COVID-19 and Other Pandemics | Anarchy in the USA

[Doc]

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chi ... 022-06-11/

Beijing warns of 'explosive' COVID outbreak, Shanghai conducts mass testing
By Andrew Galbraith

1/6
People line up for nucleic acid tests on a street, amid new lockdown measures in parts of the city to curb the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai, China, June 11, 2022. REUTERS/Aly Song


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SHANGHAI, June 11 (Reuters) - China's capital Beijing is experiencing an "explosive" COVID-19 outbreak connected to a bar, a government spokesman said on Saturday, as the commercial hub, Shanghai,conducted mass testing to contain a jump in cases tied to a hair salon.

The warning followed a new tightening of COVID curbs in Beijing since Thursday, with at least two districts closing some entertainment venues after a flare-up in a neighbourhood full of nightlife, shopping and embassies.

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While China's infection rate is low by global standards, it maintains a zero-COVID policy, citing the need to protect the elderly and the medical system, even as other countries try to live with the virus.

So far, the country of 1.4 billion has seen just 5,226 deaths from COVID-19.

Beijing authorities said on Saturday that all 61 new cases uncovered in the city on Friday had either visited the Heaven Supermarket Bar or had links to it.

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"The recent outbreak ... is strongly explosive in nature and widespread in scope," Xu Hejian, spokesperson of the Beijing municipal government, told a news briefing.

The capital had registered 46 new local cases on Saturday as of 3 p.m. (0700 GMT), all people already in isolation or under observation, health official Liu Xiaofeng said.

The city did not announce new curbs at the briefing, but later the Beijing sports administration said all off-campus and "offline" sports activities for teens would be cancelled from Sunday.

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So far, 115 cases and 6,158 close contacts linked to the bar have been reported, throwing the city of 22 million back into a state of anxiety.

Beijing only relaxed curbs less than two weeks ago that had been imposed to fight a major outbreak that began in April.

The sprawling Universal Beijing Resort - a theme park on the city's outskirts - on Friday rescinded a plan to reopen. City authorities said three of its workers had visited the Heaven Supermarket bar.

Many neighbourhoods in the capital have been put under lockdown, with residents told to stay home.

CITYWIDE TESTING
In Shanghai, officials announced three new confirmed local cases and one asymptomatic case detected outside quarantined areas on Saturday, as nearly all the city's 25 million residents began a new round of COVID tests.

Authorities ordered PCR testing for all residents in 15 of Shanghai's 16 districts this weekend, and five districts barred residents from leaving home during the testing period. A city official said residents should complete at least one PCR test a week until July 31.

China's most populous city only lifted a gruelling two-month COVID-19 lockdown on June 1. read more

"I am a little bit worried because if there are positive cases in the compound, it will be put into a sealed situation," said Shanghai resident Shi Weiqi. "I will also stock up on some supplies properly in case the previous situation happens again."

Shanghai authorities said they had also reprimanded and dismissed several district-level officials for lapses at a hotel that was used to quarantine arrivals from overseas, pinpointed as one of the sources of Shanghai's wave of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

They also said they had warned or dismissed some executives at a state-owned firm that owned the Red Rose beauty salon, where three cases were found among workers this week.

The salon's employees had not followed guidelines to undertake PCR testing daily, they said.

On Saturday, Shanghai reported seven new local symptomatic cases for the previous day, a rise of one, of which six were detected outside of quarantined areas.

The city also recorded nine new local asymptomatic cases, up from six the previous day.

In total, mainland China reported 210 new coronavirus cases for June 10, of which 79 were symptomatic and 131 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said.

That was up from 151 new cases a day earlier, 45 of them symptomatic and 106 asymptomatic.

As of Friday, mainland China had confirmed 224,659 cases with symptoms.

[Doc]

[Nonc Hilaire]

Large life insurance company reports 163% increase in under age 65 payouts during the CV years.

https://crossroadsreport.substack.com/p ... -insurance

[Heracleum Persicum]

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[Doc]

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Hard to see why.

[Doc]

Short .jpeg

I just saw this on one of my favorite you tube channels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YWbR8K0jT4

3YWbR8K0jT4

[Nonc Hilaire]

Short .jpeg

I just saw this on one of my favorite you tube channels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YWbR8K0jT4

3YWbR8K0jT4

Doesn’t China do perceptual psychology at all?

The dependent variables are sloppy. Time spent outdoors, study time, electronics use are wildly uncontrolled.

I would look at much tighter dependent variables like time spent focusing at infinity, the design of ideogram typefaces and reading by emitted vs. reflected light.

