worried? should I wait for another? :hmmm:

[Catfish]

The Astrazeneca's vaccine is now the only vaccine being offered here in Australia, should I be worried? should I wait for another? :hmmm:
I guess not, but it might be safe to ask a doctor who has the current updates.
France does not jab people over 65 with Astra Zeneca:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-france-astrazeneca-vaccine-people.html

While the EU took some time for testing the german BioNTech vaccine at all ages, Boris Johnson did not wait for the outcome, and up to now his gamble has worked, and he has wasted no time to rub it in: "Britain first". He failed to provide evidence how much of the vaccine has been hoarded umm stored, diverting to "national security" lmao.

[Catfish]

AstraZeneca's vaccine contract with the UK is based on 'best efforts,' just like its deal with a frustrated EU.

"First come, first served" they say.

But:
"Soriot confirmed to La Repubblica that his company had agreed to supply the UK before other markets, saying it was "fair enough" because the UK had reached an agreement with AstraZeneca earlier than the EU.
But the UK's official contract is actually dated August 28, one day after the EU's contract.

So not quite fair to say at least.. best efforts based on national priorities in a pandemic? Go on blaming the EU for "being late", and praise England for being "very special" and "exceptionalist". Once more humanity is not man enough to rise above petty nationalism.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/astrazenecas-vaccine-contract-with-the-uk-is-based-on-best-efforts-just-like-its-deal-with-a-frustrated-eu/ar-BB1dLVhN

[Skybird]

The Astrazeneca's vaccine is now the only vaccine being offered here in Australia, should I be worried? should I wait for another? :hmmm:
If there is a lack of choice in your place, no, don't wait.

If you can choose, well, it would not be my first choice, because it does not protect against i think the southafrican strain, and has higher rates of more serious reactions after the first jab. There were firefighter stations and hospital over here where they had one quarter, even one third of their vaccinated staff needing to take 1-3 days of leave from work. That are not normal rates and intensity levels to a mass vaccination, these numbers are much higher. The mRNA vaccines by Biontech-Pfizer and Moderna have that mutation protection, and a more moderate reaction after the second jab. AZ must blame themselves, they did a not en par job in data collection and study during the test trials, and serious problems they ran into during those trials got covered up and tried to get hidden. The govenrment officials did not investigate, the media remained silent. although phase one trial or phase two trial ven was stopped in one country and needed to get fully relaunched, another phase 1 or 2 trial in another country had been interrupted for some days, and one patient even died - they treid to blame other factors and later ha dot admit that to was due to compolkicaitons formt eh vaccine. So, the AZ vaccine did not saw an easy birth, it was a complicated birth.

To leave no words on problems and in fact boast all the time that everythign is runnign supersmooth and wonderful and fine, builds no trust, and leaves a certain taste in the mouth. Yes, AZ is responsible all by itself for its now reputation and perception by the public. Lets face it, their reputation currently is not the best. And that is due to their own fault.

But: get vaccinated with whatever you can get vaccinated with early, only when you have the choice, choose another one. You may get those reactions, or not, but they do not mean you get ill from Covid. Its an immune reaction to a SIMULATED attack, not a real one. Severe or not, after 1-3 days you most likely will be fine again.

My first choice currently would be the Russian one, basing on the numbers published in the Lancet study and assuming those data have not been "beautified". But I am not even getting any vaccine over here anyway, and that will not change any time soon. I can be satisfied if even getting anything in 4rth quarter this year - and that is not certain. I absolutely also take 2022 into account.



Edit:

Reece, listen here at exactly 10:00. Thats the best answer you can get to your question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13qT7wLxkvU

[Skybird]

AZ-UK treaty revealed. And it always was online.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/17/europe/uk-astrazeneca-vaccine-contract-details-intl/index.html

Actually the UK treaty is dated one day LATER than the EU treaty.

Ooops.


Fact remains the UK is far ahead in vaccination - and thus protecting its citizens, as it is obligated.

[Catfish]

Actually the UK treaty is dated one day LATER than the EU treaty. Ooops. .
You don't say (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2730898&postcount=6386) :D

[Jimbuna]

Some interesting information in the above posts gentlemen and I thank you for that.

The jab I was given on Tuesday was the Pfizer-BioNTech https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2730413&postcount=5and whilst I wasn't given a choice I am starting to believe I've been given the correct/best one.

[Jimbuna]

The UK's collective sacrifice during the coronavirus pandemic must lead to a better future, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says.

Covid has exposed deep inequalities and injustices in society and the government needs to play a bigger role in the economy permanently, Sir Keir says.

There has been a "strong decline" in levels of coronavirus infections in England since January, say scientists tracking the epidemic.

A group of MPs and peers have signed a letter to the prime minister calling for compensation for key workers suffering from "long Covid"

Almost two million people have not worked for at least six months because of the economic impact of the pandemic, a think tank says.

Life expectancy in the US fell by a full year in the first half of 2020, a change experts say was fuelled by the growing coronavirus pandemic.

Ministers in Northern Ireland are to meet to discuss whether to extend the nation's lockdown restrictions.

A star-filled video urging people from ethnic minority communities to get the Covid vaccine will be shown on TV in the UK later.

Many European countries are ignoring mentally ill patients in their Covid vaccine campaign, according to a survey published by the Lancet.

[Rockstar]

^ Fatality numbers are not the same. Once more political opinion by Fox business, does not help.
That Florida is faring better than other comparable states with lesser restrictions can imho be related to weather, temperature and following behaviour.

"Florida has more cases per 100,000 residents. More deaths, too.
[In] just the last 90 days [...] California has recorded more cases, but fewer deaths than Florida. Adjust for population and California comes out better on both measures."


The use of Fox business isnt the point and has absolutely nothing to do with the subject, the point is the contents of article. Which according to it says each state took different approaches yet ended up with similar results. The numbers are roughly the same. And the response here is: "It could have been the weather"? :har:

Total deaths: Florida 29k; California 49k
Total cases: Florida 1.8 million; California 3.5 million
population: Florida 21.5 million; California 39.5 million

Gorpet I realize this is no consolation but this socalled U.K. varient is in California too. As for the known 12,000 plus variants out there the vaccines works on all of them to one degree or another.

[Jimbuna]

Italy's new prime minister, Mario Draghi, easily won a vote of confidence in the upper house of Congress - the Senate - last night, after telling Italians they had to pull together to help rebuild the country after the pandemic. He also promised to fight Covid "with all means". He is now set to win today's vote by MPs in the lower house too.

Many European countries are ignoring mentally ill patients in their Covid vaccine campaign, even though they are particularly vulnerable. In a survey of 20 countries published by the Lancet, only the Netherlands, UK, Germany and Denmark have recognised severe mental illness as a high-risk condition. Belgian professor Livia De Picker says patients are between 1.5 and two times more likely to die than others.

Airline Air France-KLM has announced net losses of €7.1bn (£6bn; $8.6bn) for 2020, with income badly hit by the pandemic. The previous year it made a profit but Chief Executive Benjamin Smith said the air transport industry had been hit by its "most severe crisis ever". European plane manufacturer Airbus says it managed to limit its losses to €1.1bn last year, slightly better results than 2019.

A French vet school has launched a dog training programme to see if sniffing for Covid-19 is more effective than normal PCR tests. The dogs will have to sniff through a metal cone a compress soaked in the sweat of 2,000 young volunteers. Finland's Helsinki-Vantaa airport ran a test late last year using six dogs which officials said was "surprisingly good and promising".

The number of Covid-19 cases in Poland continues to rise, with the government considering reinstating some restrictions as a result. Last Friday, ski slopes were allowed to reopen with cinemas, theatres and hotels also allowed to open at half capacity. Poland is among the EU countries with the fastest vaccination rates. To date, about 6.3% of the population have been vaccinated.

Hungary has raised the possibility of issuing restriction waivers to people who have already had Covid-19 or been vaccinated against it as a way to reopen the economy.

Senegal has received 200,000 doses of the Chinese-developed Sinopharm vaccine. President Macky Sall said the government had bought the vaccine, and did not wait to receive doses from the World Health Organization's Covax scheme, which aims to make it easier for developing nations to buy them.

Venezuela is to begin vaccinating health care workers and public sector employees with the Russian Sputnik V vaccine later today. Human rights groups and opposition figures have criticised the government's response to the pandemic amid claims it has deliberately underreported the numbers of cases and deaths.

Hong Kong is easing limits on how many people can sit together in restaurants, from two to four, while extending the time for indoor dining - it now goes until 22:00 instead of 18:00.

[ikalugin]

Some interesting information in the above posts gentlemen and I thank you for that.

The jab I was given on Tuesday was the Pfizer-BioNTech https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2730413&postcount=5and whilst I wasn't given a choice I am starting to believe I've been given the correct/best one.


No choice here sadly, I wish people would have it, if only as a comercial thing.

[Onkel Neal]

The Astrazeneca's vaccine is now the only vaccine being offered here in Australia, should I be worried? should I wait for another? :hmmm:

Honestly, none of us will know. Like you, we are not experts in this field and can only consume information from the internet, then form our opinions. So anyone who tells you yes, no or maybe is just guessing. I will say this; I make the assumption that all the vaccine developers do not want to be sued into oblivion and the testing and trials should hedge toward safety.

Congrats ikalugin, we're still in the dark ages here :) Literally!

[Skybird]

But Dr. Seheult is an expert, and his argument is mightily powerful. ;) And plain reason at the same time.

[Skybird]

More good history news.

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.businessinsider.de/politik/interne-dokumente-zeigen-wie-die-eu-die-biontech-zulassung-verzoegerte-und-warum-deutschland-so-wenig-impfstoff-bekam/

Mind you, Pfizer demands that doses produced in Europe and for European customers now and in the future must be brought to the US and be filled into ampullas in the US, and then"transported back to Europe". Yeah, sure.

