I am watching old tucker Carlson discussions in the background while I surf the net and clean the room.
This discussion (first hour and a half) resembles the conspiracy theories I learned about in the sixties when some of my acquaintances were early anti war protesters (no I supported that war, because I saw communist takeover more dangerous than keeping a corrupt dictatorship... and I was right, although the massacres and ethnic cleansing etc was not given a lot of press after the fall of Saigon)
so here is Tucker spouting conspiracy theories of security operatives being the man behind the curtain manipulating the news to run the USA.
I have lived a lot in third world hell holes, and tell you the truth, support a lot of this CIA manipulation, because I also saw how the KGB (and now China) is doing the same thing, including taking over poor countries to exploit their resources (e.g. in Africa, when the KGB supported dicatorships and liberation movements but more recently, by the Wagner group seeking gold, China and rare earth metals).
So I am bemused when what is sometimes called the deep state is now pushing fake Russian conspiracies cooked up by Hillary to used to spy on the Trumpites,
This is why Twitter is such a disaster for them: and this is why Musk got leftwing reporters (italics mine) to uncover this, because until recently it was the left who investigated this type of government overreach.
So there might be a reason to do this for geopolitical reasons, but why did they censor the covid origin and treatments so much? That doesn't make sense
I have no personal information about a lot of this: except for a single sentence where he mentions the Philippines.
at 1h:16 they mention that the CIA couldn't manipulate the Philippine election.
True: Duterte joined at the last minute and had grass root support.
Background: The CIA hated him and it was mutual because he hated the CIA after they helped a drug pusher in Davao escape justice.
So suddenly the western press could only report negative things on Duterte the CIA arranged Omidyar funding of Rappler, which was against the law, but never mind: there was a full court press pushing the story that trying to prosecute the lady reporter who illegally accepted this money was a poor innocent victim. She even received a Nobel Peace prize for this farce.
and of course never mention that now it was safe for ordinary Filipinos to take the bus or (for me) shop nearby without worrying about being kidnapped or robbed.
And don't mention those stories that the drug cartels were planning to make us a narco state to let them ship drugs all over.
this had alas geopolitical implications:
This CIA war against Duterte led him to try to make nice with China, and so China's aggression against the Philippines was rewritten has his fault. But the dirty little secret is that this started before Duterte: from pressuring Pres Aquino not to respond to them militarily when they started harassing fishermen and digging up the seabed but take it to the courts.
But the courts have no way to enforce the law, so the result was to let them build these islands.
oh, never mind.
The Marcos are in charge again and will cooperate with the US, especially since China (seeing Biden is senile) is busy trying to take over more of the Philippines resources (fish, natural gas) and the sea lanes of the West Philippine sea.
Sigh.
Lolo promised me if I moved here I would always have rice to eat, since we are farmers.
Sigh.
In a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg alleges that the officials, including those from the White House, “repeatedly pressured” Facebook for months to take down “certain COVID-19 content including humor and satire.”
OH NO: a MEME! Cancel him.
...
“I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg wrote in the letter dated Aug. 26 and posted on the committee’s Facebook page and to its account on X.
Heh. Zuckerburg uses Twitter/X.
Dr Campbell, who has been censored, discusses this issue:
Shame on medical journals like Lancet who censored stories on the lab leak theory by publishing an article written by the guy from ecohealth who actually funded the Wuhan gain of function research, and shame to the many journals who dissed possible treatments because they cited studies showing medicines didn't work that ignored the well known fact that anti virals have to be given early, but studies where these medicines were used early did show they worked.
not to mention ignoring the population studies that suggested they worked (but weren't double blind studies so ignored).
and I won't even go into the censorship of open discussion about vaccine problems
Sigh.
of course, it wasn't just covid that was censored.
a lot of this political censorship is being done by the various governments too... this was discovered when Elon Musk took over Twitter/X and had a couple of well known lefty but honest reporters check these things.
For millions of people in Russia, Telegram’s encryption makes it the last remaining avenue to communicate securely and access information freely — governmental attempts to seize platform data must be rejected. Telegram is challenging the Russian government’s order to block and fine the messaging app for failing to provide information that would enable authorities to decode encrypted messages of six crime suspects. The company argues that, in effect, this means creating a backdoor mechanism for decoding all Telegram communications and threatening privacy and freedom of expression rights of all users. On June 10, 2022, Access Now, ARTICLE 19, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Privacy International, and Reporters Without Borders, filed a joint submission to the European Court of Human Rights.
“Journalists and activists in Ukraine and Russia are fighting to end this war. Platforms like Telegram are often their main source of communication, and they bear disproportionate risks if their identities and messages are revealed to Russian authorities,” said Natalia Krapiva, Tech Legal Counsel at Access Now.
censorship of free speech during the covid epidemic probably led to people dying, and in the long term is leading to a distrust of all vaccines and even routine medicines among the fringe.
but censorship of political discussion has broader implications:
That is why an anti vaxxer like RFK JR is influencing the next US election.
When it comes to political discussion, free speech (and this includes accuracy by the MSM) is important:
Today's #SafeSpace by Anna Cristina Tuazon (Aug. 29, 2024).
a discussion of transgender problems and follow the money. Alas, the video has been removed by Youtube. but google left my comments about the side effects of puberty blockers and hormones. I took these for endometriosis/fibroid tumors and cried for three months.
