TMZ and Page 6 are both reporting the death of legend Betty White…
We have never wanted these sources to be more wrong …
And sadly it seems they are right.
The legendary actress comedian and human being is dead in one of the worst years we ever had..
This story is amazing, more on the science level..
An unsung arm of the immune system appears to protect against severe disease with the omicron variant even when antibodies wane, helping to explain why a record wave of infections
South Arica is NOT really vaccinated. but where they were vaccinated, it was 100% Johnson and Johnson. And their hospitalizations were low low low.
ALSO good news from the J&J fan.. remember how the vaccine did NOT increase antibodies? But DID increase T cells?
They are coming to the rescue..
The article focuses on T cell memory generated by vaccines. But what about infections?
This little tidbit at the end o the article gives us some hope that not only vaccines will protect against Omicron but also previous infections: People infected with another coronavirus that was responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2003, for example, were found to still have a T-cell response to the disease 17 years later..
Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted Wednesday of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by the American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
The verdict capped a monthlong trial featuring sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14, told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein’s palatial homes in Florida, New York and New Mexico.
Developing…
Jurors deliberated for five full days before finding Maxwell guilty of five of six counts.
More from a Reuters dispatch:
The judge in British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex abuse trial said the jury would deliberate for at least one hour longer than usual if needed on Tuesday due to an “astronomical spike” in COVID-19 cases in the New York area.
“We now face a high and escalating risk that jurors and/or trial participants may need to quarantine,” U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan told prosecutors and defense attorneys outside the presence of the jury, which had begun deliberating again on Tuesday morning
Public shaming of Covid rule breakers in China..
Police in Jingxi city paraded alleged violators of Covid rules through the streets
The four suspects had to carry placards displaying their photos and names
China banned such public shaming and parading of criminal suspects in 2010
But the practice has resurfaced amid extremely strict lockdown controls
It comes as 13 million in China were barred from going outside, even for food
What a strange thought–I have felt pain from the outside world in dreams. For example, if you have an ache or leg cramp, sometimes they manisfest as a different experience in your dream.. But the idea of actually dreaming something painful and you feel it? Perhaps it is more the interplay between reality and the dream world?
From the actual research:
When it comes to our likelihood of experiencing pain at night, it seems that our general health condition plays a role in the frequency and nature of the pain.
A 2017 study found that about 1% of healthy people experience pain in dreams compared to about 30% of people who suffer from acute and severe pain.In patients, painful dreams may be triggered by actual pain whereas for healthy people, painful dreams may be painful memories (pain experienced by themselves and/or watching people getting hurt). The study authors state that further research is needed to clarify how pain is processed during sleep.
Because patients with chronic pain experience negative-hued dreams, it would be helpful to ask chronic pain patients about their dreams, and perhaps offer specific treatment options like guided imagery therapy.So, can we feel pain in dreams? The answer is yes, yet our general health condition probably predicts whether it’s real or only dream pain.
Makes you fearful of that falling down dream now, right?
Or more appropriately frightened that Freddy himself may have the power to truly BE REAL if you can feel pain in a dream.
I try gauging the mood of the holidays by how happy or not happy my own son is.. Now ten years into life, his belief in Santa is waning–or has waned. At times it feels he is playing along with adults and ponders to himself, “they can’t really believe this, can they?”
Before bed for the past few nights, Ayden’s normally talkative demeanor in an attempt to say away just a little bit longer has been pushed aside. Instead he seems to be a more pensive, thoughtful, and even concerned young man..
For two nights now, Ayden told me this before dozing off: Something is missing. When pressed for more information, he simply responded he doesn’t know what it is, but he definitely feels like something is missing..
So he’s right.. In the wisdom of a young child, we can gather some truth..
For months we have been told that vaccines will work.. scratch that.. boosters will work.. scratch that. The virus is going to rage! And if you are one of the holdouts that still didn’t get vaccinated against COVID-19, the President has a darkly stark message for your: Cloudy with a chance of death.
The overwhelming majority of school children in my son’s district have been faced with quarantines at a moment’s notice, constant cycles of COVID nasal swab tests when necessary, and the perverse threat of constant violence. Just last week, schools nationwide were in a tizzy over threats of national violence December 17 due to videos being posted on TikTok. It was ruled a hoax, but enough fear was generated to have armed guards patrolling hallways if your local learning centers.
Kids are taking this all in.
During President Joe Biden’s death and destruction dark winter warnings today in the address to the nation, he said one thing we all agree on: We are tired of it all. Tired of COVID.. burned out by the constant burnout..
A few weeks ago when I started warning some family and readers about Omicron, most of the warnings went on deaf ears.
