Follow the Science? How COVID Authoritarians Get It Wrong

[swordfish]

[swordfish]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/30/cdc-study-shows-74percent-of-people-infected-in-massachusetts-covid-outbreak-were-fully-vaccinated.html

About three-fourths of people infected in a Massachusetts Covid-19 outbreak were fully vaccinated against the coronavirus with four of them ending up in the hospital, according to new data published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new data, published in the U.S. agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, also found that fully vaccinated people who get infected carry as much of the virus in their nose as unvaccinated people, and could spread it to other individuals.

“This finding is concerning and was a pivotal discovery leading to CDC’s updated mask recommendation,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. “The masking recommendation was updated to ensure the vaccinated public would not unknowingly transmit virus to others, including their unvaccinated or immunocompromised loved ones.”

On Tuesday, the CDC reversed course on its prior guidance and recommended fully vaccinated Americans who live in areas with high Covid infection rates resume wearing face masks indoors. The guidelines cover about two-thirds of the U.S. population, according to a CNBC analysis.

While the delta variant continues to hit unvaccinated people the hardest, some vaccinated people could be carrying higher levels of the virus than previously understood and are potentially transmitting it to others, Walensky told reporters on a call Tuesday. She added the variant behaves “uniquely differently from past strains of the virus.”

A CDC document that was reviewed by CNBC warned that the delta variant sweeping across the country is as contagious as chickenpox, has a longer transmission window than the original Covid strain and may make older people sicker, even if they’ve been fully vaccinated.

Delta, now in at least 132 countries and already the dominant form of the disease in the United States, is more transmissible than the common cold, the 1918 Spanish flu, smallpox, Ebola, MERS and SARS, according to the document. Only measles appears to spread faster than the variant.

The data published Friday was based on 469 cases of Covid associated with multiple summer events and large public gatherings held in July in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, which encompasses Cape Cod and is just outside Martha’s Vineyard. The events were held in Provincetown, according to NBC News. Approximately three-quarters, or 74%, of the cases occurred in fully vaccinated people who had completed a two-dose course of the mRNA vaccines or received a single shot of Johnson & Johnson’s.

Overall, 274 vaccinated patients with a breakthrough infection were symptomatic, according to the CDC. The most common side effects were cough, headache, sore throat, muscle pain and fever. Among five Covid patients who were hospitalized, four were fully vaccinated, according to the agency. No deaths were reported.

Testing identified the delta variant in 90% of specimens from 133 patients.

While numerous studies have shown that the vaccines don’t work as well against the delta variant as they did against other strains, health officials say they are still highly effective, especially in protecting against severe illness and death. Roughly 97% of new hospitalizations and 99.5% of deaths in the U.S. are among unvaccinated individuals, U.S. health officials repeated this week.

The CDC also said the data has limitations. The agency noted that as population-level vaccination coverage increases, vaccinated persons are likely to represent a larger proportion of Covid cases. Additionally, asymptomatic breakthrough infections might be underrepresented because of detection bias, the agency said.

The CDC also said the report is “insufficient” to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the authorized vaccines against Covid, including the delta variant, during this outbreak.

Wait a tic......All SF has heard the past weeks is "the unvaccinated" is the cause of the spread.......According to this from CNBC - the vaccinated seem to be the greater source of the spread......

Yeahbut - that was in Massachusetts.....so yeah......

 

 

[Muda69]

New York City Adopts Vaccine Passports

https://reason.com/2021/08/03/new-york-city-adopts-vaccine-passports/

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America is getting its first real vaccine passports. On Tuesday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that, soon, proof of vaccination will be required to enjoy the city's bars, restaurants, gyms, and concert venues.

"We know that strong, clear mandates help," said de Blasio during a press conference announcing his "Key to NYC" initiative. "If you're vaccinated, you have the key. You can open the door. If you're unvaccinated, unfortunately, you will not be allowed to participate in many things."

The new rules apply to customers and workers alike.

The mayor's policy goes far beyond the city's vaccination efforts thus far, which have been limited to positive incentives, like a $100 reward for getting vaccinated, or more targeted vaccine requirements aimed at healthcare workers and new city government hires.

Some restaurants and fitness centers, including Equinox and SoulCycle, have already required their members to get vaccinated.

The policy will go into effect on August 16. The mayor said that city inspections of businesses to ensure enforcement of the new rules will begin in early September.

The reaction from the business interests who'll have to enforce this new mandate has been mixed.

"Mandating vaccine requirements for restaurant and bar employees and customers to work and dine indoors is a very difficult step but ultimately may prove an essential move," said Andrew Rigie, head of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, in a statement. It could prevent even more burdensome "shut down orders that would again absolutely devastate small businesses that have not yet recovered from the pandemic," he added.

The National Restaurant Association (NRA), in contrast, came out against the new requirement.

"Checking vaccination status isn't like ID-ing a customer before serving them a drink," Larry Lynch, the NRA's senior vice president of science and industry, told NBC. "Now, without training, our staff members are expected to check the vaccine status of every customer wanting to eat inside the establishment."

Those opposed to vaccine passports might also be concerned that the policy will soon spread to other jurisdictions. That's something de Blasio is banking on.

"We're seeing California follow suit. We're seeing the federal government follow suit," he said at today's press conference in reference to the city's past pandemic policies.

The COVID-19 vaccines are a real miracle of modern medicine. Their recipients, while still vulnerable to infection, face almost no risk of serious illness or death.

People who decline to get vaccinated at this point might not be making a wise decision. Nevertheless, it's themselves and other unvaccinated people that they're principally putting at risk.

Well, I won't be visiting New York City anytime soon.  And yes, I am fully vaccinated.  Have been since late May.

 

[swordfish]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/04/entertainment/offspring-pete-parada-vaccine-trnd/index.html

(CNN)Pete Parada says he's been dropped from his band The Offspring and their tour over his refusal to get vaccinated.

The drummer posted a lengthy note on his verified Instagram account saying that he had some "unfortunate and difficult news to share."

"Given my personal medical history and the side-effect profile of these jabs, my doctor has advised me not to get a shot at this time," his note read.

"I caught the virus over a year ago, it was mild for me - so I am confident I'd be able to handle it again, but I'm not so certain I'd survive another post-vaccination round of Guillain-Barre Syndrome which dates back to my childhood and has evolved to be progressively worse over my lifetime."

 

The Delta variant has been spreading rapidly among the those who are not vaccinated and there have been increasing requirements from concert organizers to corporations requiring people to take the vaccine.

Parada wrote in his note that "Since I am unable to comply with what is increasingly becoming an industry mandate, it has recently been decided that I am unsafe to be around, in the studio, and on tour."

"I mention this because you won't be seeing me at these upcoming shows," he said. "I also want to share my story so that anyone else experiencing the agony and isolation of getting left behind right now knows they're not entirely alone."

He also said he has "no negative feelings" toward the band he's been a part of since 2007.

"They're doing what they believe is best for them, while I am doing the same," his note read. "Wishing the entire Offspring family all the best as they get back at it!"

CNN has reached out to reps for the band for comment.

And so it begins.  The guy is advised by his physician not to get the vaccine due to medical complications that have plagued him all his life, and now those vaccinated bandmates kick him out.   

Seems kinda "Vaccist" to me.......

 

[swordfish]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/03/delta-plus-coronavirus-variant-explained/

South Korea’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Tuesday that it had recorded at least two cases of the new coronavirus delta-plus variant, which some experts believe to be more transmissible than the original delta variant that was first detected in India and has since thwarted plans for returning to life before the pandemic.

