"Public health experts fear politics will taint COVID-19 vaccine approval; If a vaccine is rushed to market without adequate testing, they say, it could set back the fight against COVID-19 and increase resistance to all vaccines" by Felice J. Freyer Globe Staff, September 2, 2020
Experts in medicine and public health are expressing growing concerns, in some cases even alarm, at the possibility that the FDA will bend to political pressure and grant early approval to coronavirus vaccines that haven’t been thoroughly vetted.
If a prematurely released vaccine proves ineffective or, worse, harmful, the result could set back the fight against COVID-19 and also diminish the public’s already shrinking faith in all vaccines, these doctors and researchers say.
Shrinking faith?
How can that be given the massive amount of media promotion and money behind it?
People don't need a jab to be woken up these days.
“Any hint of political pressure would feed into the vaccine skeptic and antivaccine groups,” said Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and even if the Food and Drug Administration does everything right, many people may reject the vaccine anyway if they have lost trust in the agency.
The FDA already may have created a “damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t” situation, said Dr. Jerry Avorn, codirector of the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law at Harvard Medical School. “If you end up with a good vaccine but people mistrust it,” Avorn said, “then you’ve won the first battle but you’re losing the war.”
The war for the mind has been lost, which is why the state must mandate it. Too many shots over too many years with too many bad results have left the public opposed, period.
It's their own fault. Go to the well too often, it dries up.
Worries deepened last week when the FDA and the CDC — another federal health agency once considered inviolable — made widely criticized decisions, apparently in response to pressure from the White House.
After President Trump accused the FDA of delaying approvals of coronavirus drugs and vaccines for political reasons, the agency allowed treatment with plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients despite what federal scientists considered weak evidence that it works, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, without providing a scientific rationale, changed its guidelines to discourage testing of healthy people, even though people without symptoms frequently catch and spread the coronavirus.
Well, the CDC lowered the fatality rates and they know about the 90% false positives, so.... I'm not going to howl in profanity today. This has become tiresome.
The FDA had previously faced criticism for initially allowing unproven COVID-19 tests to go on the market and for giving emergency approval to hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug touted by Trump as a treatment for the virus. The FDA later withdrew that approval when the drug was shown to be ineffective and sometimes harmful.
They withdrew it under pressure from the vaccine firms who saw a pot of loot and other plans getting bitten, as they have with all effective treatments that don't involve mass inoculations.
I should be howling at the endless lying coming from both alphabet agencies; however, I'm just sick of it at this point.
“We have a trust and credibility crisis that is enormous,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. “The more that we erode public trust in the FDA and the CDC, the more difficult it’s going to be to get anything done.”
That's why the whole thing is being Triple Warp Sped, huh?
Losing support by the hour!
In early August, even before the plasma decision, a group of nearly 400 public health experts called on the FDA to conduct a “transparent and rigorous” approval process for any coronavirus vaccines.
Last week, the American Medical Association wrote to Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA commissioner, asking him to keep physicians and the public informed about the licensure process and standards.
He wasn't to happy about that:
Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA commissioner, has repeatedly offered assurances that his agency will not cut corners on vaccine safety (Oliver Contreras/NYT).
“They’ve got to do a better job providing clarity and transparency,” Dr. Susan R. Bailey, AMA president, told the Globe on Wednesday, but she said the AMA is “working closely” with the FDA and she was “hopeful” the agency will be open about its processes.
If not, I respectfully decline the service.
Hahn has repeatedly offered assurances that his agency will not cut corners on vaccine safety and will follow the science, but he also recently said he would consider an “early use authorization,” or EUA, for a coronavirus vaccine, which would allow the vaccine’s use before completing the usual FDA approval process.
They are moving as fast as they can because the jig is up!
Even in the best of times, the coronavirus vaccine would pose thorny challenges. The virus, new to humanity, remains poorly understood.
How can that be after 6 months of endless fear about contagion and death, and why was the world economy demolished over such poor understanding?
Many of the vaccines in development are using technologies never before tried in any medication, and the vaccines are being produced at a record pace in response to the emergency.
Worldwide, 33 potential vaccines are being studied in people, and eight have entered the late-stage trials involving tens of thousands of people. Those trials are critical, because only when the vaccine has been tested in a large number of people will uncommon side effects emerge. Typically scientists wait years for all the data to come in.
A deadly pandemic creates a need to act faster, but how fast?
It's not as "deadly" as they are claiming, so what now?
“There are obviously complications and dangers from waiting too long because we’ve got to get the epidemic under control,” Redlener said, “but if we act too soon, there could be pretty dangerous complications from the vaccine.”
Yeah, continuing to keep the lie going is a tough balancing act.
Circumstances need to play a role in the decision, Redlener said. “If the second wave is as bad as the first wave, or worse, that would be a compelling reason to try and fast-track release of a new vaccine or vaccines,” he said.
The propaganda pre$$ will get right to it!
The New York Times reported that the CDC has alerted state and city health authorities to get ready to distribute a vaccine to high-risk groups as soon as late October or early November.
I've not long to live then.
Talk of an October rollout raises concerns about the timing, a month before the November election, said Ali Nouri, president of the Federation of American Scientists.
Huh?
“Is anyone going to think this is a science-based process rather than a political one?” Nouri said. “I don’t know how you issue an EUA in October and at the same time convince the American people that it was not a political decision.”
But.... it's in the hands of the vaccine companies, not Trump.
The solution, for a confused and anxious public, is to rely on independent experts, said Schaffner, of Vanderbilt. An independent advisory committee typically makes recommendations to the FDA before it approves any drug.
That means not him or anything you read in these articles.
“A lot of us would be reassured if the advisory committee had given the green light,” Schaffner said. “They examine it very thoroughly. That is an external group of experts that has functioned over 50 years and has provided a remarkable safeguard for vaccines.”
If the advisory committee is bypassed or overruled, there would be “a howl of protest” from experts around the country, Schaffner said.
Oh, better keep them in the loop or they will blow the whistle on this fraud!