I posted a shorter version of this on this blog. The problem? Only partial protection (so when the kid gets sick with a breakthrough infection, the news will go around the vaccine is no good, and parents will refuse the series of shots). The other problem? The study here was only on 400 kids.
so it should be going into second generation studies (of thousands) and still be considered experimental but it is being hyped as an approved vaccine. And of course no follow up for side effects.
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Smallpox and Mpox vaccine: Discussion of the history of the most recent version of smallpox vaccine. Technical and mainly my notes...no conclusion because I haven't looked into it enough to have an opiniom
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Vaccine controversies on the advice to give another booster and also if your babies need the shot....linked to a video of Dr Campbell.
The essay also links to an article in the local paper about maybe those who approved of the dengue vaccine for kids here will be sued.
IVF discards many of these children, and prenatal testing results in their abortionn. So where are the voices in their defense of our children?
yes, the scientists insist seeing these embryos in the fridge as just a pile of cells, but often the moms think of them as Junior... and if Jeremiah is to be believed, the Lord has the same opinion.
the US now seeks to use these funds to push population control and abortion so a few pro life types are trying to stop the program (or maybe just stop this part of the funding but being accused of trying to stop the program to tar them as bad). I have friends who run these clinics, and know some who have family members alive due to the program.
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biohacking life...a link to a podcast about China hacking American experiments trying to build life
Unlike the Philippines, where libel laws let you sue pesky reporters in the USA, you have to rely on the trusted MSM and social media such as youtube to ban controversial stories that go against the official policy.
So when Project Veritas released a video where a guy said Pfizer was doing (forbidden) gain of function research on covid, guess what happened? Yup: the actual video was taken off youtube, and ignored by much of the MSM. But they did but allow the big Pharm to protest that's not what they said.
nearly everything out there is highly politicized, so again I link to Dr. Campbell.
Dr Campbell discusses Pfizer's press release, and seems to be puzzled about what are they talking about.
In this video, he starts by explaining what is meant by gain of function research
then comments:
Back to Pfizer press release
In the ongoing development of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine,
Pfizer has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research.
italics mine
Working with collaborators, we have conducted research where the original SARS-CoV-2 virus has been used to express the spike protein from new variants of concern.
This work is undertaken once a new variant of concern has been identified by public health authorities.
This research provides a way for us to rapidly assess the ability of an existing vaccine to induce antibodies that neutralize a newly identified variant of concern.
I think this is saying they are only using the new varients to check if their vaccine would work, not manipulating the virus to see these new variants. This would be necessary to make vaccines to save lives.
Uh Oh:
In a limited number of cases when a full virus does not contain any known gain of function mutations, such virus may be engineered to enable the assessment of antiviral activity in cells.
italics mine.
translation: no we don't manipulate the virus to make a new new virus so we can make a vaccine to protect people: except when we do.
The Project vertias video is banned from youtube, but you can see it on Twitter
So, is this just a guy who is making things up after a few drinks to impress his date, or is he spilling the beans under the influence of alcohol?
Alas, to find the really critical analysis of what is going on, you have to go to right wing sites like Tucker Carlson, where political agendas might cloud the scientific discussion and the risk benefit ratio.
Attention you guys: This is a scientific issue where there should be a discussion about what is going on, including a trusted third party to check what is actually going on in their labs.
I should add that I had a cousin who did research for Merck, and need to note that those doing research on new drugs and vaccines are trying to help the sick, not make money.
Yes, criticize the problem cases, but don't pretend that a small percentage of corrupt people are the rule.
I was just listening to a highfalutin video discussion of geopolitics, and one thing the expert noted that China had a problem because they don't allow criticism or nay sayers.
So I think it is a good thing that at least this type of non PC discussion can now be done on Twitter, where the fair minded can criticize while flaming the nut cases who exaggerate.
So now, the UK Mail reports that hey, don't wait for China to develop the next dangerous virus by doing gain of function research when scientists in Boston can do it.
Boston University scientists were today condemned for 'playing with fire' after it emerged they had created a lethal new Covid strain in a laboratory.
DailyMail.com revealed the team had made a hybrid virus — combining Omicron and the original Wuhan strain — that killed 80 per cent of mice in a study.
the UK Mail, a tabloid whose articles make it easy to read although they do tend to emphasize the dramatic part of the story, nevertheless has a good explanation of what is gain of function research, and what the scientists were looking for.
DISCUSSION
203 This study provides important insights into Omicron pathogenicity. We show that spike, the
204 single most mutated protein in Omicron, has an incomplete role in Omicron attenuation. In in vitro
205 infection assays, the Omicron spike-bearing ancestral SARS-CoV-2 (Omi-S) exhibits much higher
206 replication efficiency compared with Omicron. Similarly, in K18-hACE2 mice, Omi-S contrasts with
207 non-fatal Omicron and causes a severe disease leading to around 80% mortality. This suggests
208 that mutations outside of spike are major determinants of the attenuated pathogenicity of Omicron
209 in K18-hACE2 mice. Further studies are needed to identify those mutations and decipher their
210 mechanisms of action.
