Always has been, always will be unless the monsters are exposed and stopped:
"Highly contagious new virus strain increases pressure to speed up the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations; “We need to be in overdrive now,” one pandemic expert said" by Robert Weisman Globe Staff, December 30, 2020
The discovery of a more contagious coronavirus strain in the United States this week has turned the battle against COVID-19 into a high-stakes race between the newly authorized vaccines and a virus that soon may spread even faster.
That’s what scientists are saying after the first US case of the easily transmitted “British variant” of COVID-19 was confirmed in a Colorado National Guardsman with no recent history of travel. They say the new strain may already be spreading undetected elsewhere in the US — a second possible case in Colorado and one in California were being investigated Tuesday — heightening the urgency to ramp up the sluggish national vaccine rollout that’s already behind schedule.
The variant “could be here in Massachusetts, certainly,” said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who warned a dearth of genomic tracking may have left the mutant strain invisible in most of the country. “It’s reasonable to assume that it’s here.”
Once again, you don't even know it unless a fraudulent technique is used to declare you infectious meaning herd immunity has likely been gained for what amounts to a redressing of seasonal cold and flu. CVD has never been isolated and thus does not exist, it's that simple and is that following the $cience? Rea$onable to a$$ume?
Federal and Massachusetts officials are monitoring the new virus strain closely and are careful to say it does not appear to cause a higher risk of death — it’s just easier to pass from person to person. Drug makers and public health figures think the vaccines will be effective in neutralizing the variant, first detected in Great Britain, though they’re waiting for clear evidence of that.
“The one thing that appears to be true about this mutant is it’s highly, highly contagious,” Massachusetts health and human services secretary Marylou Sudders said Tuesday.
Look at the hedging and weasel wording from that criminal, complete with fear bells loudly ringing.
Dr. Henry Walke, incident manager for COVID-19 response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a press briefing that “the arrival of this variant in the United States was expected, considering how widespread it is in the United Kingdom and how frequently people travel between the US and the UK.” Walke said the lack of reported travel history of the first man infected “suggests the variant has been transmitted from person to person in the United States.”
Pandemic fighters see a looming threat in the coming months: Without faster progress in the push to immunize hundreds of millions of Americans, the nation could face new spikes in infections and more onerous lockdowns.
“We need to be in overdrive now,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, a Columbia University professor and director of the Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative. “We need to move as rapidly as possible to get the whole population vaccinated.”
Their words, not mine. It's admittedly a massive state effort to vaccinate all residents and just take whichever one they give you already! The Globe has even volunteered to help you make the appointment.
Immunologists say the main danger of the mutant virus strain, called B.1.1.7, is that it has the potential to boost the number of US coronavirus cases substantially. That could further strain health systems across the country and lead to school closings and tougher restrictions on movement such as the lockdown that’s idled much of southern England over the holidays.
British researchers have estimated the new variant is more than 50 percent more transmissible than standard COVID-19.
That is down from the initial 70 percent for which there was and is no scientific evidence!
The variants narrative is nothing more than a retooling for a possible third dose and if fully immunized people start getting hospitalized with mutated virus, “that’s when the line gets crossed,” and that line has already been crossed in Israel where the Pfizer vaccine has sent cases into the stratosphere (the Globe forgot to report that for some reason).
It's a way of saying we remain at risk despite downturn in cases that is being (wrongly) attributed to states having the capacity to provide more vaccinations despite the alleged shortages gumming up the rollout. That's why Ohioans are on the hunt for them while South Carolina considers breaking up its public health agency and a key Florida official overseeing the COVID-19 response resigned after 13 new variant cases showed up despite the blockade and lag in vaccinations.
It's all a $cam, folks, and everybody knows it by now. How can you trust drug companies that continuously engage in misleading marketing and failing to properly warn consumers about health risks.
“With this [strain] rising and emerging, it makes vaccination all the more important,” Hanage said in an interview. “If it’s more transmissible, we need to deny it the opportunity to transmit and make things so much worse than they are.”
Perhaps the most critical question pondered by scientists is whether the first COVID-19 vaccines — authorized and under development — will be effective against the British strain, which has now been identified in about 20 other countries from Canada to India to the United Arab Emirates.