But what do we know about “delta plus,” yet another new variant causing alarm among governments and health officials? First identified in Europe in March, the variant is also known as B. 1.617.2.1 or AY.1.

It has been detected in several countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States and India.

Last month, experts in India labeled the variant one of concern and warned that it appeared to be more transmissible than most. Citing studies, the country’s health ministry said that the variant has the ability to bind more easily to lung cells and could be resistant to therapies used to treat the infection.Union science and technology minister Jitendra Singh announced Friday that up to 70 cases of the delta-plus variant were detected in genome sequencing as of July 23, Hindustan Times reported.

How India has weathered the devastation of the delta variant and how it has named the delta-plus variant as one of concern should place public health leaders on notice, said James E.K. Hildreth, president and chief executive of Meharry Medical College.

“We’ve got to be more willing to consider observations made in other countries dealing with [the coronavirus],” he said, noting that the relative of the highly contagious delta variant is concerning. “Again, we saw what happen with delta in India and how quickly it spread … Why would we think the delta-plus variant would be different?”

The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium has since said that the delta-plus variant is unlikely to be more transmissible than the delta variant and trends have yet to emerge, according to Hindustan Times.

The variant was listed as one of concern by the international health agency, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it will continue to evaluate its independent classification.

However, Melita Vujnovic, World Health Organization representative to Russia, said last month that face coverings and vaccinations will be needed to fight the latest variant.

Last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that Europe was still “on thin ice” and expressed caution that authorities across the continent should remain “cautiously optimistic.”

“We must remain watchful, new variants in particular, notably the delta variant, mean we must be cautious,” she said during her last government statement.

In the United Kingdom, where more than 72 percent of adults have been fully vaccinated, the delta variant has accounted for nearly all new infections, even though coronavirus cases overall are on the decline.

At least 39 confirmed cases of the delta-plus variant have been found in the country, along with six probable ones, according to a July briefing from Public Health England.

The virus has not appeared to have gained intense traction on British soil, said Colin Angus, a public health policy modeler and analyst in England.

The “plus” of the variant’s name refers to its K417N spike protein mutation, which was also found in some substrains of the alpha variant — the dominant strain in the country before the delta variant — but the substrains never got a foothold, he explained.

“To date, there is no clear evidence that it conveys enough of a benefit to the virus to allow it to dominate the original delta variant,” he said. “So although it is clearly here, there is no obvious sign that it has gained a foothold over existing variants of the virus.”

Angus also noted that delta-plus cases have primarily been in younger people but that preliminary data has shown that antibodies from vaccinated people are still effective against the variant.

“This was in a very small sample,” he said of the data. “We need more evidence to get a clear picture about any possible advantage against vaccines that delta plus may have, but the fact that we haven’t seen it clearly outcompete delta despite having been found in several countries with high vaccination rates, suggests that any advantage can only be very small.”

Richard Novak, head of the Division of Infectious Diseases at University of Illinois Health, said it is too soon to say how the delta-plus variant could evade vaccines or whether it is more infectious than the original.

He noted that the variant is alarming, as it is related to the more contagious delta variant and coming at a time when breakthrough cases are popping up among the vaccinated.

“This is just a process of natural selection and selecting viruses that are more contagious. All viruses want to do is reproduce themselves. The ones that do become the dominant virus,” he said. “We’re going to see other variants. It’s on a continuum. The variants are likely to get more efficient as time goes on.”

The variant and the others that the CDC is monitoring greatly underscore the need for ramped-up vaccination efforts, Hildreth said, pointing out the large swaths of the population who are still unvaccinated and minority communities with underlying health conditions that make them more susceptible to variants.

“The virus is not going to wait around for us to get our act together,” he said. “We’re in danger of something that’s going to set us back.”

Is anyone else NOT surprised?  The "Delta Plus" variant......That's gonna be worse than the Delta, that's already worse than the original.....(but it's really not).....

[Muda69]

These "proof of vaccination" mandates are a very slippery slope.  

Make no mistake about it. The "proof of vaccination" mandate doesn't merely threaten another shutdown, it threatens to implement a Chinese-style social credit system. The precedent they are aiming at is this: if your name isn't in the master database of the vaxxed, you won't be allowed to transact in any kind of brick-and-mortar business or enter any access-controlled venue. Once the people are trained to go along with such a system, the requirements will expand.

It will all be done in the name of public health of course. Maybe you'll have to show proof that your drug and alcohol test is clean. Maybe you'll have to show proof that you've received your anti-racism training. Maybe you'll need proof that you don't have any mental health issues related to "extremist" political tendencies or websites that spread "misinformation" (like reason.com).

Perhaps you won't even know what your official status is as it is updated, since you'll only see an incomprehensible QR code on your smartphone--but the internet-connected scanner will be able to figure it out and inform some obedient moron whether you pass or not. Then you'll realize that you are an unperson but won't quite know why, just like all the people who have been purged from social media lately.

[swordfish]

https://nypost.com/2021/08/04/we-must-hear-from-this-man-devine/

On the 17th floor of a non-descript Manhattan office building, opposite Hudson Yards, part of the deadliest coverup in human history was hatched last year, alleges a devastating congressional report into the origins of Covid-19

There, on the corner of 34th street and 10th Avenue, is the headquarters of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit devoted to “Wildlife Conservation”, whose big-noting, British-born founder, Peter Daszak, somehow wound up at the center of a pandemic that has killed millions of people around the world.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee Republican minority report, released this week, found “strong evidence that suggests Daszak is the public face of a CCP [Chinese Communist Party] disinformation campaign designed to suppress public discussion about a potential lab leak.

“Daszak attempted to hide his close association with [China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology] while he referred to anyone in the scientific community who said a lab leak should be investigated as promoting a ‘conspiracy theory’.”

What an irony, considering this is the very same Daszak whose word was treated as gospel by Facebook when it censored any mention that the virus leaked from the Chinese lab he part funded that was conducting Frankenstein “gain of function” research on bat viruses. Talk about a conflict of interest. Daszak, 55, has studiously avoided answering questions asked by Congress about what happened in Wuhan.

While EcoHealth didn’t do research, the government agencies which funded it — the NIH, the Department of Defense, USAID — relied on Daszak to procure disease samples in foreign countries, said a former colleague of Daszak.

“The process of collecting disease samples requires having all the necessary contacts in the foreign country, the politics aligned in that country, and the money,” according to the ex-colleague.

In other words, the money was for access to Chinese viruses, Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIAID director, and leaders of the NIH, always had final approval authority on grants and contracts.

Daszak was working hand in glove with Fauci, our top expert directing the nation’s response to the pandemic. Together, they wilfully misled us about the origin of the virus. They were willing to run the Chinese line and defend the Wuhan Institute this past year, even after the State Department confirmed that military research was being conducted there.

Daszak’s orchestration of the shameful Lancet letter in February 2020, “debunking” the lab leak hypothesis as a “conspiracy theory” is highlighted in the congressional report.

It quotes from emails which “show Daszak’s effort to organize a large group of scientists to sign onto a statement that he personally drafted,” taking care that EcoHealth alliance was not linked to the letter. “We’ll… put it out in a way that doesn’t link it back to our collaboration,” he wrote in one of the emails The Lancet declared at the time that the authors had “no competing interest,” despite the fact Daszak organized the letter on behalf of the Chinese researchers “who he funded and with whom he collaborated”, said the congressional report.

It is a scandal which the once prestigious medical journal has never properly acknowledged. It just quietly, four months later, added an update suggesting Daszak might have ”competing interests”

Daszak and his Chinese collaborators engaged in “bullying other scientists who questioned whether the virus could have leaked from a lab; misleading the world about how a virus can be modified without leaving a trace; and, in many, instances directly lying about the nature of the research they were conducting, as well as the low-level safety protocols they were using for that research,” said the congressional report.