[Doc]

Short .jpeg

I just saw this on one of my favorite you tube channels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YWbR8K0jT4

3YWbR8K0jT4

Doesn’t China do perceptual psychology at all?

The dependent variables are sloppy. Time spent outdoors, study time, electronics use are wildly uncontrolled.

I would look at much tighter dependent variables like time spent focusing at infinity, the design of ideogram typefaces and reading by emitted vs. reflected light.

They did mention that things got much worse during the COVID lockdowns while children were studying online.

[Doc]

Pandemics past and future

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/medicatedchild/

"The Medicated Child"

[Doc]

https://journals.lww.com/md-journal/Ful ... ks.60.aspx

The Foegen effect
A mechanism by which facemasks contribute to the COVID-19 case fatality rate
Fögen, Zacharias MD∗

Editor(s): Shalaby., Mohammed Nader
Author Information
Medicine: February 18, 2022 - Volume 101 - Issue 7 - p e28924
doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000028924
OPEN
SDC
Metrics
Abstract
Extensive evidence in the literature supports the mandatory use of facemasks to reduce the infection rate of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, which causes the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). However, the effect of mask use on the disease course remains controversial. This study aimed to determine whether mandatory mask use influenced the case fatality rate in Kansas, USA between August 1st and October 15th 2020.

This study applied secondary data on case updates, mask mandates, and demographic status related to Kansas State, USA. A parallelization analysis based on county-level data was conducted on these data. Results were controlled by performing multiple sensitivity analyses and a negative control.

A parallelization analysis based on county-level data showed that in Kansas, counties with mask mandate had significantly higher case fatality rates than counties without mask mandate, with a risk ratio of 1.85 (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.51–2.10) for COVID-19-related deaths. Even after adjusting for the number of “protected persons,” that is, the number of persons who were not infected in the mask-mandated group compared to the no-mask group, the risk ratio remained significantly high at 1.52 (95% CI: 1.24–1.72). By analyzing the excess mortality in Kansas, this study determines that over 95% of this effect can solely be attributed to COVID-19.

These findings suggest that mask use might pose a yet unknown threat to the user instead of protecting them, making mask mandates a debatable epidemiologic intervention.

The cause of this trend is explained herein using the “Foegen effect” theory; that is, deep re-inhalation of hypercondensed droplets or pure virions caught in facemasks as droplets can worsen prognosis and might be linked to long-term effects of COVID-19 infection. While the “Foegen effect” is proven in vivo in an animal model, further research is needed to fully understand it.

[Nonc Hilaire]

CDC admits it never monitored their own system for reporting vaccine reactions.

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[Doc]

Thank god we have a the COVID vaccine...

https://newscop.com.au/2022/07/08/ghana ... urg-virus/

Ghana reports two cases of highly dangerous Marburg virus

Marburg virus
“If confirmed, the cases in Ghana would mark the second time Marburg has been detected in West Africa,” says WHO. Source: WHO.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported two deaths in Ghana with officials believing the victims died from the deadly Marburg virus disease.

Preliminary findings have shown that the patients died from Marburg, however further testing is needed to confirm the positive results.

According to WHO the people were unrelated to each other, but both came from the Ashanti region in southern Ghana where they presented to hospital with “diarrhoea, fever, nausea and vomiting”.

Results will be confirmed by the Institut Pasteur in Senegal but WHO has started preparing for a potential outbreak.

“The health authorities are on the ground investigating the situation and preparing for a possible outbreak response. We are working closely with the country to ramp up detection, track contacts, be ready to control the spread of the virus,” said WHO Ghanian representative Dr Francis Kasolo.

Marburg was previously recorded in Guinea in 2017 however did not spread pass the original patient.

Marburg Virus
Marburg Virus comes from infected Rousettus bats. Source: WHO.
Experts liken the Marburg virus to that of the Ebola virus in that patients experience similar symptoms including high fever, severe headaches, muscle pains and watery diarrhoea. The incubation period is two to 21 days with most fatalities happening around days eight and nine.

There is an 88 per cent fatality rate with the disease easily transmissible from human to human through direct contact with fluids, blood or secretions WHO says.

Humans catch the virus from the Rousettus bat, which is usually found in caves or mines with the infection rates high while the virus is still present in the patients blood.

There are no vaccines to cure Marburg.

The disease was first recorded back in the 60s in Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany and Belgrade in Serbia where several outbreaks occurred. Experts believe that lab works on African Green monkeys imported from Uganda were the cause.

