quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Neanderthals. Nice way to alienate the people of Mississippi and Texas. Quite a vocabulary Joe.

But it has been proven that Neanderthal brains are larger than those of Progessives.

https://twitter.com/TheOnion/s...219499485773826?s=01

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Just don't be an asshole about it.

I have no intention of being an asshole about it

That was a generic statement that I made, and in no way was it intended to reflect on you, nor on any other member of SIGforum. I apologize if I did not make myself clear.

What was going through my mind, and perhaps did not make it through my fingers to the keyboard, was if somebody out there in the public feels more comfortable around me if I'm wearing a mask, that's OK, I don't mind, I will wear a mask, as long as that person is not Karen Asshole. In other words, ask me politely, and I'll do it. If the person is obnoxious, I might suggest that s/he self-fornicate. I hope this clears up any misunderstanding.

No apology necessary. I got the general meaning, I just wanted to try and better elaborate on my personal position on the matter.

Can somebody explain to me why it’s ok for someone from NJ to go to NY and not quarantine but someone from NH has to quarantine for 10 days

Are people from NJ immune, how does the virus know where you’re from?

Adverse Incident Reports Show 966 Deaths Following Vaccination for COVID-19

https://www.theepochtimes.com/...mpaign=mb-2021-03-07

According to adverse incident reports collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 966 individuals have died after having received an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19.

Between Dec. 14 and Feb. 19, 19,769 reports were made to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) following immunizations with either the Moderna or Pfizer BioNTech mRNA vaccines (the only two vaccines given during the time period assessed). At this time, VAERS data is not available after Feb. 19.

The 966 deaths represent 5 percent of the total number of adverse events reports. Of those who died, 86, (8.9 percent) died on the same day they got the shot. An additional 129, (13.4 percent) died within one day. An additional 97 died within 2 days, and 61 within 3 days.

A total of 514 (53.2 percent) died within a week. 173 died within 7-13 days. 106 within 14-20 days.

85 percent of deaths occurred in individuals over 60; below 60 there were five deaths among those aged 20-29; 8 aged 30-39; 20 aged 40-49; and 57 aged 50-59.

For detailed information drawn from the VAERS reports, see charts provided at the link at the end of this article.

According to adverse incident reports collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 966 individuals have died after having received an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19.

Between Dec. 14 and Feb. 19, 19,769 reports were made to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) following immunizations with either the Moderna or Pfizer BioNTech mRNA vaccines (the only two vaccines given during the time period assessed). At this time, VAERS data is not available after Feb. 19.






Comparison With Influenza Vaccines
Neither of the mRNA vaccines are FDA approved, rather, they have Emergency Use Approval (EUA). They represent a departure from traditional vaccines in that they do not use any part of the suspected pathogen to stimulate the immune system, but rather, nucleoside modified RNA, from which Moderna drew its name.

Dr. Christian Perrone, head of Infectious Disease at Hopital de Garches in France, stated in a complaint filed in Europe:

“The first vaccines they are offering us are not vaccines. They are gene therapy products. They…inject nucleic acids that will cause our own cells to produce elements of the virus.”

The death rate following COVID mRNA vaccination is much higher than that following influenza vaccination.

The CDC’s data allows only a ballpark estimation of the rate of deaths following flu vaccination.

In the 2019-2020 influenza season the CDC reports that 51.8 percent of the U.S. population received a vaccine, which is approximately 170 million people.

VAERS reports that in the calendar year 2019 (not the 2019-2020 influenza season) there were 45 deaths following vaccination. To provide context, in 2018 VAERS reports 46 deaths, and in 2017 it reports 20 deaths.

The 45 deaths in 2019 are occurring at a rate of 0.0000265 percent, when calculated using the number of vaccines given in the 2019-2020 influenza season.

As of Feb. 19, 41,977,401 COVID vaccinations had been given with 966 deaths reported following vaccination, which is approximately a rate of .0023 percent.

The VAERS System
VAERS was put in place in 1990, to capture unforeseen reactions from vaccines.

VAERS is criticized both for the fact that anybody can submit a report, and for the fact that it catches only a fraction of the adverse incidents.