He appeared to spend much of last year isolating in the affluent arcadia of Rockland County in his million-dollar two-storey gabled white clapboard, nestled between a country club and the forests of the Ramapo Mountains.

But someone disturbed his peace last August, when the FBI reportedly paid him a call after he reported receiving an envelope in the mail containing white powder. The following day Daszak got physical with a News 12 cameraman filming outside his house. The footage which aired that night showed a strenuous tussle for the camera and an angry Daszak can be heard saying “Go away”.

Ever since, Daszak has successfully evaded scrutiny.

At last, the finger of blame is pointing directly at him, from Congress. But this was a GOP-only report. Democrats refused to use their majority powers to issue subpoenas and compel Daszak to give evidence. There’s no excuse for that.

The origin of the pandemic should be a bipartisan issue. If we don’t know what happened in Wuhan in 2019, how can we avoid a repeat performance?

 

Naw - it's just a conspiracy theory.....

[Muda69]

A Black Market in COVID-19 Vaccination Cards Was Inevitable

https://reason.com/2021/08/11/a-black-market-in-covid-19-vaccination-cards-was-inevitable/

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Given my warnings about the dawning age of vaccine passports, it shouldn't have surprised me when my phone rang over the weekend and an old college buddy asked if I could hook him up with a forged COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card. For the record, I can't help with that, but plenty of other people can. Proliferating requirements for proof of vaccination by schools, employers, and governments have, inevitably, spawned a thriving industry in bogus documents for use by those who don't want to get jabbed, or who resent being bossed around.

Back in February, when vaccines were young and we were all pretending to be innocent, the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned that posting photos online of vaccine cards could invite ID theft and, more convincingly, that people were "using the vaccination cards placed onto social media to forge vaccination cards and selling them for profit."

Later, the FBI called out active markets in forged cards and arrested vendors of the documents. "The unauthorized use of an official government agency's seal on such cards is a crime that may be punishable under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1017, and other federal laws," warn the feds. "Penalties may include hefty fines and prison time."

Note that black market vendors of bogus vaccine cards began appearing prior to New York City requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for entry to the city's bars, restaurants, gyms, and concert venues. Demand for their wares can only grow now that other jurisdictions are floating similar requirements.

Even before local governments seriously considered requiring shots, employers and colleges began the trend. The federal government, Microsoft, Tyson Foods, and Walmart are among the larger employers mandating vaccination for some or all on-site workers. Tyson suffered COVID-19 closures at plants as early as spring of 2020, and fears further disruption from outbreaks among its workforce.

Colleges, too, worry about large numbers of people in close quarters in classrooms and dormitories. As of this week, The Chronicle of Higher Education counts 675 campuses requiring students and employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

But a lot of people are hesitant about the vaccine, or else just don't like being told what to do. The CEO of Snap-On told the Wall Street Journal that his company rejected mandates for fear of angering workers. Instead, the tool company offers incentives for getting vaccinated, including time off. Other companies pay bonuses for vaccination rather than tick-off people on whom they rely—Walmart offers $150 for getting a shot, while steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs sweetens the pot with four figures.

That's creative thinking, because ticked-off people resistant to vaccines or just resentful of mandates fuel the black market for vaccination documents. A recent Associated Press investigation found bogus vaccination certificates for sale across social media and on dark web sites for as little as $25. The main customers to-date appear to be college students satisfying school requirements before registering for classes, but more mandates from employers and governments can only mean increased demand.

Of course, the flimsy CDC-issued COVID-19 Vaccination Record Cards aren't exactly high-tech documents designed with security in mind. They require nothing more than a scanner/printer, some card stock, and a few minutes to duplicate for those who care to do the job themselves. That's why governments and businesses are turning to digital vaccine passports that are supposed to be both durable and resistant to fraud. But early efforts haven't been entirely successful.

"I forged it in 11 minutes," Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, warned in April about New York's much-ballyhooed Excelsior Pass. "Not only do the security promises of New York's Excelsior Pass fail to hold up to scrutiny, but the tracking tech raises an alarming array of public health, equity, and civil rights questions that remain unanswered."

More recently, NBC News's Cyrus Farivar got the NYC Covid Safe App to accept a menu from a barbecue restaurant as proof of vaccination. While it's true that a rack of ribs will cure most ills, that's not much of an endorsement for the app's reliability.

"Some of the apps we've seen are made by companies for whom creating secure health passes isn't a sole focus," point out the Washington Post's Chris Velazco and Geoffrey A. Fowler in a review of competitors in the field. "Others might try to get you to pay after you start using the app. Apps that are poorly or unscrupulously written could be used to violate your privacy."

The digital documents can also be complicated to use, so authorities generally accept paper alternatives—which brings us back to those flimsy CDC cards.

This is not to say that it's a bad idea for employers, educators, or even officials to urge people to get vaccinated. There's plenty of evidence that vaccination protects people from illness and limits the spread of disease.

But mandates requiring documentation invite people to battle the system, and it's highly unlikely that anybody is going to out-smart black-market operators working hard to satisfy customers. After years of warnings about how easy it is to forge boarding passes to bypass airport security, hackers still spoof even the modern digital documents. There's probably a lot more demand for fake COVID-19 vaccination records than for bogus boarding passes and therefore more incentive to stay ahead of the authorities.

Already, vaccine mandates have become just another battle of wills between bossy authorities and those who refuse to be bossed. They've spawned protests in some places, and an inevitable market for forged documents everywhere. These mandates have become the latest struggle over the limits of authority and free will. And lost in it all is the fact that vaccination effectively reduces the danger to people of COVID-19 even when others refuse to get jabbed.

A black market in proof of vaccination was inevitable as soon as arm-twisting became the preferred tactic for convincing people to get their shots. Instead of backing people into a corner, we should convince them, even bribe them, and be happy that we get as many to agree to protect themselves against COVID-19 as we do.

 

 

[swordfish]

From a friend:

If you offered me a pair scissors but the scissors couldn't cut paper, I would decline the scissors, but not because I am anti-scissors.  

But because I'm not really interested in things that don't work or do what they are supposed to do safely.

SF hasn't had flu shot in decades for the simple fact that a couple decades ago when I actually gave in and got the shot a couple of years in a row, I had a reaction that I didn't like, so I quit getting the yearly shot.  I've been fine since.  

This is kinda where I place my feelings about the Covid vaccine.  A vaccine for something that the CDC is getting ready to inform us we will have to live with from now on and get a new vaccine every year.

The insistence and threatened enforcement from local governments for a virus that has such a high survival rate (conveniently ignored in nearly every story that glorifies the amount of "new cases" every day) is not warranted (IMHO).

If you had your vaccine - great.  Don't worry about me then.  #Flubugonsteroids 

[swordfish]

AND - BTW......

https://unherd.com/thepost/the-most-vaccine-hesitant-education-group-of-all-phds/

There has been much debate over how to get the unvaccinated to get their jabs — shame them, bribe them persuade them, or treat them as victims of mis- and disinformation campaigns — but who, exactly, are these people?

Most of the coverage would have you believe that the surge in cases is primarily down to less educated, ‘brainwashed’ Trump supporters who don’t want to take the vaccine. This may be partially true: the areas in which the delta variant is surging coincide with the sections of red America in which vaccination rates are lowest.