Here is the story with the scientists pretending that this was not a problem because, hey, we need to know this and we all know that labs are safe.... and toward the end she congratulates her fellow docs for getting rid of Monkey pox quickly, ignoring that basic public health practices (isolation, closing high risk meetings, outreach to the non Caucasian community) was not done very much.
In a previous post I mentioned that post infection of most antigens/viruses/bacteria/etc. that even if you don't have a lot of antibodies in your blood, your immune cells keep a memory of that infection and quickly rev up and produce antibodies.
Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime
People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, although viral variants could dampen some of the protection they offer...
The study provides evidence that immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be extraordinarily long-lasting. Adding to the good news, “the implications are that vaccines will have the same durable effect”, says Menno van Zelm, an immunologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia..
and LI blog notes:
based on previous experience with the global coronavirus pandemic of 1889 and paired with the fact thatSARC-CoV was engineered to adhere readilyto human respiratory systems, the rules of epidemiology currently followed by the Biden administration may not be applicable.
this is especially true given that China, who bragged their shutdown and other covid policies were successful, now is in the midst of a new outbreak.
In other words, there is a reason behind the hysteria against masks and giving vaccines to those who might be immune or be able to survive a case because they are healthy: because like the yearly influenza jab that we used to give mainly to the elderly and high risk groups, ordinary folks just don't need it because their risk from having the disease is low, and because the covid virus, like the Influenza virus, quickly mutates, so that your shot might not work in everyone. That is why you need a yearly flu vaccine, where the docs try to guess what the next strain will be and make the vaccine to stop that new strain.
Having the US President, who is already in trouble politically because of his clueless withdrawal from Afghanistan, push harsh penalties if you don't take the vaccine or follow isolation rules, is not the way to go: because despite all the censorship in the media. the dissenting voices are still out there and are being believed: because they are now catching the experts in lies (such as denying that the US NIH funded the Wuhan lab, and that those funds enabled them to do gain of function studies that were too dangerous to do in the US, and were banned thanks to liberal activists, but the NIH found a way to slip them money with a loophole)
Indeed, given that the world elites are openly saying that the epidemic proves we need a "reset" of the economy, one does wonder if the hysteria is being hyped so they can do a quick takeover of the world.
Yes, the epidemic is bad: so at first, the hysteria was justified, but now with many in the world either having immunity from the vaccine or from mild cases, the virus is becoming endemic (i.e. around all the time and hitting some people, but at a low rate because most people are immune or have partial immunity meaning they only get mildly sick, although the high risk are still in danger) rather than epidemic (huge number of cases in populations who have no immunity, which leads to deaths as the medical system is overwhelmed).
And the huge cost of economic shutdown has terrible implications for poorer countries, who follow the US lead: Manila continues to be in shut down, meaning hunger and poverty will kill many. Duterte is popular (despite the propaganda you read, his war on drugs kept ordinary people safe and they still support him because of this) but with an election coming up, I won't say the same in the future.
By the way: Here is the Wikipedia article on the 1889 epidemic that we assumed was a type of influenza, and indeed some studies confirmed that. But now there is a question if it was a covid virus.
the reason I bring this up: the same folks pushing hysteria to implement strict rules that are limiting civil rights and controlling behavior are also pushing the global warming hysteria again.
Global warming wasn't big in 1889, nor in past epidemics: what made epidemics rare in the modern world was clean water and having enough food to eat.
|
Sheesh: a lab virus that escaped was the cause of the Covid epidemic, not global warming. But never let an epidemic go to waste.
As a doc, I am aghast at the overreach of authorities here: partly because it is making people distrust not only vaccines but doctors and the public health authorities.
But might I quietly point out that, thanks to vaccines and quarantine, the WHO and other public health authorities stopped epidemics of Yellow fever in Angola (which spread to China before it was controlled) and how new vaccines are now keeping a huge Ebola epidemic under control in Central Africa.
similarly, the big killer is not something exotic, but diarrhea, which can be stopped by clean water supplies (and for cholera and rotovirus, by vaccines).
Bet you never heard of these epidemics, because they can't be weaponized for political purposes in the west.
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update
FDA panel says boosters needed only for high risk people.
StrategyPage has an article about the Philippines, and a lot of it is about Chinese aggression by destroying the ecology by building artificial islands and overfishing by their boats, protected by their "Coast guard"
For example, during the first three months of 2019 China deployed 900 navy, coast guard and naval militia ships around Pagasa Island to block access to fishing areas that Filipinos have been using for centuries. International law makes it clear that these are Filipino waters but the Chinese naval effort, and base constructed on Pagasa, challenge Filipino ownership blatantly and often physically. The Philippines is joining other nations in sending out their own coast guard and navy ships to protect their fishing boats using Chinese tactics. This is leading to more confrontations between mutually hostile warships. Everyone is under orders to not open fire, but everything else is allowed, like physically blocking movement, even at risk of collision. Another threatening tactic is to turn on fire-control radars. Eventually one of these confrontations will accidentally turn lethal. In some parts of the South China Sea and outside the West Pacific, Chinese intruders are met with armed force and the locals open fire. Vietnam has been on the losing end of this sort of thing several times and by the time the Philippines were confronted by Chinese claims, they realized they were even less able that Vietnam to oppose the Chinese with force.