The VAERS website describes the system in this way:

“Established in 1990, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a national early warning system to detect possible safety problems in U.S.-licensed vaccines. VAERS is co-managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). VAERS accepts and analyzes reports of adverse events (possible side effects) after a person has received a vaccination. Anyone can report an adverse event to VAERS. Healthcare professionals are required to report certain adverse events and vaccine manufacturers are required to report all adverse events that come to their attention.

“VAERS is a passive reporting system, meaning it relies on individuals to send in reports of their experiences to CDC and FDA. VAERS is not designed to determine if a vaccine caused a health problem, but is especially useful for detecting unusual or unexpected patterns of adverse event reporting that might indicate a possible safety problem with a vaccine. This way, VAERS can provide CDC and FDA with valuable information that additional work and evaluation is necessary to further assess a possible safety concern.”

Without a medical diagnosis or autopsy, the report of an adverse incident following a vaccination is not proof that the vaccination caused any particular symptoms.

In a reply to The Epoch Times, about the VAERS death report, Steven Danehy, Director of Global Media Relations for Pfizer, wrote:

“To date, millions of people have been vaccinated with our vaccine. Serious adverse events, including deaths that are unrelated to the vaccine, are unfortunately likely to occur at a similar rate as they would in the general population.”

Moderna has not responded to requests for comment.

The VAERS database is dense with information and can be difficult for some users to follow. The Epoch Times has extracted its data as clearly as possible in charts provided in the link below.

At the link below are charts containing: on the tab “All Deaths Readable” descriptions of what happened to the patients—effects they experienced as reported by health care workers and/or relatives, or other witnesses; VAERS ID numbers (used to look up a complete file on the VAERS database); vaccination type; manufacturer; vaccination name; date received; age, gender and state of each recipient; as well as medical history; and other medications patients were taking.

Summary_of_VAERS_deaths_through_Feb_19th

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wcb6092,

Russian Disinformation Campaign Aims to Undermine Confidence in Pfizer, Other Covid-19 Vaccines, U.S. Officials Say
Websites linked to Russian intelligence services publish false information questioning vaccines’ safety, efficacy

WASHINGTON—Russian intelligence agencies have mounted a campaign to undermine confidence in Pfizer Inc.’s and other Western vaccines, using online publications that in recent months have questioned the vaccines’ development and safety, U.S. officials said.

An official with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which monitors foreign disinformation efforts, identified four publications that he said have served as fronts for Russian intelligence.

The websites played up the vaccines’ risk of side effects, questioned their efficacy, and said the U.S. had rushed the Pfizer vaccine through the approval process, among other false or misleading claims.

Though the outlets’ readership is small, U.S. officials say they inject false narratives that can be amplified by other Russian and international media.
“We can say these outlets are directly linked to Russian intelligence services,” the Global Engagement Center official said of the sites behind the disinformation campaign. “They’re all foreign-owned, based outside of the United States. They vary a lot in their reach, their tone, their audience, but they’re all part of the Russian propaganda and disinformation ecosystem.”

In addition, Russian state media and Russian government Twitter accounts have made overt efforts to raise concerns about the cost and safety of the Pfizer vaccine in what experts outside the U.S. government say is an effort to promote the sale of Russia’s rival Sputnik V vaccine.

“The emphasis on denigrating Pfizer is likely due to its status as the first vaccine besides Sputnik V to see mass use, resulting in a greater potential threat to Sputnik’s market dominance,” says a forthcoming report by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a nongovernmental organization that focuses on the danger that authoritarian governments pose to democracies and that is part of the German Marshall Fund, a U.S. think tank.

The foreign efforts to sow doubts about the vaccine exploit deep-seated anxieties about the efficacy and side effects of vaccines that were already prevalent in some communities in the U.S. and internationally. Concern about side effects is a major reason for vaccine hesitancy, according to U.S. Census Bureau data made public last month.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that Russian intelligence agencies were orchestrating articles against Western vaccines and said U.S. officials were mischaracterizing the broad international debate over vaccines as a Russian plot.