I call it foul.


Result of the past and future content of this story and still unfolding story: neglegent slaughter, neglegent physical injuring, nothing else.



Who will be held acountable for these killings and sufferings, and how...?

[Skybird]

Focus reports:


The pharmaceutical companies Biontech / Pfizer initially demanded an extremely high price in the negotiations with the EU about the delivery of the corona vaccine they had developed. According to information from Süddeutscher Zeitung, NDR and WDR, the consortium demanded 54.08 euros per dose for its vaccine, with a purchase of 500 million doses. Pfizer / Biontech wanted a total of 27 billion euros for a quantity of the vaccine that could have been used to vaccinate half of the EU population. The price, according to the companies, includes "the highest percentage discount" that has been offered to an industrialized country worldwide. At 54.08 euros, the Biontech vaccine would have been more than twenty times as expensive as a dose of the vaccine that Astrazeneca developed together with Oxford University. The chairman of the Drugs Commission of the German Medical Association, Wolf Dieter Ludwig, criticized the demand as "dubious". This shows "the pursuit of profit which is in no way justified in the current situation of the pandemic". According to information from SZ, NDR and WDR, the price agreed with Pfizer / Biontech for a dose of the vaccine was 15.50 euros per dose.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr6Tn5DU_Sw

[Jimbuna]

Further 454 people die with Covid in UK
A further 454 people have died within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test in the UK, according to the government's daily stats.

This takes the number of deaths by this measure to 119,387.

There have also been a further 12,057 positive cases in the last 24 hours.

Last Thursday there were 678 deaths and 13,494 positive cases reported.

It means a 33% drop in deaths since the equivalent day last week and a drop of about 11% in cases.

Latest UK Covid data in charts

https://i.postimg.cc/3WM9773j/111.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/056s8f8r/222.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/PrYnD5vj/333.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/XYWSk69y/444.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Rockstar]

Standard Sputnik-V. You get a questionare then get shown the vial and get the shot. Then you are asked to wait nearby for 30min in case of a random deadly alergic reaction.

I hear there are similar wait times for the other vaccines because of anaphylaxis risks. Knowing this, have you or anyone asked the medical staff what procedure they will take to remedy such adverse reactions BEFORE you got vaccinated?


Would really hate for something like to happen to me only to find out the hard way nobody knew what to do or where the epinephrine was at.

[ikalugin]

I hear there are similar wait times for the other vaccines because of anaphylaxis risks. Knowing this, have you or anyone asked the medical staff what procedure they will take to remedy such adverse reactions BEFORE you got vaccinated?


Would really hate for something like to happen to me only to find out the hard way nobody knew what to do or where the epinephrine was at.


I was being vaccinated in a fully stocked private hospital with the ER and so on, so this question did not cross my mind.

[Rockstar]

The risk of anaphylaxis is so low its hard to even considerate it as a statistic. I ask it only because sometimes people, even professionals can become complacent and suddenly caught off guard if the feces hits the rotating oscillator. Of course I think about this now but I can guarantee you I'll probably forget to ask when its my turn.

[Jimbuna]

About 553,000 people in the UK were estimated to be testing positive for coronavirus in the week to 12 February, the ONS says.

This is roughly 1 in 115 people, down from 790,000 people or 1 in 80 the week before - and rates are falling in all four UK nations.

First Minister Mark Drakeford says the Welsh government is able to make "modest changes" to lockdown regulations.

Four people from two different homes will be able to exercise together from Saturday in Wales and weddings can resume next week.

Boris Johnson will pledge to donate a majority of the UK's surplus vaccine supply to poorer countries in a speech to a virtual G7 meeting.

The UK PM will urge rich countries to back a new 100-day target for the development of new vaccines for future emerging diseases.

French President Emmanuel Macron calls on Europe and the US to urgently send up to 5% of their vaccine supplies to developing nations.

Millions of people are out of pocket on flights they were unable to board due to coronavirus restrictions, consumer group Which? says.

[Jimbuna]

A dramatic day awaits in the Netherlands as the government fights to maintain its overnight Covid curfew. Mark Rutte's caretaker government will appeal this morning against a court’s decision to lift the 21:00-04:30 curfew because ministers used national emergency legislation. In case the appeal fails, a new curfew law will be heard by the upper house of parliament to replace it.

Germany has reportedly appointed a special commissioner to help speed up the supply of vaccines. Spiegel website says Christoph Krupp’s job will be to help companies accelerate production and act as their point man with the government. Germany has so far given almost three million people, 3.6% of the population, an initial dose.

France has increased isolation periods for people infected with Covid-19 from seven to 10 days. Health minister Olivier Véran says some scientific studies suggest new variants mean you could be infectious for longer. France says one million people have now had both shots of the Covid vaccine.

Italy’s new PM Mario Draghi easily won his confidence vote by MPs last night by 535 votes to 56. The former head of the European Central Bank won backing across the political spectrum, from the centre-left to the far right.

If you work at the Vatican and refuse to get vaccinated you could lose your job under a new decree. The Vatican says staff will need to provide a medical reason for not having the jab or face the consequences.

Portugal has temporarily slowed down the vaccination of key workers such as police, armed forces and firefighters because of a shortage of doses.
Henrique Gouveia e Melo, head of Portugal's vaccination taskforce said the focus must be on "saving lives".
He said 90% of available doses will now be given to just two groups: people aged 80 and over, and people aged between 50 and 79 who have heart, coronary, kidney and severe respiratory diseases.
Only the remaining 10% will be given to the groups of specified key workers.

Russia has offered the African Union (AU) 300 million doses of its Covid vaccine, Sputnik V, reports Reuters news agency.

The entire adult population of about 30,000 people in the city of Serrana, Brazil, will be vaccinated against Covid-19 over the next two months, to test whether it lowers the infection rate - as part of an ongoing medical trial.

Eswatini has extended a partial lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of coronavirus for another two weeks.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo2QQTmbECQ

[mapuc]

My Danish friends are kind of upset due to the lockdown and the daily result of the testing-Which indicate a percentage below 0.5 % infected each day.

They can't understand why the government is keeping Denmark in lockdown when less than 0.5 of the tested Danes show positive result.

Said to them:
It has to do with the British variant who has and R0 = 1.25 while the old one has an R0 =0.9.
Furthermore you(said this to my Danish friends)you should take a look at Britain, Portugal and Germany from beginning of Dec. -20 and until end of Jan -21.

These country had a low percentage on daily infected in the beginning of Dec.- 20 and eased on the restriction-Then this British variant toke over and the rest is history.

Markus

[Rockstar]

Well looky here, Biden is in office and there's more rainbows and unicorns to share with everyone now! If this is a possibility for the U.S. then the same could apply to the E.U.. Aunty Merkel and whats her face might come out of this smelling like roses having saved the E Union billions by not buying up all the vaccines when others thought they should have.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/johns-hopkins-doctor-predicts-covid-will-be-mostly-gone-by-april/

Johns Hopkins Doctor Predicts Covid ‘Will Be Mostly Gone By April’

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/articles/well-have-herd-immunity-by-april-11613669731?st=s87g2mpjw88ycbh&reflink=article_email_share) on Friday, Dr. Marty Makary — a surgeon and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health — argues that there are actually many more than the 28 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S., possibly as much as 6.5 times more than that number. Between that group, and the roughly 15 percent of the country which has already received one dose of the vaccine, Makary argues that much of the nation is already protected from the virus.
“There is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection,” Makary wrote. “As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected. At the current trajectory, I expect Covid will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.”


I wonder if the disciples of lockdown and the godwizard science are still stumped why cases are falling? The WSJ op-ed headline

We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

Covid cases have dropped 77% in six weeks. Experts should level with the public about the good news.

[Skybird]

Germany reports the falling numbers are stagnating now. The share of the British variat amongst infecfitons is rising, and this might be the reason why over here we expect that numbers will raise again. Flensburg in the upper Noth (borde rto Denmark), is under cuirfex at night and extremely trict lockdown rules now, their numers exploded with the British strain. Next week many schools will open again.


The herd immuhtiy has been put into question before already, Rockstar. In severla countries where the y hoped for it and felt encouraged to reach it by earlier trends, now nobody speaks of it anymore, and some even argue that teh mutations are a valiabkle adding a dynamic that will prevent it, both in speed of infections, and imune protections. We need to wait and see. But to take it for granted it will be a reality soon is - well, very early.

The virus is very, very eager to mutate, I red yesterday. They see this in that in past weeks therey found - I forgot the exat number - seven or seventeen mutations of the British mutation B.117 already that all were very similiar and only showed minor differences. The snmall differences mean the virus almost "systemtically" tests every niche and every opportunity to become more successful in spreading itself. A comment I heard earlier this week said this is a faster mutating virus than most others, even for the standards of the family of Corona virusses in general, which already are fast mutating virusses.

And one mutation that bypasses the current vaccines, is enough to throw our efforts back by months and months. I think this event is just a question of time, according to Murphy'S law: what can happen, sooner or later must and will happen.

[3catcircus]

Germany reports the falling numbers are stagnating now. The share of the British variat amongst infecfitons is rising, and this might be the reason why over here we expect that numbers will raise again. Flensburg in the upper Noth (borde rto Denmark), is under cuirfex at night and extremely trict lockdown rules now, their numers exploded with the British strain. Next week many schools will open again.


The herd immuhtiy has been put into question before already, Rockstar. In severla countries where the y hoped for it and felt encouraged to reach it by earlier trends, now nobody speaks of it anymore, and some even argue that teh mutations are a valiabkle adding a dynamic that will prevent it, both in speed of infections, and imune protections. We need to wait and see. But to take it for granted it will be a reality soon is - well, very early.

