Have to agree with his strategy:

"Emmanuel Macron has prompted a furore after saying that his government’s vaccination strategy is to “piss off” people who have not had coronavirus jabs by continuing to make daily life more and more difficult for them.

“I am not about pissing off the French people,” the president said in an interview with readers of Le Parisien daily on Tuesday. “But as for the non-vaccinated, I really want to piss them off. And we will continue to do this, to the end. This is the strategy.”"

Macron declares his Covid strategy is to ‘piss off’ the unvaccinated
French president stokes divisions as parliament debates tighter requirements for mandatory health pass
Jon Henley

Emmanuel Macron has prompted a furore after saying that his government’s vaccination strategy is to “piss off” people who have not had coronavirus jabs by continuing to make daily life more and more difficult for them.

“I am not about pissing off the French people,” the president said in an interview with readers of Le Parisien on Tuesday. “But as for the non-vaccinated, I really want to piss them off. And we will continue to do this, to the end. This is the strategy.”

Macron’s remarks came as the French parliament debated new legislation that, if passed, will mean only the fully vaccinated – and no longer those with a negative Covid test – will qualify for the country’s health pass from next month.

The pass, introduced this summer, is required in France for access to ...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... vaccinated

Some provinces in Canada already have the COVID "passport" in place.

Covid Live Updates: Number of Hospitalized Young Children Who’ve Tested Positive Is Jumping, C.D.C. Says
Some cases were found in children admitted for reasons aside from Covid. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments against President Biden’s vaccine mandates.

The number of young children admitted to hospitals who test positive is rising fast, the C.D.C. reports.

The number of young children admitted to the hospital who test positive for the coronavirus rose precipitously last week to the highest levels since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data released on Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The increase was observed in children younger than age 4, who are not eligible for vaccination, and ...

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/07 ... cine-tests

Citigroup prepares to fire unvaccinated employees at the end of January.

Citigroup will dismiss unvaccinated employees by the end of the month as it presses on with a vaccine requirement the company announced in October.

The bank has given staff based in the United States a deadline of Jan. 14 to submit proof of their inoculations against the coronavirus or request religious, medical or legal exemptions, according to a person familiar with the policies, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Workers who do not comply with the mandate — which requires a full dose of vaccinations, not booster shots as well — will be placed on unpaid leave on Jan. 15 and fired Jan. 31, the person said. The person added that some staff might not receive year-end bonuses unless they signed documents agreeing not to sue the company.

More than 90 percent of Citigroup’s 65,000 U.S. employees have complied with the requirement, the person said.

Bloomberg News reported the news earlier.

Vaccine rules are a delicate issue for Wall Street firms and other ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/busi ... ndate.html

And the crazies aren't all American

Hospital staff in Windsor, Ont., find ivermectin hidden inside COVID-19 patient's stuffed animal
Internal memo obtained by CBC News commended alert staff for finding anti-parasite drug
Chris Ensing



A COVID-19 patient tried to sneak the anti-parasite drug ivermectin into Windsor Regional Hospital by hiding it inside a stuffed animal, according to an internal memo sent to staff at the Ontario hospital on Friday.

David Musyj, the hospital's chief executive officer, wrote that the adult patient brought the stuffed animal to the intensive-care unit.

"As the staff member was collecting the patient's personal belonging, the staff noticed a slit in the stuffed animal. Inside of it was Ivermectin," wrote Musyj in the memo obtained by CBC News.

A spokesperson for the hospital confirmed the memo was authentic, and said the hospital would not ...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/ ... -1.6307648

Have to wonder if the patient actually thought ivermectin was a "cure" why he went to the hospital in the first place

Citigroup to fire unvaccinated employees this month

(CNN)Citigroup staff in the United States who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 by Jan. 14 will be placed on unpaid leave and fired at the end of the month unless they are granted an exemption, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/07/business ... index.html

The Conservatives Who’d Rather Die Than Not Own the Libs
Rarely has so significant a faction in American politics behaved in a way that so directly claims the life of its own supporters.
By Conor Friedersdorf

At Breitbart News, the politics of vaccination have taken a strange turn. A longtime writer at the populist-right website who wants to save his Donald Trump–supporting readers from COVID-19 is speculating that the left has tricked them into rejecting safe and effective vaccines.

John Nolte is vaccinated himself and, in an article this week, correctly notes that the shots are “a lifesaver.” But every time he touts what he calls the “Trump vaccine,” his Twitter feed and comment threads on his articles get flooded with irrational arguments and unfounded assertions from anti-vaxxers, he writes. That’s no surprise. The populist-right milieu that Nolte inhabits includes lots of influential voices that spread misinformation about vaccines on Fox News, talk radio, and Facebook. For example, America’s most prominent populist commentator, the Fox host Tucker Carlson, has been amplifying Nicki Minaj’s thirdhand claim that a vaccine had swollen her cousin’s friend’s testicles.

In Nolte’s account, however, a conspiracy of evil leftist elites are to blame for ...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ne/620189/

#1407

They really are nucking futs.

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 ...

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

‘There You Go Again’: Dr. Fauci Destroys Rand Paul for ‘Distorting Virtually Everything’ in Explosive Hearing
David Badash

U.S. Senator Rand Paul once again combatively attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday, falsely blaming him for the deaths of 800,000 Americans from the coronavirus.

