An ICU nurse in Sydney writes: "It’s bizarre to watch an individual chastise the nurses and doctors about Covid being fake as they sit on the floor gasping for air while a cytokine storm roars in their lungs. The time between each word is drawn out while they are trying to draw in as many breaths as they can.

"As frustrating as it is, this is not as uncommon as you would hope. A few people are too far down the false information rabbit hole that there isn’t any point trying to convince them otherwise. Heads and brick walls and all that. There’s a name for this condition they share: cognitive dissonance."

It’s bizarre to see a Covid patient deny Covid exists while gasping for breath
We’ve cared for people in their 20s and 30s, and that has been confronting – most of my colleagues are the same age
ICU nurse

Working as a nurse in an intensive care unit is busy at the best of times. It becomes something else entirely during a pandemic.

This second wave is a lot different to the first wave. Last year when we were caring for Covid patients we had one layer of protection, which was our PPE. It turned out to be very effective, given that no one in the unit contracted the virus.

We have two layers of protection this year – PPE and the vaccine. One of the differences from last year is that we’re up against a more contagious version of Covid with the Delta variant, along with a plethora of misinformation within the community about the virus and vaccines. I’ve seen lots of people reassuring each other that this variant isn’t any worse as it isn’t deadlier, which is true. But it’s more contagious, so when more people catch this variant it makes for more work.

The second wave also feels different from the first one. More confronting. The ICU has filled up quicker and with that a much broader age bracket has been coming in. Last year it was mostly people older than 60, with a few in their 50s. This year we’ve cared for people in their 20s and 30s, and that has been confronting considering that most of my colleagues are the same age.

Before the start of this wave, we – like the entire country – had become a bit complacent. We weren’t caring for Covid patients so we almost forgot about ...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... for-breath

"The Covid tyranny of their current government is disgraceful and sad. Individual liberty matters. I stand with the people of Australia."- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)


G’day from Down Under @tedcruz. Thanks for your interest in the Territory. I’m the Chief Minister. Below are a few facts about COVID down here.
Michael Gunner

I'm sure most people are aware that Colin Powell died from COVID related complications and, as expected, the right wing propaganda network is having a field day ...

Fox News exploits Colin Powell’s death as excuse to push dangerous misinfo
VINNIE LONGOBARDO

It’s hard to imagine Fox News sinking even lower than its previous valleys of mendacious and harmful anti-vaccine propaganda, but their coverage of the death of former Secretary of State and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell from complications related to COVID-19 reaches a new depth of deceptive agenda-pushing in their political advocacy masquerading as news commentary.

General Powell, you see, died of the COVID complications despite being fully vaccinated against the virus, a fact that the talking heads on Fox News used to ramp up their false controversy of casting doubt on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine effort and play into the hands of their anti-vaxxer MAGA viewers.


Another Fox News host, White House Correspondent John Roberts, posted a tweet expressing ...

https://occupydemocrats.com/2021/10/18/ ... s-misinfo/

This turned up on my FB feed - a reply to an article someone had posted re COVID vaccines


This site seems to be home to the tinfoil hat brigade but it does link to an article in Eurosurveillance (which seems to be a legitimate medical journal) and, as far as I can see, is quite respected.

That said, not sure what to make of the article or what conclusions should be drawn.

#1304
Look at the age groups. They're pretty consistent with other findings.

right. fully vaccinated people die. at about 1/10th the rate of unvaccinated.

that latter rate corresponds remarkably well to the seasonal flu.

people die from that, as well. but we don't make it an annual outrage.

No, Vaccinated People Are Not ‘Just as Likely’ to Spread the Coronavirus as Unvaccinated People
This has become a common refrain among the cautious—and it’s wrong.
By Craig Spencer

For many fully vaccinated Americans, the Delta surge spoiled what should’ve been a glorious summer. Those who had cast their masks aside months ago were asked to dust them off. Many are still taking no chances. Some have even returned to all the same precautions they took before getting their shots, including avoiding the company of other fully vaccinated people.

Among this last group, a common refrain I’ve heard to justify their renewed vigilance is that “vaccinated people are just as likely to spread the coronavirus.”

This misunderstanding, born out of confusing statements from public-health authorities and misleading media headlines, is a shame. It is resulting in unnecessary fear among vaccinated people, all the while undermining the public’s understanding of the importance—and effectiveness—of getting vaccinated.

So let me make one thing clear: Vaccinated people are not as likely to spread the coronavirus as the unvaccinated. Even in the United States, where more than half of the population is fully vaccinated, the unvaccinated are responsible for the overwhelming majority of transmission.