Duterte, knowing we are a weak country militarily, tried to make nice, but as the article points out: He was cheated. No investment. No jobs for our OFW but lots of Chinese gangsters coming here. more here.
and the Chinese fraud includes their promise to give us their cruddy vaccine:
The most recent backfire was Chinese developed covid19 vaccine that were provided to the Philippines. This backfired when it was discovered that China was charging the Philippines three or more times per dose as other customers in east Asia and Africa were paying. Moreover, the Chinese vaccine turned out to be much less effective than Western vaccines also available to the Philippines. Worse, all these negotiations and delays in Chinese deliveries have meant that the Philippines will be the last nation in the region to receive enough vaccine to suppress the covid19 threat.
western vaccines are coming, however, as is the Russian Sputnik vaccine.
And there is a minor war about Ivermectin: The health officials want a "test"of it's use, cosing money (and lives) while ignoring the experience of other countries. in the Inquirer the local docs note that widespread use of ivermectin hasn't stopped the outbreak of the new varient in India, and cautioned people from taking the Ivermectin being sold here because no one knows if it's real or a counterfeit medicine (a real problem here is fake, counterfeit, and substandard medicines).
Sigh.
one problem with the Ivermectin is that it is being used in other areas of India than where the present outbreak is killing people, and the study that shows it works is not in a peer reviewed journal. Dr. C summarizes:
and notice few news stories post the obvious: China was the source of the infection that has hurt many countries. That is strange, almost as if the reporter was afraid to mention this obvious fact.
Indeed, I wonder if I will be punished for even mentioning this in my blog.
How bad is it? I linked a film about pedophilia in Hollywood to kuya, and got a warning that it was forbidden. Apparently toward the end of the film they mentioned Pizza gate so was labeled as fake news.
Already commenters on the conspiracy sites are wondering if the outbreak in India was helped along by China, but hey, that's just a paranoia, right?
Across the world, several key mutant strains have emerged thanks to ongoing virus replication in humans. Both ability to replicate and transmit, and a better ability to escape our immune systems, led to the variants establishing themselves as dominant strains across geographies and populations.
The UK variant (B.1.1.7) is at least 30% more transmissible. At a recent webinar, Indian experts observed the “Indian strain” (B.1.617) is similarly transmissible to the UK variant, but there is little evidence so far of it being more lethal than the original virus.
My summary of the good doctor's discussion, but listen if you can.
the first official covid case was found in a Chinese tourist to Rome: so due to tourism (Mainly in the middle/Rome area). But most of the severe cases in the Italian outbreak was in Lombardy, the northern area, where there are many Chinese OFW working in Italy (Mainly in the North where the terrible epidemic killed a lot of people there)?
The antibody tests were done on blood samples collected for another reason about that time and from people who had no obvious illness, so it makes one wonder: were these antibodies due to another covid virus these folks had in the past, or was it from more recent and mild infections brought in by Chinese migrant workers about that time?
A false positive IgG from a similar virus infection in the past is one suspicion.
But...
the positive IgM means a recent infection. And this was found in September, meaning infections arrived in August. All these patients had no symptoms.
There were anecdotal stories of infections causing severe pneumonia in Italy in the fall and winter, thought to be just normal infections due to influenza.
he goes into other evidence from saved swabs and blood tests at the time.
But what about Wuhan? Did they notice an increase in cases of viral pneumonia at that time? Well, in August and September, satellites found increase in traffic/parking in hospitals in Wuhan (usually this is a quiet time for infectious disease, making one wonder if there were infectious pneumonias in the area then). But like most information out of China, you get either lies or silence.
He goes into other possible early cases according to swabs etc.
I seem to remember a similar complaint by commenters in the Seattle/NW USA area that there was an outbreak there before January when the first official cases arrived.
and if I remember correctly, although the early Seattle outbreak was traced to links with China, the New York City outbreak was traced to Italy.
the problem is that there are a lot of viruses that can cause similar symptoms: Which is why the blood and swab tests from asymptomatic people before the epidemic was recognized are important.
For example, I had a lung infection with severe shortness of breath a couple of months ago that improved after 48 hours of prednisone and zithromax.
I never got tested (even going to a lab for tests means you might get infected: A lot of people refuse to go to the doctor, lab, or ER for any reason here).
In the meanwhile, although tourists and foreigners are banned from entering the country, the government is allowing OFW from India to come back home. Meaning of course the new varients will spread here in the near future.
So what about India?
yesterday's video was about the covid outbreak in Mumbai.
The problem is that most of the patients arriving at the hospital are in the late stage of the disease.
Diabetes seems to be a big comorbidity here, since steroids make the blood sugar go up and get secondary fungal infections from this.
sigh.
and the second wave also is going on here, and in Europe.
Well, I'm all in favor of prayer, but it's a year and a half into the epidemic, so what took so long to have the successor of Peter to get around to telling people to ask the Big Guy to help (or specifically to ask his bossy mother to tell him to get involved)?
May is the month of Mary, and our local shrine is the Divina Pastora (The godly/holy shepherdess), because 300 years ago so Spaniard gave a local family a statue of that version of the Virgin, and then miracles happened.
Traditionally people return here to meet with families and have parties: and this includes many ex pats working overseas: Lolo visited for the fiesta for many years. The city parade includes both religious floats and representation of civic and religious groups. For example, Lolo and his fellow World War II veterans traditionally marched with the parade. They then would come back and stay with him in his house, drinking and playing cards and telling stories.