The virus is very, very eager to mutate, I red yesterday. They see this in that in past weeks therey found - I forgot the exat number - seven or seventeen mutations of the British mutation B.117 already that all were very similiar and only showed minor differences. The snmall differences mean the virus almost "systemtically" tests every niche and every opportunity to become more successful in spreading itself. A comment I heard earlier this week said this is a faster mutating virus than most others, even for the standards of the family of Corona virusses in general, which already are fast mutating virusses.

And one mutation that bypasses the current vaccines, is enough to throw our efforts back by months and months. I think this event is just a question of time, according to Murphy'S law: what can happen, sooner or later must and will happen.

How many different mutations of the other types of coronaviruses have occurred? It's so many, along with rhinoviruses, that we've never been able to keep up to obtain a cure for the common cold. Covid-19 will continue to mutate to ensure that people are able to harbor it so it can continue to replicate, with every mutation ever likelier to contain making it less and less able to cause serious illness or death for most people. That's what viruses do. That's essentially their whole reason the existing is to get replicated. Ebola, in comparison, kills too quickly to allow it time to mutate to be less deadly in humans.

Just as important as asking what the chances of serious illness from covid are, we also need to be asking what the rate of serious side effects from insufficiently tested vaccines are? The CDC has a VAERS tool that lets you search in adverse reaction - and there are already a ton of them - bells palsy, death, etc.

Are we killing people at a higher rate by vaccinating them than they would be dying if they got infected?

[Gorpet]

I have told my wife to stop putting the local and state part of our sunday paper in the bottom of the bird cage. I will now post the Central Fla statistics on Covid -19 here on Monday's. Sunday is the only day we get a newspaper. So it will be official from our local central government. and that's all we know but i will share it with you.

[Jimbuna]

Downing Street says reuniting families will be a key ambition of the PM's strategy for easing the lockdown in England.

Care home residents in England will be allowed to pick one person to visit them regularly from 8 March, the government says.

PM Boris Johnson will reveal his road map for easing lockdown in England on Monday.

In Scotland, care home residents will be allowed two designated visitors from early March.

The UK should donate vaccines to developing countries now rather than waiting until it has a surplus, the World Trade Organization says.

It comes after Johnson said the UK would donate most of its surplus supply to poorer nations.

G7 leaders have pledged to increase their contribution to the Covax vaccine-sharing initiative.

Another 533 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test and there are 12,027 new cases reported.

[Jimbuna]

The Dutch Senate has backed emergency legislation to maintain a night-time coronavirus curfew after a court ruled earlier in the week that the measure lacked legal justification.

Russia has registered its third Covid-19 vaccine named Covivac, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has said, adding it planned to make it available in the country by March.

How are European countries tackling the pandemic?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53640249

[ikalugin]

Apparently 3,23m or around 2,2 percent of Russian citizens got the first shot of Sputnik-V.

https://www.rbc.ru/society/20/02/2021/602fb2019a7947f5acf0a70a

Regional breakdown below:
https://s0.rbk.ru/v6_top_pics/media/img/1/72/756137445732721.png

[Moonlight]

A gentleman 3 doors down from me was taken to hospital yesterday evening with china virus symptoms, our 50 bungalow complex has been locked down like fort knox since.
I can't blame the authorities for taking such stringent measures as the oldest resident is a 103 yrs old, no visitors are allowed in the complex grounds for at least a fortnight, this yellow peril is getting closer and closer. :o

Update on my neighbour, his funeral is on the 16th March, he caught the China virus while having an hospital appointment and died in the same one, clap for the NHS our Prime Minister says, how about bleeding crap Bozo, and that goes for the rest of your useless ministers as well. :o

[Onkel Neal]

https://media.tenor.com/images/e5fe5b8343b0c31a650f6c3d8d69d847/tenor.gif


Russia reports first human cases of H5N8 bird flu (https://bnonews.com/index.php/2021/02/russia-first-human-cases-of-h5n8-bird-flu/)

Imagine if COVID-19 was just the warmup act... :wah:

[Aktungbby]

/\ I 'speculate the Lhasa/Ebola/Marburg continuum was the warmup; this variation of Covid is simply midstride, and will persist until its more virulent 'variations' begin to kick in' making the current vaccines ineffective...:hmmm: but very profitable for the pharmaceutical companie$! The Black Death of the 1350's & recurrences as late as the 1600's, and present day Algeria, stood at approximately 35-50% mortality and the Mongols even 'weaponized' it; using infected corpses on catapults during sieges'; leading to its introduction to Italian ports and thence all of Europe....:yeah::oops::nope::dead:

[Catfish]

^ Maybe mankind triggered the Earth's immunosystem, now getting active to get rid of parasites :D

[Aktungbby]

Yes,but in this case ...who FLU the koop?!! With the ongoing African Swine Fever epidemic: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/business/china-pigs-african-swine-fever.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/business/china-pigs-african-swine-fever.html)'Twixt the corona virus; the chicken flu; and the swine fever, the worlds largest population is under a three-prong attack; suffering the ravages of Mother Nature's method of overpopulation control: Pigs, Poultry or People..... oh my! hmmm:

https://media.tenor.com/images/e5fe5b8343b0c31a650f6c3d8d69d847/tenor.gif


Russia reports first human cases of H5N8 bird flu (https://bnonews.com/index.php/2021/02/russia-first-human-cases-of-h5n8-bird-flu/)

Imagine if COVID-19 was just the warmup act... :wah:

^ Maybe mankind triggered the Earth's immunosystem, now getting active to get rid of parasites :DPrecisely! As stated in a post I can't locate, Goddess Gaeia(Mother Earth) is putting the shoulder to the big problem: ...8 billion+- humanoids (1.8 billion of whom are Sino-humanoids-who at least tried the 1 child rule for while!!) who overeat, overbreed, and overheat the only habitat they've got. China, from whence cometh this actually earth-saving affliction, :up:has yet to impart all of its data to WHO on the Wuhan virus....:hmmm: We are expendible; the planet is not...thank God we had $3 billion $hekels to send a probe to Mars this week...clearly our priorities R in perfect order!:O:

[Jimbuna]

Update on my neighbour, his funeral is on the 16th March, he caught the China virus while having an hospital appointment and died in the same one, clap for the NHS our Prime Minister says, how about bleeding crap Bozo, and that goes for the rest of your useless ministers as well. :o

Very sad indeed, my brother-in-law had it but he recovered thankfully.

[Skybird]

Czech Republic locked down too late, and did not control it with the needed determination, and now pays the price. They say they now are where Italy was one year ago. Standardised against their populaitoin sizek, the yhave the globally highest detah number. Thei8r hospitals are overwhelmed. A speaker for the hostials therte said in TV that also yoiung people withg no precidntions get seriousl ill. He also said that they see 30% of cases trnapsoerted ot hositals are dying - because they cannot be treated. Not enough staff, not enogubn ICUs.



This is why a lock-down and trying to protect the health care system is relevant. Because the now Czech conditions are what it looks like if the health system gets overwhelmed. They are with their backs not at the wall, but halfway pushed out of the window already.

[Jimbuna]

The PM pledges that all adults in the UK will be offered a coronavirus jab by the end of July.

The government's previous target was to offer all adults the first dose by September.

Boris Johnson says he now wants the programme to "go further and faster"

One in three adults across the UK have been vaccinated, says Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

The PM is today holding a final meeting with senior ministers about how to ease England's lockdown.

Johnson will reveal his "road map" for easing restrictions on Monday.

Israel is easing restrictions following vaccine success, with shops, libraries and museums allowed to open.

Australia's PM receives the coronavirus vaccine as the country prepares to start inoculations this week.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is7XpudFGJ8

[mapuc]

Following comment is Corona virus related despite it is off topic.

I read most of what you write in this thread and I read what my fb-friends write on their wall.

There's a different-Here the comments are more fact related than it is among my fb-friends, where conspiracy, hoax etc is being spread.

As some of you may know FB is hitting hart on this and I discovered less than a week ago that one of my fb-friends has got her account removed-cancelled/deactivated.

This does not surprise me-she have spread a lot of these conspiracy, hoaxes a.s.o.

yes free speech but with responsibility.

End of an off topic corona related comment.

Markus

[Catfish]

Too many humans, and the way they live

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/668228v1.full

[ET2SN]

free speech but with responsibility.



We've had a lot of one but none of the other. :up:

If you want your words to matter, pick them carefully. :Kaleun_Cheers:

[Moonlight]

Following comment is Corona virus related despite it is off topic.

As some of you may know FB is hitting hart on this and I discovered less than a week ago that one of my fb-friends has got her account removed-cancelled/deactivated.

This does not surprise me-she have spread a lot of these conspiracy, hoaxes a.s.o.
Markus

If the Chinese dictators put there hand up and owned up to this virus starting in their country in the first place then there wouldn't be any conspiracy theories doing the rounds anywhere would there?.

They can deny it and spread as much misinformation as they want but there is one undeniable fact that they can't get away from and that is no other country had a case of the China virus before it was running rampant in Wuhan. :o

[mapuc]

To continue from my last post and comment your answer.

There are people who has, what I call the Hitler effect-Meaning they can speak or write rubbish but their friends and others swallow it without thinking.

These people could have some life on their conscience.

As ET2SN wrote in an answer to me:
If you want your words to matter, pick them carefully.

And this is very true.

Markus

[3catcircus]

If the Chinese dictators put there hand up and owned up to this virus starting in their country in the first place then there wouldn't be any conspiracy theories doing the rounds anywhere would there?.