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“It’s nonsense. Russian special services have nothing to do with any criticism against vaccines,” Mr. Peskov said in a telephone interview from Moscow. “If we treat every negative publication against the Sputnik V vaccine as a result of efforts by American special services, then we will go crazy because we see it every day, every hour and in every Anglo-Saxon media.”
The State Department GEC official said that four publications had direct links to Russian intelligence and were used by the Russian government to mislead international opinion on a range of issues.

New Eastern Outlook and Oriental Review, the official said, are directed and controlled by the SVR, or Russia’s foreign intelligence service. They present themselves as academic publications and are aimed at the Middle East, Asia and Africa, offering comment on the U.S.’s role in the world. The State Department said in an August report that New Eastern Outlook was linked to “state-funded institutions” in Russia.

Another publication, News Front, is guided by the FSB, a security service that succeeded the KGB, the official said. It is based in Crimea, produces information in 10 languages, and had nearly nine million page visits between February and April 2020, the official added. In August, the State Department was less explicit, saying that News Front reportedly had ties to Russia security services and Kremlin funding.

Rebel Inside, the fourth publication, has been controlled by the GRU, which is an intelligence directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff. It covered riots and protests and now appears dormant, the GEC official said.

The State Department had previously not gone so far as to say that these outlets were controlled or guided by Russian intelligence agencies—an assertion that generally relies on U.S. classified intelligence.

A State Department spokesman didn’t provide specific evidence linking the publications to Russian intelligence but said the assessment was “a result of a joint interagency conclusion.”

“Russian intelligence services bear direct responsibility for using these four platforms to spread propaganda and lies,” the spokesman said. “From the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic last year, we have seen Russia’s disinformation ecosystem develop and spread false narratives around the crisis.”

News Front, New Eastern Outlook and Oriental Review didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Social-media accounts affiliated with the four websites have largely been removed from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest, though some non-English-language accounts remained active earlier this year.

Highlighting reports in the international media, a January article in News Front played up the risk that a person who receives the Pfizer or Moderna Inc. vaccines could contract Bell’s palsy, in which facial muscles are paralyzed, while a February article focused on a man in California that it said tested positive for Covid-19 after receiving the Pfizer vaccination.

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In each case, the Russian outlets were repeating actual news reports but overlooking contrary information about the general safety of the vaccine. Numerous studies and real-world data have shown the Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccines to be safe and effective, and hospitalizations and deaths have begun to plummet in places like Israel where shots have been widely administered, though a small number of side effects have been reported.

“To date, millions of people have been vaccinated with our vaccine following the endorsement of regulators in multiple countries,” said Pamela Eisele, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, who added that individuals who have questions should consult the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website or their healthcare provider.

A spokeswoman for Moderna didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A November article in New Eastern Outlook said that the Pfizer vaccine’s use of mRNA gene editing was “radical experimental technology” that lacked “precision” and said it was rushed through the approval process with the help of billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser for the Covid-19 pandemic, both of whom the article accused of “playing fast and loose with human lives in their rush to get these experimental vaccines into our bodies.”
Some New Eastern Outlook articles have been republished by blogs and purported international news sites. One article from January alleged that the U.S. has biological labs around the world that may lead to outbreaks of infectious disease. The article was republished in full or part by websites in Bangladesh, Italy, Spain, France, Iran, Cuba and Sweden, which were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. has long accused Moscow of carrying out disinformation on medical issues. Judy Twigg, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who is an expert on global health issues, said that the Soviet KGB had accused the CIA of spreading dengue fever in Cuba and malaria in Pakistan.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you encountered any disinformation on the Covid-19 vaccines? What did it look like? Join the conversation below.

“A persistent KGB campaign claimed that the U.S. Army’s former biological weapons labs at Fort Detrick had unleashed the AIDS epidemic,” she said. Soviet officials denied responsibility for this disinformation.

Thomas Rid, an expert on Russian disinformation at Johns Hopkins University who reviewed the websites cited by the State Department, said the articles were generally in line with Russia’s “rich history” of using communications technology to deceive both international and domestic audiences. He urged the U.S. government to do more to publicly explain how it has concluded the websites are controlled by specific Russian intelligence agencies.