Viruses are constantly mutating, undergoing small changes as they reproduce and move through populations. Because the coronavirus mutations identified so far appear to be minor and relatively small in number, scientists believe the vaccines will work against the British variant, as well as another mutant coronavirus strain that has cropped up in South Africa (CDC officials said there’s no evidence that strain is in the US), but scientists are awaiting definitive proof from tests that are being conducted in research labs in Boston and elsewhere on whether the vaccines effectively block the variant.
$elf-$erving, no doubt.
“There’s a high chance these variants are already circulating around the United States,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, whose lab is among those testing whether antibodies found in the blood of convalescent COVID-19 patients and people who’ve gotten vaccines will neutralize the virus variants.
“I don’t believe there’s need for alarm, but we need to generate the data to determine whether this is a problem,” said Barouch, whose lab has also been working with drug maker Johnson & Johnson on a new one-shot vaccine.
Hmmmmmmm!
The say it is the most compelling evidence yet that the vaccine prevents serious illness despite the emergence of resistant variants, but most important message is that all of these vaccines are highly safe and highly effective, and all these vaccines are going to save lives and it has been cleared for use.
Vaccine makers Moderna and Pfizer, which is working with German partner BioNTech, both released statements saying the messenger RNA technology used in both of their vaccines give them flexibility to combat mutant strains. Both companies said their scientists are working to generate data on how well vaccinated Britons are protected against the variant.
The statement from Cambridge-based Moderna said that the company planned to test its vaccine on the mutant strains of COVID-19, but the flexibility of Moderna’s approach “provide confidence that our vaccine will also be effective at inducing neutralizing antibodies against them.”
Similar testing being done in labs from Maryland to Texas are being closely watched by infectious disease specialists in the US and abroad.
“Typically, you need multiple mutations in order to evade the immune response to vaccines,” said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “The similarities among these strains is much more than the similarities between flu strains. There’s good reason to believe the vaccines will be effective against all these circulating new strains.”
While the readily spread British strain has prompted dozens of countries to restrict travelers from the United Kingdom or show proof of a negative COVID-19 test before they can enter, it’s not even clear the variant originated in the UK, said Hanage. The variant may simply have been detected first in Britain because the UK is a world leader in genomic epidemiology, he said, sequencing more than 10 times the number of coronavirus genomes as the United States.
“It’s not being done at the same scale here,” he said. “In the US, we don’t look at the genomes. It’s ridiculous.”
It sure is!
--more--"
Related:
"California Governor Gavin Newsom Wednesday announced the first known case of the new, and apparently more contagious, variant of the coronavirus in the nation’s most-populated state, following the first reported US case in Colorado. Newsom said he had just learned of the finding in a Southern California case Wednesday. He announced it during an online conversation with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert. Fauci said: “I don’t think Californians should think that this is odd, it’s to be expected.’' Newsom did not provide any other details about the person who was infected. The Colorado and California cases have triggered a host of questions about how the mutant version circulating in England arrived in the United States and whether it is too late to stop it now, with top experts saying it is probably already spreading elsewhere in the country. Meanwhile, the first person in the United States known to be infected with the new variant of the coronavirus was identified Wednesday as a Colorado National Guardsman who had been sent to help out at a nursing home struggling with an outbreak, and health officials said a second Guard member may have it, too. “The virus is becoming more fit, and we’re like a deer in the headlights,” warned Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps ResearchTranslational Institute. He noted that the United States does far less genetic sequencing of virus samples to discover variants than other developed nations do, and thus was probably slow to detect this new mutation. The two Guard members had been dispatched on Dec. 23 to work at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in the small town of Simla, in a mostly rural area about 90 miles outside Denver, said Dr. Rachel Herlihy, state epidemiologist. They were among six Guard members sent to the home. Nasal swab samples taken from the two as part of the Guard’s routine coronavirus testing were sent to the state laborator, which began looking for the variant after its spread was announced in Britain earlier this month, Herlihy said. Samples from staff and residents at the nursing home are also being screened for the variant at the lab, but so far no evidence of it has been found, she said. The confirmed case in Colorado is a man in his 20s who hadn’t been traveling, officials said. He has mild symptoms and is isolating at his home near Denver, while the person with the suspected case is isolating at a Colorado hotel while further genetic analysis is done on his sample, officials said. The nursing home said it is working closely with the state and is also looking forward to beginning vaccinations next week. Several states, including California, Massachusetts, and Delaware, are also analyzing suspicious virus samples for the variant, said Dr. Greg Armstrong, who directs genetic sequencing at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said the CDC is working with a national lab that gets samples from around the country to broaden that search, with results expected within days. The discovery in Colorado has added urgency to the nation’s vaccination drive against COVID-19, which has killed more than 340,000 people in the country. Britain is seeing infections soar and hospitalizations climb to their highest levels on record. The variant has also been found in several other countries. Scientists have found no evidence that it is more lethal or causes more severe illness, and they believe the vaccines now being dispensed will be effective against it, but a faster-spreading virus could swamp hospitals with seriously ill patients."
