BIDEN AND DOJ MAKE THE CALL: Vaccines for federal workers or submit to tests
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President Joe Biden will announce on Thursday a requirement that all federal employees and contractors be vaccinated against Covid-19, or be required to submit to regular testing and mitigation requirements, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
The announcement will come in remarks where Biden is also expected to lay out a series of new steps, including incentives, in an attempt to spur new vaccinations as the Delta variant spreads rapidly throughout the country. It will also follow the decision by the Department of Veterans Affairs to require its frontline health care workers to be vaccinated over the course of the next two months
The C.D.C.’s initial guidance in May said people fully protected from the coronavirus could go mask-free indoors, but recommended that unvaccinated people still wear masks. Those recommendations drew sharp criticism from some experts, who said it was premature given the vast swaths of unvaccinated people in the country.
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Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C.’s director, at the time pointed to two scientific findings as significant factors. Few vaccinated people become infected with the virus, and transmission seems rarer still, she noted; and the vaccines appear to be effective against all known variants of the coronavirus.
This new guidance is a reverse from previous reversals of reversals and guidance.
Just as the world was beginning to see the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, American leaders and especially those in New York City were still saying to go to large events, China Town, and Broadway. The inevitible happened.
And now just as the planet is seeing new effects of a much more infective Delta, or Indian, variant, New York decided to throw a massive ticker tape parade to honor essential workers.
Good idea. When the pandemic is over..
Somehow, the media decided it’s finished, while England extends their lockdowns into July and people are heading back into hospitals in various nations..
The event honoring New York City’s “hometown heroes” will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday, July 7 in the Canyon of Heroes.
The parade will kick off in Battery Park and end with a ceremony in City Hall Park.
“This year that we’ve been through, it has literally been the greatest crisis in the history of New York City. We were knocked down, but we got back up and that’s something to celebrate about this city,” de Blasio said at his daily briefing Monday.
And more
De Blasio said the parade will feature floats with groups of health care workers, first responders, educators, municipal workers, transportation workers, grocery and bodega workers, and delivery people.
“You name it, all the essential workers who made it happen, everyone who kept it together in New York City for all of us and brought us back. It’s a day to celebrate and appreciate the heroes who often go unsung, we’re going to sing about them this day,” de Blasio said.
Today the delta variant is about 10% of American cases. That is about what the UK was a few weeks ago as that strain now surges across the pond.
In Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s largest metropolis and home to 9 million, at least 85 people have tested positive as part of a cluster at a Protestant church, the Health Ministry said. Worshippers sang and chanted while sitting close together without wearing proper masks or taking other precautions.
Meanwhile..
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 has spiked up 72% in just 8 days, according to latest UK govt data.
This follows a surge in #B16172 cases. Deaths have also begun to increase. UK is among the most vaccinated countries, with 57% with at least 1 dose, and 35% fully..
Doctors treating patients in India have marked a distinct trend during the 2nd wave—COVID-19 now appears to be impacting children more severely. Children and adolescents are now showing more obvious symptoms such as prolonged fever and gastroenteritis
Boris Johnson.. contracted COVID and ended in intensive care.. there were rumors at the time that he was near death..
But he wanted to be injected with COVID prior to this!?
Fate knocks you down..
In shocking testimony before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, Dominic Cummings — the former chief adviser to the prime minister — admitted that the British government’s response to the coronavirus was wholly unacceptable.
“The truth is that senior minister, senior officials, senior advisers like me, fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect of its Government in a crisis like this,” Cummings said. “When the public needed us most, the government failed.”
At the center of that disastrous response, Cummings said, was Johnson — who believed the virus was much ado about nothing, comparing it derisively to swine flu. The prime minister’s cavalier attitude towards the virus was such, according to Cummings, that Johnson wanted England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, to inject him with Covid-19 on live TV just so he could show that it wasn’t a big deal.
“The view of various officials inside Number Ten was, if we have the Prime Minister chairing Cobra meetings and he just tells everyone “It is swine flu, don’t worry about it, I’m going to get Chris Whitty to inject me live on TV with coronavirus, so everyone realizes it is nothing to be to be frightened of,’ that would be, that would not help actually serious planning,” Cummings said.
Researchers explain that initial reports claiming COVID antibodies fade away quickly after an infection did not have all the facts. Their findings reveal that although the number of immune cells making antibodies drops once the patient is healthy, they never totally go away.