Avorn, of Harvard, agreed that the public now has to rely on independent researchers and medical professionals, who have shared their expertise with the media, but providing objective answers to scientific questions used to be the FDA’s role. “It’s a strange way for a country to run a drug regulatory system,” he said, “where the average doctor and average citizen has to turn on CNN to find out what the truth is.”
I laughed so hard there I made myself sick!
Whatever we are watching, it is not CNN!
--more--"
Related:
"Biotech industry leaders also urged federal regulators to reassure the American public that any approval of an eventual Covid-19 vaccine or therapeutic will be motivated by science, not politics. The Biotechnology Innovation Organization’s board chair, Jeremy Levin, put it more simply: “We want the public to believe and to trust what we are doing.”
It's actually too late.
"CDC tells states how to prepare for COVID-19 vaccine by early November" by Sheila Kaplan, Katherine J. Wu and Katie Thomas New York Times, September 2, 2020
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has notified public health officials in all 50 states and five large cities to prepare to distribute a coronavirus vaccine to health care workers and other high-risk groups as soon as late October or early November.
The new CDC guidance is the latest sign of an accelerating race for a vaccine to greatly ease a pandemic that has killed more than 184,000 Americans. The documents were sent out on the same day that President Trump told the nation in his speech to the Republican National Convention that a vaccine might arrive before the end of the year.
It's New York Times and they obviously don't read their own reporting.
Over the past week, both Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Stephen Hahn, who heads the Food and Drug Administration, have said in interviews with news organizations that a vaccine could be available for certain groups before clinical trials have been completed, if the data is overwhelmingly positive.
Public health experts agree that agencies at all levels of government should urgently prepare for what will eventually be a vast, complex effort to vaccinate hundreds of millions of Americans, but the possibility of a rollout in late October or early November has also heightened concerns that the Trump administration is seeking to rush the distribution of a vaccine — or simply to hype that one is possible — before Election Day on Nov. 3.
How he thinks that helps him is beyond me, since most of those inclined to support him vehemently oppose the idea. It's possible he will turn on the creeps after winning reelection, but it's a slim to false hope.
It is interesting to see the pre$$ do a backflip on the race for a vaccine after all the good pub they have gotten all these months. It's a reflex. If Trump is for it, they are against it, no examination necessary.
The CDC plans lay out technical specifications for two candidates described as “Vaccine A” and “Vaccine B,” including requirements for shipping, mixing, storage and administration. The details seem to match the products developed by Pfizer and Moderna, which are the furthest along in late-stage clinical trials. On Aug. 20, Pfizer said it was “on track” for seeking government review “as early as October 2020.”
“This timeline of the initial deployment at the end of October is deeply worrisome for the politicization of public health and the potential safety ramifications,” said Saskia Popescu, an infection prevention epidemiologist based in Arizona. “It’s hard not to see this as a push for a preelection vaccine.”
I thought so, and the election has nothing to do with it.
Three documents were sent to public health officials in all states and territories as well as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston and San Antonio on Aug. 27. They outlined detailed scenarios for distributing two unidentified vaccine candidates, each requiring two doses a few weeks apart, at hospitals, mobile clinics and other facilities offering easy access to the first targeted recipients.
Two doses?
TWO DOSES?!
WTF for?
The guidance noted that health care professionals, including long-term care employees, would be among the first to receive the product, along with other essential workers and national security employees. People 65 or older, as well as those from “racial and ethnic minority populations,” Native Americans and incarcerated individuals — all communities known to be at greater risk of contracting the virus and experiencing severe disease — were also prioritized in the documents.
So we have a big cull of the isles elderly along with devastation to the professional class that could oppose this fraud, a scenario repeated nearly 100 years ago in the Soviet Union. It did not end well.
That’s a positive development, “so it doesn’t just all wind up in high-income, affluent suburbs,” said Dr. Cedric Dark, an emergency medicine physician at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.
The CDC noted in its guidance that “limited COVID-19 vaccine doses may be available by early November 2020.” The documents were dispatched the same day that Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, sent a letter to governors asking them to ready vaccine distribution sites by Nov. 1, as McClatchy reported.
Another Redfield letter.
The agency also said its plans were as yet hypothetical, noting, “The COVID-19 vaccine landscape is evolving and uncertain, and these scenarios may evolve as more information is available.” A CDC spokeswoman confirmed that the documents were sent but declined to comment further.
Yeah, right!
Seen this hypocritical hypothetical before, and it's already gone live for 6 months now.
Many of the details listed for the two vaccines — including required storage temperature, the number of days needed between doses, and the type of medical center that can accommodate the product’s storage — match what Pfizer and Moderna have said about their products, which are based on so-called mRNA technology. Neither company responded to requests for comment.
Look at how they gloss over the GMO quality in the vaccine, as if it is no big deal.
The scenarios, which assume that the two vaccines could demonstrate sufficient safety and effectiveness for an emergency authorization from the FDA by the end of October, note that Vaccine A, which seems to match Pfizer’s, would have about 2 million doses ready within this time frame, and that Vaccine B, whose description matches Moderna’s, would have about 1 million doses ready, with tens of millions of doses of each vaccine ready by the end of the year. Although it’s possible that some promising preliminary data could emerge by the end of October, experts are skeptical.
“The timeline that’s reported seems a bit ambitious to me,” Dark said. “October’s like 30 days away.”
Trials that test a vaccine’s effectiveness can take years to yield reliable results. It’s possible to draw conclusions sooner “if there is an overwhelming effect” in which vaccinated people appear to be far better protected from disease, said Padmini Pillai, a vaccine researcher and immunologist at MIT, but data gathered early in a trial might not hold true months down the line, and researchers need time to test large numbers of people from a variety of backgrounds to determine how well the vaccine works in different populations — including the vulnerable communities identified in the guidelines.
Why is all of this $hit coming out of Military-Indu$trial Tech?
Should any of these snags occur, Pillai said, “all of this together could diminish public trust in the vaccine.”
They are moving so fast because public support for their monstrous conceptions is cratering, and people are starting to turn against their well-meaning tyrants, 'er, leaders.