But according to a new paper by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, this does not paint the full picture. The researchers analysed more than 5 million survey responses by a range of different demographic details, and classed those people who would “probably” or “definitely” not choose to get vaccinated as “vaccine hesitant.”

In some respects the findings are as predicted — for example the paper finds that there is a strong correlation between counties with higher Trump support in the 2020 presidential election and higher hesitancy in the period January 2021 — May 2021. 

But more surprising is the breakdown in vaccine hesitancy by level of education. It finds that the association between hesitancy and education level follows a U-shaped curve with the highest hesitancy among those least and most educated. People with a master’s degree had the least hesitancy, and the highest hesitancy was among those holding a Ph.D. 

What’s more, the paper found that in the first five months of 2021, the largest decrease in hesitancy was among the least educated — those with a high school education or less. Meanwhile, hesitancy held constant in the most educated group; by May, those with Ph.Ds were the most hesitant group. 

So not only are the most educated people most skeptical of taking the Covid vaccine, they are also the least likely the change their minds about it… 

 

A survey of "Over 5 million" I would suggest paints a pretty accurate picture.......btw - SF may not be a very smart man, but doesn't a PHD indicate a pretty smart individual?

[Muda69]

Free Society Dwindles as Permission Requirements Grow

https://reason.com/2021/08/16/free-society-dwindles-as-permission-requirements-grow/

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The COVID-19 pandemic has been a bonanza for government officials, allowing them to extend authority that they then exercise with relatively little oversight or restraint in ways that would have been inconceivable in the past. It has accelerated the transformation of previously free societies into permission-based states, where things once done as a matter of right are now considered privileges to be dispensed or withheld by those in power. Case in point: the Biden administration reportedly discussed making travel within the United States conditional on vaccination status but is holding back out of fear that the public has yet to be sufficiently softened-up for such an intrusive restriction.

"While more severe measures — such as mandating vaccines for interstate travel or changing how the federal government reimburses treatment for those who are unvaccinated and become ill with COVID-19 — have been discussed, the administration worried that they would be too polarizing for the moment," the Associated Press reported last week after discussions with administration insiders. "That's not to say they won't be implemented in the future, as public opinion continues to shift toward requiring vaccinations as a means to restore normalcy."

 

The AP emphasizes that "White House officials say Biden wanted to initially operate with restraint to ensure that Americans were ready for the strong-arming from the federal government." The piece is unusually blunt in the glimpse it offers of an administration that embraces coercive measures to achieve its goals but is trying to co-opt businesses and localities as its proxies until Americans are more ready to do as they're told.

This isn't the first time that conditions have been imposed on travel and other activities in the name of public health during the pandemic. The administration had already announced that it plans to require foreigners traveling to the United States to be vaccinated, a restriction likely to excite little opposition in an age when border controls are popular and other countries have similar rules. Before that, states and localities imposed testing and quarantine rules on visitors and even travel bans, though most were haphazardly enforced. Hawaii, surrounded as it is by a natural moat, has most successfully imposed a masked-and-gowned version of the iron curtain. But that's just evidence of how far we've already gone down the path of turning travel from the right it once was into a privilege. 

"As a general rule, until 1941, U.S. citizens were not required to have a passport for travel abroad," reports the National Archives.

"Airline travel in the early 1960s was still fairly carefree: If you had a ticket, you could board a plane," the Los Angeles Times noted in 2014.

Invoking security concerns, officialdom imposed documentation requirements and subjected people and their luggage to the extensive screenings with which we're now all too familiar. Starting in 2009, Americans had to show passports to be readmitted to the United States on their return from journeys beyond the border. So, the federal government making interstate travel a privilege granted only to those in its good graces would be just one more step down a path traveled before—but a big one.

 

Note that this isn't about the wisdom of getting vaccinated; let's stipulate that vaccination for COVID-19 is effective and generally a good idea. But traveling within the country has historically been treated as a right to be freely exercised without the need to seek permission from the government, no matter how wisely (improbable though that is) officials exercise their discretion.

"Freedom of movement within and between states is constitutionally protected," Georgetown Law's Meryl Justin Chertoff noted last year after states and localities began imposing travel restrictions. "The right of Americans to travel interstate in the U.S. has never been substantially judicially questioned or limited."

But Chertoff acknowledged that governments tend to enjoy more leeway in exercising authority when they invoke the words "public health," and civil liberties advocates often let them get away with it.

It's not just the freedom of travel at risk of becoming a conditional privilege.

"Through vaccination requirements, employers have the power to help end the pandemic," Jeff Zients, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, said last Thursday as part of the effort to get employers, businesses, and local governments to impose rules that Americans aren't yet prepared to accept from Washington, D.C. Localities including New York City and San Francisco have obliged by making many indoors activities, such as dining in restaurants, attending performances, and exercising in gyms, conditional on vaccination.

Again, the issue isn't the effectiveness of vaccination or of other public health measures. The concern is the conversion of everyday activities like travel, work, and shopping into privileges to be permitted only to those who please the powers that be.

To be certain, the permission society isn't new. Roughly 30 percent of workers in the United States now need a license—permission from the government—to do their jobs. That permission can be revoked for reasons having nothing to do with work responsibilities, meaning that it becomes just another tool for controlling people by denying them the ability to make a living unless they submit.

"States must adopt laws that allow them to suspend driver's, professional, occupational, and recreational licenses of individuals who owe overdue support," according to the Department of Health and Human Services, citing the requirements of a law intended to ensure payment of child support. And who could object to making parents meet their obligations to their kids? But that's how rights become privileges, one ostensibly well-intentioned incursion at a time.

If the Biden administration does eventually require proof of vaccination as a condition for traveling within the United States, it will be moving just a little bit further down the path to making this country one based not on individual rights exercised at will, but on permission dispensed from above. With every step, we lose a little more of our freedom to do as we please and find ourselves stuck with the crumbs of whatever we're allowed.

A shallow slippery slope, but a slippery slope all the same.  And it needs to stop.

 

[swordfish]

2 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Free Society Dwindles as Permission Requirements Grow

https://reason.com/2021/08/16/free-society-dwindles-as-permission-requirements-grow/

A shallow slippery slope, but a slippery slope all the same.  And it needs to stop.

 

Especially considering the vaccines themselves have only been granted emergency use status from the FDA, not full approval.

One of my friends is prescribed a medication that costs over $600 per month.  There is a generic out there that is approved for use and used widely in every other country but the US.  It is expected to be approved by the FDA at the earliest in 2025.  He cannot get that drug yet as it is still pending FDA approval, yet we are to willingly believe and trust the US Government these vaccines are OK?  With full approval expected in September?

Forgive me, but all of this stems from what in 2019 we were considering a really bad strain of the flu.

[swordfish]

Meanwhile - The Government......

[Muda69]

Some Ohio Judges Are Mandating Vaccinations as a Condition of Probation. That's an Abuse of Power.

https://reason.com/2021/08/16/some-ohio-judges-are-mandating-vaccinations-as-a-condition-of-probation-thats-an-abuse-of-power/

Quote

A Cincinnati judge has ordered a man to get a COVID-19 vaccination as condition of probation. Other judges in Ohio are apparently doing the same thing, even though getting vaccinated has nothing to do with preventing criminal behavior.

WCPO reports that when Brandon Rutherford was before Hamilton County Pleas Court Judge Christopher Wagner to be sentenced for a drug conviction, Wagner asked if he had been vaccinated. When the 21-year-old said he hadn't been planning on getting the shots, Wagner ordered him to do so within two months of his probation release (known as "community control" in Ohio).

Rutherford complained to WCPO that "for him to tell me that I have to get it in order for me to not violate my probation is crazy, because I'm just trying to do what I can to get off this as quickly as possible, like finding a job and everything else, but that little thing can set me back."