Dr. Fauci was forced to defend himself against Paul’s false attacks during the Senate Health Committee’s televised hearing on COVID-19.

“In usual fashion, you are distorting everything about me,” Fauci told Sen. Paul. “You just do the same thing every hearing.”

“You’re distorting virtually everything,” Fauci charged. “You keep distorting the truth. It is stunning that you ...

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.c ... e-hearing/

No more screwing around. They're getting serious ...

Quebec to impose a tax on people who are unvaccinated from COVID-19
Annabelle Olivier

Quebec is announcing it will impose a health tax on Quebecers who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19.


Quebec Premier François Legault made the announcement in Montreal on Tuesday afternoon, as the number of pandemic-related hospitalizations continues to climb.

“A health contribution will be charged to all adults that don’t want to get vaccinated. We are there now,” he said.

READ MORE: COVID-19: Quebec tops 12,000 deaths as hospitalizations increase

Legault said he felt the ire of the vaccinated towards the unvaccinated, who he blamed for clogging up the province’s hospitals.

Only 10 per cent of the population is unvaccinated but they make up 50 per cent of patients in intensive care beds, according to the premier.

On Tuesday the province reported an increase of 188 patients with COVID-19 for a total of 2,742. Of those, 255 are in intensive care.

“Those who refuse to get the shot bring a burden to hospital staff and an important financial burden for the majority of Quebecers. It’s not true that ...

https://globalnews.ca/news/8503151/queb ... -covid-19/

Tax or Vax!
Gotta love it.

46% of those currently hospitalized with COVID in Ontario were admitted for other reasons: new data
Ryan Rocca

New data indicates that 46 per cent of people currently in Ontario hospitals with COVID-19 were admitted for reasons other than the virus.

The Ontario government released the data after indicating for some time that it would begin differentiating between those who were admitted for COVID-19-related illness and incidental admissions.

“We are updating Ontario’s public reporting to distinguish patients hospitalized due to #COVID19 from those admitted for other reasons with COVID-19,” Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted Tuesday morning.

“While this doesn’t change the serious situation in Ontario’s hospitals, it is important to share this data to provide additional context on the state of the pandemic.”

The province indicated that there are currently 3,220 people in hospital with COVID-19 — around 54 per cent of them were admitted because of the virus, while about 46 per cent were admitted for other reasons but ...

https://globalnews.ca/news/8502714/onta ... anuary-11/

A Growing Gap
We look at Omicron’s toll in New York and Seattle, two cities with timely data.
David Leonhardt and Ashley Wu

Some of the timeliest data on Covid-19 outcomes by vaccination status comes from New York City and the Seattle area, and the two are telling a consistent story.

Cases for vaccinated and unvaccinated residents alike are rising:



They’re rising because vaccination often does not prevent infection from the Omicron variant. It reduces the chances substantially — as you can see above — but vaccinated people still face a meaningful chance of infection.

What vaccination does is radically reduce ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/brie ... nated.html

Omicron upends mathematical models tracking COVID-19

The highly transmissible Omicron variant is forcing mathematicians to rework the models that have helped shape Canada's understanding of COVID-19, as well as the country's response to the pandemic.

Everything from who gets tested to who's most likely to contract the virus has changed with the latest wave of the pandemic, and that's posing distinct challenges for those who model its impact, says Caroline Colijn, an associate professor of mathematics at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.

In particular, Colijn said it will be difficult to ...

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavir ... -1.5738979

WSJ Opinion: The Decline of 'Science'—From Climate to Omicron
Henninger: "Dissent—perhaps the most honorable of political traditions—is being demoted into oblivion, as 'misinformation.'"
By WSJ Opinion

Wonder Land: The weaponization of 'science' began with climate policy and accelerated with Covid-19. Now many think it's all misinformation

https://www.wsj.com/video/series/wonder ... 02AC6BD673

Have to admit I've pretty much stopped paying attention to the WSJ except for financial news - they've gone so far down the Trump rabbit hole that they've lost all credibility

Cross posted from the pic thread

Just so you know - not all the whack jobs are American

Revealed: How a web of Canadian doctors are undermining the fight against COVID-19
Ashleigh Stewart

Seemingly baffled, Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Morgan didn’t quite know what to say when told only one of the four defendants for a hearing showed up.

It was a landmark hearing for Ontario. Four doctors — Rochagne Kilian, Mary O’Connor, Mark Trozzi and Patrick Phillips — had been scheduled to appear to fight legal proceedings brought by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) late last year.

Trozzi, O’Connor and Kilian have been accused by the CPSO of failing to comply with investigations into allegations they issued false medical exemptions for the COVID-19 vaccine. Phillips, the CPSO says, is threatening to ...

https://globalnews.ca/news/8517353/cana ... formation/

#1422
Rocco Galati is all I need to know. He's a whacko.

Watched a documentary last night. VERY moving.

It's available for free at the moment, not sure how long that will last.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/page ... ocumentary

"With exclusive access inside one of New York's hardest hit hospital systems during the terrifying first four months of the pandemic, Oscar®-nominated and Emmy® Award-winning director Matthew Heineman's THE FIRST WAVE spotlights the everyday heroes at the epicenter of COVID-19 as they come together to fight one of the greatest threats the world has ever encountered. Leaving a devastating trail of death and despair, this once-in-a-century pandemic changed the very fabric of our daily lives and exposed long-standing inequities in our society."