James Blumenstock, senior vice president of pandemic response and recovery at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, confirmed that the trio of CDC documents were sent to all state and territorial health departments last week. “It is now the time to enhance organizational structure and involve all partners in this planning process going forward,” he said.
Lisa Stromme, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Health, said that her state’s health officials were still at “a very early stage in a planning process” but were already working toward developing infrastructure “that would accommodate” the assumptions laid out by the CDC.
The CDC documents said that public health administrators should review lessons learned from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic vaccination campaign, which did not have enough doses at the beginning to meet demand.
That proved to be a total $cam and $windle, and the vaccine killed more than the virus.
“It’s good to have a plan out for hospitals and health care systems to prepare” for a potential rollout, said Dr. Taison Bell, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the University of Virginia, but Bell added that he is concerned that the timeline outlined in the documents “is incredibly ambitious and makes me worry that the administration will prioritize this arbitrary deadline rather than maintaining diligence with following the science.”
He will change his tune if Biden wins.
The technical comparison of Vaccine A and Vaccine B has some echoes of what was discussed at an Aug. 26 meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. At the meeting, Dr. Kathleen Dooling, a CDC medical officer, laid out three scenarios: Vaccine A, or the Pfizer vaccine, is approved; Vaccine B, the Moderna vaccine, is approved, or both. The requirement that Pfizer’s vaccine be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius would mean that it couldn’t be administered at most small sites, she noted. The CDC documents note that orders of Vaccine A would go “to large administration sites only.” The Moderna vaccine requires storage at minus 20 degrees Celsius.
I suggest a fourth scenario: the COVID-19 virus is a crock of shit, a mild-flu like the common cold that has already mutated and weakened while humanity has a big dose of herd immunity due to the ever-rising caseloads.
The CDC documents said that the vaccine would be free to patients, but that providers might not be reimbursed for administrative costs if the vaccine was given an emergency authorization, rather than a standard approval.
Yeah, $queeze the hospitals and practices even more so they will go along and accept the $$$ to promote this fraud.
You evil f**kers.
Experts worry that the process is unlikely to go off without a hitch, given the last-minute scramble and the mixed messaging so far.
“I think distribution is going to be very tricky for the vaccine, particularly if there is a cold storage requirement,” Bell said.
There are also likely to be challenges administering both doses of the proposed vaccines, which must be given weeks apart, Dark said. “How are you going to make sure people get both?”
Or any.
--more--"
That article originally appeared in The New York Times.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
These originally appeared in the Bo$ton Globe:
"Flu shot mandate a crucial public health move during pandemic; Other states should follow Massachusetts’ lead in requiring that most students under 30 get a flu vaccination as part of their COVID-19 strategy" by The Editorial Board September 2, 2020
What is worse than having one highly contagious, potentially deadly virus circulating widely?
How about two?
With flu season upon us, that is exactly what’s about to happen. COVID-19, which has now killed about 9,000 people in Massachusetts, isn’t going anywhere, and fearing that two simultaneous infectious diseases will overwhelm the state’s health care resources, Massachusetts public health authorities announced an unprecedented order requiring that most students get the influenza vaccine, which has historically been optional. It’s a sensible step in the midst of an already devastating pandemic.
See: Massachusetts Mandates Student Vaccinations
The state’s mandate requires all children 6 months of age or older enrolled in child care, preschool, K-12, and colleges and universities to get a flu shot by the end of the year — unless they claim a religious or medical exemption, are home schooled, or are higher-education students who are off-campus and enrolled in remote-only classes. Enforcement will be carried out by the local school districts and higher-ed institutions.
You have to home school; it is the only way to keep your children truly safe.
A handful of other states require flu immunization for child care or preschool entry, according to state Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders, but Massachusetts is the first state in the nation to enact such a sweeping order.
Why are we always first in things that we should be last?
“A lot of the flu symptoms and COVID-19 symptoms are similar,” Sudders said, “and so we wanted to be able to diagnose appropriately. What’s flu, what’s COVID-19, and protect our health care resources. About 55,000 people every year end up in our hospital emergency departments with flu-like symptoms. . . . [That’s] a lot if you’re in the middle of a pandemic.”
They call it all COVID as a catch-all.
One of the most compelling lessons from the first wave of coronavirus infections is that public health authorities must be proactive rather than reactive. Winter is coming, and the more states that follow the Commonwealth’s lead by mandating flu vaccinations for students, the better equipped the country as a whole will be for whatever lies ahead.....
How OMINOUS is that, huh?
--more--"
I'm now howling at the Globe doing a complete-180:
"No shortcuts on COVID-19 vaccine; Making sure a vaccine is safe — and that people trust it — means science, not politics, should steer the timeline" by The Editorial Board September 3, 2020
Another day, another horrifying COVID-19 milestone: This week the number of US cases topped 6 million. The death toll now exceeds 180,000.
An equally undeniable truth is that life as we know it, as we once lived it — complete with in-person sporting events and theater and concerts — will not return until there is a safe and effective vaccine, widely trusted and administered, and there’s certainly no shortage of effort.
Undeniable, huh, you sick f**ks?
At least a dozen US firms are working on a COVID-19 vaccine. Two are in Phase 3 clinical trials already (one made by Moderna and the other by Pfizer/BioNTech). The so-called Oxford vaccine by AstraZeneca begins trials in the US this week, and Johnson & Johnson’s entry into the Phase 3 field is expected later this month. It is widely anticipated that a vaccine could be available by the end of this year or early 2021, but President Trump has made it clear, in speeches and on Twitter, that his target date is some time ahead of the Nov. 3 election — an “October surprise” that would somehow make the voting public forget how his ineptitude has contributed to the spread of this dreaded virus, and now the Trump appointee at the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has alerted governors to get ready to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine by Nov. 1.
The original October Surprise was the Reagan campaign -- via Casey and Bush -- convinced the Iranians to hold the hostages until Carter was no longer president, thus denying him an October Surprise that might have won him reelection.