Cases have been found through the African continent including Uganda, Angola, Kenya, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

[Doc]

The Data is out: 9 of10 excess deaths in ENGLAND AND Wales were not COVID related.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f45S6vmQgA
7f45S6vmQgA

[Doc]

Dr Strangelove lays out his creepy Utopia point by point
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBpTVr0hB28

XBpTVr0hB28

[Nonc Hilaire]

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[Doc]

E07C3D6E-D25D-4334-B14D-EB2763887827.jpeg

COVID-19: "Pay me now or pay me later"

[Nonc Hilaire]

E07C3D6E-D25D-4334-B14D-EB2763887827.jpeg

COVID-19: "Pay me now or pay me later"

COVID-19 is a weasel word. This graph shows the net effect of the MRNA injections.

[Nonc Hilaire]

E07C3D6E-D25D-4334-B14D-EB2763887827.jpeg

COVID-19: "Pay me now or pay me later"

COVID-19 is a weasel word. It can be the bioweapon Fauci funded in Wuhan. It can be the flu or a cold labeled COVID by a phony test, or the result of murder by Remdesivir & ventilator.

This graph shows the net effect of the MRNA injections. Heart myopathy, blood clots and immune system destruction have been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt by the leading virologists.

Only the corrupt bureaucrats and politicians support the injections now.

[Doc]

E07C3D6E-D25D-4334-B14D-EB2763887827.jpeg

COVID-19: "Pay me now or pay me later"

COVID-19 is a weasel word. It can be the bioweapon Fauci funded in Wuhan. It can be the flu or a cold labeled COVID by a phony test, or the result of murder by Remdesivir & ventilator.

This graph shows the net effect of the MRNA injections. Heart myopathy, blood clots and immune system destruction have been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt by the leading virologists.

Only the corrupt bureaucrats and politicians support the injections now.

Sure but can also show the long term ineffectiveness of the vaccines in protect from COVID-19. people with natural immunity have 13 times more resistance to COVID-19 than do people that had the vaccine. The mRNA shots do not work all that well.

[Parodite]

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-ba5-story

The BA.5 story
The takeover by this Omicron sub-variant is not pretty
Eric Topol
Jun 27

The Omicron sub-variant BA.5 is the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen. It takes immune escape, already extensive, to the next level, and, as a function of that, enhanced transmissibility, well beyond Omicron (BA.1) and other Omicron family variants that we’ve seen (including BA.1.1, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, and BA.4). You could say it’s not so bad because there hasn’t been a marked rise in hospitalizations and deaths as we saw with Omicron, but that’s only because we had such a striking adverse impact from Omicron, for which there is at least some cross-immunity (BA.1 to BA.5). Here I will review (1) what we know about its biology; (2) its current status around the world; and (3) the ways we can defend against it.

[...]

So as to be expected the mutations continue and those that are succesful in escaping immunity cause new waves of infections. BA4 nd BA5 both get deeper into the lung tissue and cause more severe illness. Despite all this, the amount of hospitalizations and people getting seriously sick is not that much higher, probably due to cross-immunity where our immune systems still recognize part of the sequences in the new sub variants.

Me and fam. have all recovered from covid, now 3 weeks into it. We all had mild symptoms, no fever just head and throat aches, some dry coughing (still somewhat persisting), a sniffy nose, flu like fatigue. I did loose smell-taste completely but it's coming back.

I have a 50/50 confidence in mRNA vacinations not having unexpected mid-long term detrimental systemic side effects, i.e. not enough trust to want more of those. I rather trust my immune system being able to handle all coming variations. After two days of symptoms it signalled "no worries, I got this, no big deal". Despite my health not being optimal right now as i'm still recovering from a heart attack in februari.

One cannot rule out nasty variants popping up, but on the other hand our immunesystems are so far able to keep covid and all its off-spring mutations under control as is the normal endemic evolution. People with compromised health esp overweight remain more vulnerable but that is not weird and to be expected.

As for the reasons to be cautious with mRNA vaccins and for me the reason not to take them anymore (I had two):

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 152200206X

As always, more research is needed etc, but the first signs are not good at all. If mRNA impairs your innate immune system and deregulating the production of your life saving interferons among other things... where these effects can be long term, it is a nuclear bomb under Pfizer et-al.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Glad to hear you fighting the good fight and currently hearty as a buck.

---------

We had a run-in with corona here. My brother came down with it (possibly for the second time) at the end of May. He was sick for about 10 or 11 days but I can't really gauge exactly how sick because he didn't admit to it until July 4th and has not wanted to talk about it.

I presumed COVID as I kept texting him to come over to take care of X,Y,Z and he kept saying, "Not feeling well..maybe tomorrow?" When he finally wended himself this way, he had a persistent cough.