They can deny it and spread as much misinformation as they want but there is one undeniable fact that they can't get away from and that is no other country had a case of the China virus before it was running rampant in Wuhan. :o

The question is *when* was it rampant. There are indications that someone had it in Italy as early as November 2019. We also know that flu season was awful the 2017 and 2018 seasons and since they didn't actually test everyone for flu who they suspect had it (and didn't check to see what actually was infecting someone who had flu like symptoms but who tested negative for flu), there are theories that covid-19 was actually around a lot earlier than December 2019.

Who knows?

[ikalugin]

Too many humans, and the way they live

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/668228v1.full


Combination of the German mysticism and ethics driven concerns about that there are too many of certain type humans, that they are living their lives wrong, did not go well in the previous century.


Please don't make us come to Berlin again.

[Catfish]

^ "Human activities are greatly reducing the genetic diversity of species worldwide. Given the prediction that parasites better exploit less diverse host populations, many species could be vulnerable to disease outbreaks. However, the widespread nature of the ‘monoculture effect’ remains unclear outside agricultural systems. [...]"

It's not about power plays but science, no wonder autocrats don't like science.
Please don't make us come to Berlin again.:har:

Why not..
"in 15 Minuten sind die Russen auf dem Kurfürstendamm
sie lassen ihre Panzer im Parkhaus stehn
und wollen im Cafe Kranzler die Sahnetörtchen sehn

Sie kommen uns besuchen, einfach nur mal so
auf Kaffeechen und Kuchen und 'n Fläschchen Pikkolo
ein Wessi spricht: Ey, vergessen Sie nicht
der Russe, der ist schlecht!
Ich frag: Welcher denn? Das sind doch mehrere -
Tja, da hätt ich ja nun auch wieder recht ...

Sie bringen auch Geschenke mit
für die Mädels und die Freier
Kaviar und Wodka und russische Eier
das KaDeWe wird Partysitz vom KGB
und das Politbüro am Bahnhof Zoo
wird Separee mit ner feschen Lola auf dem Kanapee"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=782WGH9X5eU

[Skybird]

It has emerged that the EU's claim of Biontech having demanded prices above 50 Euros per dose, had been propaganda to distract from the EU centrela committee's own desastrous failure. Biontech's CEO insists that that price was just an early and internal idea, and that the first price option they formally offered to the EU had been "significantly below" that and close to the price they finally agreed on. Super-Uschi personally and the whole commission received a volley of acid criticsm from several high profile German politicians across the party spectrum, from the CSU's chancellor hopoeful Söder to the SPD health "expert" Lauterbach, in bteween the two polticians from the CDU and the Green, the FDP anyway. Its once again the cheapest trick from Super-Uschi's well-established standard repertoire of deflections. The underhanded intention of this manouver, so critics say, were obvious.


My apologies, I fell for that manouver, too, and posted the price of 50+€ as a revealed "fact". Should have known better - I mean its about Super-Uschi, I should have been warned: I warn of her incompetence and unscrupulousness since long enough now, or not?!:03:

[Jimbuna]

Covid vaccines have a significant impact on the risk of serious illness Public Health Scotland analysis shows.

In the fourth week after the first dose, hospitalisations were reduced by 85% and 94% for the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs.

Boris Johnson will later set out his four-step plan to release England from lockdown.

Cabinet meets virtually on Monday morning; the UK PM will address MPs at about 15:30 GMT and will hold a press conference at 19:00

Step one on 8 March will see schools reopening and two people allowed to meet outdoors for a chat.

From 29 March, outdoor gatherings of either six people or two households will be allowed.

Outdoor sports, including football, golf and tennis, will be allowed to resume from 29 March as well.

Organised adult and children's sport, such as grassroots football, will also return.

Progress to further steps depends on conditions around vaccination, infections, hospitalisations, deaths and new variants.

Scotland, Wales and NI will set out their own approaches.

The youngest pupils in Scotland and Wales have returned to school for the first time since Christmas.

Australia's government has criticised fans at the Australian Open final who loudly booed the mention of a vaccine rollout.

[Jimbuna]

The first results of the UK vaccination programme suggests it is having a "spectacular" impact on preventing serious illness.

Research led by Public Health Scotland found at four weeks after the first dose, hospital admissions were reduced by 85% and 94% for the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs respectively.

It is the first sign of the real world impact of vaccination in the UK.

Figures for England are expected to be released later.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56153600

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH1XeEx1b1I

[Jimbuna]

Boris Johnson sets out his four-step plan to release England from lockdown
Step one, on 8 March, will see schools reopening and two people allowed to meet outdoors for a chat.

From 29 March, outdoor gatherings of either six people or two households will be allowed.

Outdoor sports, including football, golf and tennis, will be allowed to resume from 29 March as well.

Step two would see shops, hairdressers and gyms reopen from 12 April in England.

Also from 12 April, outdoor hospitality will resume, as well as zoos and theme parks.

Step three would start on 17 May with most social contact rules lifted, as well as limited mixing indoors.

The prime minister hopes that step four, from 21 June, would see the end of all legal limits on social contact.

[Jimbuna]

Another 178 people have died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus, according to today's government figures.
And a further 10,641 people have tested positive.
In total, 17,723,840 people have had a first dose of a vaccine, and 624,325 have had a second.

US President Joe Biden will lead a candle-lighting ceremony and a moment of silence tonight as the country prepares to mark the grim milestone of 500,000 deaths of people with coronavirus.
The ceremony is due to take place at the White House at 18:15 (23:15 GMT) and will also involve First Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, officials say.
The US has seen the highest number of infections - more than 28 million - and the highest death toll of any country in the world.

China has lifted all remaining local lockdowns today.
No new domestically transmitted cases of Covid-19 have been detected in the past 24 hours, according to government statistics – and that has been the case for the last couple of weeks.

Stubbornly high infection rates are hampering French efforts to ease coronavirus restrictions, with Nice in the south a particular hotspot.
The area around Nice, which has the highest rate in France, will go into partial lockdown for the next two weekends.
The Riviera resort city has more than 700 cases per 100,000 inhabitants - more than three times higher than the national average of 190, French news agency AFP reports.

[Jimbuna]

Italy just published AstraZeneca contract with Brussels in full...EU threats exposed.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1400657/Italy-astrazeneca-contract-with-EU-in-full-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-latest-evg

[Skybird]

What I do not understand that such totally dysfunctional , incapable personell is allowed to just carry on. They should be fired by now, with big leaded boots kicked deep into their lower backs.



Nobody is being held accountable in any pointed, meaningful way. Nobody.



If a small or8idnary employee would fail his duties in his working place in comparable fashion and scaling, all the law's power and weight would rain down mercilessly on him, shattering the essentials of his mere existence.


But these superbrains plan not only the economy of the future, but also the climate of the future, the society of the future, the world of the future. I piss my pants in fear of that.



How could nature have existed this long without their supreme guiding? The biggest cosmic mystery of all.

[Buddahaid]

Because they are lizard people taking over the Earth silly....

[skidman]

Italy just published AstraZeneca contract with Brussels in full...EU threats exposed.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1400657/Italy-astrazeneca-contract-with-EU-in-full-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-latest-evg

Well, even the Express is not sure if there was a violation of the contract. "the EU might be all bark and no bite". None of us is a lawyer and we will never find out if there was enough beef to bring a charge against AZ. One thing is crystal clear though:

A company that has problems with the supply of raw materials and delivers 100% of the promised quantity to one party and less than 40% to another customer and still claims " best efforts" have been made, loses credibility. It's not a question of international law, it's a question of common sense. The same applies when British people are exercised about the EU stopping UK trucks because of the ham in the lunch box of the driver. The difference is: AZ has killed people. Think about it.

[Gorpet]

Florida COVID-19 cases statewide as of 02/20/2021: total cases 1,863,707, total deaths 30,339. New cases for Saturday only statewide 7,280, new deaths 121. I live in Orange County which includes the city of Orlando that is located in the central part of the state. As of Saturday new cases 400, new deaths 2, total cases 111,578. Total deaths 1,071. Florida officials include in each Sunday report a reminder that it can take weeks and sometimes several months for reports on the dead to appear. Central Florida accounts for more than 17.6% of the cases state-wide and more than 17.2% of the deaths.

[Catfish]

Thanks Gorpet for the update :hmmm: Do you think there is a trend with infections going down at last?


re Jim: "Eu threats exposed"?

The bigmouthed headline in typical Express fashion is a bit misleading. For what i read the one corporate body being held accountable should be Astra-Zeneca, and then the UK. Astra-Z. did not act in "best reasonable effort", it prefers the UK, and its boss Soirot even lied about this "first come first served" since the deal with the EU was signed before the one with the UK.
As just of all the publishing of the treaties mentioned in the "Express" has shown. How embarrassing.


So one vaccine is being developed in Germany, by a turkish immigrant, it is being tested, and while those tests have not been concluded for children and elderly people, Johnson decides to use the vaccine beforehand. He is lucky since it works, nobody dies and it is HIS PERSONAL VICTORY. Laughable.

Then scientists in Oxford develop another vector-based vaccine, and while there are treaties the company tries to withhold it from the EU, preferring the UK. Nationalist reasons? Money? Whatever, not an act in good faith.

The US company Pfizer jumps the train and becomes a "partner" of german BioNTech Pfizer, meaning it becomes the distributor. So the Germany-produced vaccine is sent deep-frozen to the US, being filled in flasks, and is being shipped back to Germany, deep-frozen. Makes so much sense. Or at least parts of it are sent back, because uh you know, USA. Remember the mask thing, anyone?

I had no problem with all that at first, itis a pandemic, all have to work together, maybe a bit of nationalism is ok and can be expected when England needs some positive news in its brexit shambles.
But when this whole boondoggle unfolded, i do now think the EU was expecting a bit too much when it comes to equal distribution and fairness, from its friends and allies.