So the real question now is: Can the Food and Drug Administration, which approves vaccines for safety and effectiveness, be bent to the will of the bully in the White House? Can this once respected agency be cowed into putting politics ahead of science in greenlighting a vaccine that has not yet proved its worth?
--more--"
How does the club turn itself into a pretzel look that?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Vaccine makers plan public stance to counter pressure on FDA" by Robert Langreth Bloomberg, September 4, 2020
Drugmakers are planning a public pledge to not send any COVID-19 vaccine to the FDA for review without extensive safety and efficacy data, according to people familiar with the effort.
They are phonying that up right now.
The joint stance is seen as a bulwark against political pressure being applied on the Food and Drug Administration to get a vaccine out as soon as possible. It is likely to be announced in a multicompany statement as soon as next week.
They want to do it, but not before November because it will help Trump.
The companies involved in the discussions include Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc., Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Sanofi, and possibly others. All are developing vaccines for COVID-19.
The drug industry has long relied on the FDA as a gold-standard approval for its drugs, but in the middle of the pandemic, the agency has made several controversial decisions to allow emergency use of therapies without rock-solid evidence they work.
Billy G called them the gold standard of regulators, and one wonders if he is writing all this for them!
A vaccine, which will need to be taken by millions of healthy people, requires significant uptake to be effective. One recent poll found a majority of the public thought a vaccine approval would be driven by politics. Federal health officials have said the process will be based entirely on science, and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn has said he would not participate if he thought a vaccine were being rubber-stamped.
Oh, that makes me feel at ease!
Meanwhile, President Trump has accused the FDA of slowing work to hurt him politically, and said he believes a vaccine will be ready before election day on Nov. 3.
At a news conference at the White House Friday, President Trump said a vaccine could be ready “maybe even before November first” or “some time in the month of October.”
“I think you’re going to see results that are shockingly good,” Trump said. It’s not clear what he was talking about, since results of trials are typically kept confidential while they’re ongoing, with occasional looks by a panel of experts to see if there are safety issues, or overwhelming signs a product is working or failing.
Much of the vaccine work is being done under the umbrella of the government’s Operation Warp Speed, which has struck deals with drugmakers to fund development and manufacturing, but the chief adviser for Warp Speed, Moncef Slaoui, has sought to tamp down those expectations, saying in a National Public Radio interview this week that it’s “extremely unlikely” a vaccine would be ready by election day.
What, he have more stock to sell first?
In an interview with the news organization Axios this week, Eli Lilly & Co. Chief Executive David Ricks said drug companies wouldn’t submit a COVID-19 product to the FDA until they were confident in the science behind it. Eli Lilly is developing a COVID-19 treatment, but is not part of the vaccine effort.
“Most of the principals in our industry and their scientific teams would say we’re not going to make something or we’re not going to sell it until we’ve proven to our own standards it’s safe and effective, subjected it to scientific scrutiny from the outside world,” Ricks said. Ricks is also head of the drug industry’s lobbying group, PhRMA.
Final-stage vaccine trials are rushing toward completion, and earlier this week Pfizer said it could have results by October. The FDA has set an Oct. 22 date for an outside group of experts to discuss a potential vaccine.
Others associated with the industry have urged a similar strict standard.
“I can say with complete authority that no company wants to have anything approved but under the strictest standards, the gold standard at the FDA,” said Jim Greenwood, the former head of the trade group BIO, the trade group representing biotechnology companies.
“It’s in no biopharmaceutical company’s interest to have a product provided to patients that isn’t proven to be completely safe and effective,” Greenwood said in an interview.
Actually, it doesn't matter because they have blanket immunity from lawsuits for defective products, so why should they even care when so much money is at $take?
--more--"
Related:
"Infectious-disease experts are warning of a potential cold-weather surge of coronavirus cases — a long-feared “second wave” of infections and deaths, possibly at a catastrophic scale. It could begin well before Election Day, Nov. 3, although researchers assume the crest would come weeks later, closer to when fall gives way to winter. An autumn surge in covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, would not be an October surprise: It has been hypothesized since early in the pandemic because of the patterns of other respiratory viruses. “My feeling is that there is a wave coming, and it’s not so much whether it’s coming but how big is it going to be,” said Eili Klein, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The pandemic is already a dominant campaign issue, and it’s not clear that even a spike in deaths would apply much torque to the presidential race. Outbreaks in some states could also bring pressure further down the ballot and conceivably affect turnout if there is so much community spread that voters who planned to cast ballots in person feel unsafe going to the polls. The warnings from researchers come at a moment when, despite a rise in cases in the Upper Midwest, national numbers have been trending downward at a slow pace for several weeks following the early-summer surges in the Sun Belt. Respiratory viruses typically begin spreading more easily a couple of weeks after schools resume classes. Although the pandemic has driven many school districts to remote learning, there is a broad push across the country to return to something like normal life. Viruses tend to spread more easily in cooler, less humid weather, which allows them to remain viable longer. As the weather cools, people tend to congregate more indoors."
A shameless attempt to depress Trump turnout, and it's a good thing kids are not returning to school.
Enjoy your Labor Day:
"The Labor Day holiday weekend is a traditional time of travel and group activities, and, like Independence Day and Memorial Day, could seed transmission of the virus if people fail to take precautions. The coronavirus has a relatively long incubation period, and the disease progression in patients with severe illnesses also tends to be drawn out over several weeks. As a result, any spike in deaths will lag weeks behind a spike in infections, and the infection surges have consistently followed the loosening of shutdown orders and other restrictions. A model produced by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and published Friday forecasts a “most likely” daily death toll of 1,907 on Election Day, roughly double the current toll. Under the IHME forecast, the numbers would continue to rise until early December, peaking at more than 2,800 deaths daily. By year’s end, 410,000 people in the United States will have died under the model’s most-likely scenario. That’s more than double current fatalities. The model also produced best-case and worst-case scenarios — ranging from 288,000 to 620,000 deaths by Jan. 1 — depending on the degree to which people wear masks, adhere to social distancing and take other precautions. “I firmly believe we will see distinct second waves, including in places that are done with their first waves. New York City, I’m looking at you,” said Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Irvine who studied the October surge in cases when the mild pandemic influenza virus circulated in 2009. “I expect fall waves starting in mid-October and getting worse as fall heads into winter, and reaching a crescendo certainly after the election. Some places will peak around Thanksgiving, some places will peak around Christmas, some places not until January and February,” Noymer said.