I understand why people are confused. In April, after months of public-health experts cautiously promoting the merits of vaccination, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky cited new real-world data of the shots’ effectiveness to jubilantly proclaim that “vaccinated people do not carry the virus.” The CDC later walked back her comment, but headlines such as “It’s Official: Vaccinated People Don’t Transmit COVID-19” had already given many the impression that in addition to their remarkable protection against infection with the coronavirus, the shots also prevented them from ...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... id/620161/

Mass General Brigham employees lose bid to halt unpaid leave over vaccine mandate
By Tonya Alanez

On the day that 229 Mass General Brigham employees were placed on unpaid leave for failing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, a federal judge in Boston on Wednesday denied their motion to prevent the company from enforcing its vaccine mandate.

Employees of the state’s largest hospital system had until Wednesday to show they had received at least one shot or be placed on unpaid leave. Those who have not received their first shot by Nov. 5 now face termination.

A federal lawsuit filed by employees in US District Court on Sunday sought to halt those actions, saying the workers’ disability and religious exemptions had been wrongly denied without explanation or “meaningful interactive process” and “without a showing of undue hardship.”

Wednesday’s ruling by US District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor only addressed the employees’ request to postpone their unpaid leave, not their claims of discrimination.

“This is a tentative decision based on an incomplete factual record and legal analysis,” Saylor said. “I reserve the right to change my mind. There is much to be considered.”

Another hearing on the matter was tentatively set for Nov. 2. The parties agreed to meet Friday to discuss case logistics.

“The issue, of course, is whether people will lose pay beginning today,” Saylor said. “There certainly is no issue that there is a human cost, or potential costs to this, but of course some of that inevitably falls under the heading of living with the consequences of one’s choices.”

The hospital system, Saylor said, had “a very strong interest in providing the safest possible facility, as well as ...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/10/20/ ... e-mandate/

Of course there's discrimination. We discriminate every day. Legal drinking ages. Have to be 16 to get a drivers license. Single sex washrooms. The list goes on.

US Labor Department warns 3 GOP states over COVID rules
The Biden administration is threatening to revoke the authority for three Republican-controlled states to handle their own workplace safety regulations because they have refused to adopt rules to protect health care workers from COVID-19
By JONATHAN J. COOPER

The Biden administration threatened Tuesday to revoke the authority for three Republican-controlled states to handle their own workplace safety enforcement because they have refused to adopt rules to protect health care workers from COVID-19.

The threats were sent to Arizona, South Carolina and Utah as the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration prepares to adopt much more far-reaching vaccination and testing rules affecting 80 million Americans. In nearly half the states, it will have to ...

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory ... s-80673778

COVID is leading cause of death among police officers
BY JEFF PEGUES

The pandemic has taken a devastating toll on police departments across the country. COVID-19 is now killing more law enforcement officers than any other threat they face in the line of duty — 716 officers have died since March 2020, according to the Fraternal Order of Police.

Still, there is a reluctance among law enforcement to get vaccinated.

In Memphis and Louisville, just 47% of officers have been vaccinated, according to those police departments. In Philadelphia, just 13% of police department employees have ...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-p ... use-death/

People vaccinated against Covid-19 less likely to die from any cause, study finds
Maggie Fox

People who got Covid-19 vaccines were not only less likely to die from the virus, but they were less likely to die from any cause over the following months, researchers reported Friday.

The research team was trying to demonstrate that the three authorized Covid-19 vaccines are safe and they say their findings clearly demonstrate that.

"Recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or Janssen vaccines had lower non--COVID-19 mortality risk than did the unvaccinated comparison groups," the researchers wrote in the weekly report of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"COVID-19 vaccines authorized in the United States have shown again and again to be safe. This study also confirms their safety," Stanley Xu, a researcher at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research and Evaluation, who led the study team, told CNN by email.

"In fact, it shows that people vaccinated for COVID-19 had lower death rates than those who were not vaccinated, even when COVID deaths were excluded. That's in addition to the mounting evidence from other studies showing that ...

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/22/heal ... index.html

In BC they are considering denying EI benefits to employees who get fired for refusing to get vaccinated. I agree with that. Their choice. That will probably be challenged by unions and such.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8291394/work ... explained/

Deputy PM said those losing their jobs because they refused to get vaxed do not qualify for EI.

Not just in BC

Workers who resist vaccine mandates may not be eligible for EI, according to feds

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/workers ... -1.5634553

How to make friends and influence people - or proof that Ozzie anti-vaxxers are just as dumb as American ones

Accused COVID breacher Riccardo Bosi calls Adelaide magistrate an 'imbecile' during phone hearing
By Gabriella Marchant

A former Special Forces officer charged with breaching South Australian COVID rules has called an Adelaide magistrate an "imbecile" and a "traitor" during his hearing.

Magistrate Jack Fahey hung up on Riccardo Bosi, who appeared via phone from New South Wales on Monday.

"You have no standing, you are at worst a traitor and at best an imbecile, the truth of which will be determined in due course," Mr Bosi told the court.