But slowly they got older, and they dropped out: Too old to march, or migrated to the US etc. so their kids could care for them, or died. And then it became too hard for Lolo to march in the hot sun, so he went in a car...
Sigh. The greatest generation is no longer with us: Lolo died a few years ago age 90....
since meetings are verboten, and church services are limited, (and those arriving from overseas get put into quarantine for two weeks) no celebration this year: But here is a video from the local students (the church has a high school, Divina Pastora College).
Kuya is busy with the harvest, and yesterday he held a meal for the workers and their families, and brought home two huge talapia that he had grilled, one for us and one for the staff here.
Today he is back there working with the harvest.
This havest has been good: and the rain during the dry season second harvest means that the farmers may make a profit this time (instead of using money to pay for irrigation water).
The main rice crop field preparation is starting now: No, not the planting but the preparation of the fields, which starts with the summer monsoon rains. Hence the fiesta because the people have some leisure before the monsoon means hard work starts.
The bad news is that it is also the hunger season. Usually the farmers sell their rice quickly, except for a small amount they hold back, and now is about the time they run out of both rice and money from the main harvest. So the second harvest crop should mean less hunger.
Alas, hunger season is worse this year: with the economic shut down, a lot of people in service jobs are not working and have exhasted their savings (and the savings of their relatives) and many from Manila have left there and come home to live with their families in rural areas.
And many overseas workers, also in service jobs, are not being paid or are losing their jobs in the Middle East, in hotels and in tourism, in cargo and cruise ships etc. So their money, which often supports entire families, is also not being sent.
We don't live in a gated community but in a regular middle class neighborhood that includes poor areas nearby and get a lot of requests for rice or small donations of money to buy food.
Our cook reports a lot of local families including those who usually support themselves by working are out of money to buy food and asking for help.
and the vaccine roll out has many problems, which can be blamed on the central government's planning according to this Inquirer editorial. Until the workers get their vaccine, they can't work but the bias against the inferior Chinese vaccine is a problem: a lot of people don't trust it and are waiting for western vaccines.
So the economy is still hurting, and so many groups have opened food pantries, funded by churches or local politicians or left wing groups.
In our town, as I have posted in earlier essays, our mayor is trying to provide food and now is sending food to those in quarantine. And the informal gifts of rice etc. are common to neighbors.
Two problems with the food pantries: One is corruption (politicians, including those who siphon money out of the local budget for their own pockets, are essentially buying votes by giving out food). The other is of course the taking of food by people who don't need it. or who will resell it for a profit. Of course, this last item might just be a way for those who can't travel to the pantry to get cheap food from the younger more entrepenurial types in the neighborhood, or it could be major theft, depending on the details.
Our cook says the local pantry will only give out a one day portion of food to stop this problem.
In other news:
Dr. Angi's office has been cleaned and will reopen Monday. However, the department store next to our house has been closed for a few days because an employee got covid. And the community grocery store was also closed a week ago (and the owner died, and his son was sick, alghouth they probably caught it from their larger store, not the one here).
The federal government delivered 14 million doses of covid vaccine, but hey, it was holiday season so the state health departments only managed to give out 2.6 million shots.
Why? the state health departments didn't bother to prepare adequately for the immunization program. And then they blamed the feds, of course.
Passing the buck to the feds will work because the MSM hates Trumpieboy: And once Biden is in, the MSM will ignore the problems and pretend everything is going hunky dory.
While the federal government has helped to coordinate the distribution of vaccine doses from manufacturers to the states, the coordination of administrating the vaccines has fallen to the states, many of which have been short on money, staff and other resources to smoothly schedule and give doses.
wait a second: This is routine public health. If they knew they would need money, they should have gone to the governor. There was plenty of time to hire and/or train staff to give out the vaccine (after all, this is done every year for influenza, although at a lower level).
As for logistics, well, the logistics for immunizing the population in an epidemic should have been "war gamed" and written in detail long before this epidemic by the states, in the same way they do emergency planning for disasters: tornado? Flood? pull out the plans that should be there waiting to give you guidelines on what to do.
The dirty little secret is that the public health departments of states do not have a lot of experience in handling epidemics. They are observers and bean counters, not generals who plan a fight.
If they needed money, the governor of the state should have arranged to transfer funds to them for this. But of course it's easier to blame the feds and Trumpieboy (but of course, two minutes after Biden takes over, you won't hear any complaints about this in the MSM..)
another reason for delay of giving out the vaccine according to several reports was the "holidays"... uh, in an emergency you don't take a holiday.
then they claim staff need to take a day off after getting the shot. But most folks don't get sick after the first shot except for maybe a sore arm. (most fever and flu symptom reactions, which area also rare, are after the second shot).
And then the showstorms were to blame. But usually snow is cleared from the major streets in one or two days, so that can't be the reason.
they all complained to the MSM that it was Trumpieboy's fault... because the feds needed to send them money.
But the money was in the stimulus bill, which that Nancy Pelosi could have passed long before the election but didn't let it go through because it might help Trump.
Now it has finally passed (it could have been passed in September) and Trump is delaying it a few days to take out pork and other stuff that have nothing to do with helping American cope with covid epidemic. So the MSM will point to Trump for a few days delaying the bill, not the political shenanigans behind the real delay of weeks if not months that actually occurred..