Screw them and their damn models that have been wildly inaccurate and enabled this fraud!
Can't believe they are still using them with actual numbers, case totals, and facts on the ground proving them totally wrong!
If that’s correct, the worst impacts will occur after the campaigning is over and the ballots have been cast. The exact timing is unlikely to be a political factor, contended David Rubin, the director of PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who said that most people have already made judgments about the candidates’ handling of the pandemic. “I wouldn’t foresee anything happening between now and the election that would change the dynamics of the election,” Rubin said. President Trump’s approval rating has been remarkably consistent through the pandemic, noted Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Though Trump lost some ground in May and June, he is no less popular than he was last fall, when the economy was strong and people could travel freely. “There has been a little bit of erosion, but not a ton,” Kondik said. Of course, in a close election, even a small shift “could be a difference between victory and defeat.” Rubin raised another possible consequence of increased viral transmission in advance of the election: Candidates could become sick. “The candidates are campaigning. They’re mixing with people,” Rubin said. “I would not be surprised to see a couple people get sick, and whether that goes all the way to the presidential candidates could be a game changer. This virus has got pretty close to the president a couple of times.”
Look at those sick, disgusting creatures hope he gets sick!
The timing of the pandemic remains unpredictable in part because it is not yet a seasonal virus. Seasonal viruses, such as those that cause influenza, and the coronaviruses that cause common colds, are remarkably faithful to the calendar, with most typically flaring in the fall a couple of weeks after children go back to school and start bringing their newly acquired infections into their homes, said Ellen Foxman, an immunologist at Yale School of Medicine and expert on respiratory viruses, but most people still have no immunity to the novel coronavirus. It spreads opportunistically in all kinds of weather. Despite millions of infections and more than 184,000 deaths, most people in the United States remain susceptible.
Then the lockdowns and tyranny have FAILED!
“A pandemic virus is different, because most of us do not have prior immunity to this virus,” Foxman said. “That means it’s a lot more contagious than a typical virus that we get every year.” There is a small body of evidence that a person who gets the virus acquires a limited amount of immunity, and there also are indications that some people can become infected a second time. It’s possible that some people suffer minimal or no effects from the coronavirus because of exposure to other viruses, which prime the body’s immune system against pathogens generally. This is seen as one plausible explanation for the unusual percentage of people — the CDC estimates 40 percent — who become infected with the novel coronavirus but are asymptomatic, but there still is no approved vaccine.
What you are looking at there is HER IMMUNITY, folks , and it is time to CALL OFF THIS FRAUD!
Most experts do not expect one to be distributed, at least in any significant numbers, before the end of the year at the earliest, and broad distribution could take many months. Meanwhile, the country’s health departments are reporting roughly 40,000 positive test results every day — more than double the number in May when many states began reopening after the first wave of infections. Epidemiologist Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University said a good target for the entire country would be to drive transmission down to 500 infections a day. At that level, contact tracing and testing could keep outbreaks under control. “The question is, is it going to spread out of control broadly?” Shaman said. “Are we going to get us down to 10,000 cases, then under 1,000, and then to my magical number of 500? The thing about this disease, it really spins out of control.”
What is spinning out of control is my patience for these monsters.
The cases they are finding are false positive, non-infectious persons who tested for any coronavirus.
Klein, the Hopkins epidemiologist, warns the fall wave is likely to be more intense than the peak in the spring. Maryland had 2,000 COVID-19 patients in hospitals at its peak in April, he said, and his midrange scenario envisions twice that many hospitalized patients at the next peak. At Hopkins, doctors are discussing what they call “Surge 2.0.” They are envisioning outbreaks that could potentially overwhelm hospitals with COVID-19 patients.
It's a f**king repeat of the first fraud.
That's how stupid they think we are!
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, get a hiding!
Even less-catastrophic surges could hamper other kinds of non-COVID-19 medical care, said Lisa Lockerd Maragakis, an associate professor of medicine and infectious diseases. “Even though we have had so many cases and we have had so many tragic deaths, we have the vast majority of people who are not immune to this virus,” Maragakis said. “Without a therapeutic or a vaccine, we are still in a position where the transmission of the virus depends heavily on our behaviors every day.”
Thanks for locking us ion and keeping us from getting herd immunity with the damn restrictions.
That is a common refrain among those working around-the-clock to understand this pandemic. “We are collectively in control of how many cases or deaths there are,” Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard, said in an email. “Forecasts more than a month from now make sense only if they are conditional on how we behave.” “People’s behavior is a dramatic determinant here,” said Christopher Murray, the director of IHME. “Look at what happened in Florida [after the spike in cases]. People got scared. They started wearing masks, they stopped going to bars,” but the converse is also true: If people stop being vigilant, the virus bounces back."
A shameless attempt to depress Trump turnout, and it's a good thing kids are not returning to school.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Enjoy your Labor Day:
"The Labor Day holiday weekend is a traditional time of travel and group activities, and, like Independence Day and Memorial Day, could seed transmission of the virus if people fail to take precautions. The coronavirus has a relatively long incubation period, and the disease progression in patients with severe illnesses also tends to be drawn out over several weeks. As a result, any spike in deaths will lag weeks behind a spike in infections, and the infection surges have consistently followed the loosening of shutdown orders and other restrictions. A model produced by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and published Friday forecasts a “most likely” daily death toll of 1,907 on Election Day, roughly double the current toll. Under the IHME forecast, the numbers would continue to rise until early December, peaking at more than 2,800 deaths daily. By year’s end, 410,000 people in the United States will have died under the model’s most-likely scenario. That’s more than double current fatalities. The model also produced best-case and worst-case scenarios — ranging from 288,000 to 620,000 deaths by Jan. 1 — depending on the degree to which people wear masks, adhere to social distancing and take other precautions. “I firmly believe we will see distinct second waves, including in places that are done with their first waves. New York City, I’m looking at you,” said Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Irvine who studied the October surge in cases when the mild pandemic influenza virus circulated in 2009. “I expect fall waves starting in mid-October and getting worse as fall heads into winter, and reaching a crescendo certainly after the election. Some places will peak around Thanksgiving, some places will peak around Christmas, some places not until January and February,” Noymer said.