With Russia and China seeking to sell their vaccines abroad, overt efforts to denigrate Pfizer have been well documented. The forthcoming German Marshall Fund report, which was reviewed by the Journal and is to be issued Monday, analyzed more than 35,000 Russian, Chinese and Iranian government and state media tweets on vaccine themes from early November to early February. “Russia provided by far the most negative coverage of Western vaccines.” it states, “with a remarkable 86% of surveyed Russian tweets mentioning Pfizer and 76% mentioning Moderna coded as negative.”

—Ann Simmons contributed to this article.

LINK; https://www.wsj.com/articles/r...ials-say-11615129200

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Russian Disinformation Campaign Aims to Undermine Confidence in Pfizer, Other Covid-19 Vaccines, U.S. Officials Say

^^^^^^^^^^^
Hahaha. It beats hearing from RFK jr. and probably has some basis in reality. I grew up with a healthy fear of the Russians because of what happened to my family. Maybe Fauci can drone on about this next week.

Here is an article about the UK's 77th Brigade. Interested to know more about their U.S. counterparts.

Do these minion trolls for the KING ever monitor/post in forums? You never know.



UK’s 77th Psy-Ops Brigade Mobilized Against “Operation Warp Speed” Sceptics

People who would sooner not have a jab of something rolled out in 6 months now grouped with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

The army has mobilised an elite “information warfare” unit renowned for assisting operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban to counter online propaganda against vaccines, as Britain prepares to deliver its first injections within days.

The defence cultural specialist unit was launched in Afghanistan in 2010 and belongs to the army’s 77th Brigade. The secretive unit has often worked side-by-side with psychological operations teams.

Leaked documents reveal that its soldiers are already monitoring cyberspace for Covid-19 content and analysing how British citizens are being targeted online. It is also gathering evidence of vaccine disinformation from hostile states, including Russia,

Next month the 77th Brigade will begin an “uplift” of professional and reserve soldiers to join operations. The brigade’s badge bears the same mythical creature used by the Chindits, an Indian army guerrilla warfare force known for its unconventional methods in the Second World War.

The scaling up of intelligence efforts comes after at least 155 people were arrested, including for assault on a police officer, during anti-lockdown protests in the West End of London yesterday. Many appeared to be influenced by anti-vax propaganda and refused to wear masks.

Ministers are alarmed at the impact that online propaganda is having on public opinion. A recent report found that more than one-third of people are uncertain or are very unlikely to be vaccinated.

Ministers believe Britain will become the first western country to approve a vaccine next week. A BioNTech and Pfizer treatment is set to receive approval within days, paving the way for injections as soon as December 7. Ministers will then launch a huge public campaign to encourage people to get a jab.

The campaign will be reinforced by counter-disinformation efforts led by the Cabinet Office, with support from the army and GCHQ.

Yesterday, conspiracy theories claiming that the pandemic was a cover for a plot by Bill Gates to implant trackable microchips into people, were readily available on Google and Twitter.

Last night, retired army brigadier Ben Barry, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, said the army would probably become increasingly important in countering Covid-19 disinformation.

A core part of its work was analysing how messages flowed around the world, who was viewing messages, reacting and then spreading them to other people.

The Ministry of Defence said the defence cultural support unit capabilities were “not being directed at the UK population; 77th Brigade do not, and have never, conducted any kind of action against British citizens”.

Last night a Cabinet Office spokesman said: “As we edge closer to a vaccine we continue to work closely with social media companies and other organisations to anticipate and mitigate any emerging anti-vax narratives and promote authoritative sources of information.” [So the vaccine has been out for all of two weeks and they already know long-term side effects are not an issue without a long-term effects study?]

Source: The Times


https://davidicke.com/2020/12/...warp-speed-sceptics/

About 78% of people who have been hospitalized, needed a ventilator or died from Covid-19 have been overweight or obese, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new study Monday.

CNBC. Covid/obesity

Virus aside, what is the percentage of the general population in the age group(s) of "people who have been hospitalized, needed a ventilator or died from Covid-19?"

That number might shed some light on whether being overweight or obese is a specific factor.

I thought maybe you guys would have more details but I read in passing somewhere that the CDC released finding that masks were statistically not effective in reducing wuflu infection rates. I tried searching but could only find this:

https://twitter.com/Breaking91.../1368305015153164288

Yet, despite their finding (masks not helping), they still advocate use of masks? Explain?