He is worried about being recalled and terminated over the mass-murdering fraud:
"California reported its second-highest number of COVID-19 deaths Wednesday but also a dip in hospitalizations below 20,000 for the first time since Dec. 27. The California Department of Public Health has reported the total of 694 new deaths is second to the record 708 reported on Jan. 8. Hospitalizations stood at 19,979. California officials are pinning their hopes on President Biden as they struggle to obtain coronavirus vaccines to curb a coronavirus surge that has packed hospitals and morgues. Doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been arriving haphazardly as they make their way from the source to counties, cities, and hospitals. Former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger put in a pitch for vaccination, posting a Twitter video of himself getting a shot in his right bicep at the drive-through site at Dodger Stadium. “Today was a good day,” he wrote. “I have never been happier to wait in a line. If you’re eligible, join me and sign up to get your vaccine. Come with me if you want to live!”
There is nothing sadder than a wa$hed-up ha$-been from Hollywood and the "vaccine hestinacy" is really driving them crazy, especially in the four states in the Deep South that have had particularly dismal inoculation rates that have alarmed health experts and frustrated residents.
"Last month, entrepreneur Peter Diamandis stood on a purple-lit stage inside the offices of one of his tech companies in Culver City, Calif., as hundreds listened online to his presentation. The summit was not completely virtual, though. Dozens of attendees, some who had traveled from abroad, also sat in the indoor space that Diamandis pledged would be safe thanks to regular testing, vitamins, and doctors on site. Instead, nearly three weeks later, at least 24 people who attended the conference have now tested positive for the coronavirus, including Diamandis himself. ’'I thought creating a COVID ‘immunity bubble’ for a small group in a TV studio setting was possible,’' Diamandis, who is also the cofounder of a coronavirus vaccine company, recently wrote in his personal website. ’'I was wrong.’' For months, public health experts have urged people to refrain from holding indoor gatherings to curb the spread of a virus that has now killed more than 485,000 people in the United States. Still, many have disregarded the recommendations and have hosted weddings, impromptu family birthday lunches, group pictures, and other gatherings that have become superspreader events. Diamandis did not immediately respond to a message early Monday."
One wonders how would Larry David would have handled it. I'll bet the house would be on fire as he killed them with laughter while robbing them (cue music).
Also see:
"The number of confirmed coronavirus deaths in Massachusetts rose past 12,000 Wednesday, another tragic milestone for a state that has been wracked by the pandemic. With 118 new deaths reported, the tally rose to 12,076. With probable cases added, the tally is 12,338, the Department of Public Health said. In another alarming figure, the number of confirmed cases rose by 6,135, the agency said. The data provided a grim reminder of the growing reach of the pandemic, just before another holiday that officials fear will enable further spread. Governor Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh urged Massachusetts residents to avoid large gatherings on New Year’s Eve. “Drinking and smoking marijuana can lower people’s inhibitions and cause them to forget to wear masks,” Walsh said. While Hub civilians should be home when the ball drops, Boston Police Commissioner William G. Gross said, his officers will be out in force Thursday night. At Baker’s news conference, the normally mild-mannered governor pounded the lectern with both hands as he told reporters he looked forward to bidding good riddance to 2020, and he reflected on the yearlong toll of the virus, which has wrought staggering levels of death, illness, and economic despair throughout the state and nation. “If you wanted to put together a virus that was as destructive physically, emotionally, and spiritually as it could possibly be, it would look like COVID-19,” Baker said. “It would be asymptomatic for a lot of people so that they could spread it to others without knowing they were doing it, and at the same time convince a whole bunch of people that it’s really not that bad,” he added, “and at the same time, it would be an absolute murderous infection for many other people who were on the other end of this spectrum.” Turning to vaccine distribution, Baker said “this is the largest rollout of a vaccination program in US history and it can’t happen fast enough. Meanwhile....."