Screw them and their damn models that have been wildly inaccurate and enabled this fraud!
Can't believe they are still using them with actual numbers, case totals, and facts on the ground proving them totally wrong!
If that’s correct, the worst impacts will occur after the campaigning is over and the ballots have been cast. The exact timing is unlikely to be a political factor, contended David Rubin, the director of PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who said that most people have already made judgments about the candidates’ handling of the pandemic. “I wouldn’t foresee anything happening between now and the election that would change the dynamics of the election,” Rubin said. President Trump’s approval rating has been remarkably consistent through the pandemic, noted Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Though Trump lost some ground in May and June, he is no less popular than he was last fall, when the economy was strong and people could travel freely. “There has been a little bit of erosion, but not a ton,” Kondik said. Of course, in a close election, even a small shift “could be a difference between victory and defeat.” Rubin raised another possible consequence of increased viral transmission in advance of the election: Candidates could become sick. “The candidates are campaigning. They’re mixing with people,” Rubin said. “I would not be surprised to see a couple people get sick, and whether that goes all the way to the presidential candidates could be a game changer. This virus has got pretty close to the president a couple of times.”
Look at those sick, disgusting creatures hope he gets sick!
The timing of the pandemic remains unpredictable in part because it is not yet a seasonal virus. Seasonal viruses, such as those that cause influenza, and the coronaviruses that cause common colds, are remarkably faithful to the calendar, with most typically flaring in the fall a couple of weeks after children go back to school and start bringing their newly acquired infections into their homes, said Ellen Foxman, an immunologist at Yale School of Medicine and expert on respiratory viruses, but most people still have no immunity to the novel coronavirus. It spreads opportunistically in all kinds of weather. Despite millions of infections and more than 184,000 deaths, most people in the United States remain susceptible.
Then the lockdowns and tyranny have FAILED!
“A pandemic virus is different, because most of us do not have prior immunity to this virus,” Foxman said. “That means it’s a lot more contagious than a typical virus that we get every year.” There is a small body of evidence that a person who gets the virus acquires a limited amount of immunity, and there also are indications that some people can become infected a second time. It’s possible that some people suffer minimal or no effects from the coronavirus because of exposure to other viruses, which prime the body’s immune system against pathogens generally. This is seen as one plausible explanation for the unusual percentage of people — the CDC estimates 40 percent — who become infected with the novel coronavirus but are asymptomatic, but there still is no approved vaccine.
What you are looking at there is HER IMMUNITY, folks , and it is time to CALL OFF THIS FRAUD!
Most experts do not expect one to be distributed, at least in any significant numbers, before the end of the year at the earliest, and broad distribution could take many months. Meanwhile, the country’s health departments are reporting roughly 40,000 positive test results every day — more than double the number in May when many states began reopening after the first wave of infections. Epidemiologist Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University said a good target for the entire country would be to drive transmission down to 500 infections a day. At that level, contact tracing and testing could keep outbreaks under control. “The question is, is it going to spread out of control broadly?” Shaman said. “Are we going to get us down to 10,000 cases, then under 1,000, and then to my magical number of 500? The thing about this disease, it really spins out of control.”
What is spinning out of control is my patience for these monsters.
The cases they are finding are false positive, non-infectious persons who tested for any coronavirus.
Klein, the Hopkins epidemiologist, warns the fall wave is likely to be more intense than the peak in the spring. Maryland had 2,000 COVID-19 patients in hospitals at its peak in April, he said, and his midrange scenario envisions twice that many hospitalized patients at the next peak. At Hopkins, doctors are discussing what they call “Surge 2.0.” They are envisioning outbreaks that could potentially overwhelm hospitals with COVID-19 patients.
It's a f**king repeat of the first fraud.
That's how stupid they think we are!
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, get a hiding!
Even less-catastrophic surges could hamper other kinds of non-COVID-19 medical care, said Lisa Lockerd Maragakis, an associate professor of medicine and infectious diseases. “Even though we have had so many cases and we have had so many tragic deaths, we have the vast majority of people who are not immune to this virus,” Maragakis said. “Without a therapeutic or a vaccine, we are still in a position where the transmission of the virus depends heavily on our behaviors every day.”
Thanks for locking us ion and keeping us from getting herd immunity with the damn restrictions.
That is a common refrain among those working around-the-clock to understand this pandemic. “We are collectively in control of how many cases or deaths there are,” Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard, said in an email. “Forecasts more than a month from now make sense only if they are conditional on how we behave.” “People’s behavior is a dramatic determinant here,” said Christopher Murray, the director of IHME. “Look at what happened in Florida [after the spike in cases]. People got scared. They started wearing masks, they stopped going to bars,” but the converse is also true: If people stop being vigilant, the virus bounces back."
Time for Governor Baker to weigh in on the COVID-19 vaccine timing as he says it ‘shouldn’t be based on a date’ like we were planning to pull out of Afghanistan or something, and the U.S. advisory group has laid out out detailed recommendations on how to prioritize Covid-19 vaccine, although it remains unclear, however, whether the CDC, Operation Warp Speed — the task force set up to fast-track development of Covid-19 vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics — or the White House will make the final determinations on who will be vaccinated first.
Of course, the Russian vaccine isn't good enough for the New York Times or Wa$hington Compo$t.
Remember when South Korea was the model for reopening?