I understand that catching wuflu can be serious. But it's hard to take the situation seriously when the people in charge are such fuckups who lie and cheat and obscure and mandate for objectives unknown.

quote:

Yet, despite their finding (masks not helping)

There were a handful of studies done prior to the existence of Covid, and all of them found that cloth masks do little to nothing to prevent viral transmission. You just have to search prior to 2019 to find them. CDC even published some of them.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Yet, despite their finding (masks not helping), they still advocate use of masks? Explain?

Simple. The sheep expect government to do something. The reality is, government couldn't do much of anything prior to distribution of these new vaccines to stop the spread of the virus (and the jury is still out on how effective these vaccines will really be in the wild). Soooooooo, Government being the pompous, self-important, asswipes they are, ginned up this mask BS as a response, and the media ran cover for them. As such, they are not going to back away from this mask mandate no matter what comes out. This was all just BS from the beginning and it continues to be BS today. But the sheep bleat contently as they mill through life with a rag across their pie hole waiting to get their vaccine shot that's estimated to be ~94% effective against a virus that's ~99.075% non-lethal to an overwhelming majority of the country. Welcome to 2021's version of Idiocrasy.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
About 78% of people who have been hospitalized, needed a ventilator or died from Covid-19 have been overweight or obese, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new study Monday.

That is hardly surprising.

About 78% of people are overweight or obese.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
About 78% of people who have been hospitalized, needed a ventilator or died from Covid-19 have been overweight or obese, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new study Monday.

That is hardly surprising.

About 78% of people are overweight or obese.

That was the question that I asked, about four posts prior to yours. Looks like we're thinking along the same lines.

New Israeli drug cured 29 of 30 moderate/serious COVID cases in days — hospital

https://www.timesofisrael.com/...ithin-days-hospital/

Medicine developed at Ichilov moderates immune response, helps prevent deadly cytokine storm, researchers say; 29 of 30 phase 1 trial patients left hospital within 3-5 days

A new coronavirus treatment being developed at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Medical Center has successfully completed phase 1 trials and appears to have helped numerous moderate-to-serious cases of COVID-19 quickly recover from the disease, the hospital said Friday.

Hailing a “huge breakthrough,” the hospital said Prof. Nadir Arber’s EXO-CD24 substance had been administered to 30 patients whose conditions were moderate or worse, and all 30 recovered — 29 of them within three to five days.

The medicine fights the cytokine storm — a potentially lethal immune overreaction to the coronavirus infection that is believed to be responsible for much of the deaths associated with the disease.

It uses exosomes — tiny carrier sacs that shuttle materials between cells — to deliver a protein called CD24 to the lungs, which Arber has spent decades researching.

“This protein is located on the surface of cells and has a well known and important role in regulating the immune system,” said researcher Shiran Shapira of Arber’s lab.

The protein helps calm down the immune system and curb the storm.

“The preparation is inhaled once a day for a few minutes, for five days,” Arber said. “The preparation is directed straight to the heart of the storm — the lungs — so unlike other formulas… which selectively restrain a certain cytokine, or operate widely but cause many serious side effects, EXO-CD24 is administered locally, works broadly and without side effects.”

The medicine will now move on to further trial phases, but hospital officials were already hailing it as a possible game-changer in fighting serious COVID-19 illness.

Ichilov director Roni Gamzu, the former coronavirus czar, said the research “is advanced and sophisticated and may save coronavirus patients. The results of the phase 1 trial are excellent and give us all confidence in the method [Arber] has been researching in his lab for many years.”

He added: “I am proud that at Ichilov we are… possibly bringing a blue and white remedy to a terrible global pandemic.”

My wife currently has covid. She is obese (so am I). Her symptoms are like a mild cold with the exception of losing her sense of taste and smell.

quote:

Originally posted by Krazeehorse:
My wife currently has covid. She is obese (so am I). Her symptoms are like a mild cold with the exception of losing her sense of taste and smell.

Here's hoping she recovers quickly and without issues.

Yesterday I heard the term LongHaulers for the first time. I have a once very active aunt who now cannot climb steps without losing her breath.

Long-haul Covid patients can experience 'waves of symptoms,' early research suggests