Skybird is right, the EU is much too lenient, it expects equality and international co-operation, but it seems not all see it that way to put it mildly.
re the title "... exposes EU threats", wouldn't it be nice if the EU actually did that, for a change. This nationalism and perceived exceptionalism of some stinks to the high heavens.

[Skybird]

Governments usually must swear an oath that they protect the citizens of theirs, the country, theirs /its interests. A government is obligated to put its people befofe that of other nations. I too expect and DEMAND that.

The point is that vaccine production must not stop when national herd immu ity has been eached. Quantities exceeding the need or the imminent vaccination capability - tnese are what can and should be used to help others, nations.


Neith er Johnson nor Merkel nor Biden are the chancellors and presidents of foreign nations.
They owe first and foremost to their own. Merkel forgot that. And Germany by now is so incapable to get anything done that neither mass quick testing a la Spahn is coming, nor that organising vaccination dates works acceptably. People call dozens of times, and no answers. At the same time i read today ghat 2 million doses lay around unused, instead of getting pushdd into arms in accord work.



Germany is the complete anti-example of how things should be done. Its only bright side is its high number of ICUs. But not enough personnell fof all of them. Foreign nurses from Czech republic, Poland etc. already included in that count.

[Jimbuna]

@Skidman and Catfish

The post you refer to is a link to the Express and not necessarily my opinion or viewpoint.

If it were I would have no hesitation in pointing that out....therefore the intention is that it should be viewed as being for information purposes only.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OrgaMF5QpU

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kECTqjJgOMA

[Jimbuna]

Everyone must play their part and be cautious as the country exits lockdown, Matt Hancock says.

The health secretary says people should take personal responsibility for precautions such as masks.

The second week of February saw 17,136 deaths registered in the UK - down by 1,710 on the previous week but still 26% above usual levels.

Step-by-step strategy could see the Covid restrictions fully eased by 21 June - if strict conditions are met.

There's been a surge in foreign holiday bookings since the route map was laid out, with Easyjet reporting a 630% increase.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will set out her plan for easing the lockdown in Scotland later.

UK unemployment rate rises to 5.1% in the three months to December, official figures show.

The number of deaths in the United States from coronavirus surpasses 500,000

US President Joe Biden says it is a "heartbreaking milestone"

A further 10,641 coronavirus cases are reported in UK on Monday, and another 178 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

[Jimbuna]

France is worried about a new infection hotspot – the northern port city of Dunkirk. The infection rate there is more than 900 per 100,000 inhabitants, so a local lockdown is now being considered. On Monday the focus was on Nice, a southern resort city, where the rate is above 700. A weekend lockdown has been imposed there and in nearby areas. These surges have been blamed on the highly contagious English variant. France is trying to avoid a third national lockdown despite having the highest number of people in intensive care units in Europe since the start of December.

In Italy the new government led by Prime Minister Mario Draghi has extended until 27 March a ban on travel between Italy’s regions, to curb the virus spread. The new decree also extends a restriction on private visits: no more than two adults and children under 14 can visit another person’s home.

EU Europe ministers are discussing how to ease the current border restrictions, which violate the spirit of free movement in the EU. The European Commission has complained to Germany about its border controls, saying they go too far. But Germany is frustrated its infection rates are declining too slowly, or not at all. Belgium, Hungary and three Nordic countries received such complaints previously from the commission.

The Czech government has ordered the wearing of FFP2 respirator masks from Thursday in shops and on public transport. The government will distribute millions of the masks via food banks to people who cannot afford them. They block more particles than ordinary masks.

Afghanistan began administering Covid-19 vaccinations on Tuesday. The country has recorded 55,646 infections and 2,435 deaths but experts warn both are likely significantly under-reported due to low testing and health system access.

South Korea’s prime minister says the country will aim to vaccinate 70% of their population by Autumn.

Australia is expected to ramp up a national vaccination drive after a second shipment of doses arrived into the country overnight. Health Minister Greg Hunt hopes to reach one million weekly doses by the end of March, after local production of the AstraZeneca jab begins.

[Catfish]

@Jim re your post further 'north'
Ok thanks i know it should be obvious.. sometimes too easy to get triggered by the "Express" or "The Sun", but then it is their purpose i guess :03:
Sorry :salute:

[Skybird]

EU Europe ministers are discussing how to ease the current border restrictions, which violate the spirit of free movement in the EU. The European Commission has complained to Germany about its border controls, saying they go too far. But Germany is frustrated its infection rates are declining too slowly, or not at all.
In fact they are rising since a couple of days again, and in some hotspots are exploding, Munich as an example.

I think its the beginning of the third wave.

And the EU? Should STFU. Spirit of free travel - as if a pandemic soothes its mind by that argument. Other states want German travellers money, and if thew travcellers bring back a acceleraiton of infecitons in Germany, they do not care. Where is the European spirit there, he?

Internationaly mobility in fact shouk,d be brought down, and broders for private travels shpould be locked. While transpiorts of goods and wares should be allowed. Within locked regions (=nations) one should check for the possible freedom to open carefully the shops and private businesses - while keeping social mobility at as low levels as possible. The intense and long range and itnernaitonal piorvate travelling , must be brought to a standstill, in the local regions people must be given back greater civil rightds and freedoms again. The borders must be shut.

All this of course frontally collides with the EU and its idea of extending the massacre it assists as best as it can. My pleasure. :salute:

[Jimbuna]

@Jim re your post further 'north'
Ok thanks i know it should be obvious.. sometimes too easy to get triggered by the "Express" or "The Sun", but then it is their purpose i guess :03:
Sorry :salute:

True that and apologies are not necessary Kai :salute:

[Jimbuna]

In fact they are rising since a couple of days again, and in some hotspots are exploding, Munich as an example.

I think its the beginning of the third wave.

And the EU? Should STFU. Spirit of free travel - as if a pandemic soothes its mind by that argument. Other states want German travellers money, and if thew travcellers bring back a acceleraiton of infecitons in Germany, they do not care. Where is the European spirit there, he?

Internationaly mobility in fact shouk,d be brought down, and broders for private travels shpould be locked. While transpiorts of goods and wares should be allowed. Within locked regions (=nations) one should check for the possible freedom to open carefully the shops and private businesses - while keeping social mobility at as low levels as possible. The intense and long range and itnernaitonal piorvate travelling , must be brought to a standstill, in the local regions people must be given back greater civil rightds and freedoms again. The borders must be shut.

All this of course frontally collides with the EU and its idea of extending the massacre it assists as best as it can. My pleasure. :salute:

You positive you're not a Brexiter living in the UK? :)

[Skybird]

:) Bet not!



I assume not all is positive with current transformation issues on the British side as well, and I wait since 4 weeks on a delivery from the UK where before it took just 5-12 days, and now am told it may take another 2-3 weeks, but that is neither unexpected nor anythign different than just luxury problems of the comfortable first world. In the long run, I strongly I assume, still, I would prefer to be on the British side of things.



And even without the British thing is the EU killing my last nerve. :D Same goes for this self-paralysing typically German complacency about things, the world, oneself, everything.

[Jimbuna]

Boris Johnson says the government will look at the use of vaccine passports, but there are complex issues to consider.

The UK PM is "optimistic" Covid restrictions in England can be lifted on 21 June - the end of a four-step lockdown easing.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is setting out her plan for easing the lockdown in Scotland.

The Scottish government hopes to lift the stay at home restriction from 5 April, she says.

From the end of April, she says she expects a phased reopening of the economy including: non-essential retail, hospitality, gyms and hairdressers.

If all goes to plan, Scotland will return to varying levels of restrictions from the last week in April.

12 million high-grade masks used in the NHS may not meet the right safety standards and have been withdrawn.

UK unemployment rate rises to 5.1% in the three months to December, official figures show.

A further 548 people in the UK have died within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test; there have been 8,489 more cases.

[Onkel Neal]

Finally. My doc called and they'll have me in for the first shot Friday.

[Skybird]

Finally. My doc called and they'll have me in for the first shot Friday.
You lucky dog!



We have not even every 20th citizen vaccinated with the first jab, and not even every 50th with the second.
Of 1.4 million delivered doses of the AZ vaccine, only 1/7 have been used, the rest (roughly 1.2 million doses) lays around unused. Many vaccination centres here are - idling.



I hope your shoulder burns! :arrgh!:

[Skybird]

If true, not good.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/china-covid-lockdown-propaganda

Who is the author:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-senger-55440b35

About it:

https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6192742875001

The Chinese are not new to international mass bullying like this. But the scale would be unprecedented.

But the EU desperately wants to close ties with China. "Changing China by interacting with it". "Changing China by trading with it (at thew west's tehcnological and intellectual expenses and at China's terms and conditions)." Has never worked. Will never work. Stupid EU, stupid Germany - once again. BTW, has not worked with Russia, too.

[Jimbuna]

England's secondary schools face a "big logistical task" as they are asked to test pupils three times in the first two weeks after reopening, says the education secretary.

Secondaries are being asked to run summer schools to help pupils most in need of catching up on lessons lost to Covid.

There are concerns about teachers burning out if they have to work through the holiday, and some unions are wary of overwhelming pupils.

More people with learning disabilities are to be prioritised for the Covid-19 vaccine.

It has been announced by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which decides vaccine priorities in the UK.

Asked at Prime Minister's Questions about financial support for people who cannot afford to self-isolate, Boris Johnson says the government will continue to help councils.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says about three in ten people who should be self-isolating are not and says it is a "gap in our defences"

Ghana becomes the first recipient of Covid-19 vaccine doses distributed by the global vaccine sharing initiative Covax.