The MSM quoted Biden's team who blamed Trump's 'amateurs" in charge of the roll out, ignoring that he had tasked the military to do the planning, partly because the CDC and FDA took so long to authorize a test early in the epidemic. One should know that the Military does have expertise in such logistics and indeed the National Guard and other units have helped in tracing contacts in rural areas.
sigh.
One of the big lessons of the Covid epidemic is the failure of the public health establishment.
and alas one reason that people don't trust the vaccine and are ignoring masks etc. is that they see the failures and no longer trust the system.
sigh
The press seems to imply that absolutely everyone will need a shot (and maybe get a paper saying they had the shot). But is that true?
The dirty little secret is that the majority of deaths is in the old or in those with other diseases, so if these people and the frontline workers (who are at risk because they are exposed more heavily) are vaccinated first, then the rest of the population might not need a vaccination immediately because they won't get too sick and the death rate for them is very very low. This is why some countries are hoping for "herd immunity": let everyone get it and the epidemic will stop.
In summary: to stop the deaths, the vaccine needs to be quickly given to those who are at risk of dying.
I have been pretty hard on the public health authorities, but I should point out that when they actually do their job, they can stop disease from spreading.
The state health departments are not always at fault and have done wonderful jobs in the past when tasked to fight epidemics:
I am thinking of the hepatitis epidemic in California homeless in San Diego, that took them two years to stop... the epidemic was was ignored for months but when they finally decided to stop it, they did manage to get it done despite a lot of logistical problems and a population with many comorbidities (homeless, drug and mental health problems, uncooperative patients who thought the vaccine was a conspiracy to hurt them, etc.). And this was funded, not by the feds but by the city.
So it can be done if there is a will to do it.
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update:
Was the release of the virus from China just the result of bureaucratic inertia, or was it a planned attack to increase China's status by spreading the infection?
China's dictatorship concealed its callous decision to infect planet Earth. It quickly deployed a propaganda and narrative warfare campaign utilizing its worldwide political, economic, academic and intelligence agency assets.
China's communist dictatorship decided to wage a new form of bio-economic war on human beings worldwide.
Pay careful attention (for bribed critics and ChiCom trolls will not). I'm not arguing the virus was a bio-weapon in the military and medical definition of a biological attack on animals or plants. I am arguing the CCP leadership allowed the virus to spread beyond China so every other nation would suffer the disease's medical, economic and social consequences.
no, not from a conspiracy site but from military analyst Austin Bay.
I have been in bed with the stomach flu for the last two days (probably food poisoning, since the dog was also vomiting). I wasn't too sick but the anti nausea and anti diarrhea medicine makes me sleep all day.
Today I am better.
In other news: The church that meets in our meeting room has again been given permission to use the room, as long as they notify Kuya for when they plan meetings outside of the Sunday schedule.
Joy and Kuya continue to be busy with the rice harvest/selling rice business.
the politization of the vaccine is not good: (so Pfizer won't attend the WH summit trying to publicize the plan to vaccinate and maybe get the very politicized CDC to actually bother to review the results in a timely matter, because exactly why? And don't get me started on the political shennanigans behind the delayed stimulus package, which came down to give money to leftist causes or no money for ordinary folks, and anyway, delaying the help will harm Trumpieboy).
the problem of course is that a lot of this fake antivax scepticism translates to being seen as facts> so only one third of Pinoys plan to get the vaccine, and another one third might get it, according to the Inquirer. WTF?
but it might not be just the political stuff: Lots of rumors in the anti vax internet about the mRNA vaccine might cause infertility. (they argue Bill Gates wants to lower the population and hey, why not use a vaccine to do this?).
This is, of course, a variation of the "tetanus/measles/ etc vaccines contain HCG to make you miscarry" hoax that has been going on at least since the early 1990s.
Ah, but not all the vaccines are mRNA based. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccine use this new technology, whereas the Oxford and Russian vaccine just put the antigen on cold viruses (the Oxford vaccine onto a Chimpanzee virus, the Russian vaccine used a human cold virus) to make the vaccine the old fashioned way.
so do you chose the fancy new technology that might have long term side effects from a new way to invoke immunity, or do you want to risk the old fashioned way and risk the mutation of an cold virus?
and since the mRNA vaccine requires very very cold storage, one could argue that for poorer countries the old fashioned vaccines should be used.
but it gets more complicated than that: China has 3 vaccines, including one that uses mRNA technology. I'll have to google when I have more time about more information on their program, which has already given the vaccine to one million people (because as I have noted before, the hysteria of side effects is less in poorer countries: hey, a few dead from vaccine is better than dead from the disease or from hunger related deaths due to shutting the economy)
The Chinese are seeking to sell their vaccine to the Philippines, but as this article notes: the company pushing the vaccine has used bribery in the past to push their products or to influence officials to approve of their stuff.
Given the suspicion that the Dengue Vaccine debacle was partly due to gifting people to allow this (then) unproven vaccine be given out here, the suspicion of any new vaccine is high, especially one from China, whose reputation in selling fake and low potency counterfeit drugs is notorious.
My solution? Give the vaccine to us who are at high risk: i.e. elders, the chronically ill, and the high risk professions e.g. health care and food workers.