On my Instagram page, I use images of horror movies often to state messages. For COVID related posts, I use Freddy Krueger. Right as Thanksgiving dinner was still cooling, I posted a warning about what our Christmas plans would involve. Omicron was front and center in my mind, despite health officials today saying ‘we never saw it comin’!’https://www.instagram.com/p/CWtCvILFCNW/embed/captioned/?cr=1&v=14&wp=1316&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fcoalspeaker.com&rp=%2F2021%2F12%2F21%2Fthe-christmas-of-something-is-missing%2F#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A7923%7D
In January 2021, four out of 10 adults in the United States reported symptoms of anxiety or depression disorder – a 400 percent increase from January 2019. Health care workers are particularly exposed: more than half of workers on the front line could be at risk for one or more mental health problems, alongside the health risks involved in working with COVID-19 patients.
Children also face a mental health crisis during the pandemic. Emergency department visits by children for mental health issues went up about 30 percent for kids ages 12-17 and 24 percent for children ages 5-11 between March and October of 2020.
And that was just 2020’s numbers.. Just picture what the raging burnout of 2021 and now 2022 are going to look like..
This is what the PEW research center wrote just a few weeks ago, now what seems like ages ago before Omicron’s fires began to burn:After more than 18 months of school closures and social isolation, the nation’s more than 50 million public school children are mostly back at their desks. But two months into the fall semester, teachers and students already are saying they need a break.
The grief, anxiety and depression children have experienced during the pandemic is welling over into classrooms and hallways, resulting in crying and disruptive behavior in many younger kids and increased violence and bullying among adolescents. For many other children, who keep their sadness and fear inside, the pressures of school have become too great. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, emergency department visits for suspected suicide attempts among adolescents jumped 31% in 2020, compared with 2019. In February and March of this year, emergency department visits for suspected suicide attempts were 51% higher among girls aged 12–17 than during the same period in 2019.
It is understandable to be advocating for scientific pathways to end the pandemic, including the use of masks, vaccines and boosters. But we are also apparently ignoring another evolving mental endemic–pandemic perhaps if the same feeling kids in America have end up having in other parts of the world.
There are so many negative pieces of information being published across the entire World Wide Web — can we still call it that in 2022??
But these Debbie Downer headlines are simply … the norm.
Just this month, along with Omicron headlines, we also faced this impending doom:
NOT THE FRIES!!?
SAY IT AIN’T SO JOE!
It just seems to be a nailbiter..
We all wanted 2020 to end. We couldn’t wait for the peaceful days of ’21 … seems like ages ago, no?
As a matter of fact, just one year ago right about now TIME magazine put the famous big X on their cover over 2020. The same X they used for Hitler, Hussein, Osama.. And 2020.
Perhaps they spoke to soon…
So Ayden does not know exactly what “it” could be that is missing.. I hope it’s not the Christmas spirit, though personally our family has been dealt a bizarre hand this year. COVID cases within the bloodline, family member dying of other causes.. hospitalizations.. It has been an entire autumn of discontent.
That coupled with the aging prospects that the vaccine will end the pandemic as the President declared on July 4 when we were all told to take off our masks…
My son will open gifts this Christmas.. Santa will arrive, even if he does not find credibility in such adult claims. And the movement of one calendar year will go on to the next..
But will we collectively find what we are missing?
Or is it so long gone that we can never find it again…?
A member of the White House staff who is a close contact of the President tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday, the White House revealed in a statement.
The individual, who the White House described as a “mid-level staffer,” tested positive on Monday morning after experiencing Covid symptoms on Sunday.
“Three days earlier, on Friday, that staff member had spent approximately 30 minutes in proximity to the President on Air Force One, on the way from Orange, South Carolina to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” the statement from press secretary Jen Psaki said. “This staff member is fully vaccinated and boosted, and tested negative prior to boarding Air Force One, as is required for everyone traveling with the President. This staff member did not begin to experience symptoms until Sunday, and was tested on Monday.”
The President received a negative PCR test on Monday and will take another one on Wednesday, the White House said.
— Read on www.cnn.com/world/live-news/omicron-variant-coronavirus-news-12-20-21-intl/h_cb7faec866ff2fd117ffd2e51e1e2d19
Developing..
“It just started to rumble and rumble harder and harder for probably 20 seconds,” said Dexter. “The doors to the firehouse [next door] were shaking violently.”
“It was bigger than [anything] I’ve felt in a long time out here,” she added.
In Ferndale, a city between Eureka and Petrolia, several storefront windows were shattered along Main Street. Food and soda bottles fell on the floor of an aisle at a grocery store.
Some people on Twitter said they felt the earthquake in San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area, more than 200 miles south of Petrolia.
— Read on www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/scary-62-earthquake-strikes-area-near-eureka-in-northern-california/ar-AAS0fGO