If Rutherford refuses to get vaccinated, his probation could be extended—or he could even be forced into prison. That makes the threat bizarrely ironic, as our jails and prisons have been COVID-19 incubators and a dangerous place to send the unvaccinated.

Ohio's probation regulations do give judges leeway to "impose any other conditions of release under a community control sanction that the court considers appropriate." While the rules focus on forbidding probationers from abusing drugs while released, the construction of the law doesn't confine the judge's authority to drug use.

Wagner subsequently told The Cincinnati Enquirer that it's the court's responsibility to "rehabilitate" a defendant and "protect the community." He noted that judges have the authority to order drug, alcohol, and mental health treatments as conditions for probation.

But those treatments are at least connected to addressing issues that could contribute to a person's criminal behavior. Whether a person has been vaccinated against COVID-19 is not an indicator of whether that person will engage in subsequent crimes.

The Cincinnati Enquirer has found some other examples of judges in Ohio either mandating vaccinations or offering reduced probation terms as an incentive to get the shots. A Columbus judge has ordered at least 20 people to get vaccinated as part of probation sentences. He told the Ohio Capitol-Journal that he sees this as "a reasonable condition when we're telling people to be employed and out in the community."

It is not a "reasonable condition." It's an abuse of judicial authority. Yes, these people should, for their own good and for the good of people around them, get vaccinated against COVID-19. But probabtion isn't a public health tool; it exists to give a person an opportunity to leave prison early or avoid incarceration entirely by demonstrating that they won't commit further crimes.

The American probation system has a big problem with what's known as "technical violations." These are situations where a person violates the terms of his or her probation but does not actually violate the law. Millions of Americans are under some form of post-release supervision. Every year, about 350,000 of these people are sent back to jail or prison. Some of them, of course, commit new crimes while out on release. But many end up back for things like missing meetings or being late to court dates. In areas where marijuana use has been legalized, judges can nevertheless threaten to revoke people's probation if they consume it.

Season 3 of the podcast Serial focused on judges' "discretion" in setting probation rules in Cleveland's courts. Episode after episode showed how judges use the threat of prison to control people's lives in condescending and unforgiving ways that have little to do with actually preventing crime.

So it shouldn't come too much as a surprise that Ohio judges see their vast discretionary powers as an excuse to force people to get vaccinated. But as much as we may want people to get their COVID-19 shots, it is an abuse of power to demand that they do so in order to be free from jail.

 

[Muda69]

Texas school officials think they've found dress code loophole in Abbott ban

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/568338-texas-school-officials-to-include-masks-in-dress-code-in-potential-loophole

Quote

The board of trustees for a school district in Texas are amending their dress code for students to include masks in a bid to get around Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) executive order banning mask mandates in schools.

The Paris Independent School District (PISD) announced the new changes to the dress code in a press release on Tuesday, weeks after Abbott issued an executive order banning schools from requiring face masks. 

“The Board of Trustees is concerned about the health and safety of its students and employees. The Board believes the dress code can be used to mitigate communicable health issues, and therefore has amended the PISD dress code to protect our students and employees,” the school district said in the release.

The district went on to say that Abbott lacks the authority “to usurp” the board’s “exclusive power and duty to govern and oversee the management of the public schools of the district.”

“Nothing in the Governor’s Executive Order 38 states he has suspended Chapter 11 of the Texas Education Code, and therefore the Board has elected to amend its dress code consistent with its statutory authority,” the district added.

The Hill has reached out to Abbott’s office for comment. 

...

Have to give the board of trustees some credit here for being clever.

 

[swordfish]

From a friend - 

An exchange between me and a host.....

 

Hello.

Hi, table for two, please.

Sure, and your name.

Jessie.

Great. And do you and your guest have your vaccination cards?

We do. Can you tell us who our server will be?

Um, looks like Brad will be your server tonight.

Great. Can you show us Brad's vaccination card?

Um...

And also, can you provide me with proof that Brad is not a carrier of HIV, Hepatitis A or B, or any other communicable diseases?

Um...

Also, we would prefer not to be served by someone who is on or uses recreational drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, meth, fentanyl, etc, so if you could provide us with Brad's most recent tox screen, that would be great.

Um... Let me get the manager for you.

That would be great, thanks.

[Muda69]

WaPo Editors: "Liberty" Requires Us to Implement Vaccine Passports

https://mises.org/wire/wapo-editors-liberty-requires-us-implement-vaccine-passports

Quote

Mandating private and government employees to be immunized against covid-19 and requiring the use of standardized electronic passes as proof of immunization across the nation is what liberty is made of, the editors of the Washington Post argued last week. 

State governors such as Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R), who are blocking or attempting to block “government agencies, local businesses or both from mandating vaccination,” are engaged in “efforts that fly in the face of the values of liberty that their proponents purport to defend,” the editors added. 

“The highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus has ushered in mask mandates in some places, but vaccination remains the key to containing the pandemic once and for all,” the editors wrote. But to ensure we can all trust those who claim to be vaccinated, they added, states should be “developing a smartphone-compatible certificate that’s easily downloadable and easily scannable.” 

With this standardized approach to the vaccine mandate, they argued, Americans who are reluctant to get the jab would be forced to think differently. “At the least, enabling vaccine requirements will help organizations keep their spaces safer. At best, they also could inspire some holdouts to get the shot at long last.”

But if "safety" is so important to these editors, shouldn't we also consider the safety of medical treatments (i.e., vaccines) themselves? Moreover, shouldn't we consider the ways that providers of vaccines can be held accountable when their vaccines do harm? 

That discussion, apparently, is not on the table. I have yet to see a proponent of covid-19 vaccine mandates that talks about the vaccine industry’s immunity before federal law and how the current vaccination campaign is just a continuation of that scheme.

Ronald Reagan’s Socialized Medicine 

The covid-19 vaccine isn’t the first inoculation program that is both financially backed by the government and immune from legal accountability in US history. 

Thanks to President Ronald Reagan’s National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986, vaccine makers are able to develop vaccines, many of which are produced using unethical methods such as using cells taken from aborted fetal tissue, deliberately mislead patients and health officials by making false efficacy claims, and go on doing so unabatedly even after countless victims come forward saying they have been injured—sometimes for life—by their products. 

Due to the 1986 law, these victims don’t get the chance to have their cases heard by a jury of their peers. Instead, their cases must necessarily be funneled through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which was created in 1988 after the NCVIA was signed into law.

The VICP is in place to shield manufacturers from liability related to their vaccine products, as explained by AMA Journal of Ethics.

The act establishes a special court program for vaccine injury claims that caps damages and allows for the injured party to be compensated without having to prove that the maker committed any wrongdoing. (emphasis added)

Since its inception, the VICP has paid out about $4.6 billion in settlements. But while the VICP is funded by an excise tax on each vaccine purchased, it is run by the US government. 

Considering that pharmaceuticals were threatening to give up on producing vaccines due to the expensive injury-related court battles prior to 1986 and that they remain unwilling to stand behind their products’ safety to this day, it is clear that given the opportunity to function in a market unprotected by the federal government, these manufacturers would likely have not managed to stay in business. It is in this context that the covid-19 vaccines exist. 

Because currently the covid vaccines do not have full Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorization, injury claims must be funneled through a different but similar program, the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), run by the Health and Human Services Department. But it is only a matter of time before the vaccine “courts” take over. 