Magistrate Fahey told Mr Bosi "I'm fed up with this rubbish, I'm terminating this call", before cutting his line.

The court did not hear how ...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-25/ ... /100566960

FDA vaccine advisers vote to recommend Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine for children 5 to 11
By Maggie Fox

Vaccine advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration voted 17-0 with one abstention Tuesday to recommend emergency use authorization of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11.

Members of the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee agreed the benefits of vaccinating younger children appeared to outweigh the risks, but some members appeared troubled about voting to vaccinate a large population of younger children based on studies of a few thousand.

"It is reassuring to me that we are giving a lower dose," said Dr. Paul Offit, who directs the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Pfizer has cut its vaccine to one-third of the adult dose for the children under 12 and said clinical trials showed this lower dose protected children well against ...

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/26/heal ... index.html

"That SARS-CoV-2 could be with us forever is a dark thought. But pulling that mental lever may be just what we need to organize effectively for the very long haul"
How Will We Live if Covid Is Here to Stay?
Katherine Eban

On May 14, I went for a jog, amazed at my newfound freedom. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had just signed off on the vaccinated shedding their masks outdoors. In Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, on a cloudless spring day, I pondered what seemed like a miraculous paradigm shift: Apparently, I no longer had to fear that my fellow joggers would kill me, or I them.

After 14 months of calculating risks — the hazards of an elevator ride or doom from a grocery store trip — it was suddenly easier to imagine a Covid-free future. We had a president strongly committed to stamping out the virus. America could lead the world in rolling out vaccines. And on July 4, albeit with caveats, President Biden announced, “Today, we’re closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus.”

We all know what happened next: Within weeks of those remarks, cases spiked, I.C.U.s overflowed, and we were reminded yet again of Covid’s power to outwit us. That hoped-for independence now feels like something different: a standoff, with the killer on the other side of a door we’re barricading shut.

Even as cases decline again and vaccination numbers rise, a once-unthinkable idea is breaking through any assumptions that we would vanquish Covid-19. Dr. Anthony Fauci laid it on the line at a White House press briefing this month: “It is going to be very difficult — at least in the foreseeable future and maybe ever — to truly eliminate this highly transmissible virus.”

That SARS-CoV-2 could be with us forever is a dark thought. But pulling that mental lever may be just what we need to organize effectively for the very long haul, dramatically improve our pandemic response and embed safeguards into our everyday lives. “It’s an unpleasant message,” said Dr. Matthew Hepburn, who, since we spoke, has become a special adviser at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “We all want it to be over. But contingency planning for long-term response is absolutely essential.”

Indeed, optimism could serve as “one of the biggest obstacles” to making those plans, said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, the director of ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/opin ... plans.html

For those claiming natural immunity is better than vaccines

Recovered COVID Patients May Have Significantly Reduced Intelligence, Suggests Large Study

People who have previously been infected with COVID-19 and recovered may have significantly reduced intelligence, suggests a new study published in EClinicalMedicine. The research adds to a growing list of concerns about the long-lasting impact of COVID-19 on the body and brain, and suggests that long-term studies should begin immediately to assess just how severe the effects could be.

Conducted by Imperial College London, the study involved 81,337 people who took part in an online assessment as part of the Great British Intelligence Test. This is a clinically validated cognitive test that involves a series of ...

https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-m ... rge-study/



I don't see any mention of controlling for vaccination status - if there is any validity to the argument that intelligent people are more likely to be vaccinated and the vaccinated are less likely to contract the disease trying to compare the two groups is "problematic" at best.

My guess is that they're less intelligent to begin with.

"People who have previously been infected with COVID-19 and recovered may have significantly reduced intelligence, suggests a new study published in EClinicalMedicine. The research adds to a growing list of concerns about the long-lasting impact of COVID-19 on the body and brain, and suggests that long-term studies should begin immediately to assess just how severe the effects could be."

Great, just what we need, more clueless republicans

The world has recorded 5 million COVID-19 deaths, but the real toll is likely more than double that
By Casey Briggs and Maani Truu

Nearly two years into a pandemic that continues to rage, the world has now reported its 5 millionth COVID-19 death, according to a count of global deaths maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

That figure is almost equivalent to the total population of New Zealand.

On average, more than 7,000 people are reported as dying of COVID-19 each day. Since April 2020, the number of daily deaths has dropped below 4,000 fewer than 20 times.



But official figures reported by national governments fail to capture the true toll of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Firstly, for every official COVID death there are many more people who have grieved loved ones, been struck seriously ill themselves, or suffered the effects of long COVID.

And the official death toll itself is likely to be vastly underestimated.

Professor Alan Lopez, a leading international expert on disease burden and health statistics, believes 5 million is a very inaccurate count of the pandemic's death toll. Professor Lopez says the actual figure is likely to be between 12 and 15 million — or close to half of Australia's total population.

This is because ....

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-01/ ... /100568156