[Jimbuna]

In Spain, PM Pedro Sánchez has unveiled a package worth €11bn ($13.4bn; £9.5bn) to boost small and mid-sized businesses. He admitted the nation was exhausted by the pandemic, but said he hoped half the population would have had a vaccination by the end of June.

Denmark is planning to ease some shopping restrictions and allow schools in parts of the country to reopen on 1 March, the government says, amid a further drop in infections.

Poland is to unveil regional restrictions to counter a rise in cases since measures were relaxed 12 days ago. More than 20,000 people flocked to the main ski resort of Zakopane when it reopened, with many forgetting social distancing.

The authorities in Sweden are expected to toughen nationwide Covid recommendations later. Several regions have recently stepped up guidelines asking passengers to wear face masks on public transport at all times - not just in rush hour.

Ukraine is to begin a nationwide vaccination programme, one of the last European countries to do so. Authorities there have repeatedly delayed the start date, sparking mass anger among the population.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv_TkJbSRhY

[Skybird]

Reaction times in Germany and in South Korea are galaxies apart.

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article226990665/Corona-Politik-Suedkoreas-Erfolg-und-Deutschlands-Dilemma.html

It took Germany more than a year to plan a test strategy that will help prevent future lockdowns. A comparison with South Korea makes it clear how blatant the mistakes were - and shows further grievances in Germany.

On January 20, a flight from the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://welt.de/226838885) landed at Incheon International Airport in Seoul. One passenger on board had symptoms of fever. A test showed: Corona, it was the first case in South Korea. One day earlier, on January 19, 2020, a Chinese woman landed at Munich Airport. She had been visited by her parents in Wuhan in Shanghai the previous day. The Chinese woman was Germany's patient zero - in the following days she took part in a workshop at the Bavarian auto supplier Webasto and infected several colleagues.

The “novel corona virus” was still considered a Far Eastern problem for weeks in Germany. In this country, nobody simply wanted to see how small the world is now. In truth, the pandemic from China spread to East Asia and Europe relatively simultaneously. The only answer to the Corona crisis was not at all simultaneous: Asia and Europe were two planets here. The comparison of South Korea and Germany shows this particularly blatantly.

Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) recently announced that there should be free rapid corona tests for every German from March 1. But this date cannot be kept after all - the Chancellor canceled the start date. Too many questions about implementation are apparently too unclear. "I find it very frustrating to see what has been going on in Germany for a year," says Christian Taaks, who has lived in Seoul for three years and heads the office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which is close to the FDP. “Here in South Korea, people were always very quick and reacted immediately to new developments, as well as to every single case of infection. The communication about the necessary measures was always crystal clear."
https://www.welt.de/img/deutschland/crop140132097/2544509746-ci5x10s-w450/Bilder-zur-Campus-Elite-Uni-GoettingennLiWx.jpg

In concrete terms, very quickly means: The first positive Corona case was reported in Germany on January 27, 2020 (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://welt.de/225137727) . It was one of the Webasto employees who had been unsuspectingly infected by the Chinese colleague. On the same day, the first meeting between government officials and private biotech companies took place in a room in the Seoul train station. Four days later, a first company presented the prototype for a corona rapid test. On February 4th, the test by the South Korean company Kogene Biotech received its first emergency approval. At the end of February, numerous other companies had already approved their own kits. On February 28, South Korea passed 15,000 tests a day.
The country set up more than 600 test stations across the country in just a few days. Many of them were drive-through tents, where drivers could do a test within ten minutes, the result of which they received on their smartphone after three days at the latest. Everyone was allowed to be tested, with or without symptoms. Initially, people without symptoms had to pay, later the tests were done free of charge for everyone.
On March 3, 851 new infections were reported. From that day on, the numbers dropped.

On March 16, 250,000 people had already been tested in South Korea, all cases followed up and the spread of the epidemic stopped. Germany, on the other hand, had lost control - and went into the first lockdown on March 22nd.

Now South Korea had a big advantage. Because the government had come under severe (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://welt.de/142019155) criticism due to the slow response to the MERS epidemic in 2015 (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://welt.de/142019155) , a great deal of preparations had been made for a new epidemic since then. Germany, however, was taken completely unprepared.

The Federal Republic of Germany also quickly built up test capacities and tested more than many other countries in the first wave. But only people with symptoms are entitled to tests and the results can often take a long time to be reported. Fatal in an illness that is often asymptomatic.

Germany is not aiming for a strategy like the one in South Korea. In a paper dated April 17, 2020, the Ministry of Health lists the problems it sees: Rapid PCR tests cannot be carried out "in large quantities". Only "very few tests at the same time" are possible. In addition, the corona viruses are pathogens of a very high risk class. South Korea had shown the opposite for two months: PCR tests had been carried out there in large quantities, simultaneously and, thanks to the drive-through concept, also very safely for the medical staff.

The Ministry of Health writes in the paper that antigen tests are necessary to quickly test many people and better protect risk groups, for example when visiting old people's homes. What followed: federal skirmishes, organizational errors and the summer vacation, which left many things paralyzed. It was not until October, when a second wave could no longer be prevented, that a “national vaccination strategy” was decided which, among other things, was supposed to systematically protect old people's homes with antigen tests. It took until well into January for it to be implemented. In the second wave, a very large part of the corona victims died in old people's homes (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://welt.de/222586196) . Also because the tests came too late.

After almost four months of soft, then hard lockdown, the Minister of Health has now announced free, free rapid (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://welt.de/226980659) tests for everyone - such tests are an important accompanying measure to get out of hard lockdown. The plausible reason: If you know who is infected, you no longer have to be locked up in general and you can gain a piece of normality. But the four months of lockdown had apparently not been enough to prepare adequately. Now the start of the tests has been postponed again for at least a week.

Christian Taaks says that from Seoul he looks "sometimes stunned" at Germany. For him there is an explanation as to why his adopted home reacted so much faster - and it is not just his previous experience with MERS. "Here in Korea, neither the government nor the opposition use the topic to raise their profile," says Taaks. “There are also no prime ministers who say one thing today and another tomorrow. It is a scientific, not a political matter, and the Disease Control Authority is held in high regard. It leads the way."

In addition, there are “huge differences” in the use of technology, says Taaks. "The Internet was invented and here it is also used by the state." Federalism is not necessarily the problem, local solutions are good and sensible. It's a question of speed and digitization. "When I hear on the radio that the infection numbers in Germany on Monday are always imprecise and virtually unusable because many health authorities have not reported, then I cannot understand."

In addition to testing, the second pillar of South Korean success was so-called tracing. Tracking infections to stop them from spreading. The government in Seoul softened the data protection rules considerably. The people in South Korea receive anonymized information on their mobile phones when an infected person was nearby and where they were last.

“It is really tough what personal data is read out here in order to create movement profiles.” But Taaks, after all a representative of a liberal foundation, also says: “In the end, it is a weighing up. Citizens' freedoms are also massively restricted if one can no longer lead a normal life in lockdown. "

As a liberal, he wonders about the concept of freedom some Germans have in the pandemic. "We already have a different understanding of a sense of responsibility here in South Korea," says Taaks. "In Germany the pair of terms 'freedom and responsibility' is unfortunately often confused with 'freedom and egoism', individualism and egoism are mixed up."

It is still unclear when a functioning rapid test concept will be available in Germany. The next steps will be discussed on March 3rd. On March 3rd, 2021, mind you, not 2020.


Yesterday they said in the news that Marocco is faster and better organsied, than Germany. They have a vaccination blitz going on of which Germany can only dream.

[Gorpet]

Thanks Gorpet for the update :hmmm: Do you think there is a trend with infections going down at last?


re Jim: "Eu threats exposed"?

The bigmouthed headline in typical Express fashion is a bit misleading. For what i read the one corporate body being held accountable should be Astra-Zeneca, and then the UK. Astra-Z. did not act in "best reasonable effort", it prefers the UK, and its boss Soirot even lied about this "first come first served" since the deal with the EU was signed before the one with the UK.
As just of all the publishing of the treaties mentioned in the "Express" has shown. How embarrassing.


So one vaccine is being developed in Germany, by a turkish immigrant, it is being tested, and while those tests have not been concluded for children and elderly people, Johnson decides to use the vaccine beforehand. He is lucky since it works, nobody dies and it is HIS PERSONAL VICTORY. Laughable.

Then scientists in Oxford develop another vector-based vaccine, and while there are treaties the company tries to withhold it from the EU, preferring the UK. Nationalist reasons? Money? Whatever, not an act in good faith.

The US company Pfizer jumps the train and becomes a "partner" of german BioNTech Pfizer, meaning it becomes the distributor. So the Germany-produced vaccine is sent deep-frozen to the US, being filled in flasks, and is being shipped back to Germany, deep-frozen. Makes so much sense. Or at least parts of it are sent back, because uh you know, USA. Remember the mask thing, anyone?

I had no problem with all that at first, itis a pandemic, all have to work together, maybe a bit of nationalism is ok and can be expected when England needs some positive news in its brexit shambles.
But when this whole boondoggle unfolded, i do now think the EU was expecting a bit too much when it comes to equal distribution and fairness, from its friends and allies.

Skybird is right, the EU is much too lenient, it expects equality and international co-operation, but it seems not all see it that way to put it mildly.
re the title "... exposes EU threats", wouldn't it be nice if the EU actually did that, for a change. This nationalism and perceived exceptionalism of some stinks to the high heavens.

Catfish, I can't answer your question about a trend. All we get is what the local news station will give us . Local news weather and sports. Florida has 67 independent county,s We do not know what the rates are in the 5 counties that border Orange County my county.Our state health care system is ran from the Capitol which is in Tallahassee." try spelling that just 1 time" somewhere in the the north western part of the state.We do not know the faceless workers in the "Bureau" of Health that will decided who will be next. So now we have Anarchy cause every chicken leg in our melting pot wants their reward for their vote. Here every frontline worker From Politician to the library worker want's their families jabed to and the hell with everybody else.