With record-breaking numbers of adverse reactions reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and growing concerns regarding the covid vaccines’ effectiveness, paper pushers are promising more mandates will come once the FDA concedes the vaccine manufacturers full approval. Considering that all other vaccines currently in use regularly across the nation were given the same FDA approval and yet remain immune from legal accountability, why should we trust whatever the health czars have to say?

 

[swordfish]

Another scenario to illustrate the level of lunacy over this virus......

Copied and pasted… and SO freaking good!

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO’S ‘WHO’S BEEN VACCED?’

Bud: ‘You can’t come in here!’

Lou: ‘Why not?’

Bud: ‘Well because you’re unvaccinated.’

Lou: ‘But I’m not sick.’

Bud: ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Lou: ‘Well, why does that guy get to go in?’

Bud: ‘Because he’s vaccinated.’

Lou: ‘But he’s sick!’

Bud: ‘It’s alright. Everyone in here is vaccinated.’

Lou: ‘Wait a minute. Are you saying everyone in there is vaccinated?’

Bud: ‘Yes.’

Lou: ‘So then why can’t I go in there if everyone is vaccinated?’

Bud: ‘Because you’ll make them sick.’

Lou: ‘How will I make them sick if I’m NOT sick and they’re vaccinated.’

Bud: ‘Because you’re unvaccinated.’

Lou: ‘But they’re vaccinated.’

Bud: ‘But they can still get sick.’

Lou: ‘So what the heck does the vaccine do?’

Bud: ‘It vaccinates.’

Lou: ‘So vaccinated people can’t spread covid?’

Bud: ‘Oh no. They can spread covid just as easily as an unvaccinated person.’

Lou: ‘I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Look. I’m not sick.

Bud: ‘Ok.’

Lou: ‘And the guy you let in IS sick.’

Bud: ‘That’s right.’

Lou: ‘And everybody in there can still get sick even though they’re vaccinated.’

Bud: ‘Certainly.’

Lou: ‘So why can’t I go in again?’

Bud: ‘Because you’re unvaccinated.’

Lou: ‘I’m not asking who’s vaccinated or not!’

Bud: ‘I’m just telling you how it is.’

Lou: ‘Nevermind. I’ll just put on my mask.’

Bud: ‘That’s fine.’

Lou: ‘Now I can go in?’

Bud: ‘Absolutely not?’

Lou: ‘But I have a mask!’

Bud: ‘Doesn’t matter.’

Lou: ‘I was able to come in here yesterday with a mask.’

Bud: ‘I know.’

Lou: So why can’t I come in here today with a mask? ….If you say ‘because I’m unvaccinated’ again, I’ll break your arm.’

Bud: ‘Take it easy buddy.’

Lou: ‘So the mask is no good anymore.’

Bud: ‘No, it’s still good.’

Lou: ‘But I can’t come in?’

Bud: ‘Correct.’

Lou: ‘Why not?’

Bud: ‘Because you’re unvaccinated.’

Lou: ‘But the mask prevents the germs from getting out.’

Bud: ‘Yes, but people can still catch your germs.’

Lou: ‘But they’re all vaccinated.’

Bud: ‘Yes, but they can still get sick.’

Lou: ‘But I’m not sick!!’

Bud: ‘You can still get them sick.’

Lou: ‘So then masks don’t work!’

Bud: ‘Masks work quite well.’

Lou: ‘So how in the heck can I get vaccinated people sick if I’m not sick and masks work?’

[Muda69]

The Pandemic Has Most Americans Paying No Federal Income Taxes

https://reason.com/2021/08/23/the-pandemic-has-most-americans-paying-no-federal-income-taxes/

Quote

Given my recognition that taxation is theft, or at least a thoroughgoing act of extortion, I'm generally delighted when people escape the clutches of the tax man. But news that the majority of Americans owed no income tax for 2020 and will similarly pay no income taxes for 2021 raises concerns in two counts: first, that tax obligations disappeared for so many because the economy took such a brutal hit during the pandemic; second, that the result is a situation in which a minority of the population foots the bill for the policies of politicians selected by the majority.

"The Tax Policy Center estimates that last year nearly 107 million households, or about 61 percent, owed no income tax or even received tax credits from the government," Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, noted last week. "The spike is likely to be temporary, however. The share of non-payers will decline to about 102 million or 57 percent this year."

 

In recent pre-pandemic years, the percentage of tax returns with no income tax liability has been closer to 44 percent in Tax Policy Center's figures, though it has trended upward over time.

"The percentage of filers with no income liability has generally increased from where it was nearly 40 years ago," the National Taxpayers Union Foundation reported in 2018. "This trend is indicative of a progressive income tax code under which higher-income earners pay a larger share of taxes while low-income earners are generally shielded from significant income tax liabilities."

As the National Taxpayers Union Foundation points out, those with no income tax liability are generally less prosperous, and it's no surprise that their numbers spiked in 2020 as the economy tanked during a period of pandemic concerns resulting in both voluntary social distancing and, more concerningly, mandatory restrictions on economic activity.

 

"U.S. states with brief or no lockdown measures (e.g. South Dakota and Nebraska) experienced the smallest degrees of economic damage," Peter C. Earle and Amelia Janaskie concluded for the American Institute for Economic Research. "And predictably, in industries that are most sensitive to lockdown – small firms generally, where most job creation takes place; service industries, which now dominate the US economy; and more broadly any company with jobs that don't readily convert to a work-from-home basis – the result is wanton destruction and loss."

That's essentially what Gleckman found for the Tax Policy Center. He observed that, during the depths of the pandemic, 20 million mostly low-wage workers lost their jobs. In addition, economic stimulus payments flipped some struggling households from net taxpayers to owing no income tax.

No matter how much we might resent taxes, making people too poor to pay them isn't a constructive way to reduce the tax burden. In this regard, then, the news that the proportion of the population paying income taxes should rise going forward is good not because they'll fall back into the tax man's clutches, but because they'll once again be sufficiently prosperous to attract his notice.

 

The Tax Policy Center forecasts that the percentage of households paying no income taxes will decline to 42 percent in 2022 and hold there through the mid-2020s "assuming the economy continues to rebound and several temporary tax benefits expire as scheduled," as Gleckman puts it. He does acknowledge, though, that those benefits may not expire given significant political pressures to maintain them. Among those pressures is the fact that existing policies mean no households making under roughly $28,000 will pay federal income tax this year, and 43 percent of middle-income households will pay no federal income tax—and there's a constituency for maintaining at least some of that preferential treatment.

That points to the second concern in the surging ranks of those who owe no income taxes. That's a situation in which large numbers of potential voters choose at the ballot box among politicians but won't have to pay the full price of the resulting policies and programs. Were the proportion of non-payers to remain above 50 percent, that would the leave the tab to be picked up by an out-voted minority of the population. The folks paying the bill would find themselves in a very uncomfortable situation—essentially living life as milking cows for the rest of society—if it were to last for any length of time.

"Aside from the revenue impact of not having 58 million Americans pay income taxes, economists worry about the social and political effects of having so many people disconnected from the cost of government—a phenomenon known as fiscal illusion," Will Freeland, William McBride, and Ed Gerrish warned in a 2012 report for the Tax Foundation. "The concern is that when people perceive the cost of government to be cheaper than it really is, they will demand ever more government benefits because they either don't feel the cost directly or believe that others will be paying those costs."

But, as the Tax Policy Center emphasizes, the situation is short-term and the percentage of households paying no income tax should soon drop back to pre-pandemic figures—assuming the economy continues to improve and "temporary" measures do, in fact, prove to be temporary. Additionally, even during the pandemic, most people paid some form of tax in the form of payroll taxes, state income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and the like. Completely escaping the government's seemingly insatiable appetite for people's wealth is beyond the ability of most of us.