There has been a number of varying studies about this. Some suggest that the antibodies aren’t good for fighting beyond only a few months.. other suggest longer. Some are hoping that the Mr. T Cells (we are coining that one) are able to fight a lot longer on the A-Team of the body!
How was the study conducted?
To find out how long coronavirus immunity really lasts, Ellebedy and the team started collecting both blood and bone marrow samples from people who recovered from mild cases of COVID-19. Researchers gathered 77 participants who volunteered to give blood every three months starting a month after their infection. Only six of these patients needed hospitalization during their illness.
Eighteen participants also provided bone marrow samples seven to eight months after their infections. Five returned four months later to provide a second bone marrow sample — nearly one year after contracting COVID-19. For comparison, the team also collected bone marrow from 11 people who never had coronavirus.
What about the vaccines!? As good as the gold standard of a mild actual infection??
The team is now examining if people receiving the COVID-19 vaccine will enjoy the same long-lasting immunity. Currently, the CDC says anyone receiving both doses of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines will have full protection starting two weeks after their second shot. The same goes for people two weeks after receiving the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine…
But … what about the variants. OH THOSE VARIANTS………
From the article, it appears Americans are getting ready for action in the summer of 21:
Deodorant, teeth whitener and condoms are in high demand. Sales of perfume, nail polish, swimsuits, sunscreen, tuxedos, luggage and alarm clocks are climbing fast, according to companies that make these products and large retailers…
Beauty products and teeth whiteners were big sellers during the most recent quarter at Walmart Inc., finance chief Brett Biggs said in an interview. “You can tell that the masks are coming off,” he said.
And this interesting twist in the life of someone who did not shave since the beginning of COVID-19:
Noel Kittredge, a 32-year-old student from Albuquerque, N.M., recently shaved for the first time in a year. He has ventured out only a few times since the pandemic began and felt especially nervous about being around people after both his mother and grandmother contracted the virus.
Mr. Kittredge didn’t shave all that regularly before the pandemic, but as he makes plans to socialize it was time, he said. “I’m tired of being cooped up,” he said.
The dogs needed to be trained not to identify “false positives” in a bid to hack their reward system and obtain treats even if there were no Covid-19 samples in a given test.
“This means that the dog fully understands and gets a reward for a correct negative as well as a correct positive,” said Claire Guest, from the school’s Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases.
Overall, the dogs were successfully able to identify between 94 and 82 percent of SARS-CoV-2 samples.
Dogs are already good at detecting cancer and other disease.. and now Covid–apparently with better accuracy than even tests! Dogs have better luck ignoring the false positives!
Tons of face masks were burned during protests at various state capitols 2020 .. the reaction was shock, awe, and outrage.
Today the CDC said you can ditch the face covering both indoors and outdoors if you are vaccinated..
Let the burnings begin?
The new guidance still calls for wearing masks in crowded indoor settings like buses, planes, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters, but will help clear the way for reopening workplaces, schools, and other venues — even removing the need for masks or social distancing for those who are fully vaccinated.
The CDC will also no longer recommend that fully vaccinated people wear masks outdoors in crowds. The announcement comes as the CDC and the Biden administration have faced pressure to ease restrictions on fully vaccinated people — people who are two weeks past their last required COVID-19 vaccine dose — in part to highlight the benefits of getting the shot.
Mucormycosis, or “black fungus”, is a potentially fatal infection affecting COVID-19 patients in India, where doctors believe it may be triggered by the use of steroids. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has issued an advisory, saying that the infection has been affecting “people who are on medication for other health problems that reduce their ability to fight environmental pathogens.” MORE HERE..
THE CDC IS CAUSING CONCERN AFTER LIMITING STUDIES ON PEOPLE WHO GET REINFECTED AFTER GETTING THEIR COVID VACCINE.. MORE: Federal health officials this month decided to limit how they monitor vaccinated people who have been infected with Covid-19, drawing concern from some scientists who say that may mean missing needed data showing why and how it happens.. At the end of April, more than 9,000 Americans were reported to be infected after being vaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While that’s a tiny percentage of the 95 million people fully inoculated at the time, researchers still want to find out what specific mechanisms may be spurring the infections.
AND FINALLY THE B.01 BOMBER OF BRAZIL HAS MADE IT TO FLORIDA.. A new mutation of the highly contagious Brazilian COVID-19 variant has emerged in Florida, health officials said. The newest variant, dubbed P2 or P.1.1, has a slightly different sequence than Brazil’s P1 strain, which has been found to be more likely to reinfect people who have already had the virus, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