Now i'm married have been for 20 + years .And most folks have a few years plus or minus in our ages.My wife has got her 2 jabs.In America showing a marriage license and id so we can both get the jab at the same time. Verboten .

[Gorpet]

Oh by the way i do know where the Capitol of Florida is. Here is the deal every license plate has the county you are from on it. So if im up there driving around in that county. And i'm a tourist and can prove it ok . If i can't produce the required documents. Car gets towed i go to jail, finger printed mug shot and now you get your face shoved straight into a blank piece of paper so they can get your DNA from the bloody mess your face makes. :yeah:

[Gorpet]

So if you want to still come and visit Disneyland pay attention to the license plate. When you get your rental car. Its only good for the county you rented it in. If you leave the county and get hurt you have left the safety of your zone. And they will say Welcome to America. You gotta pay. It's Demorat Capitalism and rest assured your local countrymen are loving it.

[Catfish]

Hello Gorpet, thanks for answering.
I admit i did not know Florida had 67 independent counties :o. So you are not allowed to leave one without an 'official' reason? But i take it this this a temporary Corona thing?

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ApgJMVkM0

[Jimbuna]

GCSEs and A-levels cancelled in England by the pandemic will be replaced by grades decided by teachers, exams watchdog Ofqual says.

Schools can determine grades this summer by using a combination of mock exams, coursework and essays.

It is important the pandemic does not prevent students going on to the next stage of their careers, schools minister Nick Gibb says.

It comes after education secretary Gavin Williamson says a "full return" of schools and colleges in England on 8 March is justified by data.

He is due to give more details on the plans for grades in the Commons later
A review by US regulators of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine has found it is safe and effective.

Coronavirus cases and deaths are continuing to fall globally, a new report from the World Health Organization says.

The France rugby union team stops training for its Six Nations match against Scotland after an 11th player tests positive for Covid-19

[Jimbuna]

The US is poised to pass its third major spending package of the pandemic - a $1.9tn (£1.4tn) plan President Joe Biden has championed as a way to help struggling Americans.

The organisers of the Tokyo Olympics have confirmed that the Games' torch relay will begin next month as planned, but are asking spectators to restrain themselves and will keep a close eye on overcrowding.

[ikalugin]

It's not about power plays but science, no wonder autocrats don't like science.
:har:

Why not..



Yes, authoritarians hate science, which is why say there is the denialism of human biology happening.

As to my point - germans using mysticism to judge that populations must be reduced tends to be a bad idea.
Be it the new age mysticism with Gaia and immune system or the new age mysticism with the Arian race's destiny to expand.



Any way, you got the song wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IwmYAdgU18


Please don't make us stop a well wishing (and Nazis believed themselves to be moral, didn't they?) ethic German state from trying to genocide us again.

[Skybird]

FOCUS comments:


"Do you still remember Ugur Sahin, the founder of Biontech, the man who brought us the miracle cure against Corona. Just recently celebrated as the hero who saves humanity from virus death and Germany from eternal lockdown. And now? Now he's the ugly face of capitalism. The EU Commission under Ms. von der Leyen has started a small dirt campaign. As with any successful smear campaign, you can't say with certainty who is behind it, of course. Let's put it this way: Papers appeared out of the blue on ARD [Germany's first TV state propaganda channel, Skybird], according to which Biotech originally demanded 54 euros per vaccine dose. What usury! No wonder that the EU Commission did not want to sign the contract immediately.

Conventional vaccinations are significantly more expensive. These are the prices for a vaccination against conventional diseases:

Chickenpox: € 56

Hepatitis: 60 €

Rabies: € 75

Shingles: € 104

But of course, 54 euros for a vaccination against Corona is of course totally overpriced. That's why people in the EU fooled around until they reached 13 euros. It just took 4 months, so the Americans and Israelis are now ahead. In Baden-Württemberg 80-year-olds are still waiting for their appointment. In New Jersey, being a smoker is enough to get vaccinated. But hey, we saved money for that. Avarice is cool. [A german commercial's slogan, Skybird]. Or maybe not.

[Moonlight]

I got my invitation letter to book an appointment at the nearest China virus vaccination centre, when I checked where it was I thought "you can bollocks to that you plonkers".
They want me to travel roughly 18 miles and go to the same area my neighbour got infected with this China virus and died from it I might add, so I can get inoculated.
Bleeding brilliant I thought, no mention of the word "sorry" for killing my bleeding neighbour or anything, typical NHS admins who don't give a bleeding toss if you kick the bucket or not. :o
Luckily it said that If you cannot travel to any of these vaccination centres, you can wait until a centre nearer you opens. More centres are opening all the time - check back regularly, to get in touch.
Yep, I think I'll wait until there's one in my local area, or people start talking like mindless morons....... oh wait. :haha:

[Skybird]

And a red carpet, thats the minimum they owe to you. ;)


Are you wanting the jab in principle, or not? If you do not want it anyway, okay, I rest my case. But if you want it, get off your lazy lower back, swing it into a taxi, bus, or your own car, and get there.



Its not as if they owe to you, you know. And you simply do not know whether time is on your side - or not.



We have one vaccination centre per district over here. Not more. Hopefully one day you can get the shot in every house doctor's office, but we are far away from that.



-------


I get a jab next week. Tetanus. :)

[Moonlight]

And a red carpet, thats the minimum they owe to you. ;)


Are you wanting the jab in principle, or not? If you do not want it anyway, okay, I rest my case. But if you want it, get off your lazy lower back, swing it into a taxi, bus, or your own car, and get there.
--------

I get a jab next week. Tetanus. :)

Hey Skybird, talk like that will get you more than a Tetanus jab around here you know. :haha:

[Aktungbby]

I, my wife, and my neighbor/boat captain are all getting out first Moderna shots on 3/4. It's technically the only hot date:O: I've been on during the year-long Covid lockdown. After the second shot, I'll even resume sailing. Two live-aboard boat owners on our dock had tested positive which has crimped our outings as being 70ish is considered an underlying condition!:yep:

[Skybird]

Hey Skybird, talk like that will get you more than a Tetanus jab around here you know. :haha:
I jjust tlak plain reason. And if it woukld come so that you get bitten, and went to the vaccination becasue of me biting you first, and you sruvie, where otherwise you may have gone into ICU and playing the lottery there - then I would have saved you and you owe me a thanks.

"If", of course.

;)

Serious, I tell you the same what I told Reece some days ago:

Reece, listen here at exactly 10:00. Thats the best answer you can get to your question.

https://youtu.be/13qT7wLxkvU

[Jimbuna]

And a red carpet, thats the minimum they owe to you. ;)


Are you wanting the jab in principle, or not? If you do not want it anyway, okay, I rest my case. But if you want it, get off your lazy lower back, swing it into a taxi, bus, or your own car, and get there.



Its not as if they owe to you, you know. And you simply do not know whether time is on your side - or not.



We have one vaccination centre per district over here. Not more. Hopefully one day you can get the shot in every house doctor's office, but we are far away from that.



-------


I get a jab next week. Tetanus. :)

The BBC televised a visit to Brussels main vaccination centre today and during the course of their hour long visit they witnessed only one person arriving to be vaccinated. When they interviewed the centre manager she said she was unable to do anything about it because of a current acute lack of vaccines but later on in the report when interviewing the Belgium Health Minister he stressed the fact that a growing number of people are refusing to trust the AstraZeneca vaccine because of concerns stated by the French and German governments. They then showed footage of a health manager (or something like that) at a German vaccination centre and they confirmed there were tens of thousands of the AstraZeneca vaccines lying around unused because of the same mindset/concerns.

[Skybird]

They then showed footage of a health manager (or something like that) at a German vaccination centre and they confirmed there were tens of thousands of the AstraZeneca vaccines lying around unused because of the same mindset/concerns.
Tens of thousands? That German then was glossing over the facts. Around 1.2 million, to be closer to the truth. ;) I reported it two days ago or so. Back then only 1/7 of the delivered AZ doses were vaccinated.

The AZ vaccine is suspicious a bit, yes, and has stornger reaciton symptoms for significantly more people, but it gets the key job done: it prevents even in case of infection and illness that people get hospitalised and die. And that is what it is about.

Dr. Seheult put it best: you should get that vaccine that you can get the quickest into your arm.

Choice is for those who actually have a choice. AZ would not be my first choice, too. But to wait and reject one vaccine because one hopes that later another one will be available - that is simply stupid. If they would give me the choice tomorrow: AZ next week or Biontech in 6 months, i would take the AZ next week. Heck, that is a no brainer, really.

[Jimbuna]

Hungary is extending its partial lockdown until 15 March as the country continues to see a rise in cases.Hungary has recorded its highest number of infections so far this year today with 4,385 new cases.

The Czech Republic is to receive 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine from France, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has confirmed.

South Africa’s government is aiming to get 1.1 million people vaccinated by the end of March.

Bangladesh has started vaccinating sex workers in the country’s largest brothel due to their vulnerability to the virus.

Syria will begin vaccinating healthcare workers next week after receiving its first batch of vaccines, the country’s health minister has confirmed. Hassan Ghabash didn’t say where the vaccines had come from, telling state media that the doses were from a “friendly country”.

[Skybird]

More material sometimes indeed work much better for sure. The discussion about masks and the hot debate about their merit, is one if the biggest nerve-killers of the whole corona thing for me.

A fisherman using a net with smaller loops catches more small fishes than a fisherman with a net with bigger loops.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7007e1.htm


Several to US polticians of the govenrm,ent have eben seen indeed wearing TWO masks over another. Including the president himself.