But the National Taxpayers Union Foundation's point that "the percentage of filers with no income liability has generally increased from where it was nearly 40 years ago" is worth remembering going forward even as we return (maybe) to pre-pandemic economic conditions and tax policies. Pandemic distortions aside, the cost of policies and programs implemented by officials elected by all voters is falling on a shrinking share of the population.

Overall, revelations about who is and isn't paying income taxes at the moment, and why, is a reminder that governments have an unparalleled ability to damage economies and impoverish people—especially those who are most vulnerable and have the fewest resources to fall back upon. Nothing, it seems, kills jobs and prosperity like officialdom's efforts to "help" with forceful measures during a crisis.

Those of us resistant to taxation should do our best to ensure that reform and reduction in the government's take should be widely shared across the population. That will help to avoid separating those who enjoy the benefits of government actions from those who pay the bill.

 

[Muda69]

Society Will Never Be Free of COVID-19—It’s Time to Embrace Harm Reduction: https://www.cato.org/pandemics-policy/society-will-never-be-free-covid-19-its-time-embrace-harm-reduction

Quote

The COVID-19 virus will not be eradicated. The only human virus ever to be eradicated was smallpox, and that took 200 years. COVID-19 will become endemic. It likely will continue mutating and developing variants.

But we’ve learned a great deal about the virus since the pandemic began. Unlike smallpox, which had a 30 percent fatality rate; or Ebola, which has a 50 percent fatality rate; or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which has up to a 1.7 percent fatality rate in children and over an 11 percent fatality rate in adults, COVID-19 appears to average a 0.3 to 0.4 percent infection fatality rate in Europe and the Americas and a 0.2 percent fatality rate among people not living in institutions. In the United States, 80 percent of fatalities have occurred in people over age 65, and 39 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in 2020 occurred in nursing homes. As of July 29, 2021, 358 U.S. children under age 17 had died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. (For comparison, the average annual fatality rate for RSV in children is 500.) Martin A. Makary, a public health professor, and his team at Johns Hopkins University found that most of the children who died of COVID-19 had preexisting vulnerabilities such as leukemia. This tells us which populations need the most protection.

COVID-19 is not the only endemic problem in public health. For example, obesity is an endemic problem that leads to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy are endemic. And the epidemics of HIV, hepatitis, and overdoses due to the use of illicit substances are never‐ending. Unlike the COVID-19 viral pandemic, which can affect any human in its path, these other conditions usually involve lifestyle choices. But what they all have in common is that we will never be able to eradicate them completely, and efforts to address them get bogged down by politicizing and moralizing. Zero‐tolerance approaches to all these problems are not only destined to fail, but they cause more harm than good.

A zero‐tolerance policy toward illicit drug use causes harms to many facets of society, well beyond the harms that result from using tainted black‐market drugs. Likewise, a zero‐tolerance policy toward COVID-19 carries tradeoffs involving mental and physical health, education, economic well‐being, wealth disparity, and societal integrity, well beyond the harms of COVID-19. Accepting the fact that we will never have a drug‐free society, Congress and the Biden administration are showing a renewed appreciation for harm reduction strategies to address illicit drug use. These strategies aim at making illicit drug use less likely to spread death and disease while accepting that there will always be people who use illicit drugs. Public health officials and policymakers need to accept that we will never have a COVID‐free society. There will always be new variants and occasional outbreaks. They should pivot to harm reduction strategies to address the COVID-19 pandemic to allow life to go on, as “normal” as possible, in a world where COVID-19 is endemic.

....

Blanket one‐size‐fits‐all mandates on human movement, behavior, economic activity, social, and educational arrangements have not “defeated” the virus. Many of these directives are unsupported by clear‐cut evidence. Nor are they consistently applied. They often involve tradeoffs with harms greater than any benefits brought in terms of reduced risk.

Policymakers should accept the fact that COVID-19 will become endemic and adopt the vision of the harm reduction movement that grew up in response to the crisis created by drug prohibition. The most effective COVID-19 harm reduction strategy is to promote immunization. Public health officials should provide solid, regularly updated information to allow individuals and local jurisdictions to implement harm reduction strategies suited to their contexts so that they can pursue happiness and enjoy meaningful lives in a world that will always include COVID-19.

 

 

 

 

[swordfish]

How sad is this?

[swordfish]

[swordfish]

https://nypost.com/2021/09/07/rutgers-bars-unvaccinated-student-from-attending-virtual-classes/

Rutgers bars unvaccinated student from attending virtual classes

By 

Lee Brown

September 7, 2021 8:37am 

 

A New Jersey student has said he is barred from taking classes at Rutgers University because he has not been vaccinated — even though he is only studying virtually from home.

Logan Hollar, 22, told NJ.com that he largely ignored the school’s COVID mandate “because all my classes were remote” from his Sandyston home, some 70 miles from Rutgers’ campus in New Brunswick.

But he was locked out of his Rutgers email and related accounts when he went to pay his tuition at the end of last month — and was told that he needed to be vaccinated even though he has no plans to attend in person.

Hollar has now been forced to miss classes that started Sept. 1 — and has been warned it could be weeks before a decision is reached on his application for an exemption to the vaccine mandate, he said.

“I’ll probably have to transfer to a different university,” Hollar told NJ.com, saying he knows of at least one other student in the same position.

“I find it concerning for the vaccine to be pushed by the university rather than my doctor,” he told the outlet.

“If someone wants to be vaccinated, that’s fine with me, but I don’t think they should be pushed,” he insisted, saying that he doesn’t find COVID to be scary” because he is healthy and “not in an at-risk age group.”

“I don’t care if I have access to campus. I don’t need to be there. They could ban me. I just want to be left alone,” he said.

Hollar’s step-father, Keith Williams — who has been vaccinated — told the outlet he is “dumbfounded” at Rutgers’ stance.

“I believe in science, I believe in vaccines, but I am highly confident that COVID-19 and variants do not travel through computer monitors by taking online classes,” Williams told NJ.com.

“He chose to remove himself from an on-campus experience so he would not need to be vaccinated,” Williams said.

“Now to be removed and shut down from his Rutgers email and online classes during the start of his senior year seems a bit crazy.”

Rutgers’ spokeswoman Dory Devlin insisted that the university has “provided comprehensive information and direction to students to meet vaccine requirements through several communications channels.”

She noted that Rutgers’ policy differentiates between a “fully online degree-granting program” and “classes that are fully remote” but part of a course where other students are on campus, as in Hollar’s case.

Devlin told the site that staff “continue to work” helping students apply for waiver requests for medical or religious reasons — while conceding they “should expect a two-to four-week turnaround, during which time they will not have access to university systems.”

 

Best line - “I believe in science, I believe in vaccines, but I am highly confident that COVID-19 and variants do not travel through computer monitors by taking online classes,” Williams told NJ.com.

I mean, this is how ludacris this whole COVID thing has become.

[swordfish]

https://nypost.com/2021/09/07/wuhan-lab-documents-show-fauci-untruthful-about-research-critics/

Wuhan lab documents show Fauci ‘untruthful’ about gain-of-function research: critics

By 

Emily Crane

September 7, 2021 12:23pm 

 Updated

Dr. Anthony Fauci has been accused by critics of lying after newly released documents appear to contradict his claims that the National Institute of Health did not fund gain-of-function research at China’s Wuhan lab.

Senator Rand Paul led the criticism against Fauci on Tuesday after the documents, obtained by The Intercept, detailed grants given to EcoHealth Alliance — the nonprofit that funneled federal funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research.