Yes I'd take it: as for side effects? Well, I got severe side effects from other vaccines (especially typhoid vaccine, which put me in bed for 48 hours) so yes I figure I'd get side effects: but as a doc, I have seen the actual diseases (and seen people die of measles, typhoid, whooping cough, tetanus and influenza) and figure it's worth the risk.
If young women fearing infertility don't want to take it, no problem. Ditto for kids.
And indeed, that will probably be the plan here, since there isn't enough money or available vaccine for everyone.
notice nothing is 100 percent: but your odds are good for not getting the covid virus is you get the vaccine. Here is one discussion on the data, and other videos with some information about the Philippine's plans in the other videos.
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,,,,,ah, but as the saying goes: The devil is in the details. And a spoiled vaccine doesn't work.
This discusses the problem of cold storage so that the vaccine does not spoil:
the Pfizer vaccine requires ultra cold storage, which is not available in most places in the Philippines.
But the Moderna vaccine only requires cold storage that can be found in ordinary refrigerators.
....A key advantage of Moderna's vaccine is that it does not need ultra-cold storage like Pfizer's, making it easier to distribute. Moderna expects it to be stable at standard refrigerator temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 48°F) for 30 days and it can be stored for up to 6 months at -20 degrees Celsius.
Pfizer’s vaccine must be shipped and stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius, the sort of temperature typical of an Antarctic winter. At standard refrigerator temperatures, it can be stored for up to five days.
In Africa, we ran into this problem when the measles vaccine was first released in the 1970s. We did have a refrigerator that would stay cool for 24 hours without electricity, so we could keep it frozen, but many small clinics in the small villages did not, so we had to bring it and give the inoculations in a way that the vaccine was still cold until it was ready to be given.
And then how did we transport this for our baby clinic outreach sites that might take an hour or two to get there and another couple of hours to do the inoculations? we used a beer cooler tub with lots and lots of ice.
I posted a link to this BBC article about the difficulties in getting measles vaccine in the DRC to rural patients to stop an epidemic that has killed 7000 children so far.
one will see a similar problem with the covid vaccine: and as for the Pfizer vaccine that requires ultra cold storage: sorry, no way that it will be a practical answer for stopping the epidemic in poor countries.
Tony Blair's organization has a long report about the problem of getting the vaccine into Africa: LINK
and for you conspiracy types: Yes it discusses covid passes so you can travel.
But it also points out that these infectious disease passes have been used for years: In the past, you needed one for small pox, and you still need one if you are traveling from an area with Yellow fever.
In the USA, they celebrate Haloween, in Mexico the celebrate the day of the dead, but here they have Undas, where the family visits the graves of their loved ones, cleans up and decorates the grave, and then stays awhile and has a picnic.
Not this year, however...Here the mayor explains why the cemeteries are closed for Undas,
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oh well... after Lolo died, I would visit his grave almost every day the first year and after that about once a week. But since the virus hit, I haven't been there at all. I haven't been at mass either, or gone to the mall for almost a year.
But one problem with the cemeteries being closed is that funerals are also delayed: so the little old lady who lives next door had to remain unburied for 6 days.
No, not Covid: She was 90 years old and was sitting outside in the morning and felt sick and came in the house and died quietly.
She has lots of relatives: so delaying a funeral is not unusual... often the burial is delayed for overseas relatives, but of course, now no body is coming in from overseas because they might have to wait in quarantine for two weeks. (Latest rules are here because they keep changing).
well,l anyway, they held a wake at her home since she died, and there are a lot of neighbors and extended family coming to visit. Usually this means you come and say a quick prayer and then sit around eating snacks and socializing: Often the men play cards outside under an awning.... so it means the street is partly blocked, and we have cars and tricycles parked in front of our garage. No problem: We parked the large truck in the front garden.
Last night they had music to entertain the visitors, with a singer and recorded music. But this morning, they hired a band to play very sad music that makes me want to cry...
usually the band accompanies the deceased to the church and then to the cemetery. However, churches are still closed, so no Mass. Father will bless the gravesite and say prayers for her there.
No, I am not going with them: to far for me to walk in procession, but the cook is going and I gave her money for a tricycle. She and our secretary will represent our family at the funeral.
The cook goes to all the funerals: She is probably related to half the people in our barangay (neighborhood) and she knows everyone and knows all the news and rumors in our town.
Joy had a rice delivery today and has to drop off some papers, and will try to pick up my renewed retirement visa papers. Due to the virus, they don't expect me to pick it up myself as I had to do in past years.
The young men accompanying the delivery arrived at 3:20 a.m. and kept ringing the bell and got all the dogs upset, so the noise woke me up. The truck and driver arrived at 4 am,.. the traffic to Manila is terrible, and although without traffice it takes 3 hours, sometimes it actually takes 5 hours and more if the inspection line is long. The road is improved from when we first moved here, but with increased prosperity it means more cars and trucks too.
so anyway I've been up since 3:30 am and will probably go back to sleep after lunch.
Kuya harvested rice at the farm yesterday, and may finish drying it today if the sunshine continues. There is alas another typhoon due to hit the Philippines but this one is aiming at the far north, so unless it is large, we shouldn't be bothered with heavy rain.
They were very worried about Typhoon last week, but luckily for Manila and for us, it changed course south a bit and missed us... it hit a less populated rural area, and it went through quickly (meaning not dumping a lot of rain to flood everywhere).