I experiment with something like that, too, to improve the fitting of the FFP mask and to better seal it at the rims. I also shaved off my beard.

[Jimbuna]

The UK's four chief medical officers agree the Covid-19 alert level should move from five - its highest - down to four.
Another 323 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test and 9,985 more cases have been recorded.

A further 448,962 first Covid vaccine doses and 31,613 second doses were given out yesterday. It means a total of 18,691,835 first doses and 700,718 second doses have been administered across the UK since the rollout began in December.

https://i.postimg.cc/tJG8mqBw/111.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/yxhtMM5d/222.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/fTZ6cbt0/333.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

Managed to get the wife booked in for her first jab on Sunday so that's a bit of weight off my mind. Felt guilty getting mine first.

[Jimbuna]

Vaccinating people in order of age is the fastest way to cut Covid-19 deaths in the next phase of the roll-out, experts say.

People in their 40s will be next in line, followed by those aged 30-39, and then all aged 18-29

Scientific advisers think it is best to prioritise people by age, not profession.

Keeping windows open is more effective at reducing transmission than young children wearing masks, experts say.

The Department for Education says primary school children should not be asked to wear masks.

The Queen encourages those who are reluctant to have a Covid-19 jab to "think about other people rather than themselves"

[Jimbuna]

The US Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel will meet today to decide on whether to authorise a coronavirus jab made by Johnson & Johnson, having already concluded it is safe and effective.

The government in Vietnam say they will acquire 150 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, through Covax and direct purchases after health officials approved use of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine and the Moderna vaccine.

A group of diplomats from Russia had to make an unusual exit out of North Korea by using a hand-pushed rail trolley due to strict coronavirus restrictions on travel in and out of the country.

A British man has been sentenced to two weeks in prison for breaking Singapore's quarantine rules.

[Jimbuna]

Angela Merkel refuses Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine as 1.4m doses go unused in Germany.

The EU is still lagging far behind Israel, the US and UK in terms of people vaccinated, so EU leaders have vowed to speed up deliveries and sort out the bottlenecks. The 29m vaccinated so far is 6.4% of the EU’s population. The bloc has ordered more than 2bn doses, for a total population of about 450m. But it is also committed to sending vaccines to neighbouring non-EU countries.

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said shortages of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine were down to the “very complex biological process that involves thousands of elements to track”. He told MEPs “we are working 24/7 to increase capacity and deliver on these commitments”

The AstraZeneca vaccine is not being given to the over-65s in France, Belgium and Germany. The authorities cite insufficient data on its effectiveness in the oldest age group. French President Emmanuel Macron has controversially voiced doubts about the vaccine, but on Thursday he said he would gladly have the AstraZeneca jab, if that was offered to him.

Dr Klaus Reinhardt, president of the German Medical Association, described the AstraZeneca vaccine as “just as effective” as the Pfizer and Moderna ones. However, more than a million AstraZeneca doses are currently in storage in Germany, as vaccination progress remains slow.

The Czech Republic is set to tighten restrictions again, amid a big surge in cases. The plan is to extend a state of emergency to the end of March, banning all but essential travel between regions and closing schools, reimposing distance learning. The European countries with the highest Covid deaths per million people are: Belgium (1,900), Czech Republic (1,850), Slovenia (1,830) and the UK (1,790).

[Onkel Neal]

Successfully got the first shot this morning and my 5G is much better than before!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8f8HcYNKoQ

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmXgau7WFmo

[Skybird]

Successfully got the first shot this morning and my 5G is much better than before!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8f8HcYNKoQ
Dont squeeze it too careless else it crumbles between your fingers, easily! :03:


And don't get angry. We dont want you turning green.

[Skybird]

Angela Merkel refuses Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine as ...


Hm? Cannot find anything on that?!

[mapuc]

Hm? Cannot find anything on that?!

it has been in the news here almost in every hourly news program.

The Danish Prime Minister has said, that Denmark would gladly buy these 1.5 million AstraZeneca dosis from Germany

Markus

[Rockstar]

The more I think about it, I'm glad I'm in the age group who are the last to get the jab. Though I still plan on getting it, I'm certainly in no rush. Vaccines have been rolled out under Emergency Use Authorization. FDA expects manufacturers who receive an EUA to continue their clinical trials to obtain additional safety and effectiveness information and pursue licensure (approval).


You older less healthy people are like the Tuskegee airmen of our time. Let us know if you start growing a third big toe or something because it seems you are part of a continuing clinical study before the vaccine can be fully licensed and approved.

[Skybird]

^ Yes, me too. I would take an opportunity to get any vaccine, but I am not in any kind of rush or hurry, nor do I sit and wait for it. To me even the vaccination is no 100% all-in-one solution, but just another tick (though maybe a bigger one) on the probability slider in my favour: to improve my chances to not suffer hospitalization when getting ill, like masks, Vitamin-D, keepin my distances to others, avoiding aerosole clouds. It all is about tuning probabilities in my (your) favour.

[Skybird]

it has been in the news here almost in every hourly news program.

The Danish Prime Minister has said, that Denmark would gladly buy these 1.5 million AstraZeneca dosis from Germany

Markus
The Danes maybe have a cleverness that the Germans have not.



But it has nothing to do with Jim'S news that Merkel should have refused to get the AZ jab. She refused, AFAIK, that political lead personnel in general (including herself) get prioritized vaccination, no matter which vaccine. The background is that some locla politicians and quite some church leaders (!!) jumped the queue while they had no priority by age, or health conditions.

[Jimbuna]

Hm? Cannot find anything on that?!

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/angela-merkel-refuses-astrazeneca-oxford-covid-vaccine-b921333.html

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/angela-merkel-refuses-astrazeneca-vaccine-coronavirus-s97vctrzr

[Jimbuna]

The next phase of the UK's vaccine rollout will be based on age rather than occupation, with those in their 40s next in line.

There is a "moral duty" to put saving lives first in the rollout, Health Secretary Matt Hancock says.

Hancock tells a Downing Street briefing that the aged-based approach is "fastest and simplest way"

The health secretary also calls on people to "stick at it" in terms of observing the stay-at-home rules.

"Do not wreck this now... it is too early to relax", England's deputy chief medical officer Prof Jonathan Van-Tam adds.

A further 345 people in the UK have died within 28 days of a positive Covid test - a fall of 35% compared with last Friday.

The Ivory Coast receives its first shipment from the global vaccine-sharing scheme Covax.

[Catfish]

I still don't get it, ok so Merkel does not want the vaccine beause it is not safe at her age, ok, her decision.

[Gorpet]

Hello Gorpet, thanks for answering.
I admit i did not know Florida had 67 independent counties :o. So you are not allowed to leave one without an 'official' reason? But i take it this this a temporary Corona thing?

Catfish, My posts #6464 and # 6465 are a bit misleading and i'll correct this. First we have no travel restrictions here in Florida. In the 90s Because of carjackings, theft and murders of local people and tourist who crossed into different counties we were given the option for a few dollars more i might add. To replace the name of county we were from to having just "The Sunshine State" at the bottom of your license tag. And in my line of work i was always provided a company vehicle so no need for me to drive my personal vehicle to much.

Also you can transfer your tag to the next vehicle you purchase and buy a new sticker every year to keep it legal. So i and other Flintstones like me still run around with our county names at the bottom of our tags.You just get a bit more scrutiny from LEO agencies after 10pm . We have Stand Your Ground law's here for years so the crimes i mentioned earlier dropped drastically. Hope this clears it up for you. Sorry Jim

[Skybird]

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/angela-merkel-refuses-astrazeneca-oxford-covid-vaccine-b921333.html

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/angela-merkel-refuses-astrazeneca-vaccine-coronavirus-s97vctrzr
Thanks. That explcitly it is not reprted in German media.

Still, while I type this, the head of the German vaccination commission is on TV talkign about AZ, and he again made it clear the rejection to give a recommendation for above 65 year old has nothing to do with any claimed or assumed inefficiency or risks, but because the data provided by AZ for thia age group is very poorly documented. They simpyl did a poor job in collecting data fro that age groupo. He said with the massive data fro scotland, it is likely that soon there might be an unlimntied reocmmendation for AZ for above 65 year old as well.

I assume Merkel refuses the vaccine not so much becasue fo fears about it medically, but because she does not want to break out of the official line.

Hu - I just defended Merkel, now I feel bad and shabby, and have a rotten smell around me. I hope it does not become a habit of mine. I must go and take a shower now to feel clean again... :arrgh!:


Macron, hat is something different. The French are pissed that their own horse in the race has already broken down, Brexit they will never forget, Wellington they will never forgive, and as a good Frenchman he is anti-British for principle reasons. A question of state reason. He is French, so what else must be explained.

[Jimbuna]

Macron, hat is something different. The French are pissed that their own horse in the race has already broken down, Brexit they will never forget, Wellington they will never forgive, and as a good Frenchman he is anti-British for principle reasons. A question of state reason. He is French, so what else must be explained.

You forgot to mention he also loves grannies :):03:

[Jimbuna]

Managed to get the wife booked in for her first jab on Sunday so that's a bit of weight off my mind. Felt guilty getting mine first.

You simply couldn't make this up....

The vaccination invite letter arrived yesterday morning and when I visited the government website the wife was offered a choice of four vaccination centres, the nearest being in Washington (5 miles away).

I had her ring her doctors surgery (1/2 mile away) and enquire as to their expected schedule and they advised they were four to five weeks behind the vaccination invite letter.

I naturally booked an appointment with Washington for tomorrow.

The phone rang this morning and it was her doctors surgery offering her a vaccination tomorrow afternoon so I've promptly cancelled the Washington jab in the hope someone else will be given the appointment.