Included in the trove of documents is a previously unpublished grant proposal that EcoHealth Alliance, which is run by Peter Daszak, filed with Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

Fauci has repeatedly insisted that NIH funding of the Wuhan lab does not constitute as “gain-of-function” research, which modifies the biological agent, and in the case of a virus, could increase its transmissibility or virulence.

“Surprise surprise – Fauci lied again. And I was right about his agency funding novel Coronavirus research at Wuhan,” Sen. Paul tweeted after the documents were made public. 

 

The grant proposal included in the documents was for a project titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” which involved screening thousands of bat samples, as well as people who worked with live animals, for novel coronaviruses, the outlet said.

The $3.1 million grant was awarded for a five-year period between 2014 and 2019. After the funding was renewed in 2019, it was suspended by the Trump administration in April 2020.

The grant directed $599,000 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research.

 

The proposal acknowledged the risks of such research, saying: “Fieldwork involves the highest risk of exposure to SARS or other CoVs, while working in caves with high bat density overhead and the potential for fecal dust to be inhaled.”

The documents also include a second grant titled “Understanding Risk of Zoonotic Virus Emergence in Emerging Infectious Disease Hotspots of Southeast Asia,” which was awarded in August last year.

Under the terms and conditions of that grant approval, there is a section noting that prior to “further altering the mutant viruses,” the NIAID needs to be given a “detailed description of the proposed alterations and supporting evidence for the anticipated phenotypics characteristics of each virus.”

Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, said the documents – obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request — made it clear that Fauci had been “untruthful” about gain-of-function research.

“The documents make it clear that assertions by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are untruthful,” he tweeted.

“The materials show that the 2014 and 2019 NIH grants to EcoHealth with subcontracts to WIV funded gain-of-function research as defined in federal policies in effect in 2014-2017 and potential pandemic pathogen enhancement as defined in federal policies in effect in 2017-present.”

“This had been evident previously from published research papers that credited the 2014 grant and from the publicly available summary of the 2019 grant. But this now can be stated definitively from progress reports of the 2014 grant and the full proposal of the 2017 grant.”

Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right To Know, told the Intercept that the documents provided a “road map to the high-risk research that could have led to the current pandemic.”

NIH funding of work at the Wuhan lab has come under increasing scrutiny amid the pandemic, with Republican senators like Rand Paul of Kentucky and Tom Cotton of Arkansas accusing Fauci of lying about whether the money was used for gain-of-function research.

Fauci has repeatedly testified in front of lawmakers that the NIH has not funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab.

He has clashed with Sen. Paul on a number of occasions, including in May when the infectious disease expert was grilled about the origins of COVID-19 and funding of the Wuhan lab on Capitol Hill.

“Sen. Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely, entirely and completely incorrect… the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute,” Fauci said.

They butted heads again during a Senate hearing in July when the Kentucky senator quizzed Fauci about his earlier testimony.

“Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement of May 11 where you claimed that the NIH never funded gain-of-function research and move on?” Paul (R-Ky.) asked during testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Fauci clashed with Paul during a Senate hearing in July after the Kentucky senator quizzed the infectious disease expert about earlier testimony he had given in which he denied NIH-funded gain-of-function research.

Paul, citing two academic papers by the Wuhan institute, accused Fauci of “obfuscating the truth” by not admitting that the lab was involved in gain-of-function research. 

“Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement. This paper that you’re referring to was judged by qualified staff, up and down the chain, as not being gain-of-function,” Fauci said. 

 

 

Why can't we just be done with Fauci?

 

 

[Muda69]

There's Little Rationale for Masking School Kids, but Teachers Unions Are Demanding It

https://reason.com/2021/09/09/cdc-teachers-unions-masks-nea-covid/

Quote

Last May, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decided that many Americans could relax their vigilant mask wearing, the leaders of the nation's top teachers union were furious.

The National Education Association (NEA) swiftly intervened to ensure that the CDC would still advise masking in schools, regardless of vaccination status. According to documents obtained by Fox News, the NEA threatened to release a letter excoriating the CDC's guidance. This prompted government health officials to clarify that masks should still be worn in all schools.

The NEA's meddling is unsurprising: Earlier this year, teachers unions mounted a similar effort to persuade the Biden White House to slow down on school reopening. This is the role the teachers unions have claimed for themselves throughout the pandemic: create obstacles to prevent children's lives from returning to normal for as long as possible. It's a role that American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten clearly relishes. Her Twitter feed is filled with demands that students be masked, distanced, and quarantined as often as necessary.

It's worth noting that masks are of dubious importance for school children. There's scant evidence that putting kids in masks makes them any safer from the ill effects of COVID-19. New York magazine's David Zweig reviewed 17 different studies cited by the CDC and found little reason to believe that masks were making a difference in schools. (Better ventilation seemed to be the much more important mitigation strategy.) Young people, after all, are at extremely low risk of suffering a negative health outcome associated with COVID-19. The disease has claimed the lives of fewer than 400 people under the age of 18, many of them with underlying health problems. For most kids, COVID-19 does not pose a greater statistical risk than the flu—masks just don't matter.

Before the widespread availability of vaccines, masks might have been important to prevent students from unwittingly spreading the disease to vulnerable adults. But it's now trivially easy for school staff members to get the vaccine and reduce their risk of hospitalization and death to almost nothing. The students are overwhelmingly safe—because they are young people—and the teachers and staff are also safe—because they can take the vaccine. Schools can implement additional strategies for good measure, like opening the windows and having lunch outside, weather permitting. Masks are much more trouble, especially if kids are expected to wear them until some distant point in the future—possibly forever—when COVID-19 is gone completely.

"The negatives [of masks] are not zero, especially for young children," Lloyd Fisher, the president of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told Zweig. "It is important for children to see facial expressions of their peers and the adults around them in order to learn social cues and understand how to read emotions."

Weingarten and company act as if it would be insane to reopen a school without a mask mandate, and have lashed out at Republican officials like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for prohibiting such requirements. But the U.S. is somewhat alone in its zeal for placing masks on school children. As The New York Times recently conceded, most students and teachers in the U.K. do not wear masks at all—and the situation is much the same in Ireland, France, Italy, and Switzerland.

Teachers unions and their allies must have missed this memo. Indeed, former Education Secretary Arne Duncan implicitly suggested that DeSantis had blood on his hands, following the deaths of more than a dozen Florida educators from COVID-19.

Please take a minute to fully understand this: our teachers are being killed right now at a much higher rate than our soldiers.
What the Governor of Florida has done to the residents of his state is incomprehensible. https://t.co/klNLKjTWEQ

— Arne Duncan (@arneduncan) September 5, 2021

 

These deaths are tragic. But it is simply not true that a lack of mask mandates is killing Florida teachers. What's killing Florida teachers—and practically everyone else who suffers a negative health outcome due to COVID-19—is a lack of vaccination. Of the 15 who passed away, at least 13 were unvaccinated (information for the other two was not available, though it's likely they were unvaccinated as well). It's reasonable to criticize DeSantis for his efforts to prevent public institutions from requiring employees to get vaccinated, but the dearth of mask mandates has largely taken center stage.

The Food and Drug Administration should move much faster to approve vaccines for young kids so that families have the option of additional, over-the-top protection. But there's no compelling reason to make students experience further hardship while waiting for that day to come. Why are teachers unions behaving otherwise?

Because it's all about power, that is why.

Several times a week as I drive to my workplace I pass children either walking to school or to a bus stop.  Many of them are wearing masks, even when they are 50-100 yards away from the nearest individual.   They have become completely indoctrinated to mask wearing, and it's sad.