About 20 typhoons and storms annually batter the Philippines, and the Southeast Asian archipelago is seismically active, with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
and not just earthquakes, volcanoes and typhoons: Don't forget Dengue fever. There seems to be fewer cases this year, probably because everyone stayed inside due to covid.
A year after the national dengue epidemic was declared, she said reported dengue cases have dropped from 430,282 in 2019 to 59,675 in 2020... dengue deaths have also significantly dropped from 1,612 deaths in 2019 to 231 in 2020.
the ministry said total confirmed cases had increased to 388,137, while deaths had reached 7,367. The Philippines has the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Southeast Asia behind Indonesia.
The US moderna vaccine should have been released in September, but has been held up because of Politics, which seems crazier than usual in the USA this year. Yup. let people die because Trump. And of course the anti vaxers would let thousands die rather than risk a dozen deaths from side effects.
and this doesn't count the deaths from malnutrition and because people aren't getting treatable diseases treated because they are afraid of going to the hospital.
The problem? It wasn't true. Not only wasn't it true, but the vaccine hadn't been used yet anywhere in the Philippines.
A more recent report (Oct 5) from AFP in the Japanese Times notes that not only is this disinformation about a vaccine that hasn't been used, but that the anti vax movement here in the Philippines is killing children.
The background of the problem? The Dengue vaccine scandal where an unproven vaccine caused several deaths in children.
The problem? The children were not properly screened, and should never have received the vaccine.
And the outrage was made worse because a lot of folks think corruption might have allowed an unsafe vaccine be used, and that the western drug company was using the Philippine people as a guinea pig.
but it wasn't the vaccine that killed a lot of kids: It was the fact that the well publicized "scandal" scared a lot of parents, so they didn't get their kids vaccinated against anything.
Childhood immunization rates have plummeted in the country — from 87 percent in 2014 to 68 percent — resulting in a measles epidemic and the re-emergence of polio last year.
A highly politicized campaign that led to the withdrawal of dengue vaccine Dengvaxia in 2017 is widely seen as one of the main drivers of the fall.
Fast forward to Covid, where the opposition to Trump, not scientific data, seems to be fueling anti covid vaccine hysteria in the USA...
But part of the hysteria is also from poor coverage by the press, but especially from short quotes on social media. These quotes are usually taken out of context, or they emphasize distrust if recommendations change, or where recommendations are based on different circumstances (e.g. masks where nuanced discussions about different types of masks, who should or should not use them, or where they should be used is often lacking).
And then there are headlines that emphasize one fact, whereas if you read the entire article, you find that the headline is false.
Alas, similar anti vax stuff is all over the internet, in both right and left wing fringe blogs and social media.
This is not reality, but social contagion similar to the phenomenum described in the book
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (which was) an early study of crowd psychology by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, (1841) which describes the psychological basis of everything from the witch trials to the crusades to the tulip craze to why people believe in ghosts to economic fads that resulted in major economic problems when that bubble burst.
That was 1841, but now with Twitter and Facebook etc. it is easier for rumors to spread, so the paranoid delusions often spread quickly and are hard to debunk.
In the Philippines, according to the AFP article, the anti vax disinformation is spread mainly via Facebook.
I believe this, because everyone here, even the lower middle class and even our farmers, have access to a smart phone or an internet cafe, and the younger generation live on Facebook and other social media sites.
This anti vax opposition thrives on fear, and there is a lot of fear of the virus here in the Philippines.
add to that a distrust of the government, made worse by an anti Duterte social media among the elite and students...Although outside of this bubble, ordinary folks trust Duterte (80%) on getting the vaccine, the trust of "experts" might be lower....
and ordinary folks are being overwhelmed by what they read on the social media.
What is usually lacking is common sense, knowledge of the nuances of how vaccines work (including their side effects and limitations) and especially, the cost benefit ratio: that a dozen people suffering from side effects is better than tens of thousands sick or dead from the actual disease.
Sigh.
the nuanced discussion of this is on medical sites, of course, (medical discussions recognize the cost benefit ratio and the shortcomings of any vaccine but also recognizes the huge benefits from such vaccines. These sites also include information on who should should get the vaccine, who should not, and what is a side effect and what is not related to the vaccine).
here's an example of what we docs learn: notice it's 2 hours long and full of complicated data.
So how many people will watch the long lecture, let alone understand it.
In contrast, a short tweet or facebook post with paranoid anger behind it will be read by many and alas believed.
To make things worse: much of this anti vax fad is associated with the idea that natural living is better, and all medicines are bad. Use an herb, not a medicine that might cure you. Natural methods are better (really? How could anyone believe that here, when people die of diseases easily treated by western medicine?)
So (to paraphrase Monty Python): What good has vaccinations done for us anyway?
but how can calm reasoning compete with the paranoid fringe theories out there: Again from the AFP article:
"I trust vaccines 100 percent,” said Jett Bucho, from a poor neighborhood of San Jose del Monte, after her one-year-old daughter was immunized against polio.
But the 26-year-old said online conspiracy theories that a coronavirus vaccine could be used to implant chips and control humans had planted a seed of doubt in her mind.
“On Facebook, if you keep scrolling, you see this,” she said.
“It’s scary.”