The whole thing caused an argument, as he came down with symptoms the day after US memorial day, and was around a large group of people that day, and I thought the whole thing was highly irresponsible of him not to inform a single person that they've been in contact with someone contagious.

[Doc]

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-ba5-story

The BA.5 story
The takeover by this Omicron sub-variant is not pretty
Eric Topol
Jun 27

The Omicron sub-variant BA.5 is the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen. It takes immune escape, already extensive, to the next level, and, as a function of that, enhanced transmissibility, well beyond Omicron (BA.1) and other Omicron family variants that we’ve seen (including BA.1.1, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, and BA.4). You could say it’s not so bad because there hasn’t been a marked rise in hospitalizations and deaths as we saw with Omicron, but that’s only because we had such a striking adverse impact from Omicron, for which there is at least some cross-immunity (BA.1 to BA.5). Here I will review (1) what we know about its biology; (2) its current status around the world; and (3) the ways we can defend against it.

[...]

So as to be expected the mutations continue and those that are succesful in escaping immunity cause new waves of infections. BA4 nd BA5 both get deeper into the lung tissue and cause more severe illness. Despite all this, the amount of hospitalizations and people getting seriously sick is not that much higher, probably due to cross-immunity where our immune systems still recognize part of the sequences in the new sub variants.

Me and fam. have all recovered from covid, now 3 weeks into it. We all had mild symptoms, no fever just head and throat aches, some dry coughing (still somewhat persisting), a sniffy nose, flu like fatigue. I did loose smell-taste completely but it's coming back.

I have a 50/50 confidence in mRNA vacinations not having unexpected mid-long term detrimental systemic side effects, i.e. not enough trust to want more of those. I rather trust my immune system being able to handle all coming variations. After two days of symptoms it signalled "no worries, I got this, no big deal". Despite my health not being optimal right now as i'm still recovering from a heart attack in februari.

One cannot rule out nasty variants popping up, but on the other hand our immunesystems are so far able to keep covid and all its off-spring mutations under control as is the normal endemic evolution. People with compromised health esp overweight remain more vulnerable but that is not weird and to be expected.

As for the reasons to be cautious with mRNA vaccins and for me the reason not to take them anymore (I had two):

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 152200206X

As always, more research is needed etc, but the first signs are not good at all. If mRNA impairs your innate immune system and deregulating the production of your life saving interferons among other things... where these effects can be long term, it is a nuclear bomb under Pfizer et-al.

NO worries for Pfizer They have immunity from liability. There is actually a government program to "COMPENSATE" those with adverse side effects from the vaccines. Out of the ~9000 people that applied, seems like I read that ~ 100 people have been compensated for their "expenses" since Jan 2021.

[Parodite]

Glad to hear you fighting the good fight and currently hearty as a buck.

Thanks!

---------

We had a run-in with corona here. My brother came down with it (possibly for the second time) at the end of May. He was sick for about 10 or 11 days but I can't really gauge exactly how sick because he didn't admit to it until July 4th and has not wanted to talk about it.

I presumed COVID as I kept texting him to come over to take care of X,Y,Z and he kept saying, "Not feeling well..maybe tomorrow?" When he finally wended himself this way, he had a persistent cough.

The whole thing caused an argument, as he came down with symptoms the day after US memorial day, and was around a large group of people that day, and I thought the whole thing was highly irresponsible of him not to inform a single person that they've been in contact with someone contagious.

Avoiding close contact where and when possible during the contagious period seems... obvious and easy to do. Bying time is a good thing, at the same time zero-covid is a failed strategy.

[Doc]

Glad to hear you fighting the good fight and currently hearty as a buck.

Thanks!

---------

We had a run-in with corona here. My brother came down with it (possibly for the second time) at the end of May. He was sick for about 10 or 11 days but I can't really gauge exactly how sick because he didn't admit to it until July 4th and has not wanted to talk about it.

I presumed COVID as I kept texting him to come over to take care of X,Y,Z and he kept saying, "Not feeling well..maybe tomorrow?" When he finally wended himself this way, he had a persistent cough.

The whole thing caused an argument, as he came down with symptoms the day after US memorial day, and was around a large group of people that day, and I thought the whole thing was highly irresponsible of him not to inform a single person that they've been in contact with someone contagious.

Avoiding close contact where and when possible during the contagious period seems... obvious and easy to do. Bying time is a good thing, at the same time zero-covid is a failed strategy.

Zero COVID is worse than a failed stratedgy

https://www.heart.org/en/news/2020/07/1 ... m-covid-19

More people are dying during the pandemic – and not just from COVID-19
By Michael Precker, American Heart Association News

Please note: This article was published more than two years ago, so some information may be outdated. If you have questions about your health, always contact a health care professional.