"South Korea was so proud of its handling of the coronavirus pandemic that it coined a term for it: K-Quarantine, named after the global musical phenomenon K-pop. Its two-pronged strategy of fighting the virus while keeping the economy running appeared to work. The country all but halted a large outbreak without closing its borders, locking down towns or drawing an outcry over draconian restrictions on speech and movement. The country was held up as a model for the rest of the world, but now, South Korea is struggling with a second wave of infections, and its strategy seems as precarious as ever. The new wave is spreading from the populous Seoul metropolitan area and through people deeply suspicious of President Moon Jae-in’s epidemiological efforts. To complicate matters more, some of the government’s strongest allies in the fight against Covid-19, young doctors, have turned against Moon. They have gone on strike, unhappy with his medical reform program. The government is also trying to sustain a fragile balance between controlling the virus and safeguarding the economy, and between using government power to protect public health and not infringing on civil liberties. South Korea’s daily caseload of new infections, once fewer than 10, has been in the triple digits every day since Aug. 14, taking the country of 50 million people to more than 20,000 cases and 326 deaths, according to a New York Times database. The virus has spread quickly from churches and a large antigovernment protest rally. Moon’s government has threatened lawsuits and prosecution against churchgoers and protesters accused of impeding officials’ efforts to control the epidemic, but they’ve pushed back, calling him a dictator who is running the country under “quarantine martial law.” Undeterred, Moon recently tightened restrictions, banning church gatherings and large outdoor rallies and shutting down nightclubs and bars. Epidemiologists have called for more drastic social distancing measures, like banning all gatherings of more than 10 people and closing hundreds of thousands of other places, like professional sports games, cafes and wedding halls, but Moon has hesitated to go that far, fearing the damage to the already-shrinking economy. “We are at crossroads,” Jung Eun-kyeong, the director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Wednesday. “This coming week will decide whether we can stabilize the second wave of infections.”
It just happened to hit the president's political opponents, huh, and if they can't stabilize they will have to use a model from the past:
"Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has tested positive for COVID-19 after a precautionary check and will quarantine at home, his press office said on Wednesday. Berlusconi, who is 83, is currently isolated in his Arcore residence near Milan, his office said, adding that he will continue to work from there as he completes the necessary quarantine period. His personal doctor, Alberto Zangrillo, said that the former premier is “asymptomatic,” Italian media reported. The three-time premier and media tycoon had been recently pictured in Sardinia with an old friend, businessman Flavio Briatore, who was hospitalized after testing positive to COVID-19 in mid August. Berlusconi had tested negative at the time. As Italy continues to battle against the coronavirus pandemic – which killed more than 35,400 people nationwide – the political leader known around the world for his personal life was back at the center of both political action and summer gossip. He made headlines last month after Italian tabloids published pictures of him walking hand-in-hand in Sardinia with his new girlfriend, Forza Italia lawmaker Marta Fascina, who is 53 years his junior....."
That's who put him into the hospital, and you need to take into consideration his age — the former three-time premier turns 84 in a few weeks — and previous health conditions, which included heart problems that necessitated a pacemaker implant several years ago -- although the latest is he is in stable condition.
"Berlin prosecutors have thrown out hundreds of criminal complaints against a leader of one of Germany’s governing parties over her use of the word “covidiots” to describe protesters who demonstrated against coronavirus restrictions without masks or social distancing. Saskia Esken, a co-leader of the center-left Social Democrats, used the term in a tweet on August 1 as around 20,000 people demonstrated in Berlin. Police ultimately ended the rally because organizers failed to get participants to keep their distance or wear masks. Berlin prosecutors on Wednesday said they had decided against opening an investigation after receiving several hundred criminal complaints alleging slander. They said Esken’s use of the expression was covered by constitutionally protected freedom of expression (AP)."
In response, the government plans to boost public health system.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
No howling about these protests, though:
"Pair of protests — one decrying Trump, the other decrying police violence — become one in Copley Square" by Nick Stoico Globe Correspondent, September 5, 2020
Cries for justice rang out in Copley Square on Saturday as hundreds called for an end to the Trump presidency and repeated the names of men and women of color who have been killed by law enforcement.
Back-to-back rallies gradually formed into one as protesters with Refuse Facism marched down St. James Avenue holding a banner that read “Trump/Pence #OutNow” and joined the crowd for the Civic Youth Summit’s Black Lives, Black Voices, and Jacob Blake rally in front of Trinity Church.
The Black Lives rally offered somber moments of remembrance for Jacob Blake, Breonna Taylor, and others whose deaths have helped spur a national movement for racial equality over the summer.
Danny Rivera, a 19-year-old organizer from Mattapan with the Civic Youth Summit, said the nation is faced with four major challenges: the COVID-19 pandemic, economic injustice, voter suppression, and police brutality.
The late afternoon rallies included moments of hope, with protesters reading poetry and upbeat music.
As Brian Richburg and New Legaxy broke into a funky version of “Come Together,” the music seemed to draw more to the plaza, and the crowd appeared to swell to at least a few hundred people.
No worries regarding the large gathering, huh?
The atmosphere in Copley Square was one of enthusiasm and hope.
Attendees, nearly all of whom wore masks, danced along to the music as Richburg and the band grooved through its set of jazz, funk, rock and hip-hop numbers. Others stretched out on on the lawn under the warm sun and blue sky, chatting with friends and enjoying the last days of summer.
It's the last one you will ever have.
Activists, artists and at least one elected official, Councilor Julia Mejia, encouraged the attendees to vote in November and continue speaking against police brutality and for reform.
“I came to this country in search of the American dream and what it felt like was a nightmare,” Mejia, who was born in the Dominican Republic, told the crowd. “The people have the power … and when we show up to the polls you’re going to demonstrate that you count.”
This is no longer about BLM, it's PURELY POLITICAL!
“Our kids are watching us. We have to set the tone in how we handle stress," said City Councilor Julia Mejia. (Erin Clark/Globe Staff).
Yeah, that's her!