The growing pressure must be getting to him because he cut a few tears the other day (running a mass-murdering $cam will do that to you), and meanwhile:
"Hazel Plummer, 112, survived the flu pandemic of 1918. A little over 100 years later, she received the Pfizer vaccine to help her live through another one. “You have to have faith that this works, and it looks like this works good,” said her son, 84-year-old David Plummer, referring to the vaccine. Hazel Plummer, the oldest resident of Massachusetts, was one of 49 residents at the Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley in Littleton set to be vaccinated Wednesday afternoon, said Samantha Pereira, executive director of the nursing home. Fifty members of staff were also to get their first round of the vaccine Wednesday. “She was joking around before they even gave it to her,” said Missy Francoeur, admissions director at the Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley. She was an active churchgoer and “never drank alcohol or smoked,” the nursing home said. She moved to the Littleton nursing home in May 2017. Then COVID-19 hit. Plummer was one of the few residents who didn’t contract the virus during one of the first outbreaks at the nursing home, and “look at it this way: At her age, if they had an outbreak up there, and if she were to get it, she would die for sure,” David said. “It’s a lot better all the way around to get the vaccine and to chance that than to chance the COVID, and who knows? Maybe she’ll make it to 113.”
One day they will write a song about her and if she doesn't make it, it won't be because of the vaccine. The pit bull pre$$ will make sure of that.
With that, I will let the New York Times take you behind the lines of Britain’s COVID war that has struck Prince Philip. There are pangs of guilt after the government authorized the COVID-19 vaccine made by AstraZeneca and Oxford University under threat of terror and death with no possibility for probation or personal freedom. You now have a target on your back and they are literally coming for blood if you wait much longer. It's a done deal — finally, and rather than sue over alleged privacy violations you will have to leave the country.
Don't go to South Africa, though, because a small clinical trial failed to show that the vaccine could keep people from getting mild or moderate cases of COVID-19 caused by the coronavirus variant spreading there, but just do what Fauci says, right?
That would leave the royals stuck in limbo and the politicians treading carefully in minefield left by Harry and Meghan’s interview. Prince William already stepped on one, and I thought schools were reopening in Britain after CVD became nothing worse than the common cold even with the 7 variants floating around and case levels exploding here in the state, where 80,620 people were estimated(?!!?) to have active cases of the potentially deadly virus(?!!?) but new tactics against virus variant aren’t needed yet because there is no evidence yet from clinical trials there suggesting that the vaccine does not offer strong protection (is there evidence that it does as the vaccine supply increases?)
I'm sorry, but I'm stumped by the weasel wording as France suspends the AstraZeneca rollout because variant cases are surging despite increased supplies of masks -- something that is now becoming a going concern and indu$try, or so a little bird told me. That's the talk regarding the migration, anyway, and if things go wrong it is merely an embarrassing blunder that shouldn't dim the fire as doctors are divided over changing vaccine dosages to reach more people.
That's why one of our medical saviors is stepping down:
"The president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dr. Elizabeth “Betsy” Nabel, is stepping down after 11 years leading the prestigious nonprofit medical center to pursue opportunities in the for-profit biotech sector. Nabel’s paying jobs outside of the hospital have also been a source of controversy. Last July, she resigned from the board of Moderna amid concerns that her connection posed a conflict with the Brigham’s role in the clinical trial of Moderna’s COVID vaccine. Nabel sold $8.5 million of stock in Moderna last year and used the proceeds to make charitable contributions, her spokeswoman, Erin McDonough, said Tuesday. Nabel, through her spokeswoman, did not disclose how much of the proceeds she donated, or where. Previously, while serving as lead medical adviser to the National Football League, Nabel defended the league’s record on safety. John Fish, chairman of the Brigham’s board of trustees, defended Nabel’s involvement with corporate boards, saying that she acted appropriately and that her outside work enhanced her work at the Brigham. He said Nabel is leaving of her own volition....."
She was flexibile about it and she has already found a new home after much pondering and potential estimates.
What history will record is the Covid “mutation” stories show that the lockdowns were designed to last forever like some sort of cult with a high priest at its head and Massachusetts in the midst of a campaign to vaccinate 4.1 million adults in an effort to bring an end to a pandemic that has sickened hundreds of thousands and caused more than 15,000 deaths in the state, but with public officials are concerned about a possible resurgence due to new coronavirus variants and they’re asking people to continue taking precautions and to get vaccinated when it’s their turn because the variant case count was up to 46 last I saw (but most assuredly an undercount as the pieces of the puzzle come together).