[Doc]

SO 100's of billions of dollars spent to buy drugs because 10's of billions of dollars of big pharma money spent on Advertising telling people "Follow the Science" and it turns out it was profits, not science, they wanted people to follow.

I am shocked !! SHOCKED !!


https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... depression

A Decisive Blow to the Serotonin Hypothesis of Depression
An exhaustive new review debunks the “chemical imbalance” theory of depression.
Posted July 19, 2022 | Reviewed by Vanessa Lancaster

KEY POINTS
Surveys indicate that 85-90 percent of the public believes low serotonin or a chemical imbalance causes depression.
Among 237 psychology students interviewed, 46 percent had heard the chemical imbalance explanation from a physician.
The serotonin hypothesis has been challenged repeatedly and found wanting, even as it remains popular and influential.
A comprehensive, well-powered, high-quality umbrella review now determines that the theory is “not empirically substantiated.”
Almost as soon as it was floated in 1965 by Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Schildkraut, the serotonin hypothesis of depression—reduced and simplified by pharma marketing to the “chemical imbalance” theory of depression and anxiety—has been subject to critical research and found wanting.

The poor standing of the hypothesis in the scientific literature, however, barely dented its afterlife in textbooks, across clinical and treatment settings, and on mental health apps and websites. Nor has it dispelled the continued use of the phrase as “shorthand” between doctors and patients and in everyday settings, including for quite different mental states and conditions.

The “Chemical Imbalance” Metaphor Takes Root
Revisiting the history of this controversy raises several still-relevant details. In December 2005, as advertising for SSRI antidepressants flooded American magazines, talk shows, and network TV, the result of multibillion-dollar campaigns pitched in this case directly to consumers, Florida-based professors and researchers Jeffrey Lacasse and Jonathan Leo asked pointedly in PLoS Medicine, “Are the claims made in SSRI advertising congruent with the scientific evidence?”

The answer in “Serotonin and Depression: A Disconnect Between the Advertisements and the Scientific Literature,” their well-researched article, was a resounding no. The resulting “incongruence,” they determined, was “remarkable and possibly unparalleled.”

Lacasse and Leo found repeated evidence that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had approved the marketing of SSRIs with two phrases still heavily in the subjunctive—that depression “may be due to a serotonin deficiency” and that SSRI efficacy, “modestly” outcompeting placebo, was “presumed to be linked to potentiation of serotonergic activity.” However, the research itself could not identify the precise mechanism.

The FDA had accepted aspirational language that the drugs “help to restore the brain’s chemical balance” and “bring serotonin levels closer to normal,” even though both claims were, and remain, scientifically meaningless.

“There is no such thing as a scientifically established correct ‘balance’ of serotonin,” Lacasse and Leo cautioned more than a decade ago, joining numerous other experts then and now. Additionally, both aspirational claims rest on a hypothesis that follow-up studies would end up contradicting repeatedly. In short, both the hypothesis and the expensive marketing that pushed it into American living rooms rested on a hedge: “Scientists believe that it could be linked with an imbalance of a chemical in the brain called serotonin.”

A Multibillion-Dollar Error
The hedge proved highly effective, even though, as David Healy explained in 2015 in “Serotonin and Depression,” in the BMJ, in practice, it entailed embracing or tacitly accepting “the marketing of a myth.” Through further oversimplification, a revised metaphor of a “chemical imbalance” took root as folk wisdom for multiple, dissimilar conditions listed in the DSM.

Returning to the controversy in “Antidepressants and the Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression” (2015), Lacasse and Leo found that while the marketing had shifted emphasis from “correcting imbalances” to “‘adjusting’ or ‘affecting’ neurotransmitter levels,” leading psychiatrists were if anything, more wedded to the “chemical imbalance” metaphor than before.

Some had taken to the airwaves to say that it simplified communication with their patients. Daniel Carlat, the editor of The Carlat Psychiatry Report, explained on National Public Radio when asked what we know about psychiatric medication:

We don’t know how the medications actually work in the brain…. I’ll often say something like the way Zoloft works, is, it increases the level of serotonin in your brain (or synapses, neurons) and, presumably, the reason you’re depressed or anxious is that you have some sort of a deficiency. And I say that [chuckles] not because I really believe it, because I know the evidence really isn’t there for us to understand the mechanism—I think I say that because patients want to know something. And they want to know that we as physicians have some basic understanding of what we’re doing when we’re prescribing medications. They certainly don’t want to know that a psychiatrist essentially has no idea how these medications work (Qtd. in Lacasse and Leo).