See:
"It seems safe to say that the City Council has never seen anything like this. As the continuing pandemic takes its toll on Boston, both economically and psychologically, City Councilor Julia Mejia is trying to lift constituents’ spirits, but not just by brainstorming civic solutions and convening virtual gatherings. She’s also busting moves on TikTok. Every night for the past 30, Mejia has posted video of herself dancing with her 10-year-old daughter, Annalise Cooper....."
That is SO GODDAMN INSULTING and OFFENSIVE it DEFIES WORDS!
Members of the Boston Community Action Team were on hand, with students walking through the crowd carrying clipboards and encouraging people to register to vote on the spot.
One can smell the fraud.
As the summer winds down and the November election comes into view, organizers are working to keep the momentum going.
To do that, activist Kamiya Parkin, 21, of Boston, said the key is to continue with a clear message and keep supporters excited and active with events like Saturday’s in Copley Square.
“There’s so many different issues and you don’t want to overwhelm people with content, because the whole goal is so that people leave and feel energized and recharged and able to continue the movement,” she said.
The organization Refuse Facism kicked off the afternoon of demonstrations at about 4 p.m. as some 40 people gathered on the sidewalk across Dartmouth Street from the Boston Public Library.
Several held signs with messages scrawled in black marker such as “Dump Trump” and “Tyrants Out Now.”
They want Baker to resign?
Refuse Fascism New England spokesperson Scott Gilbert said Saturday’s demonstration was one of 26 concurrent rallies put on by the organization across the nation.
The Rev. Jacob Urena of the Order of St. Martin de Porres wore a mask that read “I Can’t Breathe” and described the current administration as one that continually demonizes Black and brown communities.
“If we provide this administration another four years, they are going to reign with no control because they won’t need to worry about another election,” said Urena, who is 23 and grew up in Mattapan. “The damage that can be done is going to be far worse.”
I'll bet he didn't feel that way about Obama, who used the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to spy on the opposing party's presidential campaign.
--more--"
This was a howl:
"Biden: Trump ignores pandemic, stokes unrest, solves neither" by Bill Barrow and Will Weissert, Sept. 2, 2020
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Joe Biden is calling the struggle to reopen U.S. schools amid the coronavirus a “national emergency” and accusing President Donald Trump of turning his back to stoke passions instead about unrest in America’s cities.
The Democratic presidential nominee’s broadsides came a day ahead of his own trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Biden said he wants to help “heal” a city reeling from another police shooting of a Black man. The wounding of Jacob Blake and subsequent demonstrations have made the political battleground state a focal point for debate over police and protest violence, as well as the actions of vigilante militias.
They said Trump shouldn't have gone, and then follow him one day later!
Those internal polls at the Biden campaign must be cratering!
Biden assailed Trump for his vilifying of protesters as well as his handling of the pandemic that has killed nearly 190,000 Americans and crippled the national economy, leaving millions out of work, schools straining to deal with students in classrooms or at home and parents struggling to keep up. An American president, Trump’s challenger declared, should be able to lead through multiple crises at the same time.
Can he?
Trump answered almost immediately with his own event in North Carolina, where he continued casting the protests generally as “violent mobs here at home” that must be met with a strong show of force. “These people know one thing: strength,” he said. If local leaders would ask for federal muscle, Trump said, “We’ll have it done in one hour.”
The opposing Biden and Trump events reflected the clear fault lines of the general election campaign. Each man casts the other as a threat to Americans’ day-to-day security, but Trump uses “law and order” as his rallying cry while Biden pushes a broader referendum on Trump’s competence, temperament and values.
Biden said Wednesday that he’d use existing federal disaster law to direct funding to schools to help them reopen safely, and he urged Trump to “get off Twitter” and “negotiate a deal” with Congress on more pandemic aid. He repeated his assertions that a full economic recovery isn’t possible with COVID-19 still raging, and that reopening schools safely is a necessary part of both limiting the virus’ spread and allowing parents to return to work.
Addressing the ongoing unrest over racial injustice and policing, Biden told reporters he believes the Kenosha officer who shot Blake “needs to be charged.” Biden also called for charges in the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed in her Louisville, Kentucky, home by police in March.
Biden also called for legal action on citizens who’ve committed violence as part of civil unrest, a direct answer to Trump’s continued assertions that Biden backs violent protests.
The former vice president said he plans to meet in Kenosha with civic and business leaders and law enforcement. He also will meet with members of the Blake family; he’s already talked with some of them by phone. Blake remains hospitalized after he was shot seven times in the back by police as he was trying to get into a car while authorities were trying to arrest him.....
Why arresting him?
The reason is he was in violation of a restraining order regarding a minor female, fought with police while armed with a knife, and was trying to flee the scene.
That's the hero and angel for whom they are out in the streets.
--more--"
Related:
Joe Biden, in Kenosha, says US is confronting ‘original sin’
He did not mean pedophilia.
Owner of burned business in Kenosha says Trump appeared alongside store’s former owner, misleading the public
Biden is already on his way to Rochester:
NY attorney general to form grand jury after Prude death
The guy was stark naked in public as it's “just the beginning,” and Stanley Martin, an organizer of Free the People Rochester, told reporters: “We do not need violent workers with guns to respond to mental health crises.”
"Activists have marched nightly in the city of 210,000 on Lake Ontario since police body camera videos of the encounter with Prude were released by his family Wednesday. Friday night’s protest resulted in 11 arrests, police said. As they had the night before, officers doused activists at police headquarters with a chemical spray to drive them from barricades around the building....."
Also see:
"Both the suspect in the slaying of the right-wing protester in Portland, Oregon last weekend and the victim had handguns when their confrontation started after dueling street demonstrations, according to court documents made public Friday. The documents said victim Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a supporter of a right-wing group called Patriot Prayer, was wearing a loaded Glock pistol in a holster and had bear spray and an expandable metal baton when someone said something like “wanna go,” which is frequently a challenge to a fight. Authorities have said they believe antifa supporter Michael Forest Reinoehl, who was fatally shot by federal agents late Thursday in Washington state, then opened fire and killed Danielson....."
No one cares about a righty-whitey who can't make bail.
